The Discoverer

I'm working on new stuff at the moment.

It's kinda fun. It's kinda frustrating.

One annoying thing about photography is that you actually need something to photograph. You can't just create the entire image from your imagination.

So I've been wandering around trying to find suitable subject matter to reflect how I imagine the image(s) to be.

And it's not that easy.

But, somewhat abstrusely, I have discovered a couple of things.

1) In My Father's Den is the best New Zealand film ever made.
2) Shayne Carter's Straitjacket Fits lyrics are works of wonder.

I've now seen Father's Den four or five times. I saw it at The Embassy on release and was astounded. Astounded by the story. It was moving, mysterious, and completely unexpected. And the acting was so real, so natural, so unacted. I bought the DVD. Each time I watch it I marvel at the film making. How they pieced the thing together, dropping in moments which hint at the end, without giving anything away. It's a movie of subtle brilliance. And it's a huge tragedy that Brad McGann succumbed to bowel cancer last year after completing just one feature film - albeit one of subtle brilliance.

Shayne Carter on the other hand is still going strong. Hail, Straitjacket Fits first album, is twenty years old this year! (The older I get the nearer the past seems to be.) I've been listening to the Fits for most of that twenty years. I'm quite familiar with the tunes. But just recently I've been rediscovering the lyrics. (Do I need the qualifier that I'm talking pre-Blow here?) I couldn't tell you what most songs are about, because Carter use of words is more to create mood than tell a story. There's complex rhymes, nonsensical couplings, and general lyrical brilliance - in a David Lynchian kinda way. I wonder at how the young rapscallion from Bored Games and DoubleHappys seemed to suddenly become Shayne Carter. I've long thought that, sad as it was, the death of Wayne Elsey was the impetus that allowed Carter to become all he could be. My recent discovery adds weight to my argument. It also gave us the utterly brilliant Randolph's Going Home - one of the best 7" singles to ever come out of this country.

I've also discovered that 800 ISO film is incredibly grainy. Especially when underexposed. So grainy in fact as to make those shots nearly unusable.

And for a change of tact, I've just been listed at Kiwiology - a growing list of New Zealand blogs.