The Student(s)

One from back in the day.

The Alien

The Momento

This arrived in the PO Box today.

It's a little magazine.

Actually two issues arrived today.

But this one is extra special.

Good on ya Jodi.

You only get a copy if you are a member of PhotoForum. But you probably won't get a copy of that issue if you join now.

I might get around to reading it sometime.

Postscript - Mark Leonard Watts got in touch with me and suggested it would be nice to let everyone know that the cover image is his (as are a number of others in the publication). It's titled Bishoujo 1 (beautiful girl 1) 2009 and you can see more of his work on his website.

The Favourite

Of the many thousands of photos I have taken over the last 15 years or so, this is one of my favourite. Ever.

Not because it's a great photo - though I do love that it is lit entirely by fire and moonlight.

But because it evoke memories of a great night on a great trip in a great place with great company.

It was choice.

The Disembodied

One head, one shoulder.

Two torsos.

Oh look, he does have a head too.

The Modular

While tidying the office recently I also came across a bunch of (ancient) polaroids from 2001.

Near the end of the (academic) year I decided I needed an author pic for the book I was producing.

So I asked one of my fellow students if she would oblige me.

We/I decided on polaroid as the book was all black and white doco and I thought a small bit of colour at the back of the book would be a nice touch.

So I bought a pack of film and we headed around town looking for suitable locations.

I've still got that shirt (and those glasses).

The shirt came from London and has been to pretty much every part of this country with me.

It hasn't always seen the country, but it has been there. I like that shirt.

I've still got those shoes too.

Mainly cos I can't bring myself to throw them out. They were great shoes.

That's a nice shot.

This was the one we/I went with in the end. It's nice, but probably wouldn't be my pick today.

Good focus on this one. Really arty. In a good way.

And this is one I took myself a year or so later. On one of those Fujiroid things.

The Folk

Alongside doing a trillion other things today (okay, maybe that's an exaggeration), I've been kinda tidying the office (long overdue). And I came across the above photos.

Many years ago I was up at a friend's house (when he still lived in this fair city) and he decided that we would each photograph the other. It may have been a test shoot for something or other (I can't really remember as it was many years ago).

Anyway, the above photos were made using a 4x5 camera (or it may have been an 8x10 camera with a 4x5 reducing back - I can't really remember as it was many years ago). The negatives, once developed, were contact printed together to create the above image.

One could suggest it says many things about the relationship of the two people in the image one could if one so wished.

The Arrived

Woo hoo. Well here we are in this mean old town.

I can recommend New Zealand’s Sub-Antarctic Islands as a nice place to visit. They have cool birds, nice seas, beautiful sunrises, rugged outdoors types, and fun photographers.

See .....

That’s a southern royal albatross (or maybe a northern one, I’m not sure the difference except that the southern ones come from the south) somewhere south of Stewart Island.

Mmmmmmmm, Campbell Island at dawn.

Mmmmmmmm, Perseverance Harbour, Campbell Island some time after dawn.

Ooohhhh that’s definitely a southern royal albatross on Campbell Island.

A rugged outdoors type on Campbell Island, west coast. (My god, he’s smiling!! Was he having a good time or something?!)

Wow, and a sunrise east of Auckland Islands framed by HMNZS Te Kaha. With shots like that I could almost be a landscape photographer.

And a rugged outdoors type sitting in JRs on HMNZS Te Kaha pretending to be intently doing digital stuff in Lightroom when in fact he was playing FreeCell.

That’s me on the right and Stephen Jaquiery, Illustrations Editor ODT, roommate, general good guy and pisstaker on the left sitting on Enderby Island waiting for our damn taxi home. (Photo courtesy Sarah Cowhey, NHNZ.)

I'm already planning my next visit. Roll on Masters project, the thesis of which will be along the lines of 'how can I get to New Zealand’s Sub-Antarctic Islands for an extended period at someone else's expense?'

The Geeks

I was whisked away to Wanganui last Friday.

Well actually I did the whisking, but it was only organised Thursday night.

I took these geeks to Peter Black's opening.

Bloody photographers.

And this is the backyard of where we stayed.

I can fully recommend it as a place to say in Wangavegas should you need somewhere nice, and cheap.

The Message

Every now and then, well once, I take a camera to work with me and shoot stuff on the way to and from work.

I shot these on the way from. They weren't what I set out to shot, but I decided to take a different route home. A muddy one as it turned out.


All hand-held multi-second exposures. Tripods are for wimps!!

For the past week I've had a friend staying, and I should probably advertise his show so ....

You are invited to the opening of Mixed Messages, an exhibition & installation by Hong Kong-based arist David Boyce. The opening is 5pm to 7pm, Thursday 21st August. David will attend.

Mixed Messages runs until 15th September.

The Zenith

When I posted this, one of my regular readers commented "good luck with the hockey, look forward to seeing the "damage photos" ".

Well I'm kinda over photographing my injuries. For one thing it's actually quite difficult to get good photos of your own leg and associated scrapes/bruises/swellings etc. Also it's quite egotistical, and frankly writing a blog is egotistical enough. Lastly, and possibly most importantly, my earlier injury posts didn't solicit any way near enough sympathy from you guys.

It's not as if I haven't had the injuries already this year. A few weeks ago I counted no less than 12 individual bruises on my person, about 4 of which covered a large portion of my left thigh. And I've had a nicely swollen ankle for two weeks now.

Today however I feel justified with posting the following images.

They document some very serious damage. Very serious indeed. I would suggest fatal were it not for the fact that I'm writing this.

Here is a nice demonstration of how photography can be used to deceive; to obscure the truth; to tell the story the photographer wants to tell.

Turn the stick 90 degrees and you see the head is only hanging on thanks to the fibreglass shell.

Mmmmmmm broken wood. Naturally this happened prior to the game, when I made a miracle save by sticking my stick out hoping it'd connect with the fast moving ball. Ummm ... I think it did connect somewhat.

Guess what I'm doing this week?

Oh, and some other rubbish which may be of interest.

Firstly a couple more reviews - The National Grid (by me) and Rita Angus (by a regular).

And, it's quite surprising what you discover about yourself when you do a Google search trying to find online comments about your latest project.

Somehow this came up. What was surprising was this comment on page 32.

           Religious Studies
           1–20 September 2007
           Thermostat Gallery, Palmerston North
           Three Christian photographers explored biblical
           themes through nature and a critique of consumerism
           in Hong Kong. Andy Palmer: Some of the silences in
           my life, David Boyce: Elective affinities, Jodi Ruth
           Keet: When the thousand years are over.

I'm not sure how long I've been a Christian photographer. It's not a label I would ever have given myself, and I feel it'd be safe to say David and Jodi wouldn't chose that particular epithet either. For myself it's largely cos I'm not a Christian, but why split hairs.

The Chrysalis Seed Trust "aims to help resource artists from a Christian perspective" so it's no surprise they chose to see certain things in a show called "Religious Studies". Our own fault I guess.

Interestingly, a few days after the opening when I was taking David up north, we stopped in on Jodi at Raglan and the CST guys were there holding a meeting. David and Jodi went, I stayed home. The next day David and I bumped into them at the Waikato Museum. It was obvious to me that 1) my work didn't leave much of an impression on them, 2) they really had no idea what each of us were/are about.

That's what happens when you put things into the public sphere. People attach their own meaning regardless of what meaning the artist hopes it may have for others.

That's one of the reasons why I do this dumb thing.

The Flaneur

As I've stated before I can be pretty secretive guy when it comes to what I'm working on.

One of those secret projects (previously mentioned here) opens tonight. So if you're in the vicinity of the St James between 6-8pm tonight come pop along, tell them I sent you.

Recently a council bylaw was passed stating that all Wellington residents and visitors have to visit the site on at least two occasions - once during daylight, once at night. You are also required to stand around, look intently (and intelligently), murmur occasionally, and make pretentious statements about NZ identity, the nature of photography, and the role of Art in public spaces.

It's been a really exciting project to be involved with, and I'll almost certainly be blogging about it more over the next few days/weeks.

I have co-curated the work alongside my previously mentioned council advocate. Again it was largely an organisational role, though Simon effectively lead that. My main role was to find talented individuals whose work could be included in the show.

I think I did a marvellous job there.

The idea was that the entire show was collectively curated by all the participants rather than having one or two people making dictatorial pronouncements about what was and was not suitable work. There were moments of intense debate, especially early on, as people were presenting work, and having it shot down, or exalted. Almost surprisingly some work was instantly accepted by everyone. But then I did ask that person because I thought those images were perfect for the project.

We've been at it for eighteen months, and it's wonderful to see it finally come to fruition.

You have to get along sometime. Soon!!

You may have noticed that I've told you next to nothing about the what the project is. This will give you little help.

Above are my images in the show. Out of context they'll make no sense. In context they may make no sense. But, not to give anything away, that might just be their purpose. Maybe.

The works are titled "where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? #1" and "where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? #2".

I really have to give a huge and public thanks to Simon Bush-King, departing WCC Urban Designer, whose idea the project was. As well as designing a lovely inner city space, he has been a huge advocate for public art, and public interaction with and interrogation of the urban environment. He was also the driving force behind IntensCITY 2007. Sadly for us, and Wellington urban design, Simon is heading overseas shortly to spread his vision around the globe. Thanks mate, awesome job.

Also I need to give an honourable mention to Eric Holowacz, ex-WCC Arts Programmes and Services Manager, now doing a similar role in Key West, who introduced Simon and I after hearing very nice things from lots of people about this. Thanks mate, you started a fruitful partnership.

Oh, and I suppose I should thank everyone else involved who were so willing to be involved and give their time and energy over the last few months. Thanks guys, great job. Let's get pissed.

The Dinner

Crazy crazy life.

I'm knackered. Had a crew around today, making a mess of my lovely house.

We were pretending my place was a student flat. I cooked breakfast for everyone. At 11.30am. Probably a bit early for students really.

Anyway, I saw these pics and thought they fitted today's theme rather well.

The inaugural dinner at our London flat, about ten years ago.

It was Indian from around the road. We didn't go back again. Ever.

And this was the lounge. With flatmates. And flatmate's sister. And flatmate's girlfriend. And awesome furniture. It was quite a nice flat actually.

Then we moved out and Girlfriend and I did this, amongst other things, while other flatmate and his girlfriend moved to a different part of London altogther, and had to put up with Girlfriend and me constantly crashing at their place/lovenest.

The Amsterdammer

I'm having a bit of a clean up. I've got a crew coming around on Wednesday to do a shoot and I kinda feel like I need to get the place looking less single guy like.

In my clean up I came across this.

Oddly enough there's a story that goes with it.

Many many years ago I went to Amsterdam. I went there with my then girlfriend. New Zealand had just started a working holiday scheme with The Netherlands. We intended to take full advantage of it.

Unfortunately because the scheme was so new it wasn't working properly. We had to go through the exact same procedure as if we were wanting to emigrate to The Netherlands. It was complex, lengthy, costly, and a pain in the arse. It required us to have jobs before getting residency. And potential employers required us to have residency before offering us a job. It was not a working holiday scheme.

So we had three weeks in Amsterdam then went back to London. My work visa for the UK had expired, but somehow I managed to get through immigration after a tense ten minute discussion during which I fully expected to be sent packing. Having been allowed in we proceeded to find work and stayed for another few months before heading back to lil' ol' NZ.

Anyway the above photo was taken in Amsterdam. At Nieuwendijk 196 C, Amsterdam apparently. By Combi Chic apparently. Also apparently it is an Audio Foto. Go figure.

Hard to believe that was nine years ago.

Hard to believe that was once my life.

The Singularity

Those of you who are avid readers of mine, constantly checking on new comments and that kind of stuff may be interested in this picture. Maybe.

The person in that image has cropped up on this blog at various times and is about to again.

And again.

And again.

Oh, and again.

Oooohhh. And one last time. For now.

This shot may well have been taken the day I picked up my EOS10D piece of crap. If not that very day then certainly within the first week.

Isn't that just so exciting?!

The Help

On Tuesday night I went to a play - a real good play, a different play.

I went cos I don't go to plays often enough - been averaging about once a year lately. But also cos a couple of months back I assisted Sharyn do some photography for the play people.

This was the full extent of my assistance. Unless you count eating olives and drinking wine.

I feel I haven't done my job if I haven't somehow managed to make my presence felt digitally.