you think?
February 4th, 2012Christoph Bangert
February 4th, 2012
I purchased Bangert’s book Iraq: The Space between not long after I finished the mass graves work and left Iraq.
There is some absurdity, some humour, some tragedy and some horror in its pages. A young man and his camera bumping around on assignment for the NYT, snapping pictures and piecing his thoughts and emotions together.
His picture of the little green telephone is a glorious understated thing. I smile when I see it.
It’s about distance
Us. Them.
Our hopes and fears.
Cultures. Peoples.
My experience and theirs.
Wars. Transitions.
A camera and a subject.
The space between.
He continues to follow commissions and is kept super busy by the NYT and other pubs. Hats off to him for his energy and effort.
disappearing act
February 4th, 2012
I’ll be offline and in and out of phone coverage till early next week (even now I’m somewhere nowhere near a web connection… bliss).
Apologies to anyone trying to find me. Promise I’ll respond when I can.
Rolling to see family and pursue some pictures… they keep me busy at times (in all the right ways).
Higginbottom
February 3rd, 2012
The little tortured shirt twisted in the scrub makes me stare at Richard Higginbottom’s picture for hours at a time.
That sense of wickedness that I project onto the photograph; of a shadowy happening or a site of past atrocity – landscape we define by transient human events while the trees look on quietly. It holds me here on this work.
I keep going back to it. Quietly looking at the fallen leaves, imaging the damp smell filling my nostrils, enjoying the form that stands out from its wonderfully chaotic skeleton of branch, leaf and twig.
first sneaky look see
February 2nd, 2012
I bit the bullet and have just placed a small edit of the spoils on my website.
This is very much an ongoing piece of work… early days indeed… so this could be seen as me giving a bit of fresh air to the pictures, letting them get a bit of sun while sitting out there without my little claws keeping the snaps close to my chest. It’ll change and shuffle, pictures will be removed and pictures will be added (hell the whole thing will probably disappear on occasion when I crack the shits and pull it from view ready to burn the whole fucking thing).
We’ll see. It’s certainly a slab of work that keeps me pushing the button every day and really taking a step to stretch my legs a little and explore my new city, relationship, baby and home.
See the spoils here or if you want to be fancy just click on the picture above.
** I’ve scheduled this to be published at the time of night when my head will be underwater chasing a lead puck around on the bottom of a pool… I figure that’s my best bet at avoiding the shrieks of laughter and scorn that these snaps will garner.
Jake and wee-man
February 1st, 2012
Events over the last month (but particularly in the last three days) have made me stop and really consider the delicate, fragile nature of a standing, breathing human. Yep… it’s that classic pathetic-personal-reaction to seeing tragedy from a safe distance; you stop and think a few things through, consider your luck and make a few vague promises to yourself concerning life, relationships, the present and the legacy of your actions. I’d say most of us get it when facing horrible facts if we don’t have the comfortable option of turning away.
It was heart breaking to see two young kids happily playing at their dad’s funeral while the family wept in confusion and shock.
So now I selfishly sit here thankful for the gifts at hand and determined to appreciate even the simplest little events and moments; to be consciously present when the opportunity is staring me in the face. Seeing Jacob reach out to Fred while they communed in their little-man blahblah is one such tiny gesture that I am now celebrating whole heartedly.
Hopefully I am enough of a person to continue with this degree of wonder and not let myself slip back into a ‘going-through-the-motions’ existence.
Dyer on pushies and snapping
February 1st, 2012
Geoff Dyer is a smart dude.
Just gotta say it, simple. And he wields a freakin cool accent.
His book The Ongoing Moment is sitting in my bookshelf still recovering from the savaging I gave it as I continued to read it over and over and over and over and over years ago. Lucid, direct, without hero-worship and a glorious celebration of photographs and their potential. In fact this little video has got me hot under the collar to stay up late tonight and devour a slab of it again – apologies to the pages about to be brutally thumbed again.
Now this short film doesn’t give you all the pictures he speaks to (if it did I’d wet my pants)… but most of us have pedalled wildly around as kids and more often than not in our older age so the brain and emotions can do the rest. My old rusty $25 wheelwheel serves simply to get me from A to B without glamour or terrifying speed, and I’m probably one of the more daggy pedallers wearing old football clothes and sneakers (no lycra and Farmstrong style on this fat boy).
For all you keen cyclists and photographers there are wonderful discoveries to be made in this short twelve minutes of chatting, flicking pictures and “why the fuck give us a close up of Dyer for nearly the whole presentation instead of including the piccies?!” burning belly reaction.
Have fun!
just coz it’s the start of the month
February 1st, 2012
I’ll be broke in no time!
January 31st, 2012
With all these great shows on across the globe my wallet could be even worse off if I give in to my desire to flee the country to look at fantastic pictures.
I remember a little visit to the LACMA spent with my mates Jason and Adriana from treefilmworks when I was over stateside back in the day. We walked into a little room and I wept. Brassai, Strand, Robert Adams… it just kept going, tiny magnificent things in a small room.
So my spirit soared when I read a while back that the LACMA was holding a big retrospective of Robert Adams’ work. Further details have emerged since and I’m getting excited.
Adams is a little polarising it seems. He seems to be loathed and loved in equal measure. They are not the pretty stunning tributes to the American landscape, nor the ‘oh how terrible aren’t humans disgraceful’ hate filled dramatic snaps. He simply looks at what is there and on occasion points his camera at it. Obviously his own emotions, opinions and viewpoint are entirely wrapped in the effort, but I don’t feel that he preaches.
Anyhoo, enough pseudo-thinkspeak… I’d kill to see this show… so if you’ve got a spare 5G and someone in need of dying… I’m your man.
relaunching the Titanic
January 30th, 2012
My website has been pushed back out of the garage after an evening of tinkering under the hood. Oil changed, manifold gasket changed, new thermostat and thermostat housing put in and shiny new plugs to get it firing fresh.
I find websites to be frustrating beasts at times. Not being a designer/code-monkey/geek makes it all the more difficult. Still, no point complaining, just keep rolling on breaking stuff, fixing it, breaking it, fixing it till you know what does what and who affects who… an endless circle of confusion. I gotta learn this stuff and get a real solid handle on it for those skills make me a little more streamlined and contained, a little more adaptable and a little more relocatable.
Having lived with and watched a number of very talented designers (who worked on web based stuff as well as all sorts of other things) means that I truly understand the fact my efforts are quite agricultural and simple… for many of those peeps see code and don’t see a bunch of mashed-together-text… they see the result.
Just got to keep an eye out for that big chunk of ice…
Vaughan Solomon will be missed.
January 30th, 2012
Today people in Canberra are getting together to celebrate the life of Vaughan Solomon. We’re meeting at 1pm for a service and then some time to hear stories.
I met Vaughan through underwater hockey here in Canberra. He was always incredibly kind with advice and demonstrations. I’ll be happy if I can one day get a puck moving like he did.
James Harris wrote a short piece for the Australian Nationals that were played last week. I reproduce it here as it best says what many would be thinking.
“ Vaughan died while walking the Puffer Track in the lower Tararuas Nth of Wellington, NZ, an area he knew well and loved. He had returned with his family to his childhood
home in Whitby, NZ for Christmas. He is survived by his fiancée Susan, Heather 4 and Ryan 2.
Vaughan represented NZ in UWH at an elite level, the ACT and NSW in Masters and was hoping to represent Oz in Masters at the next worlds (despite being a Kiwi at heart).
Vaughan was a very active member in NZ UWH and more recently in Canberra with a strong dedication to developing new (and old) players. He was heavily involved in the NZ schools program. Fitness and Underwater Hockey were strong focuses, competing annually in the Lake Taupo 160Km bike race, and was active in Softball both in NZ and ACT.
He had been training for the upcoming Perth UWH Nationals with a short term goal of being “Super Fit” for the Wollongong 4’s.
His legacy and memories will remain, from cracking an underwater window at the Huia Pool in NZ (closing the pool), to losing yet more points while having fun driving, to the love he had for his family and children.
We will all miss him enormously in Canberra, not least his great smile, sage advice, enormous flicks, bristly shaved body and stupid split fins. Vaughan’s enthusiasm was infectious and his personal drive inspiring, always thinking of others first.
In memorial of his dedication to assisting and encouraging new and developing players, the ACT Club will establish a memorial award for improved and budding hockey players.
He was a great friend of mine and it’s hard to believe he is not there anymore.
I still look for his car in the car park at the pool and think about things we were going to do in the future.”
- James Harris
Unless you will
January 29th, 2012 
Unless you will is the fantastic online magazine run by the photographer Heidi Romano. She’s been busy with it for a few years now and always seems to pull together one fantastic issue after another. It’s a wonderful little touchstone, a stripped back presentation of pictures and effort.
It’s these magic opportunities that we must take… to follow little leads presented to us through places like UYW… to head out wandering and exploring the magic efforts of others… to celebrate the pictures and the sweat, toil and worn out sneakers that got them in front of us.
Best thing is UYW is always happy and waving from the porch. Solid.
dirty three
January 28th, 2012
