SHOOT!
Well, I'm on the cover of SHOOT! Magazine's September 2013 (Volume #003) edition. I'm also the featured artist and there's an interview in there too. As far as I know it's web only but it's lovely that someone has gone to all this effort over mine and the other included artists' work though the editior assures me a hard copy is on it's way to my post ofice box as we speak! I'm quietly chuffed and I think he's done a great job with the layout. It is somewhat funny and totally cool to see a whole stack of your pictures laid out like this in a mini-collection. Clicking on the cover image will initiate a download of a web resolution (~8MB) copy of the magazine via safe WeTransfer from the host site. If, for some reason your browser doesn't like that I've made a copy for download here ... oh Yeah and the mag is written in German but my interview is in English ... lucky eh?
Sly Fox Coffee
Meet Patrick. Patrick is an entrepreneur. Earlier this year he set up a coffee machine by one of the main cycleways running from the Inner North of Canberra (where I live) into the City ... he makes very good coffee and I always stop for an espresso (that settles in the glass like tap Guinness!) if he's up and running when I'm cycling past. I recently stopped by to take some photos of him ... I think this is my favourite.
Patrick called his coffee spot Sly Fox Coffee
But it's about more than the coffee ... it's about a social hub ... a little networking space. I've met a stack of different folks down there and stopped for a quick chat or hello. Sometimes I'm a little late and I stand at the table straddling my bicycle while I sip a delicious coffee ... afterward, the ride into town just flies past as the caffeine kicks in by the time I've reached David Street.
There's often an assistant, Byron or Roley. There's a bicycle mechanic, Rex, who's there on Tuesdays and I could make lewd suggestive comments about the delights of an early morning lube but I will refrain today.
The Sly Fox is blossoming and I've noticed an increase in custom as the morning's warm. Great coffee - great vibe.
Patrick also had his girlfriend's little pug pup with him ... hi name's Bob ... everybody say Awwwww... :-)
Links:
Walking A Different Path
Walking a different path. Travel ... one of the best things we can do for both ourselves and our children. As a family we travelled ... a lot. I changed schools every two or three years and after a while you make friends like a traveller makes friends ... knowing that it's a temporary thing ... one or other of you will be gone soon. You don't put down roots, they'll only be torn up in a couple of years. You learn to be compact and self-reliant. On the other hand you get to see things other people do not. Countries that no longer exist. Ways of life that have disappeared forever. I remember seeing Chinese junks in Penang and Singapore harbours. Orchard Road with wooden shops before it became high-rise. Islands before they became the footprint for mega-resorts. It wasn't that long ago either.
I remember returning to Australia, to a new school again after one of these trips and finding people simply didn't believe that I'd been overseas ... that I was making it all up ... that everywhere was simply the same as it was here. How I longed to be able to teleport them to walk along one of those streets, or to the center of an asian market where you chose the chicken you wanted for dinner, went away and returned to find it newly converted into fresh-plucked chicken ... still vitally warm ... or you could stay and watch. That would learn them ... maybe.
I believe it's vitally important to walk down another street. A place you've never been ... surrounded by people living a life completely different to yours (albeit superficially ... I mean we're all essentially looking for love and warmth and food) to see how people live. It changes the way you view the world and your place within it ... at times if only to realise just how lucky you are to have the things you have and often take for granted.
I took the picture above on a recent family trip to Ubud in Bali. I liked that it showed that essential nature of travel ... walking a different path.
Do you travel? Have you walked another path?
'The Hotel' by Rudi de Jong
Picked this up in town from Rudi ...who wanders the town centres with photocopies of his work. I quite like them and happy to give him some exposure. I'll get a portrait of him one day and post that too...
'The Hotel' by Rudi de Jong
The oasis
the home away from home
old friends
the beer flowing freely
the publican
the weary pilgrim
music from the juke-box
the visitor
the cry
"Drinks on the house for everyone"
everyone filled with joy
troubles forgotten
problems solved
the beer glass raised high
the final word
Christ himself
a friend of publicans
and sinners
the Hotel
'The Hotel' by Rudi de Jong (20/3/2012)
Picked this up in town from Rudi ...who wanders the town centres with photocopies of his work. I quite like them and happy to give him some exposure. I'll get a portrait of him one day and post that too...
thewalkdownunder 2012 Google+ Photowalk
I participated in the inaugural 2012 Google+ Photowalk held here in Canberra yesterday. It was an early start (7am at Regatta Point) but the day was an absolute cracker weather wise. A beautiful dawn with balloons saw about 30 people gather, score a t-shirt and set off on 4 hours of chatting, meeting and of course taking photos. Great to put some names to faces and to meet people I'd never seen nor heard of before. It was fun. I even found an iPhone on the way back and managed (via calling their recent calls list) to track them down and return it. How nice am I? ('very' is the correct answer to that) Did you take part in thewalkdownunder 2012?
From here they arced across the sky - Mamiya 645 Super
I recently 'inherited' a Mamiya 645 Super medium format camera. I just got my first negs (and medium resolution scans) back from the lab. I took a roll of expired Ilford SFX 200 to see if the beast still worked. It did but the battery died about two shots before I took this. I remembered that the camera will shoot even if insufficient power is contained in the battery but that the shutter speed is fixed at 1/60sec. So this one's fully manual and literally a straight scan from the neg ... ooh I'd forgotten how negatives are just the most beautiful things.
From here they arced across the sky
'The New Year' a poem by Rudi de Jong
I see this poet in Civic standing tall and somewhat dishevelled asking passers by if they'd like to buy a photocopy of one of his poems ... yesterday I did and I liked it ... here it is....
The New Year - by Rudi de Jong
Time passing
the old becoming new
new hopes
new visions
a royal tapestry
old ways
resolutions forgotten
home, sweet, home
the golden handshake
the spoken word
prayers said
midnight joys
the economy in trouble
friends hard to find
the word spoken
another year
the future unknown
"Sufficient unto the day the evil there of"
the New Year.
Taking the Street - Bill Cunningham New York
I went and saw Bill Cunningham New York last night at Dendy in town. What an insightful and inspiring movie! For those of you not familiar with the Bill Cunningham, he is a street photographer who has been photographing the clothes of the streets of Manhattan for the past 40years. He's over 80 and still gets about on his bicycle. This documentary was made in 2010 and released in March 2011. For me, the film provided a much-needed (for me anyway) alternate perspective on the whole notion of 'Street' photography; something I struggle to balance ethically. Cunningham is only interested in the clothes ... and interesting clothes at that. That people are wearing these clothes speaks out to be admired or seen as different and Cunningham responds to that by taking their picture. I guess where I begin to have issues with 'Street' photography is when it becomes inherently intrusive in a voyeuristic sense ... the desire to share in the grief or suffering that is not your own. It seems to me to be largely a product of a middle-class seeking to appropriate something missing, something more real or valid than what they themselves feel is present in their own lives. That said, I have seen some fantastically powerful images of the ordinary people engaged in their lives unaware of how in touch with the real they are. At the same time I have seen whole albums of ridiculously gratuitous (and highly lauded) 'Street' photography that borders on the disturbingly voyeuristic. What struck me about the film last night was that here is a man who has dedicated his life to photographing the happenings on the street, producing an unparalleled historical archive. Perhaps he is equally aspirationally voyeuristic? Maybe Cunningham conducts himself in a more kindly way ... there certainly seems nothing creepy or ulterior about his approach. I found the film intensely interesting and there were some great people interviewed. Go see it if you can.