Back to the streets.....

Finally been back on the street hitting the shutter button again. Can't explain how much fun it is, but you could probably guess.

I will endeavour over the next few weeks to catch up a little in not only my posting, but share a bit more of my work.

Photobook Making day at Asia-Pacific Photobook Archive

I was lucky enough to get my first real photo book made and it was also critiqued and shown at Asia-Pacific Photobook Archive. The lovely Linsey Gosper from Strange Neighbour and Jason McQuoid from Edmund Pearce Gallery took some time to look through all the photobooks on the day and offer some wonderful feedback.

I was a book I have based on my Semester one folio idea of the recurring fear we have that can still haunt and upset us in our adult life. We know these things can never hurt us, they are only toys, but we have a unusual irrational fear of them.

Do I plan on doing a proper book of them later on.. Yeah I might. I do keep my eye out for crazy old toys every time I walk past a second hand store, so I do think this will be a very long and open ended project for me.

Still Life..

Sometimes a Still Life image needs to be something a little more off putting..

Passion.. Creativity.. Originality..

There would have to be a few ways to describe what this is about and how to look at it.

I would suggest if you asked Doctor Daks it's about not being a copy cat DICK and you will never fake it till you make it.

Doing anything takes hard work and persistence. You gotta try and try and try till you either love it or leave it. It's about passion, late nights, and busting your ass over every job or advantage that might come your way.

Art is hard, don't ever think it's easy, and to be even more direct photography is fucking hard. Everything you do as a photographer is held up to a light that started in the 1800's and the only thing to really change has been the technology. The amount of pressure put on your shoulders to 'Be Original' is so hard to hear, that the words bounce around in your mind till they mean nothing.

To be original, you have to work HARD!! To work HARD you have to have PASSION!! Then with HARD WORK and PASSION, you will find ORIGINALITY!!

When things need to change..

When we make decisions about the work, sometimes we need to let go of the idea. Then again sometimes the idea will change without us even knowing. Watching this Alec Soth video reminds me I need to be very open minded and remember that the work is allowed to change, even though I don't want it.

Herald Sun Tour 2014

Herald Sun Tour 2014, a set on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
I am going to try and get to a couple more of the stages this year. See how I go. The Herald Sun Tour is a great race, and well loved by Melburians.

The 'Art' of tagging..

The art of tagging. It sounds like an oxymoron, but in reality it isn't. There is a real form and function behind the tag, and the style of the tag itself.

The book 'Flip The Script' would have to be one of the largest, commercially available "dictionaries" of hand styles and typography associated to tagging every created. The author Christian P. Acker states that 'Graffiti is one of the last strongholds of highly refined penmanship', and I would have to completely agree. The way and time these men and woman, boys and girls, dedicate to just writing a simple name is incredible. you can skim through thousands of videos on YouTube, watching these people practice and practice and evolving their tag.

I remember one artist stating he thought he wrote his tag over 100,000 times before he even tried to take it into the street. Even my own practice would total maybe 10,000 and I'm still not quite happy with the way it looks.

Here in Melbourne, our tagging and bombing scene is very low key and covert. It's very hard to get close to these artists, let alone photograph them or speak to them.  My dream would be to spend time getting to know some of the artists in Melbourne or Internationally, and discuss there respective styles and how it came about.

For me it would be a wonderful photographic project of not only subculture, but an insight into how typography has evolved.