Lensbaby Love
I have a Lensbaby.
For anyone unfamiliar with these nifty devices, it's a variable focus 50mm f/2 lens. The single lens element is fully adjustable to enable a focal 'sweet spot' to be found in creative photography. A particular setting can be locked and then fine tuned by rotating any of the three protruding long screw threads. To change the aperture, a series of magnetic aperture rings is provided and held in place in front of the lens element by a series three small magnets. It's a quirky lens with a maximum aperture of f/2 and produces a wide range of focal effects. Mine is a Lensbaby 3G ... which is now sold as the 'Control Freak' (can't imagine why ... I mean look at the thing!).
Picture courtesy Lensbaby
When I first received the lens (passed to me by a cinematographer friend who'd purchased it for cine-work but found it unsuitable) I put it on my D80 DSLR. It produced some neat results but it wasn't a go-to lens by any means. Also the lack of adaptive exposure metering in the camera body meant more then a few frames to get the manual exposure just right ... it just seemed a bit of a chore. For this reason I had been putting off trying the Lensbaby on my new D600 body and but ... well ... whatever(!) ... so I took it along in my bag to the abandoned shops in the previous post. I put it on the camera, dialled in what I thought was my anticipated exposure setting and took a picture. Beautifully exposed! Well I wasn't expecting that! So I left the settings as is, re-composed and took another shot of something somewhere else ... and? Same! Great exposure! It was then I had one of those total 'Derr!' moments when I realised the D600 was automatically adjusting to bring in the best exposure for the scene ... it actually had very little to do with me and my settings ;-)
Now, this was fabulous news as I am essentially a lazy photographer at heart and I realised that the previous burden of adjusting exposure had been banished ... it was like I had a new lens ... which I guess I kinda do. Here's the same shops as seen through the Lensbaby ... Enjoy!
Lensbaby love ... have you ever fallen in love with a lens (or anything for that matter...) all over again?
Downer in Decay
I took a ride up to the urban decay that is Downer Shops on the weekend … and took some photos … the shop side is truly derelict.
One of my first group houses in the early 90′s was a weatherboard affair in Durack Street (which incidentally was the coldest house I’ve ever lived in) and Downer Shops was my local. The centre was in decline even back then. There was a dark supermarket (literally dark and dingy and not of the supernatural bent … well, not that I ever saw…) a Chinese Restaurant which was passable and an Italian which was dire. There were some others too but I’m unable to recall them.
There were people around. Over at the Community rooms on the other side of a little park (with attendant rock sculpture) in the middle of the complex a groups was packing up after a meeting. The community rooms are by contrast clean and swept … and the end of the building features a mural by Byrd. There was a little post-it note stuck onto some fresh graffiti staking a claim on what’s otherwise a remarkably graffiti-free building. The carpark was more or less subscribed and the two sporting fields were both full of soccer and families enjoying the late afternoon autumn sunshine.
The shop side is just sliding into decay and I loved the irony of the boarded up security company shopfront. The community noticeboard lies vacant and the hand-carved bicentennial logo (someone took ages making that … with it’s little Tasmania) still stands proudly beneath a dead clock. So, while there were folks about … the centre felt truly abandoned. I understand that new development is slated for the area … maybe that’ll start this dead heart?
Back on The Drops Again
I'm back on the drops again.
Anyone who has followed my photography for a time will know how much I love to play with water ... I love how it plays with light ... how under the right circumstances it becomes a lens, refracting and playing and changing the world we see into something other ... something imaginative. Today I'm talking drop photography. Taking pictures of water is something I work hard at ... well perhaps work isn't the right term because I enjoy the process and the journey. There's the setup, which can get fiddly (not to mention wet!), getting the drips just right at a frequency which allows the drops to be singular and not interfere with one another. There's the choice of backdrop ... that's the image or pattern you want refracted (remember it will be upside down!). The distance between the backdrop and the drop itself determines how large the pattern will appear in the drop. Too far away and elements of your kitchen begin to appear in your drops ;-)
Below is a behind the scenes shot of the setup I used to take these ones ... I even labelled it!
See, you can do this at home in your kitchen!
Using this stripy back drop provides refractions like these...
I'm going to print some of these.
Changing the backdrop to a spotty one produces refractions like these
As I said it's fiddfly and there's lots of variables but it just takes some practice and a reasonable sense of timing little luck ... ok and the ability to live with a lot of empty frames ... oh and I used the fork in front of the backdrop to focus by holding it in the drop stream and focussing on it ... the fork mis good also because you get a feel for the way the drops are falling vertically or slightly off and can vary the focus accordingly.
Next time I set this up I might even do a little video if anyone's interested? Do tell :-)
On Printing
Last year a local gallery sold one of my large (44"x30") prints. They're keen to sell more, it's what most galleries like doing and so I recently took in some sample images on my tablet to show them a range of images I thought would work in their space. I had a set of 10 images to show which worked either individually or as part of a series of twos or threes. We eventually settled on three; two new images and a reprint of the one that sold. Jolly good ... now I need to print them.
For me as a photographer, and as an artist I guess, there is a stage of the process which quietly freaks me out ... I'm talking about printing and You, clever reader forearmed with the reading of the post's title, will no doubt have guessed this already!
A couple of years ago I had my first exhibition. I wanted my pictures to sing, to look as good as they possibly could and so I set about looking for a printer ... not a machine ... a person ... an artist. Someone who understands what to me is a dark art ... someone who can take what I have created and take it to another level ... namely a wall. I didn't want a commercial sausage machine with automated calibrations. I was looking for someone who would create something special. I needed to trust them with my work.
When I first visited Stephen, who lives an hour's drive away in rural New South Wales and saw the tidy cottage which houses his printers and workstation I was quietly impressed. When he showed me the range of papers he collects and started to show me sample prints speak of black levels and colour absorbency and paper saturation levels and the depth of gloss and coatings I thought "He knows his stuff ... he certainly knows a lot more than I do..." I quietly nodded. It was when he spoke to me of his theory: that a viewer has two simultaneous reactions to a picture - the first is a response to content or subject, form and balance ... the second is a subconscious reaction to the colour and texture of the print itself and it was this subliminal aspect of the print and it's combination with the structure and form of the image the he strives for in his printing ... he got a faraway look in his eyes when as he explained it and I thought "you're the one" and so I entered a relationship with a printer. You have to trust them ... they can make or break your picture. (I'm paraphrasing ... he said far more eloquently than that) ...
There's a strict calibration setup for my monitors to ensure that the colour and tones you want are what Stephen will see when the images lands on his display. He understands implicitly how his inkjet printers interpret colour and tone and crafts an individual colour profile for each image to achieve that ... it's what he does and he does it exceptionally well.
When the printing's complete and the prints delivered I get tense and sometimes I don't want to unroll them or open the folio case ... the images have entered the tangible world ... they're now real things. Real things that people will look at and buy and hang on their walls ... I feel a buzz from that mixed with a weird sense of responsibility ... one which I hope I never lose.
Eventually of course I do open them and look and pore ... and breathe. Prints of this size are a reasonable investment ... they represent my investment in my talent as an artist. An acceptance and belief in what I'm doing ... trying to do ... should be doing. They look fantastic of course ... what was I worried about?
I took them to the gallery the other day and we discussed frames and mounts and wall space ... I signed them. There, now they truly are mine. Michael, the gallery owner, loved them and the first of the prints goes up on the wall this week. It's exciting.
Are you printing your pictures large?
Sausages
I like sausages. I think I've always liked sausages. I like sausages so much I came to the idea that I wanted to make my own ... it's simply ground meat and spices stuffed into a casing right? So, my friend Ashley and I decided to give it a go. I mean how hard could it be? Well it turns out ... not very!
Bit squeamish about grinding up meat and intestinal things? Here's a completely different post.
Onward!
I have my parents original Kenwood Chef A701 which incidentally is as old as I am ... give or take ... and amongst the myriad attachments they had bought for it (many of which are still in their original boxes) is a mincer attachment. Please excuse the phone-pics ;-)
OK ... mechanism for grinding meat? Check!
Next we need some meat. This is roughly 2kg of pork forequarter prior to being coarsely cubed.
And after... some fat was left on to assist with the cooking...
And first pass through the coarse grinder...
Flavours ... We went with fresh, finely cut sage and thyme (about 2tbsp of each), some nutmeg and ginger and about 2tbsp of sea salt. The salt is the critical one ... too little and the sausage tastes like straight cooked meat and too much ... well, too salty ... see, I do something once and standing on the shoulders of Google Giants I sound like I actually know what I'm talking about! The spices were mixed through by hand with the addition of about 150ml of iced water which serves to congeal the fat. I didn't take any pictures of that bit for fear of encasing my phone in ground meat.
OK ... the next stage involves putting the filling into the casing to make sausages. What to use? Synthetic or gut? I spoke to my local butcher at Lyneham, makers of the famous Country Pride sausages and they supplied us a length of sheep intestine for the casing with instuction to run a little cold water through before fitting to the nozzle. As we did so it swelled up like ... well ... like gut... Ashley is seen here threading the casing onto the filling nozzle. In case you're wondering it is exactly like fitting a very long and slippery organic condom... there ... you always wanted to know that huh?
Here's the nozzle fitted to the end of the mincing attachment ready to be stuffed. I'm not going to share what I thought this resembled...
OK! Fire that sucker up and lets make a sausage!
Certainly looks like a sausage! And here's where we ran into trouble (and it wasn't because I was too busy documenting to notice what was going on ;-) ) but the Kenwood mincer with the nozzle attached kept getting blocked necessitating the regular dismantling every 40cm length of sausage or so. The reason is the design of the grinding filter and I think the worm screw was pushing meat to the plate faster than it could be pushed through. After several dismantles and scraping out of tangled meat ... definitely not a job for the squeamish ... and the application of brute force, we had ... you guessed it! Sausages!
We then cleaned up (how responsible is that!) poured some more wine and set about cooking a couple to sample them... it was about midnight by this stage...
And the result!
And they tasted bloody fantastic! It's always a cool moment in creation when you stand back and look at something you've made and think 'We did that!'. Going to do it again? Absolutely! The only part of the process I didn't enjoy was the repeated dismantling and hand-clearing of the mincer during the filling of the casing. The Kenwood really isn't the machine for that part of the job. It did great on the initial grind ... just not the filling. I'm looking into a dedicated sausage stuffer and we'll try again after that. In the meantime I'm off to a BBQ this afternoon where our sausages are the guests of honour ;-)
Dee-lish!
On Francis Bacon, patina and love
In February of this year I travelled to Sydney for what really was a rather Arty weekend. I saw the Anish Kapoor show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Circular Quay (very good ... so good I took the kids up to see it a couple of weeks ago) ... I saw Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry performing at the Sydney Opera House in their legendary duo (+ band) Dead Can Dance which brought me to tears on more than one occasion with it's power and sheer beauty.
I also went to see the Francis Bacon show at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Now let's get this out there first ... I'm not a huge fan of Francis Bacon ... none of his works feature near the top of any of my lists of favourite art but I do respect his work. I find it uncomfortable and violent, visceral and gutsy. I like that I feel something from his art even if it makes me uncomfortable. There's a certain violence in his work ... it's been said that he was ismply repsonding to the violence and opression he saw and felt around him. I think he was brave or perhaps he just didn't care ... I respect that he kept going and going ... thoroughly obsessed by his work and not caring whether it was liked or not. I think he did care and the angst in his pictures is, to me a demonstration of just how deeply he felt.
There was a large collection of his paintings and sketches, over 50 in all, along with books and and detritus from his studio. Then there were the photographs... they were what affected me the most. The photos were placed in simple frames that were deep enough to allow the crumpled prints to breathe. The photos were scrunched and ripped, taped back together, creased and stained, torn ... I imagined them cried over ... the tears falling onto them after the passing of his lover, I imagined them being scrunched into a ball and thrown in anger after an argument, unfolded and pressed flat by hands, left under whatever else occupied the artist's mind at the time... they had patina.
In short: they were loved
At a time when our culture is obsessed by perfection, the smooth and the wrinkle free, these photographs spoke of life and how it is messy and sticky and visceral and at times violent. I think we forget that or it somehow suits us to forget that. I realised I had been looking at them a long time transfixed by these thoughts and resolved to write them down ... to blog them ... I forgot - distracted by whatever else was going on in my life ... the new and shiny smooth wrinkle free objects of my attention.
I said I'm not a huge fan of Francis Bacon but re-redading my post I think just might be.
Are you moved by art? ... I think some of you might be...
Optical Galaxy and then some ... a trip to Cameron Offices
On Sunday afternoon I went for a little photowalk. I went up to the Cameron Offices, once a shining example of 1970's Brutalist architecture and future vision ... half has been demolished and the other half transformed into student accommodation ... still, amongst the concrete there is a semblance of the vision of the architects and designers ... in between concrete angularity and rigidity there flow streams and reflective ponds, stark white lift wells and sculpture. Optical Galaxy by Canadian sculptor Gerald Gladstone (1923-2005) particularly caught my eye ...
"Commissioned for Cameron Offices as part of the Town Square located opposite Mall 9. It was created by the Canadian sculptor, Gerald Gladstone who was striving to express humanity's concern with its position in intergalactic space. The sculpture comprises eleven truncated fins each standing 7 metres high that are curved to represent the form of the sine waves used in measuring light waves. On top of each fin is a Lucite block in which is suspended a sculpture of welded steel road to represent the swirls of planets in the galaxy. A specially designed water cannon emits a cascade of water over the work." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Gladstone)
The piece has been moved from its original location opposite Mall 9 and now stands somewhat external to the main complex and easily accessible although it lacks any form of descriptive plaque or insightful inscription ... I would love to see it in action with its custom water cannon but sadly I think it may be defunct.
What about you? where was your last photowalk? Did you take any pictures? Sometime I go on a photowalk and leave the camera in my bag the entire time ;-)
ps ... thanks to everyone who let me know just how much the gallery option didn't work for them ... we're back to inline images again :-)
Cell Block 69 - The Spiegel Garden
A couple of weeks ago I attended and photographed an extraordinarily fun gig in an extraordinary place. Cell Block 69 were performing at The Spiegel Garden - a purpose built circus style marquee that has been enjoying a month long residency at the Senate Rose Gardens for the centenary of Canberra celebrations. The group? Comprised of 8 members all calling themselves "Corey" they customarily play 2 gigs a year, one in Sydney and the other here in Canberra. They've been together for nigh on ten years and are somewhat of a Canberra Christmas institution (if there is such a thing). They play covers ... trashy Eighties covers. Whip It!, Queen, Computer Games, Centrefold, Girls on Film, Jump etc etc. They have gone to tremendous effort to replicate the sounds using period effects and analog synthesisers. Lead singer Pip Branson changes costumes and character for each song ... he is a very talented boy. The gig got very crowded and was a little nuts at times. It got a little crowded when I squeezed through to get to a position at the foot of the stage. Impossible for me not to sing along ... I remember those songs when they were released!
(apparently you can click on a picture to see it writ large!)
The gig finished at 2am. live on the other side of the lake in the middle of Canberra and I was on my bicycle so I got to ride home under the stars ... getting home around a quarter to three ... I smelled like a squash court so I showered after initiating the loading of the images off the memory cards.
Tell me, does the gallery option I've used in this post work? would you prefer larger, in-line images?
A larger, more comprehensive set of images from the gig can be found at Lushpup Images ... here.
What's the last gig you wnet to? Was it music or poetry? What kind of music? did you dance and get all sweaty or was it a sit down more formal affair? Do tell :-)
Collective Thoughts
I have been getting back into taking pictures again. This follows on from my moving and renovation experiences late last year when I took almost no pictures of anyone or anything except the progress (and at times ... total lack of progress) on the renovations to my flat. It was a period of perhaps six or seven months where I took next to no pictures purely for the pleasure of taking pictures ... it was like my photo-mojo had vamoosed. I like to think of it now as a kind of enforced sabbatical ... a time when I reflected upon other things and new directions ... though I recall at the time finding it confusing and debilitating.
I mean, after a while you start to think about whether you'll be able to take pictures again. You look back on the remarkable things you've captured and published before but they feel like they were taken by a different person and there's so much going on in your mind, things are moving so quickly, that even beginning to write a post feels like it's passed before you even start.
I knew the mojo would return ... I could feel it circling me. I began to see pictures again ... the ones the you compose when you aren't carrying a camera. You see the picture ... the light, the crop, the depth and the colour even though you didn't actually take it. Truth be told that's how most of my pictures are captured ... I have a large mental store of those ones ... the ones I saw but didn't take.
Enter The Ellis Collective; a six piece folk-rock (also referred to as 'Bloke-folk' ;-) ) group from Canberra. I'd shot them before and we were both very happy with the results. I met with Matty Ellis (the large chap with the shaved head) in early March and we tossed around some ideas. There were to be two separate shoots ... the first of the band having a picnic and the second ... well ...
Matty had this idea of a shot with band at night standing in front of a car's headlights and I began to think of how I'd do it. This was one of those times when you know technically how you would take a shot but have never actually taken a shot like it. I knew from my Strobist readings many years ago (that's a great site if you're into using any kind of flash in your photography btw) how to expose for the background lighting and illuminate the foregound with speedlights or flash. I knew I could do it and I wanted to do it and the band were into it but I'd never attempted it before ... and certainly not with paying clients! There was a real risk that we would come away with nothing ... that I'd assembled the group in the dark for nothing ;-)
The shot called for a stretch of deserted road ... I used trusty Google Maps and found a spot amongst the fields of Pialligo out near the airport, arrived at sunset and began to set up. We moved a car into position and I got the band to stand in front but it became clear that I needed more light ... so we moved another two cars to just out of frame ... now we had plenty of light :-)
Now for the speedlights, I used two (Nikon SB-910 & SB-800) atop two mid light stands on either side of the band. The SB-910 on the right of the frame sported a Honly speed grid to provide harsh, directional light across the band. I controlled the power of the speedlights using the the D600 camerabuilt in flash as a commander. The camera uses the Nikon Creative Lighting System (CLS) to alloow the body to remotely control the power setting of speedlights. The camera was atop a tripod and the pictures shot through my 70-200 f/2.8.
The road was dusty and I got the band to kick up some dust to produce a smokey effect. One hassle with that was there a light breeze blowing across the frame from right to left ... I left the camera (with my remote in my pocket) and went down to band to get some dust in the air. However, the remote sensor on the Nikon is on the left side of the body and wouldn't trigger from my upwind side ... for these pictures I threw the dust, ran across the frame, fired the remote and got the picture ... fun! I do like a picture you have to do some work for :-)
I even did a lighting diagram just for you :-)
And some from the picnic shoot too :-)
Man Up Geoff!
Man Up Geoff! says the photo-bombing carp
So, my ADSL went kaput last Monday night sometime. ISP checked all they could, have sent replacement modem (which still hasn't arrived) not that it's likely to do any good as the line tech who came this afternoon discovered that the line appears to have been disconnected at the Civic exchange. A line trace from the exchange end returns a line length of zero meters!
That's fine, I guess, they just need to reconnect it right? You'd think so. But then I receive an SMS from my ISP late this arvo saying my fault requires 'further investigation' and is expected to be rectified no later than 7pm 15th March! Tha Fuck? 15th of bloody March!
Grumbles bloody mumbles.
That's right Geoff just MTFU... it's likely a healthy thing really.
So now I'm trying to post to my blog via my phone. It's a bit slower!
Lucie Thorne - The Front - 24th February 2013
I had the pleasure, in between passing cells of heavy rain, to see Lucie Thorne perform at my local pub/gallery/cafe The Front yesterday afternoon. Lucie sings finely crafted stories of longing with aching melody and feeling. The Front provides an intimate setting to see performers and Lucie did not disappoint.
Apparently she's become quite famous!
You can visit her here.
Lucie Thorne - The Front - 24th February 2013
The Wind In My Heart
Searching, it's a common theme here on this blog ... searching for that indescribable piece that falls into place the moment we find it. The thing you don't know what you're looking for until you've found it. That thing.
I've been looking for pictures to post ... this is Pictures with Words after all ... but I've come to realise over the course of this search that I'm grown dissatisfied with my body of work. Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike them, they remain good photographs but they don't represent where I am now. What to do about that? Well take some more obviously! Like this one taken this afternoon as the sun was beginning to set out the window of the flat. Those beams of incandescence, hot and bright. I felt them as I closed my eyes and breathed.
The wind in my heart
The wind in my heart
The dust in my head
The dust in my head
The wind in my heart
The wind in my heart
(come to) drive them away
Drive them away.
Listening Wind, Talking Heads, Remain In Light
Sum of the Parts #2
earth and sky we walk between pondering both
A new piece for my ongoing project the Sum of the Parts where I'm intentionally blurring a scene during capture in an attempt to deconstruct them into their component parts. The result invites the viewer to ponder and create their own landscape ... a new sum of the parts. One day I'll get enough of these to put a show together.
I particularly like the way this one remains ambiguous. Is it dusk or midday? Inland or coastal?
Sydney: Anish Kapoor - Museum of Contemporary Art
I have just returned from a glorious weekend in Sydney. Well, glorious for the people and things I saw ... the weather was cold and wet and so unlike Summer. The main purpose of the trip was see Dead Can Dance perform at the Sydney Opera House on the Sunday night. DCD are essentially two people; Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry. They have been working together for nearly 30 years with their first release coming in 1984 and their latest work Anastasis released last year. The performance was outstanding and supported by another 5 musicians. If you're unfamiliar with their work and you have 6 minutes of guaranteed 'alone-time' click here. There's no 'clip' with this one ... just a visual of the cover art for the album The Serpents Egg. The track was also featured on the Baraka Soundtrack. They performed this last night about half way through their set and I wept ... this piece always moves me and hearing it live has now somehow made my life more complete.
Anyways, I digress! I also saw the Anish Kapoor show at the Museum of Contemporary Art down on Circular Quay. This show is his first for Australia and didn't disappoint. There are many visually challenging pieces in the show and the scale of some is quite breathtaking. Like, for example My Red Homeland (below). From the catalog;
My Red Homeland is a monumental wax sculpture that consists of 25 tons of paraffin wax mixed with a deep red pigment. In this enormous circular sculpture, a large motorised steel blade slowly traces the circumference of the structure, which measures 12 metres in diameter. Each rotation of the blade takes about one hour, as it cuts a course through the wax, dissecting and reshaping it into endless new forms.
I know ... to make this work, I think we need some wax ... how about 25 tons of wax! And I want it red, blood red, so when it's cut and churned it resembles meat ... yes ... like that, flesh. Visceral, cut, shaped and continually reworked (once an hour) ... quite brilliant really.
The scale alone is enough to grab you in.
I went up to Sydney with my good friend David and his wife Thao. David's a huge DCD fan and he drove us all up to Sydney for our weekend of culture. Here he is in the picture below photographing Kapoor's Memory, a 24 ton hollow steel construction that required the roof to be temporarily removed to lower it into its install space.
Now, apart from these rather colossal installations, there are a lot of pieces that sincerely mess with your visual perceptions of the space you find yourself. Kapoor uses non-reflective pigments in a number of pieces which really works to mess with you perception ... I didn't take any pictures of those ... it would have been pointless really ... you have stand in front of it and experience them yourself ... sorry about that.
I did take a picture of When I was Pregnant (below)
Oh and there was a whole room of very shiny S-curves and C-curves all incredibly polished that served to reflect and cross-reflect the room and the people in it in a myriad different ways. I spoke to one of the assistants who explained to me that the artist has a team of specialist polishers flown over from New York specifically to polish these installations ... the polishing took nine days for the MCA show. They did a bloody good job!
I really enjoyed this show by Anish Kapoor. It runs until the 13th of April 2013.
How's about you? Been to visit any particularly fine art recently.
Night Moves
Three images from a moving car. These were all taken on a single journey back from a party out in the countryside last year. I wasn't driving so I was able to drag the shutter and capture the light traces transcribed by the reflectors on the road as our headlights illuminated them. I took 8 frames I think of which these three were the best ... and I thought that a reasonable shooting average! And now the song 'Night Moves' is stuck in my head ... why do I do that?
Ribbons
Jazz
Spirit Chase
They work as abstract patterns evoking a sense of the other ... our minds shape them into objects we relate to ... I'm interested in what you see in them ... do tell! :-)