The Cherry

In March I'll have been in my current house for four years - time flies when you're wasting your life away. (As an aside there is now scientific proof that time does actually fly when you're having fun).

So I've been here for 3 Christmases and I noticed an exciting first on Christmas day just past.

When I moved in one of my neighbours told me about the trees in my backyard - from left to right, pear, cherry, peach.

I've never had any trouble with the pear and peach trees. Except for all the fruit that ends up rotting in the backyard cos I'm too lazy to regularly pick the ripe fruit.

But on Christmas day just past I noticed some little red things on the cherry tree - actual real honest-to-god cherries!

Naturally the cherries are all well out of picking range so will provide a nice dietary change for the local bird population. In fact since taking this photo, none of these cherries remain.

And of course the peach and pear trees are going strong as ever, getting ready to provide a bit more compost to the backyard.

The Comedown

Ah Christmas eh?

This Christmas is going to be one many a music fan will remember.

It would be overstating things to say that I was a huge Vic Chesnutt fan - I didn't bother to see him when he played here a few months ago - but he's been on my radar for over ten years now and I'm always interested to hear what he's up to. (There is currently a free 6 track sampler on his website, including a track called 'Philip Guston'.)

It's always sad to hear of the death of people who have brought happiness to so many people while (and sometimes because of) suffering immensely themselves. I'm thinking of Elliott Smith and Kurt Cobain in particular.

I mentioned Smith here, when discussing the unexpected death of another 'friend'. Like McLennan, Smith made some of the most beautiful music of the past couple of decades - music that truly moved me. I even borrowed some of Smith's words for one of my shows.

Yesterday I got the Nirvana CD/DVD Live at Reading. It's not the most riveting watch, but considering this was recorded on August 30, 1992, before they had made their best album, their music still sounds incredibly vital today. I hardly listen to the studio albums anymore - familiarity has bred antipathy - but this has awakened thoughts of pulling them out and giving them a spin.

And now it appears that Vic Chesnutt, like too many before him, has decided he could go on no longer and left this world a little poorer.

And for something a little lighter, here are two recent reviews.

The Musical

This is what happens when your work heads over to Featherston for its Christmas party.

This is what happens when one of your work colleagues has a big camera fetish.

This is what happens when another of your work colleagues keeps a (special, improperly tuned three-stringed) ukulele lying around their place.

It's also what happens when you shoot dated film, apparently.

The Celebration

Last night, to celebrate the signing of climate change stuff I had a barbeque.

Nothing like a bit of blatant CO2 release to celebrate the end of anthropogenic global warming.

It's a good way to get rid of some garden waste. Another 80kg did go to the tip as my backyard isn't really big enough for a decent bonfire.

It's also a good way to smoke the house out, and when a good wind is blowing, to spread ash throughout the house.

But, in what I can only think was retribution, an ember did land on my foot and cause major damage. I'm heading out the Hutt Hospital Burns Unit shortly.

The Fuckup

It's kinda cool scanning old stuff.

And remembering old, long-forgotten grudges.

Guess which one is not entirely accurate.

Guess which one is far from freakin accurate.

Guess who I had the pleasure of abusing.

Sadly not the freakin idiot who made the freakin fuckup.

The Magical

More photos from the Magic place.

The Magic

New Zealand has a lot of places in the middle of nowhere as we have a lot of nowheres.

This is one of those places.

But this place is magical.

I have a clock in my car. It hasn't worked properly since I bought the car. And it has not worked at all for the last few years.

But one night in this place, and the clock in my car was magically working again.

Thanks crazy electro-whatever dudes/taniwha/ghoulies/etc.

Mind you I don't know it it's still working. Probably not.

The Typologist

Soon after starting this series I showed them to a gallerist.

Partly in hope that he would be interested enough in the project that he would be open to the potential of showing them.

Needless to say, that didn't happen.

But what he did say was that there was something in the typology of the objects.

Needless to say, that had little relation to my concept, but it did make me consider that particular aspect in later shoots.

Okay, so maybe I didn't consider it that much.

Though once I even went all rock'n'roll on yo arse.

And decided it was rubbish so went back for a reshoot.

And sanity prevailed (though not to the Becher extreme).

As did more or less level horizons.

The Trier

Last Friday, seeing as the dentist cancelled our appointment, I went out shooting.

I have decided I’m going to continue with a series started sometime ago.

So I wandered off, camera in hand, to see what I could find.

I went exploring my backyard.

Not my literal backyard, but the bit of the town belt not far from home.

It was fun. I went places I hadn't been before.

I went bush bashing too. And got some scratches on my legs that bled.

I'm so manly and rugged.

I'm not convinced I got any useable shots. As nice as these are, they don't really evoke the sense that I want.

So I'm going to try that again. Soon.

The Psychological

I've often said that I'm not an emotional photographer.

In that, I don't use photography as an extension of my emotional self.

For me it's more an extension of my cerebral self.

Earlier this year I took the photo above.

While I think it's fair to say it in no way reflected my mood at the time, there is something mildly disturbing about it.

Mainly just cos it's dark and blurry though.

The Highconceptcommercialphotographer

Once upon a time I once had a thought about truly tackling the world of commercial photography.

So much so that, once upon a time, I spent a week in the studio working on a portfolio of images.

The initial shots were, well, mucky. But during that time I conceived something else.

Something original even (possibly, arguably).

Little did I know that my simple idea was going to be a hell of a difficult thing to actually capture in camera.

A hell of a difficult!! Because I had decided, even in those somewhat digital days, that I wanted to make as much of the image in-camera, with little post-production.

Each set up took two days to not get a fully realised version.

And I always thought there should be 3 photos in the series, but I couldn't come up with a decent third idea.

Needless to say, these amounted to nothing. The photos needed grading etc. From someone other than me.

I moved on to other things. So the many, many sheets of film I shot that week have languished unseen in storage for the past four years.

Until now.

The Worldfamouswildlifephotographer

Having recently failed to be named New Zealand Geographic Photographer of the Year this year, on my recent roadtrip I decided I was going to reassess my approach to nature photography in order to become the Worldfamouswildlifephotographer lurking in side of me.

Here are my first attempts at producing work that will be completely ignored by anyone with taste and classical/modernist ideas about what nature photography should be.

It might even upset a few people.

Cool.



And the coup de grâce ...