For a long time I hated Xmas. Hate is probably the wrong word, but I wasn’t part of the merriment. It was an association thing. When I was eighteen my eldest sister, up and died without warning two days before Christmas, … the third calamity in two and a half years to visit our previously sunny family.
One can only ever talk for oneself, for me it was the end of certainty. Security was replaced by angst, … something always felt wrong. After a while that feeling morphed into thinking something was wrong with me.
These two photographs taken when I was thirty summed my relationship with the season of greetings.
A few things have happened since. Simone, my life partner explained to me soon after we meet that yes I was indeed mad, but so was, without exception everyone else. This is an observable truth I now hold to be absolute.
Also the end of certainty that once confined me when I was my world, is now a freedom when thinking of everything else.
Plus I also recognise that my experiences aren’t unique and nor am I.
To top it all off, having a five-year old around is a total game changer. I’m not having a bleat; I actually enjoy this time of year now, but never expect anyone to feel the same way.
(Tuesday, 24 November 2009)
This was 1988 and the Fitzgerald Inquiry into the Queensland Police was at the front of almost everyones minds. I was using a lot of infra-red b+w film documenting drinking culture at night, and wanted to see what it looked like for daytime street photography.
A Koori group was camped at the front of The Reserve Bank building in King George Square. Two police officers were walking towards them with intent so I started walking in too. A few of them noticed me as I got there. I didn't expect the flower, the gesture or the mood. it was a lesson for me about assumption.
Brisbane Street Photography
(Wednesday, 11 November 2009)
It was xmas'90 and these merchants were selling to people at the Battery Park Ferry Terminal. They could have been refugees or the urban poor, kind of the same thing really.
My feet and jaw were frozen and the guy in the middle got my heart racing. I just kept moving
.
Street Photography, New York Christmas
(Monday, 09 November 2009)
I used to work on a ferry and the boat came out of the water every year. It often felt like a shame to cover up the marks that time and tide had etched onto the hulls. They would have taken pride of place in any gallery anywhere if they'd been done consciously by a sentient being.
Found Object, "Art" photography
(Thursday, 05 November 2009)