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 Bloom

The Self-important

I'm feeling particularly uninspired at the moment - at least as far as writing this blog goes. Swings and roundabouts etc.

So you get two self-portraits. One recentish. One very not recentish.

I can hear you all now exclaiming "Oh the joy. Oh the excitement.".

The Hug

Random people.

On a random street.

In a random city.

By a random photographer.

With a random camera.

The Factory

It's an old photographic cliché the photographer photographing their shadow. Sometimes it is the reason for the shot. Other times, like this, it just happens to be the right (or wrong) combination of subject placement, sun placement, and photographer placement.

I probably could have arranged myself slightly more artistically.

Or I could have walked away and shot the building from a different angle.

Oh look. I did.

And in case you're wondering, though you probably aren't, the factory is across the road.

From the building in these photos.

Not from my place.

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 Conglomerated

Cambridge apparently.

There was the possibility it was Amsterdam.

But this kinda rules that out.

The Rural

The House

The Fuel

Once again we visit the magical year of 2000.

Once again we visit an "Editorial" assignment. This time an actual editorial shoot.

I shot Fuel. Espresso.

I got top marks for the assignment.

I spoke to a journalism student.

She approached Cuisine about doing a story.

They said "we've done a story on coffee in each of the previous three issues, so thanks but no thanks."

So these nice photos have the pleasure of being my first rejected photos.

Awesome.

And my latest review of a nice little artists book is online too.

The Super

Yet another bloody idea which I got bored with. Or something.

Actually with this it was partly because I broke my projector while pretending to fix it. And partly because I sent my camera swimming out at Titahi Bay, and it took ages to find a decent replacement (which I don't think I've actually shot anything on). And partly because I got bored.

From memory the reason I was trying to fix my projector was because it wasn't turning properly. The film slowed to the extent that the projection bulb melted it. That's why I ended up with fragments of length to play with. And being a hoarder I couldn't exactly chuck them out.

The idea was to shoot lots of Super 8 and make still images from portions of meant-to-be moving film.

Okay, so it's not exactly a new idea. And I only ever made these two images. But it's still an idea. And one I may revisit again sometime.

Once I get my projector fixed.

If I can be bothered.

The Fellas

The other week I did some really bad scanning for a friend. Really bad cos she gave me film that wouldn't fit any of my film holders - it was some old stuff.

I've got no idea who these guys are, but I like the image.

Anyway her pictures got me thinking.

About this.

And how I ought to actually follow through with my promise. So now, eighteen odd months after its launch, we get the exciting second posting.

It's going to be simple. No title, just images, labelled either Palmer or Houghton. The label relates to who took the image or where the image was sourced from. Generally the Palmer photos were taken by George Palmer, and the Houghton photos were taken by many different people. I've currently got over 1500 images to post, and that's likely to grow. I'm going to try to post daily but there's no saying that'll happen.

Some of the images are pretty cool. Some pretty crap. I know some of the people in some of the photos. Some are relatives, who I may or may not know.

Hopefully you'll find it vaguely interesting too.

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.

The Wanderer

Yesterday was a bit of a strange day. For me. Though it took a while for me to notice.

You see for the afternoon I was truly playing the role of 'The Artist'. Now you might argue it's a role I play regularly. But what made yesterday different was that I spent a few hours wandering our hill working.

Actually looking for specific images. Not just snapshooting. Which is my usual Wellington mode. In fact it's my usual anywhere mode.

It felt strange to me. Though I'm not sure why. Maybe it's cos I haven't been shooting much lately. Maybe it's cos I was with Hasselblad not Horseman. Maybe it's cos I'm capricious. Maybe.

The new work is provisionally titled one day, in a town on the edge of the world, the tide went out and never returned. Though I may use that title for a different but related series, so this one might be called you shouldn't have to say goodbye and wonder if this way is how it's gonna be.

Or it may not.

Anyway, after twenty eight shots I'm not convinced I got anything of value. And in fact I'm only speculating that the idea and work is of any value.

That shot up there is an image that probably won't make either series, but it has some potential for something. Somewhere. At least according to Jodi.

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 Horizon

Way back in um ... hold on, checking now ... opening catalogue ... um .... 2002 I had an idea.

The idea was called *scapes, though I noted at the time that I "could also call it fake horizons or imitation horizons or manufacturing horizons or something".

I'm not sure if something was actually a suggested title or just a concluding statement. Anyway, you kinda get the idea.

It was about making landscapes from non-landscapes - such as polling station signs.

And windowsills.

And um ... other things (again with the McCahon).

I was hoping to do something with these. In fact I was hoping to collaborate with another artist (a non-photographic artist!!) to realise this series. But our talks fizzled to nothing. I think we both needed the other to do something so we could respond, rather than trying to build up an idea from, well, an idea.

Also, it appears I only took two films for this. I think I got to the point where I realised it was very easy to get shots, but much less easy to get worthwhile shots. These five, I guess, are the best from the 70 odd shot.

Part of the problem relates to this comment I posted recently specifically about digital abstraction but :

it seems to me that there are inherent issues with the digital playground. i remember a show patrick reynolds had at tinakori gallery a few year back where he heavily pixelated his images, and blew them up big. they were nicely abstracted. but after seeing two of them i didn’t need to see any more. i felt the same with brian’s work.

i am yet to see a show where the use of photoshop to abstract images has resulted in a decent show; where the original idea, however good or bad, has been successfully transferred across a number of images required to make a show, while retaining the necessary individual vitality of each image.

I don't know if it's just me, but I strongly feel that it is much harder to do decent abstraction in photography, or at least to create a decent body of work from abstraction. Generally I find the idea, the conceit, wears thin very quickly.

There are photographers who do it very well - this one being my main point of reference.

I still like these horizon pics. But I got bored. As I tend to do. Too often.

But not before I got one of the transparencies printed on backlit film - using a positive as a negative to create a positive.

Kinda cool, but I think I prefer the positive positive positive over this positive negative positive.

The Early

As my first year of studying photography was winding up I decided to make the leap into the digital world.

These are amongst the first digital images I made.

At my flat at 38 Rolleston Street.

That's me nonchalantly playing guitar.

That's me nonchalantly playing guitar.

That's me nonchalantly holding guitar.

Interestingly, a couple of years back there was this thing on TV3, Campbell Live from memory, and these guys were standing in a room, and I went 'hey, that room looks kinda familiar.'

It was kinda familiar. It was my old bedroom.

Bret had turned it into a music room. At least that's what it looked like.

Gosh New Zealand is such a small country. Double gosh, Wellington is such a small part of that gosh small country.

The Graduation

Last week there were a few strangely dressed folk wandering around town, mainly in the vicinity of the Michael Fowler Centre.

My guess is it was graduation week.

I took these images in 2000, as part of an "Editorial" assignment, specifically 'The Decisive Moment'.

This young man was poking his tongue out prior to the parade from the Law School to Civic Square.


This young lady was amongst the parade walking into Civic Square. I don't know her. My guess is she saw my long lens and thought I was from the press, and seeing I was focussed in her direction, decided to respond to me. I bet she was disappointed the picture wasn't in the paper the next day.

I wasn't disappointed however, cos we were required to get 3 'direct gaze' images. This was a winner.

The Food

I was recently looking through my disk drives and found a folder called, interestingly enough, 'scans'.

In it were lots of images, mainly taken around the time of my studies. At the beginning of the century.

These two were taken midway through the year one for the 'Studio' paper.

I really like this one. It's M&Ms and coffee beans (I think) in little sake bowls/glasses with a sake bottle in the background.

As we were taught by a commercial photographer he was keen on getting us to write a brief prior to shooting. For this assignment he decided that we weren't allowed to change our idea once we'd submitted our brief.

My brief idea was 'gourmet baked beans', which basically meant served in a soup bowl with parsley garnish and paprika artistically sprinkled around the plate. Baked beans cos it meant not needing to shoot freshly cooked food - thinking see.

Consequently I couldn't use the M&Ms image, even though it was better than the baked beans idea - better technically and as an idea. Still, that didn't stop me shooting it. Obviously.

I took this one early in the day. The wine, rose, and glass were all props from home. Still got much of the wine cos I don't drink enough - not by myself at home anyway.

In the early days of my studio photography I was very keen on low light, enough to record detail, while adding a certain mood. Now I don't do studio work at all.

The Newfangled

After Sunday's debacle, I just had to do something.

I did this. I'm now the proud owner of a brand new Mazon Pro Force 1000.

How exciting.

Interestingly that hunk of wood and stuff cost the same as this hunk of plastic and stuff. Which I bought last Wednesday. They could almost be a matching set seeing as they share similar colour palate.

I just have to remember which one stops hockey balls the best.

And which one I can more easily load film into.

As many of you will know, last year I spent far too much money on this thing, only to shoot one roll of film on her, then putting her to the top of my camera cabinet. Diana + Edelweiss is my everyday Meg - not that I'll be play with her everyday.

I shot a roll on her last Friday, but what with the lack of decent labs in town, I'm having real trouble finding somewhere that processes film which doesn't need three days of flattening before I scan it. Post to come.

Oh, and someone finally gets me. Maybe. "Prolific, humorous, self deprecating and with pictures beyond the ordinary." I've always wanted to be prolific.

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 Candlelight

Well a call to my ISP sorted out that little problem, so now we're up and running again, close to full speed. Yay.

Tomorrow is the 25th Anniversary Candlelight Memorial.

Here are some shots I took during the Candlelight Memorial Parade in 2001.

It was the first proper shots I took for this project. Because what I wanted to do was rather sensitive, at the time of the parade I was still uncertain as to whether I'd get the go ahead for the project or not. It seemed silly to let this opportunity pass by, regardless of what happened with my project.

I've previously blogged this last year on World AIDS Day, but it's worth a revisit.

I may be there tomorrow night, depending on how I feel after hockey - sore, drunk, pathetic, etc. I feel kinda conflicted these days because my project didn't end in the best of circumstances, and while I'm still interested in the cause, and every now and then I bump into and chat to people I photographed, I didn't feel terribly welcome when I last went to an event. Admittedly that was some years back. So you never know, I may just pop along.

The Issue

On Monday my computer died - much like this bird.

On Tuesday night we managed to revive it.

Yesterday I finally managed to go online again. But only via dial-up. I can feel my life slipping by as a wait for emails to arrive and web pages to load.

So I probably won't be here again until that's sorted out.

In the meantime here's another post about my latest project, and one in which I diss a book bigtime (ooh I'm such a bitchy critic).

By the way, I came across that bird sometime in the summer on one of those rear occasions when I was wandering around town with my digi, though I can no longer remember why I was doing so, but I'm sure it had some real purpose to it.

The Random

Just some random stuff about me and my life cos I know you're all so interested.

A few months ago, at the National Library, there was an exhibition about Manapouri and the protest movement that is synonymous with the name. It was an interesting show to see if for no other reason than for it's mix of art and history.

As part of the show I saw a book which I never knew existed. I thought it looked interesting. An early (1960) New Zealand conservation treatise by J. T. Salmon. I tracked down a copy at Wellington Public Library, and then a purchasable copy at Bibliomania - fine books, fair prices indeed. It arrived the other day - five days after ordering it. This internet thing is great.

And the cover is so cool. Both of its time and timeless. A bit like the contents (if you ignore all the legislation and Government Department stuff).

And my latest project is getting some coverage. Not as much as we'd like of course. But at least some people are paying attention.

And, just cos I know you're all so very very interested, hockey is starting in earnest this weekend, i.e. the result actually means something. And Wellington Hockey has been kind enough to post the schedule for Round One. So here's my next few Sundays sorted for me.

Sun 11th May 2008	5:15 p.m.	NHS1	Naenae 1	Petone 1
Sun 18th May 2008	1:00 p.m.	NHS2	Naenae 1	Karori 1
Sun 25th May 2008	3:45 p.m.	NHS1	Naenae 1	Victoria 2
Sun 8th Jun 2008	11:30 a.m.	NHS2	Northern United 2	Naenae 1
Sun 15th Jun 2008	11:15 a.m.	NHS1	Indians 2	Naenae 1
Sun 22nd Jun 2008	4:00 p.m.	NHS2	Naenae 1	Harbour City/Tawa 2
Sun 29th Jun 2008	12:45 p.m.	NHS1	Hutt 2	Naenae 1

Come along, join in the fun. It's a much more exciting and skillful game than rubgy. And you get the added bonus of (probably) seeing me get hurt. What more can you possibly want in a sports game?!

The Blogger

I believe I've said this before, but this internet thing is kinda cool. Sometimes you're wandering around, avoiding what you should be doing, claiming a lack of inspiration when it’s actually a lack of pathy, and you come across something cool, without actually remembering how you got there.

This is one of those things. It’s not the easiest site to navigate around, but the idea is lovely, and some of the images are phantastisch. And this isn't one of them.

What I should have been doing was busy intellectualising my work, and writing another application/proposal. I don't know how other people find the time for writing, let alone shooting - especially those working fulltime (like Gavin and Wayne and Anne and Ann and others).

This application/proposal writing thing is a strange beast. I spend hours in front of the computer, at cafes, wandering the streets thinking about myself. Then I try to put it in words which hopefully suit the language requirements of those making the selection – high brow or lower brow as the case may be – while pretending I know what the hell I’m on about.

And then I'm left wondering whether its actually worth the time and effort and bother cos I never get them anyway. But I want to be in this for the longhaul. I want to make my living as a fulltime artist. So I need to put myself forward for Residencies and Prizes. Hopefully one day, I'll start winning some, getting my name out there a bit more, and getting my fame, fortune and harems.

Over the weekend I was thinking about chucking in finishing this one off. Even after having spent getting on for $100 getting prints made, buying presentation folders etc., drinking coffee in cafes while reading through draft after draft.

But fortunately for this one, I needed letters of recommendations to go with my proposal. Usually it's names of referees they want with the application, not actual letters. So having convinced three people to write wonderful things about me and my practice I felt I would be abusing that friendship and trust if I didn't finish it and get it in the post (which I did yesterday).

So thanks guys. Now it's in the hands of God - or CNZ.

Oh. In case you're wondering the photos posted have nothing to do with the posting. I just thought I should post photos seeing as I pretend I'm a photographer and this is a photoblog. They were taken last year with a special camera which has not been used since. Not that I'm a sad bugger or anything.

Miserable maybe. But not sad.