(Monday, 03 October 2011)
The Plan
Travel to Bali and spend 4 days in Ubud, 8 days on Gili Island and 2 days in Semanyak with wife Simone, daughter Sadie and sister in law Ruth to celebrate Ruths –th birthday.
What happened.
From the moment she heard about it Sadie didn’t want to go back to Bali again, ‘couldn’t say why just wanted to go to Fingal instead, but who listens to 6 year olds? Looking back her idea would have had a lot going for it.
Two weeks before we left the accommodation at Semanyak burnt down, no worries easily fixed just book something else.
Next a text came through in the early hours before we flew out that the plane was delayed, more texts followed and 3 days later we finally got to Indo on another airline.
After an abbreviated stay at Ubud arriving at Gili, a little coral isle off Lombok, we felt we’d found our feet. It’s a strip of esplanade inhabited by beautiful people doing cool things with a shanty village of locals behind. Being neither cool nor beautiful, when I wasn’t lazing around the villa or swimming I went for rides through the back streets. The unpretentiousness and connection between the village people, their family life and the children was captivating. Though their living conditions made me feel like a bloated dufus.
All was good until Sadie started getting sick on the third day, headache, vomiting, fever. Dysentery started that night and by first light her eyes were rolled back, and her breathing was rapid and shallow. We had to get out of the place, what were the options, what can we do, who can help??
The rudimentary clinic on the island put her on a drip and after a few hours she was fully concious so we risked a dash across the straits in a speedboat to Lombok heading for a hospital in Mataram. A car was waiting at a little palm fringed cove for us and wound us for another hour around the coastal road to the city.
The relief of getting there by nightfall gave way to more concerns. Communication was tricky and the pediatrician didn’t make eye contact and seemed detached and cold, and told us all the tests were normal. There was no fresh linen on the beds, the medication was handed to us to administer. Scrawny cats tried to sneak into the room and steal food and fought in the hallway at night. In the following day and a half no bathing was provided, during call to pray the nursing station was deserted and most importantly Sadie was still very, very sick. No ingratitude or insult intended but we had to get out of there too.
Our insurance provider supported a transfer to Bali but their rep in Singapore was having trouble talking the local dialect.
Providence; a phone call came through and it was Paul, the owner of the villa on Gili urging us to go to Kuta and offering to book air tickets out the next morning, we jumped at it and had to then jump through various admin hoops to get Sadie discharged, bills paid, etc in time to catch the first flight out. She's a very tough little kid and never cried or whinged, amazing.
At Bali International Medical Centre in Kuta the next morning Dengue fever and Amoebic dysentery were diagnosed. An appropriate course of treatment was organized and from that point on Sadie began to get better. After seven days in hospital and dropping from 36 down to 30 kilos we left Bali and it’s never felt better to get home. Thanks to everyone who helped us along the way. It was beautiful to watch the nursing staff and the doctors at BIMC care for her and dote over her, fantastic stuff. Sadie is back on her food and is now giving cheek again and looking forward to going to Fingal.
(Tuesday, 05 July 2011)
Someone told me a famous photographer advised that there’s a thin line between an interesting blog and divulging too much personal stuff. That’s probably right, but I'm not sure I can see that line. Simone’s dad Col returned to the unknown from which we are born a couple of weeks ago. Here's some of Simone's words from his service …
Excerpt from The Prophet:
And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth
It is to build a house with affection even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit
He came out of the RAAF after WW2 and put his name down for a graphic arts scholarship but a bricklaying apprenticeship came up first and that is what he was for the rest of his working life supporting a family of ten.
The quote above captures the character of dad. The simple dedication of a life spent providing for his family and thinking of others. And through this, without words or preaching or looking for returns, he set a foundation for us as solid as those he built with brick and mortar.
I am not sure that I really believe people could die from a broken heart but I think dad did-he languished away over the last seven months after lossing mum. I'll miss him but can't grieve for him because now he is at peace.
Colin Caynes 1925-2011
(Monday, 11 April 2011)
Simone took up a position in the Northern Rivers in 1995 so we shifted down to northern NSW and soon bought 50 Abbey Road Jiggi. Forty acres with the ‘cottage” cost $60k.
The owner had been in an accident and built with compo money but couldn’t finish or maintain it. Police raided the place years before and knocked the doors off their hinges, so the house was nailed shut and the window around the front was used for coming and going. He’d also turned a little feral and answered the window in the nip bless him, the first time I visited.
Rundown without gutters, decks, water, sanitation, power, vehicle access or phone it was structurally sound, and with a panoramic view of a valley that stretched all the way to Lismore, 20 klms away to the south.
Reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance had lead me to think i was a renaissance man with broad interests and capable of many things. So I convinced Simone (and myself) I could do the renovation single handedly. I had the time as I was in the middle of my “ the world is overflowing with photographs and doesn’t need any more” stage having just read Walden, so didn’t give photography the time of day. Plus I was in a minimal phase too after reading Walden and thought nothing should be more than it had to be. So Abbey Road became an expression of what I thought at the time was form, function and minimalism.
It's not not missed because we're in another good place, I still like it though.
Jiggi 1996-2002
(Sunday, 09 January 2011)
Christine Henry 29 March 1955 -23 December 1978
(on her wedding day in 1977)
(Wednesday, 22 December 2010)
Two personally signifigant things happened in early 1987, firstly I was accepted into Queensland College of Art to study for a BA in photography and I also met up with an old friend Graham who had bought the ferry that ran from Manly to St Helena Is., home of Queenslands first penal colony and a National Park.
One of the best things at college was Marian Drew a young focused artist/lecturer who had just comeback from studying in Germany, the Bauhaus I believe. We were (are) around the same age, but even by then, only in her mid twenties she knew what she was about. Her openminded talent was influential on me, she had these large scale prints of figures amongst looming cardboard buildings and explained she’d used a light painting technique. That is leaving the shutter open in low light and building up exposure using a torch or flash etc.
About that time Graham had asked if I wanted to take some photographs of dawn on St Helena so we decided to camp overnight. I took over a roll of 1600 asa fujichrome and we went for a walk around the island under moonlight. Another mate Dean came along and he became an impromptu model.
The photographs ended up overwhelming my life for the next three years. Inspired by the images Graham suggested we become parntners in producing a son et lumière (sound and light show). A script writer was commissioned, we hired actors, bought generators, made props and acquired five Clydesdale horses and two wagons etc etc etc etc. ... ' spent and never got back a small fortune. Running costs took the lot.
Oh well at least I’ve still got this piccie.
it seemed like a good idea at the time, light painting 1987
(Wednesday, 08 December 2010)
... no that's not quite right either, but close
you're asking me!?, brisbane street photographs 1989
(Monday, 06 December 2010)
Put a horizontal line somewhere and eventually it'll look like a horizon. It's got something to do with how we think, whether it's a tendency to jump to conclusions or imagine is too hard to say. This is more than just a straight line though, it's masterful yet completely unintentional, the artist ... unknowable. It's why I'm an agnostic and not an atheist fwiw :)
(Monday, 29 November 2010)
Kath left us last week and she’ll be missed. Her 82 years were defined by relationships in which she was always giving, whether it was returned or not was not the point.
As Simone eulogised at the service “ many people study spirituality, philosophy or psychology for years trying to gain insight or contentment, and only manage to pay lip-service to ideals that were a natural unstated part of mum'”.
I hope you enjoyed the wake Kath, lot’s of food, drink, laughter and people who made your world go around.
1928-2010
(Monday, 23 August 2010)
a sunny drive along the coast to a beach-house ... the horizon is a distinct thin white line drawn between the blue sky and the bluer water … reading and listening to music … a wall of fog … cold swim , warm shower … a walk … cosy meal … good sleep
a good day, Boat Harbour, Tasmania, Simone used to live there
(Thursday, 12 August 2010)
It’s like the story about the blind men describing an elephant and they each think it’s like the bit they’ve got a hold of. You know how it goes, the one with the ear said it was like a big leaf, the one holding a leg thought it was like a tree trunk, etc.
When I was in New York twenty years ago, it was an elephant and the bit I had hold of had the wrong shoes, wet feet, and shivered. You also had to keep your eye on it but I went in with mine closed and got grifted within five minutes of walking out the airport door.
A bus driver took my ten dollars and nodded for me to load my bags in the hold. Moments later when I went to get in the door he asked me for my ticket, apparently he couldn’t remember me. A classic heads up.
street photography, new york,
(Tuesday, 27 July 2010)
On December 2nd 1989 Queensland held an election and the incumbent Government was defeated for the first time since 1957.
I was photographing a lot with infra red film and had bodgied up a flash by taping a wratten 87 filter over it so it would only emit invisible infra red light (thank you Weegee), and went out at night shooting. I liked its softness because it gave the people in the photos a little anonymity, and rendered a generic impression, rather than any gotcha stuff.
Being an historic moment I wondered what I might find. I made my way to the mall from South Brisbane and walked around while I wasn’t standing still, went to a club and then to a party. There were people drinking and dancing and laying down, some kissing and a little aggro. Nothing unusual to report, situation ... normal.
human condition photography
(Monday, 19 July 2010)
Looking back it was madness but at the time it was why not. The North Queensland sun was pumping up the heat, and a tiny green pool of water at the base of the falls looked inviting from way up at the railway station. Only a trickling thin ribbon of water found its way into the pool sounding like a water feature as the relaxing tinkle echoed off the acres of hot vertical rock, and lured us down. A sign said not to, but it was faded and old and we wondered if it meant it.
The fence was easy and after that the faintest of tracks wound steeply out of sight into the gorge. Fifteen minutes later we emerged from the greenery onto an expanse of head high boulders that littered the canyon floor. It was difficult to make our way across, and not a good place to have to run for your life. The green water that looked refreshing from afar was too warm. It was also much bigger than it looked and hinted at the scale of the monster cliffs looming behind us. I floated on my back looking up but couldn’t relax. After twenty uneasy minutes we left and began to pick our way out and up.
Heavy storms emptied themselves over the tablelands that night and on a hunch I went back to the falls the next day alone. Little droplets of water landed on the windscreen as I pulled into the empty carpark, and after turning the engine off a low frequency rumble rattled the dashboard. From the platform it was clear; yesterday’s water feature was now a river falling off a cliff. I stuffed my camera into a sandwich packet and hopped the fence.
The closer I got, the harder it was to make out what I was looking at. After smoothly pouring over the rim the water began to smoke and explode, before finally shrouding itself in vapor as it’s irresistible force met an immovable object. The too warm pond from yesterday was ground zero and drowned beneath thousands of tonnes of constantly falling water.
On the way down I passed three others coming back up, all wide eyed. We nodded but said nothing, there was now space in the noise for words.
At the base was a stand of small trees with clean trunks that formed a canopy. It was another world, dark because of the foliage and mist, with a cyclonic wind that blew from all directions and was equal parts air and water. Most the sound now was a low wavelength thumping that was more felt than heard and triggered adrenalin.
I stayed for a long time and finally climbed back to the railway station as a tourist train emptied.
Barron Falls 1988
(Friday, 18 June 2010)
Turning fifty a few weeks ago ( I’ve been saying I’m fifty for the last 18 months to soften up the inevitable) coincided with going to Singapore to photograph a wedding. Ruth my sister-in-law who has travelled constantly over the years suggested I rendezvous with the Simone and Sadie in Bali on the way back to mark the five-o.
Bali had never been on my list, I imagined it in clichés. I’m glad I went; some things are wonderful, number one being the Balinese. Some things are very weird though such as the economic chasm that exists between locals and tourists that’s taken for granted … probably easier not to think about it.
Dignity, tolerance, hospitality, gentleness, smile, balinese people
(Sunday, 23 May 2010)
Jim Henry 6:1:57 - 18:4:76
(Sunday, 18 April 2010)
An evening stroll from Roma Street to the Mall. Black Friday 13.10.89.
(Tuesday, 06 April 2010)
This little story and the photographs were previously published in the Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Weekend Travel Section in 2001.
Our luggage was being taken by someone we didn’t know. Four of us strung out in single file in a sweating procession along the hot and sleepy main street of Fang. Our Lonely Planet guide to Thailand told of the bus from Chaing Mai to Fang, the taxi from Fang to Tha Ton, and the boat from Tha Ton to Chaing Rai…but not about Mr Phing and his tricycle.
His initiative was admirable. At the bus stop he’d came up to us and said “Tha Ton” and when we nodded, he picked up our bags threw them on his trike and headed off.
He pedaled just fast enough to prevent us from catching up unless we broke into a trot. Over his shoulder he conversed in English that was better than our Thai…..
“which cunree you fhom”?
“australia”
“ahhh astaya nice…how many kangaroo astaya”?
“millions”?
“ahhh meeons…he your husban”?
“Yes”
“you vehy lucky….vehy hansome man?
Our new friends’ judgment was thrown into further doubt when he assured out of the blue
“John Howard nice man, I…love…John Howard”
On the edge of town the trike turned down a dusty side road, stopping only because we did.
“maybe you have some eat,…cool jink, some rets,….feewl better”
“No you said you take luggage…Fang Hotel, we follow…we wait Fang Hotel
..get taxi Tha Ton”
“yeh yeh first you feewl better…hod day…jink, eat”
“where?”
“my pace!”
Just in time the taxi pulled up beside us and the driver glared at Mr Phing who finally surrendered.
His eyebrows lifted as if he finally understood “oh you go Tha ton taxi ?!”
I liked his style.
Photo documentary, Photojournalism, Brisbane Photographer
(Wednesday, 10 March 2010)
I confess I love Moby Dick without being able to understand it. It’s sea yarn of a man’s quest for revenge which destroys him and everything around. It’s worthy of great book status for the way it tells that warning alone.
Best though are the chapters in between the narrative on different aspects of whaling. Somehow Herman Melville manages to make each essay relevant to the common experience of existing.
The photograph below was selected for exhibition in last years Schubert Ulrich. It’s a "street" photograph and I submitted the quote from the chapter called “The Fountain” as my artist’s statement. I think it’s sayingthat seeing is not knowing, and there's a mystery to things that our senses and our reasoning can't explain.
Two people talking, and one asks the other to describe the whales' spout.
“But why pester one with all this reasoning on the subject? Speak out! You have seen him spout; then declare what the spout is; can you not tell air from water?
My dear sir, in this world it is not so easy to settle these plain things. I have found your plain things the knottiest of all. And as for this whale spout, you might almost stand in it, and yet be undecided as to what it is precisely.”
Art Photography, Street Photography, Was Herman Melville the first Post Modernist without knowing it?
(Wednesday, 10 March 2010)
Phillip Adams often jokes on Late Night Live that he only has one listener and she’s called Gladys. I used to think it was just Gladys and me with this website. Ten weeks ago the site traffic began to be monitored.
I’m not sure what is usual but it was a surprise because I didn’t think you cared at all Gladys. So thanks but would be nice though if the relationship developed into a two way thing. I won’t get my hopes up, let’s just wait and see.
(Wednesday, 10 March 2010)
If I was to mention Post-modernism seriously, then those of you who’ve managed to read this far may be thinking “here we go …pretentious wanker”. But I’ll have a go; it’s a bit like speaking up for someone who has helped you out.
I’m not welded on to any beliefs, but P-M explains why the world can never be explained (if you’ve noticed). Simple insights like; things are more than the sum of their parts, and the truth depends on who is standing where and when, seem obviously true.
Why is it a such a misunderstood and maligned measure of the world? Anyway that can wait.
In the meantime here’s a minute in the life of a bird in a cage.
Art Photography, Polaroid Art, Lismore pet Shop 2001, Post Modernism ain't so bad.
(Wednesday, 24 February 2010)
“Did the Real Estate Agents send you?” I jumped and looked around. A guy in a suit was standing right behind me, his tie flying free in the cold westerly.
I was a little self conscious at being seen photographing let alone in front of a shop window full of undressed mannequins.
I wasn’t from anywhere and didn’t have a reason for being there, “Ah … no … sorry”
He looked down and noticed the camera swathed in black tape ...”oh”, and kept his gaze on me as we turned and walked away from each other.
Brisbane Street Photography, Fortitude Valley 1988
(Wednesday, 10 February 2010)
I’ve got a drinking problem, and its my problem not alcohols’. The issue is an intolerance which means even small amounts are potentially fatal. It was quite a process realizing this. As a sixteen year old I indulged in my first teenage drinking session and ended up being given the last rights.
My sweet father-in-law thinks it’s the worst affliction imaginable and most people have a “bummer, glad it’s not me” reaction, but really in itself it’s not a bad thing and arguably a blessing.
A short time either side of that event my elder brother Jim and eldest sister Christine died suddenly after drinking. Only with hindsight have doctors been able to finger the culprit though the chemistry is still not understood. All three of us shared whatever it is that causes a few drinks to be lethal. My elder sister Deb escaped that throw of the dice.
Drinking lubricates most socializing, and when you’re young there’s the peer thing too. In my youth I felt a little sidelined and became more of an involuntary observer than participant.
I wasn’t cynical, but fascinated with something I wanted to be in on, but couldn’t.
After leaving Art College in ’87 I began to record what I’d been looking at for the previous 10 years, by documenting drinking culture, mainly on Friday and Saturday nights in the Brisbane CBD. I wasn’t looking for the unusual or spectacular but the typical and mundane. I attempted to be as objective as possible usually shooting from the hip so as not to be noticed. The wide angle lens and camera body was taped up to lock its focus and hide its shine.
Often there was too little light to see and I never knew exactly what was on the negs until they were developed. Sometimes it was like randomly sending a remote camera to the depths of the ocean to see what was there. Technical excellence ran a very distant second to content; I cared only a bit about the zone system and zilch about the golden mean.
After a while I displayed thirty photographs at McWhirters Art Space in the “Valley” in a solo exhibition I called “A Shot in the Dark”. The exhibition ended up on the ABC’s 7.30 Report which was then state based, and once a week they closed with a story on a current exhibition. The comments book in the gallery was active. Entries ranged from “If someone told me I was looking at the work of the best photographer in the world, I’d believe them” to “not art, f#cking sh!t”.
The experience was in some ways cathartic and afterwards I had an “I’m done” feeling. Apart from plotting some personal stuff, for various reasons I put away the camera for nearly a decade until a few months before the turn of the century.
Brisbane Street Photography, Art Photography
(Thursday, 28 January 2010)
Please don’t read this if you’re offended by explicit descriptions of sex, it’s not used gratuitously but its necessary to help paint a picture of my late, great aunt Florence Sellers who passed away in 2001 at the age of 96 …. And no this isn’t a deviate story, the opposite actually.
As a kid it’s helpful to have adults around who show a non-judgmental interest in you as an individual, and right from the start we were friends. No one tangled with Auntie Florence and went away unscathed, but she only fired up if she felt disrespected. I never felt threatened by her and was intrigued with her pluck and independence. She could put anyone in their place, so to have her as a friend was always entertaining.
Unmarried until she was in her late fifties; well past children, she secured her place in the world via a career in nursing. A matron by the age of 35; it was a position held for 41 years. It’s easy to see what she was doing, she was not going to be beholden to anyone let alone a man. Her love hate relationship with men as a gender was a real marker of her personality. A superficial reading (by some of the males and females who knew her) was she was a man-hating militant feminist. But she actually loved men and was occasionally charmed by certain individuals, but more often couldn’t swallow the status quo. From her perspective men did most of the trouble making and deserved none of their unearned privilege.
We’d go out together and one time (1992) we went to see the movie Baraka. It was an awe inspiring depiction of modernity’s effect on the natural world and human culture. Its signature was breathtaking cinematography, a Phillip Glass soundtrack, and absolutely no dialogue. When it finished and the lights were coming up, she turned to me and said “Dear, …. it said nothing …. (pause) ….but said everything.”
In 2000 she caught the bus from Brisbane to Lismore a couple of times to visit, quite a feat for a 95 year old. I’d meet her and we’d drive out to our 40 acres at Jiggi were she’d talk all day about the past and her take on life, and potter around the garden. Outspoken about everything she would often jump into the deep end of a conversation and open it with a challenging question, “ Tell me Stephen do you believe in the Immaculate Conception?” It was difficult to predict which way things were going so I learnt early that it was best to speak your mind and hope for the best.
“No not really”
“Well I do, I’ve seen it!” Her narrative was laced with stories of nursing in the slums of Sydney during the depression, WW2 service in the Solomon Islands and 1900’s rural life and there was no telling were an idea of hers had its origin. They often had a theme of man’s injustice to man but more often to woman.
If there was point to be made she’d frown and tighten her mouth as she spoke, slowly delivering the story in a lilting rhythm.
“…. you might have this young girl see, … and she’s new to the city and she meets this young fellow … and he makes her laugh, and he’s handsome, and he’s a good dancer, … and they go out and have few dances, and he offers her a lift home, … and he starts kissing her in the car, … and next thing he’s got his bloomin’ pants down and before you know it he ejaculates, and a bit of semen lands on her labia … and semens like jolly lice you know!! , next thing you know the poor girls pregnant, and she hadn’t done a thing wrong, her hyman was completely intact!.”
She caught herself and laughed at her own brazenness “Dear what must you think of me?’ I didn’t say, but I thought the world of her which she realized anyway.
The next year, around her 96th birthday she took the bus into Southbank from Sunnybank to celebrate with friends. On her way home she hopped off the bus and walked in front of a car but survived with a badly dislocated shoulder, and a broken arm. So strong was her spirit she convinced the doctors to let her go home (and continued living by herself until the last 4 months of her life). They didn’t set her arm properly so she was lop-sided and learnt to do everything with one hand.
One of the last times we visited her unit, her by that time frail, bird like form disappeared into a room and she came out with a couple of old jars and said to Simone, “now your mother looks like a sensible sort of person who’d know the value of a good jar, do you think she’d want these”? It was a touching reminder of an almost extinct value system.
A melanoma formed under her injured arm and she was gone, not without a fight, a few months later.
At that time the Lismore Regional Art Gallery announced the theme of it’s annual art prize “Living legends”, open to all genre's. I don’t usually enter competitions if the only outcome is the chance of a pat on the head and a prize or some unbelievable title, but this offered a relevant forum for an idea/feeling.
Aunties’ last gift to me was a small box that had her life summarised in a few dozen photographs, letters and certificates.
If you live, at a certain point life becomes a gradual disappearing act, and there were photo’s of Auntie as a young flapper in the 20’s, a successful professional and an ageing recipient of an BEM. Naturally I couldn’t use her as my subject though she was my inspiration. So I enquired and found two centenarians at a local Nursing home. One (Irene Compton) was the wife of the NSW Minister for Lands in the 1950”s and the other (Syd Ballard) was once the Head of the Department of Agriculture in Northern NSW. The staff with permission of the families supplied me with a few past photographs and a beautiful recent letter to Syd from someone he’d mentored at the height of his own career.
I’d bought a Hasselblad impulsively 12 months earlier and finally found a purpose for its medium format potential. Syd and Irene were photographed against a simple background in their wheelchairs, the negs were scanned and I pasted copies of a few of their mementos and the memoirs onto the wall behind them. ….. alluding to their slip into obscurity.
To make a statement about the invisibility of the aged and to give them a presence, I made the enlargements life size and displayed them as a diptych.
The judge Alison Kubler, to my astonishment picked “Syd and Irene” out as the winner, and I got the $3k prize which just about covered the printing and framing costs, but that is the lot of most who consider themselves artists.
Art Photography
(Tuesday, 12 January 2010)
Simone received her PhD just before Christmas, after ten years of study mixed with full time work and children. When we first met she was in the midst of a Siddartha-esque career change. Several years of work as a clinical psychologist followed by a year of carefree travel had left her in a minor existential crisis, and she was briefly trying her hand at being a cleaner. Her aptitude and talent drew her back to psychology, and now she has a Doctorate!. She also has far and away the highest EQ of anyone I know (although inexplicably she gets me wrong occasionally). There is also a trustworthy wisdom to her, and if I was ever to share a lifeboat I’d want her in charge. Congratulations Dr Buff we are all proud of you and love you.
(Thursday, 31 December 2009)
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)