The Musical

Building up to the Arts Festival, this week I've been rediscovering what it's like to go out and do things at night. You know, have a life.

So on Thursday I saw one of my favourite bands from last year. And it was a huge disappointment. Simon Sweetman describes their music as "sharp, sometimes cute, often friendly noisy pop". It's a good description. It is, in fact, the type of music I would make if I ever bothered taking that side of things more seriously - except I'd add more drone, shoegaze and a touch of country (maybe all at the same time).

But (almost) everything about the gig was disappointing. There was hardly any audience. The band seemed low on energy. And the sound was atrocious. On record there's subtlty, harmonies, nice little textures, audible vocals. Live there was very little of any of this. But plenty of mud. So so sad.

On the plus side, there were a number of friends there, who it was good to catch up with.

Then last night was The 3Ds. And they rock!! They have only recently reconvened as a band, and I had forgotten just how brilliant their best songs are. Everything they played was fantastic in every sense.

Having become very accustomed to their recordings, to hear the songs live took them someplace else. They were loud and loose, but oh so tight. They were exactly what I expected and more.

I saw them just the once back in the day, and I can't remember being so taken by the show. But then it was in a tent off Courtenay Place.

The place was packed last night - lots of 30-somethings and older. And more friends to catch up with, and famous bloggers to meet.

All today's pics are from a job I did a few years ago - me playing the cool-as band photographer, cos I play cool-as so well.

As an added bonus I've just uploaded my latest one-take wonder. I like it.

The Things

The things people will (with any luck) pay photographers to photograph.

Tea towels?! Of vague historic value.

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 Fitting

Yes I know, three posts in three days!! What's happening with the world?!

However this seemed somewhat fitting considering the events of the weekend.

This was the paid job I mentioned a whiles back.

It's a nice wee book. Not sure where you can get a copy though.

Probably from the National War Memorial if nowhere else.

This is my favourite photo in the book.

Not that I can remember taking it.

The Nothingness

For quite a while now I've been thinking about photographing nothing.

It's a hard thing to do as photography involves recording light, and in order for light to be reflected, and therefore enable it to be recorded, there needs to be something for the light to reflect off of.

The other day, having only a few other things I should have been doing, I went out and made some images ... of nothing.





Thoughts appreciated.

And here's what I did for New Years - spending hours at the computer trying to make 174 photos look like one shot. Thanks Photoshop.

The Orange

I spent last weekend in Wanganui. It was good fun. Lots of photos taken (though few by me). Lots of good company, good food, and good drink.

This was Friday night. On the balcony. With bbq. Lovely evening. Photo by Dean. Lovely guy. Of me and Jonty. Lovely kid.

And if you're wondering, the sole light source was a big anti-insect candle, and a multi-second exposure. Lovely shot.

The Other End

Please refer to my earlier post for some meaning.

And here's another blogpost you should check out. The photo is like just so amazing!!!

The Excuses

One of the problems with having a 'real' job - besides having to get up earlier than I'm used to - is that I don't have time at computers to regularly continue my online excursions.

For the last couple of years, regardless of what I was doing, I've always tried to get off the computer by 7pm at the latest. Have some pretence of regular working hours.

Now though, being out of the office four days a week means having to come home and check emails, blog, etc in the evening. Call me undedicated, but I'm not that keen on the idea.

So you're going to have to put up with a few weeks of randomness here until things fall into some kind of routine.

It doesn't help that on my day off I took off to the Wairarapa to photograph for an upcoming show.

This is one of the better shots I got, and while I'm not certain its related to what I'm photographing, it seems a bit too coincidental not to be.

I am managing, I think, to continue my daily postings on the old fellas. Shortly I'm off to flickr to pass judgement on a bunch of my students. And if this rain stops, I'll even attempt hanging some washing on the line.

What an exciting Saturday.

The Synchronicity

Some days are just weird.

The other day, for example, I was downtown doing stuff, nothing important, library, po box etc. I decided to pop into Photospace to have a chat with James.

Who should be there when I turned up, but David ex-NZCP. So we have a chat.

Then Catherine and Simon from Thermostat pop in - big surprise seeing as they live in Palmie. Catherine asks me about this thing I applied for a while back. Funnily enough I'd received something from those people that very day. So I open the envelope to find the (completely expected) rejection letter. Oh well. There's always next year.

Then Gabrielle turns up. So we chat.

And all this time James is thinking about the shoot he has to do later and probably wondering why everyone choose that day to pop in.

And then I get a phone call. About a job - a real job - for which I'd been interviewed a couple of days before.

And I leave and I still haven't managed to have the conversation with James I went there to have.

What makes it even crazier is that the same day I had my job interview here, a good friend had a job interview in Palmie. And on this particular day we were both offered the job we interviewed for.

It seemed like the universe was lining things up for us. It was kinda weird. Kinda cool.

Then a couple of days later I got offered a short-term position and suddenly I've gone from having too much time on my hands to not having enough time and not being able to continue the paid work I've been surviving on for the last few years. Ironically, the last few weeks have been quite good work-wise, and the work I'm set to do (probably) won't be as financially rewarding, just more regular.

So despite my best efforts I ain't going to Berlin this year, or Venice next year (though you all knew about that). I am, however, going to The Terrace and to Vivian Street for a while.

Cool. And awesome. Maybe.

The Resignation

Dear Sir,

I hereby resign from this organisation effective immediately.

You have never been one for wanting to properly and effectively confront issues within the organisation but I feel I should offer some explanation as to the reasons for my departure.

1) In the seven odd years that I have been vaguely employed by this organisation I have seen workload and productivity drop. Consequently I have seen a drop in income by the organisation. You may argue about the productivity drop, but it feels as if there has been a dramatic decline in actual productiveness despite the fact that product is still making its way into the public realm.

2) As a boss you suck. You often wile away your time unproductively in front of the computer, spending far too much time reading and writing blogs, or sitting in cafes reading newspapers and drinking coffee. You do not spend anywhere near enough time developing your knowledge base, researching new products, or expanding your market share. If you are not willing to do the work required to see the success of this organisation perhaps you need to delegate more roles to other people within the organisation who are more able to complete the tasks required.

3) Due to the downturn in workload, productivity, and income, the money offered is ridiculous. Some weeks it's a struggle to buy groceries, let alone pay bills - which just build up so when we do get paid well most of that money goes to pay off the debt created when you decided not to pay us very much. So when an organisation came offering a regular, steady income I felt it would be silly to turn them down. And when another organisation also came offering a regular, steady income, albeit short-term, I felt it would be silly to turn them down also.

Now I don't have time to work for you and fritter my life away - except maybe on weekends and evenings.

I wish you and your organisation all the best. I truly hope you can survive without my presence, though I strongly suspect you won't.

Don't call me, I'll call you (maybe when the semester is over).

Screw you, Andy.



It's quite fun resigning from your own self-employment. Almost as much fun as resigning from a 'real' job.

The Road

Those of you who have been lucky enough to have gone to Catherine Russ's (owner of Thermostat) house may well have seen a similar picture to this. Not identical by any means. But similar.

Catherine took hers on a similar stretch of the same road, at a similar time of the day. But on a very different day. I like her shot. I like my shot too.

This shot got me in trouble. We were away on a shoot. I asked the photographer if I could bring a camera. He was hesitant in saying yes. Later I heard he felt it just wasn't done for the assistant to take a camera along too. Ironically I think if I'd shown the photographer the film I shot he may not have been so annoyed.

You see I only got one shot on the film. The last shot. This shot. The one long(ish) exposure. The lens was stuffed. It's shutter wasn't working properly, so those 11 daytime shots of the mountains etc shot at around 1/125 - 1/15 (probably) didn't come out. Cool.

Anyway, that was all years ago and it hasn't affected our working relationship or friendship. But it's all kinda funny.

And in other news:
1) a friend sent me this the other week - an interview with Henri Cartier-Bresson. I started watching it but it's an hour long, so I gave up. Thanks for the link Gabrielle, I will watch it sometime.
2) and in podcast news, I discovered this the other day - Magnum stories.
3) and this, from Lenswork - over 400, mainly short, chats about things photographic.

The Book

A couple of weeks ago I got a phone call.

It happens every now and then.

This one was from John Martin, the Parliamentary Historian.

He is working on a book about the Parliamentary Library, this year celebrating its 150th anniversary.

A few years ago I took some photos there, over the period of a couple of days.

John wants to use a crop of this one for the back cover. Cool.

These others will probably be in there somewhere. I think there may be a colour section in the middle.

The book is due for release in September, and there'll also be a reunion of current and ex-library staff.

Exciting. For some.

Maybe even for me seeing as I have spent about 8 years of my life working there off and on - usually off mind you.

The Worthless

As much as I've been known to diss digital phtography even I admit it has it's good points.

The other day I was out doing some location scouting and on my way home I pulled out the camera and had a play.

I could easily have had the same play with a film camera. But it would have cost me money. And I would have had to wait to see the results. And try to remember how I made each image.

With digital some of this is negated. Though not the need to remember how I made each image.

Not that these images have any value to me beyond the fact that I took them walking home the other day and decided to post them here.

In a way it is just all too easy. Too easy to get worthless and pointless shots. At least when you're paying for film you're likely to take a more considered approach to wasting a hunk of film you've had to pay for.

And a nice not-so-much-of-a-play shot to end with. Cos I like the park. There's something quintessentially antipodean about it what with the eucalypts and the rugby posts.

And I had my digi on me that day.

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.

The Geek

The other day, thanks to my mate Matt, I got to hang out with Flight Of The Conchords for a day. Awesome.

Matt took lots of photos. You may see some around and about in the near future.

I took some photos too - maybe as many as three. Useless photos which have, no doubt, already been trashed by Matt.

As luck would have it I was Bret's stand-in for a couple of shots. Oh the pressure.

This was Matt's comment when he sent this image through, so please bare this in mind when viewing - "Not a great test shot by any means, but here ya go!"

Naturally the finished result will look much better. Not least because it'll have Bret in there instead of me.

Now, of course, Jemaine and I have known each other for ages. All the way back to when my mate Matt started organising weekend basketball. Around Christmas time last year.

Being the geek I am, and taking full advantage of the situation I found myself in, I asked the boys to write my name for me.

And they gratefully obliged. Nice young men they are.

The Clearing

This is what happens when good photography turns bad.

Take a nice location pic, do a poor clearcut to get rid of the background (i.e. the location - which was specifically chosen and used for the illustrative possibilities it offered), and print the thing.

Real nice.

Oh. And have you met my young son? We don't get on too well, cos he's ..... well he's a mummy's boy. About half an hour is all he can manage with me. Which, quite frankly, suits me fine.

The Job

Just been doing a clean out and came across these. From May 2004.

Some days my job really sucks.




See it sucks. So much that it hospitalises you. Not nice.

They were all shot by Paul Fisher. From memory they're all at Hutt Hospital and were for ACC. From memory.

The Weird

After walking nine hours straight through bush as thick as a nuns pubic region, more water then a pregnant mother & boulders larger than a house, insects you could ride on & without anything to eat and it was getting dark just to get the shot, guess what????

This was in an email I just received - image and text - from the guy who made the image and wrote the text. I'm still guessing ... Whaaaaaaaaatttt??????

I can't handle the suspense. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatttt??????

The Stolen

Since I've shot a few polaroids over the last week or so, naturally I've started filing them in such a way that will make it easy to find them again. In doing so I came across a bunch of polaroids mostly of me but mostly not taken by me.

This one fairly obviously relates to my previous post - though it's not as far gone as my version.

Ooohh and no glasses too. Freaky.

I think this one may have been from the same shoot - one of the last times this photographer used polaroids if memory serves me (which it generally doesn't).

This was either for National Library or Telecom (see previous comment re memory).

Heaven only knows. Like the hippy locks. Thank god they've gone. The pen scratch is cool though.

Ooohhh a hospital. All the doctors in this shoot were nurses. Nice. The stories I could tell about this job. But I won't cos I'm lazy. And it'd be difficult for me not to mention the client. And the stories all suggest a certain lack of professionalism and ... well ... enough said.

Sadly, for me anyway, I don't have a huge collection of polaroids from shoots I've worked on. I know one photographer who collected all the polaroids shot of him when he was assisting. And he even wrote lighting diagrams for them. Sad. So sad.

And on another related note, my friend has posted a couple of her polaroid shots taken with my camera. Nice work young lady.