Archives for: April 2008
Half way in respect to time but shooting is not complete let alone editing my sofobomo project. This mornings shoot was freezing. The temperature as the sun rose was about 4C, not a wonderful time to get on a push bike to go to a photographic destination. The fingers were fine, nice and numb, it was when they thawed once back home that the pain begun.
contacts after the break...
an Epson 1900 no less.
For Christmas my lovely sister-in-law bought me a subscription to Australian Photography, a great gift thankyou.
Australian Photography have a monthly competition where you send in a printed picture of the months subject. February (the first edition to arrive) the subject of the competition was Summer, the picture that best showed an interpretation of summer would win a printer kindly supplied by Epson.
While I no longer think that competing in any photographic competition will improve my photography the decision was made to use my editing skills to find a picture in my repertoire that felt like Summer and send it in. I wanted to win something.
I'm happy I did.
Seriously, they do.
My young family has lived in this neighbourhood (Baulkham Hills, Sydney) for 6 or 7 years now and I have pretty much worked from home all that time. Well, except when I travelled away from home for 2-3 days a week for several months.
In that time I can't say I have heard chainsaws weekly but it sure feels like it at times. Over the last week the people over the back fence turned their backyard into a desert, every tree was chopped down. I guess it is their right to choose to do so but unfortunatley it now allows us to see straight into their yard and them into ours.
What were they thinking! I don't want to see their crap, their mess, their clothes on the line, their worn grass where the yappy little dog runs all day. Our private hide-away is no longer, we see the house behind us and houses and rooftops further down the hill.
It is all ugly.
Several days earlier it was a huge Eucalypt that succumbed to the teeth of a chainsaw, only a week earlier 3 massive deciduous trees came down on the edge of a property near here that will now become a space for 8 units. The new units will be built to the very edge of that property I guess, otherwise those trees gave their lives for nothing.
Last month my father had to get a large Silver Oak chopped down because the people behind him poisoned the tree and it died. These same people lopped the top half of an Oak Tree down for who knows what reason. That Oak died as well.
I don't get it, do we need to take everything down to our own height.
This morning it was raining, that usually does not stop me making pictures or walking about in general. The reason for not going out in the rain is beacuse my sofobomo destination is only a short bike ride away and I refuse to start the car for such a short distance, riding a bike in the wet is not much fun. Walking would have taken me to long this morning, there is work to be done, so today may just be used for editing.
Just more excuses.
So this morning was the beginning of the sofobomo for me, it feels great to have actually begun something, something you could call a project instead of my usual wandering capturing singular pictures.
On my pushbike at 7am, a late start, I headed off to Balcombe Heights knowing I was going to start with the buildings at the northern end of the area. The next 45 minutes (96 frames) was spent limbering up, trying to get a feel for what was going to work here, at this stage it looks like pipes, windows and rooftops (always had a thing for roofing).
The idea of following through someones project via contact sheets is so very interesting for me, seeing how a photographer worked and what the final edit looked like makes the journey as compelling as a short story. So the contacts for this project will be popping up here every now and again. Laugh, cry, wince along with me.
It is the 14th day of April and I really wanted to start my sofobomo project today. Time seems to just slip by without any real photographic output, yes I have a few more prints on my walls from recent short spaces in time when I've been able to squeeze a few shots in. The picture with this post is one of those, it was taken while playing hide-and-seek with the children. It is these small spaces in time that get filled with photography, the short spaces between other events (like hiding and being found).
If sofobomo has done one thing for me, at this stage it would be that it has shown me that my photography seems to have taken a back seat to work (and will always be backseat to the children).
This is something that needs serious addressing, less working hours anyone?
By far one of my most requested pictures for printing is this one. The colours and composition still work for me and while they do I will continue to sell it here.
This is one of those lucky pictures that happen because you have been practising for a long time and walking around with a camera all of the time. While walking along the jetty and still near the shore I saw a Pelican swimming towards the end of the jetty, from experience using the lens I had on the camera I knew the lens was not long enough to get a decent sized bird in the picture. So I ran as fast as I could ( loaded with tripod over my shoulder and a camera bag on my back ) and got to a point where I had to stop and squeeze off a shot or else the bird would go under the jetty.
So this is the one and only picture, none before or after.
Daylight Saving time ended last weekend for us in NSW, Australia. The half yearly ritual of changing times to be enjoyed by all.
It amazes me how many clocks I have in the house. There are two in the living room, one is on the wall with Roman numerals, another on the VCR. The bedroom has another, the children's bedrooms do not. The bathroom has a tiny one so that the children can time how long they brush there teeth, without it they tend to complete the task in 10 seconds.
The kitchen is not clock free. The microwave is never switched on since it would otherwise always draw power, besides food from a microwave is damaged and no good anyway. We use the microwave for heating hot packs whenever any of us have sore muscles. The oven does have a clock on it which is a total waste but it can't be turned off so it has to be set.
And then the car has a clock as well.
Thankfully the 2 mobiles phones and 2 computers do their own time changing. That brings us to the cameras, the film ones need no time changes but the digitals do. Syncronizing them for those times when you have 2 or more and are shooting frantically. It helps sequence your shots timewise in Lightroom between your cameras or any cameras used by other photographers doing the same shoot for the one studio.
Changing all of those clocks is not a huge hassle but do we really need to be reminded how quickly time goes by no matter where we are?
Several years ago I bought and read several of the books written by Freeman Patterson and found them to be quite inspirational. They also helped me see what I was looking at, take labels away from what I was seeing and break things down into shapes.
I recommend reading any of his books, particularly those written as workshops in a book.
The latest Candid Frame episode by Ibarionex R. Perello features an interview with Freeman and is a recommended listen.
This is my editing time and when I plan on getting most of my projects done, that is if I do not have an excess of work to get through. The hour after I wake up and they do is another available time.
It was via Jim Colberg I came across Bernd Kleinheisterkamp. I enjoyed viewing the galleries here, particularly the Stills gallery.
A very hectic week this week so I have not and will not start until some time next week. My posts here will also be a bit light on for content.
Last night in a state of exhaustion I made the decision to photograph an old Masonic school grounds. It is a short bike ride from home and a nice place to spin the wheels. The area has something like 16 old school houses and is built on a gently sloping hill.
Most of the buildings are now rented by small organisations or clubs, there is a local radio station, a pottery class, child minding, model railway club and a few others I cannot recall. The more I think about it the more I am happy with the decision to photograph this area and to be starting a project.
Gordon McGregor has created a Yahoo pipes thing so you can keep up to date with the many people writing about their own experiences, cool.
Today is the official start day of Solo Photo Book Month. I still have not decided on a subject to take on for the 35 pictures. The idea of having to pick a subject makes me think that the result will be shallow, what I think should really be happening is that I just continue on taking photos of the thing I really like taking photos of.
But then is this was an assignment given to me then selecting a subject should not be on the basis of things I already do anyway, on the other hand the assignment could be taken on as a book of things that you already take pictures of put into a formal arrangement.
You can sit and think about this stuff all day long and not get a thing done, a few early morning walks letting my mind stroll elsewhere maybe all that is required for me to have a book subject sorted out.