Words await an eye's caress
letters strewn with love
words await an eye's caress
as breath brings forth life
A haiku for today.
Image is one of a series I created in 2011 to document the hand-crafted books of Fran Ifould. This particular book was titled Enviroroulette and you can view the complete series here.
Vale Friday
Friday Carasmello Lushpuppy 1999-2013
Last Thursday we made the decision to have beloved family member Friday put to sleep. She had been with us for 14 years
Friday had been suffering a degenerative spinal condition and went downhill rapidly. She was an elderly dog and up until a month ago had been going on hour-long walks as she had every day of her life. However we were not prepared really for just how quickly she deteriorated. She in many ways defined our family's relationship and her passing is deeply felt. I'm OK now but was a mess last week.
The veterinarian came to the house on Thursday morning. She was put to sleep after being surrounded by those who knew and loved her. The end was very quick. She was buried at her second home at the out-laws farm overlooking the hills she loved to roam.
Bye sweet girl ... you'll be missed.
Dead Pegs
The first printed compilation of my Dead Pegs project ... a copy of which is currently hanging in the Members Show at PhotoAccess in the Manuka Arts Centre.
I've been long fascinated by these pegs ... single-function objects that have reached the end of their useful lives and left to decay in the pebble-field beneath the clotheslines ... I've been photographing them on and off for about 6 months now ... time to get them out there ... both prints measure 420mm x 720mm.
Dead Pegs was printed on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Ultra Smooth - a fine matte paper with excellent colour depth
Also in the show is a print of my Starfield I picture printed on Baryta Photographique, a fine grained lustre because I thought a small degree of gloss would increase the depth of the picture ... given it's our galaxy after all :-)
Both pictures were printed by Stephen Best of Macquarie Editions in Braidwood.
Links
Thrift Shop - (Workin' The Fields Version)
On Saturday night I played host to the wonderfully talented Jodie O'Regan and Emlyn O'Regan who were in town for their Kitchen Table Tour. As a host I got to make a request and I chose Macklemore's Thrift Shop ... Emlyn and Jodo got to work on an arrangement and this recording is the first live crack. Kids were asleep in an adjacent room hence the hushed kinda approach ;-)
I was aiming for nonchalant dish-hand and I think I pretty well hit the target. I join in toward the end ... it was fun :-)
For anyone who wants to see me deconstructedly animated and vocal ... this is the clip for you ;-)
May I present Thrift Shop - (Workin' The Fields Version)
Links:
- Follow the Kitchen Table Tour Blog
- Emlyn & Jodie's Tour Page
- Emlyn & Jodie's Web Page
- The original Thrift Shop by Macklemore
In Review - Steve Lane & The Autocrats
In Review - Steve Lane & The Autocrats - The Front, Saturday 28th September 2013
I had a most wonderful experience on Saturday night. I was in the mood for quiet and low key. I wanted some live music but nothing rowdy. I know I'm coming across all fussy and selective like and well, yes I am both those things but sometimes you know you're looking for something but you don't exactly what ... it's just a vibe. I checked a gig guide, saw there was a band playing tonight down at my local, The Front in Lyneham. The Front’s website said Tonight:Steve Lane & The Autocrats and there was a little bio - I’d never heard of them, it sounded perfect.
Guide said the show started at eight and so I headed down to meet a friend before then. Gosh, there's no one here. OK, that's not entirely true, there's two bar staff including the one with a smile like a ray of sunshine and two tables of three just chatting quietly. The instruments set up against the wall indicate there is actually a band on but there's hardly a soul around. I grab a glass of house red (and return the two glasses I stole the night before ... all nicely washed of course :-) ) and take a seat on one of the leather couches. My friend arrives and adds significantly to the audience size. We're chatting away when Jimmy Williams gets up with an acoustic guitar and begins. He's been doing this a while this guitar performing thing and not because he looks like he has, nor the ease with he performs his clever and observant songs ... I reckon it's the fact that he appears totally comfortable performing to an intimate audience of six.
There's a cosy lounge room feel to the Front and this gig has that feel to the max. Like all the best lounge rooms, there's an outside space too and we relocate to a couch out there just before the end of Jimmy's set.
It's a September evening in Canberra and although it's been 20 degrees today it's chilly tonight but warm on the couch. We're out there looking in when Steve Lane & The Autocrats take the stage. A four-piece, drums, bass and two guitars. Steve is joined on vocals by Jimmy and I immediately like the feel. It's part Church and part Lightning Seeds and all their own ... it's music made for driving and I imagine rolling fields of wheat and canola sliding past the window interspersed with the strobe of golden sunlight through trees. I can't make out the lyrics from my outside couch spot but I like the way they're sung with a broad rounded inflection.
The band clearly get on with each other as they produce rolling tunes without stepping on each other's toes. Steve Lane, in dark shirt, glasses and thick black beard greying stylishly sings about life with a wry and poetic eye. He has a rack of guitars and there's a beautiful semi-acoustic sunburst orange Rickenbacker amongst them. It sounds rich and mellow with just the right spread of spangle. Steve is joined by brother Tim Lane on drums and I dig the gold strip over the deep red of the shells. In a simple black shirt, he plays with craft, attention and an intensity totally appropriate to the space. On electric bass, and looking like the perfect subject for a Roman bust is a young man in a royal blue buttoned up cardigan ... In fact he wouldn't look out place in the band The Cardigans or Fun Boy Three. I mention that he's young because he must significantly lower the average age of the rest of the band and I mean that in the nicest possible way ... with age comes experience and it's precisely that which is making this band and tonight's initiate gig so special. We find out later that his name is Kai Lane-U'Ren and he's Steve's son. Jimmy Williams on electric guitar makes up the on-stage foursome ... Jimmy’s a great guitarist and in a blues-inspired number later in the night he totally shreds the solo. There's a fifth, non-stage member on door bucket who is lucky he's accompanied by someone 18 years and over! From the way he and Kai stand the same way when together I’m guessing he’s related too.
The songs are evocative and well crafted. There's a poetry to the lyrics that I find captivating and the stories weaved by Steve wander from the plains to the sea to the office water cooler. There's heartfelt and sunshine and there's deep introspection wrapped in joyous guitars pop. There's fun banter between tracks (I mean who can ever remember the names of songs?) and interaction with the audience, which at this end of the room is just my friend and I. I'm suddenly torn between the intimacies of tonight's performance and thinking that Steve Lane & his Autocrats deserved a much bigger crowd. It's a testament to the experience and professionalism of the band that the small audience doesn't seem to faze them. The last four songs see the band really gel it together, not that they were loose before, and really deliver. The power pop chorus of Forgetting Is So Long is fantastically catchy and lingers beautifully. I resolve to buy their album Birds Taking Flight which tonight's gig is touring and when I'm listening to it the following the morning I'm taken right back to the gig ... it's fresh and alive and rich and a great listen.
The gig ends and we're sitting outside watching the band pack up ... I have to admit it's the one part of gigging that I don't miss (well, not as much as I miss some of the other parts) ... And then we finish the night sitting on the outside couches with the band (and for a little time the bar staff too) talking about music and life and the shapes of clouds. I’d go and see this band again without question ... especially now that I've heard of them ;-)
I was also trialling a new camera, the Fujifilm x100s, which I plan to make my gig review camera as it's small, has fantastic lowlight performance and means that I'm not lugging my DSLR in crowded pubs and essentially spending my time worrying about someone stepping on it. This was the first time I had used the camera at a live gig and I have to say I'm very impressed with the results.
Links
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:
Moss Effect
Spring is officially here! We've had rains and warmer days and while out walking with my camera on Saturday afternoon I saw the moss has geared up for sexy time.
Mosses as you may or may not know reproduce sexually via spores not seeds There are male parts, antheridia, and female parts, archegonia. They can occur on the same plant but are most likely found on different plants. The antherozoids or sperm are motile, swimming using two theadlike tails and are chemically attracted to the archegonium where fertilisation occurs to create a zygote. It is then that the second phase of the moss reproductive cycle begins with the formation of the sporophyte or spore plant. An interesting fact is that the sporophyte grows out of the archegonium of the female plant by cell division and is effectively a parasite for this phase. The sporophytes have a distinct four-part structure comprised of a foot, a long erect stem called a seta with a capsule at the top which contains the maturing spores. A peaked hood called a calyptra sits atop the capsule. A single sporophyte may contain anywhere between four and one million spores depending on the individual species. It's the sporophyte structures that are prominent in these pictures ... these ones are about 15mm tall.
Not that I initially set out to craft a post on moss reproduction this morning but I thought it may ... you know ... add something to your experience if you knew vaguely what you were looking at. Besides I find it fascinating and it is Spring after all.
You may also notice I'm using a new gallery technique to disply the pictures ... like it? Do let me know :-)
Talk to the Hand
Outtakes in my recent quest for a new avatar...
Talk to the Hand...
For everyone who has been listening to me talking about winter and cold ... there's this thing called central heating ... it's nice ;-)
Winter Rains
It's tending toward late and I'm thinking I'll just quickly post this coz otherwise it won't happen until tomorrow night and ... and ...well here I am posting late again. These pictures are the result of one of those occasions when the plan doesn't go according to plan, but rather than fret that it's not, just going with wherever you end up. Yesterday was cold here with heavy rain cells moving through every hour or so. The temperature struggled in the single figures and the wind was extra bitey and fiercely strong. I had resolved that morning to go and continue my 'Deserted and decaying shopping centres' series but while driving to my destination I missed the expressway exit and found myself heading down toward the National Arboretum instead ... OK that's all right I thought ... I'll head up one of the hills ... might be a rainbow or something else up there ... what it was up there was bloody windy and freezing ... let's just say 'totally fresh' ... thank goodness for leather jackets! There was a cell moving in and I stayed out long enough to get hailed upon to capture this beauty of stormlight...
and another in darker processing moodiness
and a rainbow of course :-)
The winter rains ... they finally came ... this morning the mountains were all dusted in snow (apparently) I wasn't fool enough to go up for a second helping this morning ;-)
Starfield
Now here's a technique I've been wanting to try for a while ... starfield photography ... more specifically trying to capture the spiral arm of our galaxy better known as the Milky Way. Essentially I've been waiting for the opportunity to try out the high ISO sensor on the Nikon D600 but I have also been waiting for a couple of other variables first ... a suitably clear sky away from the most obvious light pollution being one ... living in the middle of even a small city like Canberra has kinda prevented that. An offer to spend this weekend past down at a quiet part of the New South Wales south coast seemed to tick all the boxes. This part of the coast is about two and a half hours drive from Canberra and it's a beautiful part of the world ... bays and beaches amongst rugged coastline. It was forecast to begin raining in Canberra but down at the coast it was extra clear. There was a waxing crescent moon but it wasn't in the sky for very long. We arrived at the house just after sunset and after it got a little darker I set up my camera, tripod and 20mm wide angle lens. I pointed it at the sky, cranked up the ISO setting to the camera's maximum (something ridiculous like ISO25,600!) and set a 20 second exposure and fired the shutter and this is essentially what appeared on the camera's display*...
I swore ... loudly. The sentiment being largely 'wow!' and I remember looking up at the sky in wonder before setting the next shot.
Then I went down to the beach...
I think the thing that amazed me most about these pictures was that I have lived every day with such a massive feature in the sky but have, up until the weekend only seen it in glimpses or as a milky haze across the night sky. I also wondered how I could possibly get my eyes augmented to this kind of sensitivity ... I'd likely get the ultraviolet and infra-red modules too if they available ;-)
Wandering back up toward the house I put the fisheye lens on for a greater than 180° field of view ... this one was a bit later after the arm had risen and I'd had a cpuple of glasses of wine and also after most folks had retired for the night and turned out their lights...
Back home again and processing these pictures accidentally converted the first picture to monochrome and I liked where it was pointing me so I went ahead and processed it monochrome too...
I think I like this version the best of all the starfields I captured ... what do you think?
*truth be told I tell a little fib ... this would be the third exposure after I'd dialled the ISO down to a more respectable setting (still ISO10,000) to reduce the noise.
In Review - Andrea Kirwin and the Neo
Neo with Andrea Kirwin - The Polish Club 5th July 2013
I arrived early for this gig review(!) and by early I don't mean early for me (though it was that too) I mean early full stop. I think there may have been six other people in the hall when I entered. I thought the gig started at eight ... oh well, plenty of time to get a beer in the bar next door. The stage was set and the music playing pre-gig was superb ... I enquired and found it was by a Brisbane outfit called Kooii ... I made a mental note to check them out.
Neo took the stage first and in what I thought was a nice piece of gig-craft played their first set. By creating a Neo sandwich they effectively supported themselves. With a gentle warm up they launched into some sultry bluesy reggae. Sliding in like warmed honey, a harmonica made a welcome appearance over a pendulously pumping groove. The next track saw a low-slung groove accompanied by tasteful slow wah guitar and a dash of calypso flute before an effortless transition to SKA beat with bass recalling pointing fingers.
You know what I wasn't thinking just the other day? That synchronised whistling is really unrepresented on today's stage and, after hearing some tuneful whistling harmonies by Neo on Friday, I've come to think that was rather remiss of me. The room's slowly filling and the addition of horns (did I hear someone mention they were Party Gravy horns? ... they certainly looked and sounded familiar) filled out the sound nicely with accent and stab. I did find myself contemplating the baritone sax player as he appeared barely taller than his instrument. Had I been blindfolded this wouldn't have mattered at all. Hitting the blues again and I'm in the bayou thanks to a silty brown bass solo underpinned by a blue beat with real ‘tock’.
Quite suddenly I find myself transported. It's early evening and I'm sitting in a little bar by a tropical ocean, sunkiss'd and salty tanged. There's cold beer, fresh-caught fish and I imagine the warm and gentle sea breeze is Neo playing in a corner. It's not at all an unpleasant little trip. I'm reminded that I like that kind of thing.
There's a set break to bring me back from the sea and I wander next door to score a beer. I find that my well-meaning attempts at an acceptable pronunciation of Zywiec are falling miserably short. At least I didn't need to resort to pointing this time. The bar’s not crowded. There’s a party going on in the function room and a young man standing at the urinal, head pressed against the wall, his eyes closed, not doing very much. I think he was alive … he wasn’t there when I went back later.
I wander back in, beer in hand and grab a seat up on the stage overlooking the room. It's commanding up here and it's then I notice the diminutive yet striking scarlet figure on stage. The stage looms large around her yet somehow she holds to herself. She's dressed in a tailored scarlet coat over gold and in black boots. It’s a great look ... a loose fro with a lock of white that falls as a swept fringe over clear dark eyes. I'm suddenly glad I brought my camera tonight. I look up rom scribbling my notes to see she's lost her coat and is now all spangly ... I'm a fan of spangle from way back. Andrea Kirwin is on stage. This solo introduction to her set is a mellow jazz-inspired groove and mild scat. It is eminently listenable. I move down onto the floor.
Andrea's band takes the stage. The mark of an excellent backing band is that they serve to complement and enhance the stage created by the lead. Andrea's band does this beautifully, creating spaces and moods that a single acoustic guitar simply cannot. Distinct yet togetherly coherent in enviable understatement, they make a lovely, lovely sound together. The openers with the band are gentle and coaxing affairs and by the time 'Mary Go-Round' appears the band is well into their stride. With a street-smart sass and city strut ... the track is a winner and, along with 'Shadow Man' that followed it demonstrated the understanding the musicians had with one another while allowing their virtuosity to shine. In short, they were everything a backing band should be and more.
The band were joined on stage by a baritone sax (Nick, a little taller than the earlier player) and trombone (Sophie). I do like the deep throat of a live bari and wish there was more of it about ... along with the bone they together introduced some stabby goodness to the mix and helped pave the way for the promised funk of Neo's second set. There's a glorious moment in the jam of ‘Yellow Brick Road' when Andrea puts down her guitar and grooves along with the band while the horns whip it up. You forget the power and presence of live horns until faced with them again. Loved that saxy sound.
Too soon it’s all over and Andrea and band depart the stage and I relocate to the bar to fumble with the names of Polish beers … I have this theory that drinking them helps with that kind of thing…
Neo’s second set … the promised Orange Party of Pioneering Funk Research was a little disappointing for this reviewer. There were a few slinky dancers and the two women dancing directly in front of me were very distracting. The bass took to the floor and grooved along with the crowd … dancing bass players do tend to need a fair bit of room and maybe this was why the crowd never really reached the front of the stage. Compared to the whooping frenzy of Zoopagoo & Party Gravy a couple of weeks ago … things seemed a little flat. There was a distinct move toward sweaty Australian Pub Rock. Now I loves me a good dose of crunchy Oz Pub Rock but I was expecting funk and as I pondered my flat state I realised I had been spoiled by Andrea Kirwin’s set. If it had ended after that it would have been perfect. I did like the Neo guitarist’s floral pants and made a point of complimenting him on them.
Tonight: Andrea Kirwin - with guests the Neo … is how I saw it.
Sound and lighting were solid and nicely balanced thanks to Dave Howe on the desk. Thanks to Nigel and the CMC for the opportunity to pen this for you.
You can visit Andrea Kirwin at www.andreakirwin.com
Also published in Culturazi 10 July 2013