The beach

I've initiated a new project, but it's kind of a retrospective initiation, if that's not an oxymoron - the one you begin when you've already done it. Actually, that's not exactly true; I have consciously been photographing the beach and beach life for a long time, principally because I grew up 100m from it and so it was integral to my upbringing (and it was a handy, easy to reach subject). I've spent many hours over the last couple of days going through some old contact sheets and scanning negatives - some of which I never even printed in the darkroom ten years ago or more when I took them. It's amazing - like a discovery of someone else's photography, only I took them.

Focussing on this project has really sharpened my view on what I'm doing - even without taking a single (additional) photo. It's a good feeling. And even if most of these images I edit out of the final project it's heartening to see a progression and development from images I was making eight or ten years ago, and those that I'm making now (not that I live 100m from the beach now though).

The dodgy looking character below is me, in Melbourne in 2000. (Thank goodness I got rid of those glasses). The bird who's seen better days is somewhere outside of Adelaide, also in 2000.



It's interesting to me that I posted the photograph on St Kilda beach that I took last month just a week ago. I hadn't thought about going back and scanning these old photographs of the beach until just a few days ago. Odd that that photograph was originally taken in colour and I have presented it in black and white. Black and white at the beach pleases me more, although I have seen a few more colour photographs creeping their way in. Admitedly the black and white looks like a dated aesthetic now that every photographer worth his salt takes colour, but stuff it - I like it.

What's most exciting (at least, to me) is to "find" all these photographs that I didn't know I had taken ...or more precisely, that I'd forgotton that I'd taken, ... or perhaps even more precisely still that I didn't notice that I'd taken when I took them.

Anyway, the point is I've found them again. The project goes on.

Myri

This is a photograph of Myriam in Borough market in November last year. She visited us from Madrid for a few days and we wandered around a freezing cold London. She's going to El Salvador today for about a year (where it is likely to be a lot warmer).

BJ is going to South America

BJ is leaving for South America next week. T&L had a party for him last night. This photograph is of L & BJ after the party, walking back to bar69:
And because I feel as if I don't keep my blog contemporary enough, here's a photography I took an hour ago. M having only recently emerged from the bedroom:

Nelson & his column

Snow!

This was the wintry wonderland that I woke up to this morning. The scene from my bedroom window, and from my front balcony


Great to wake up and find that while you were sleeping the city has been covered in a white blanket. Beautiful! There was a headline in the paper on the way home on the tube this evening, something along the lines: "London today. And it's going to get WORSE." With a picture of London under snow. I don't understand it. If what they meant is it's going to snow some more then I can only imagine it's going to get BETTER. Bring it on, I say.

St Kilda beach, Melbourne, Dec 2006.

Longboat, London, 2006.

Once you open them you have to consume them.

A short conversation with M:

me: honey, where's that other bread stick we bought the other day - you know, the one you cook in the oven?

m: it's gone.

me: what, you mean the other one too?

m: yes.

me: you ate all of it? all yourself?

m: yes, gone in this end [points at mouth] and out the other end [makes pooping noise]

me: oh, okay then.

m: once you've opened them you have to consume them. it says so on the packet.

me: oh.

Yet another Melbourne breakfast.

While I'm on the theme, here's another one. I don't remember deliberately photographing breakfast outings, but there seem to be a lot of them when I'm scanning them several weeks after the event...

Another Melbourne breakfast.

Dec, 2006.

Breakfast

There are variable perceptions of "breakfast." Australians (especially Melbournians) have one of the best. Breakfast is a meal as worthy of going out for as lunch or dinner. And it's a meal that can be simple or elaborate, healthy or not. In London all it ever is is fried sausage/egg/chips/bacon/beans - fried fried fried - which is nice, once in a while, but a little variety wouldn't hurt. I just wish someone would do breakfast in London the way they do it in Melbourne...


Melbourne, Dec 2006.

E, Melbourne Dec 2006

R&J, Melbourne, Dec 2006

sapient iguana

I decided it was time I came out. I've put my real name on my profile.

L in Greece

And because it's her birthday today, I'm posting this photo of L. It's one of my favourites of her. It was early morning on a ferry from Athens, heading towards the island of Milos, an island we'd chosen at random. The huge ferries in Greece are a place of contemplation - they're so huge you can lose yourself on them, find a little corner with no-one else around ... to sit and stare at the sea. Nothing else. It's calming, medatitive and - often - beautiful. This photo reminds me of that feeling.

M in Paris

August 2003. M and I went to Paris. It was the hottest weekend for years; the trains stopped, the shops closed, the population staying indoors and (many of them) dropped dead from heat exhaustion. They hadn't seen such heat for years and didn't know how to cope. This was the weekend M and I chose to go to Paris.

This photo is taken in the Paris Metro. I thought, there's nowhere else I'd rather be. There's no-one else I'd rather be here with. It was the weekend I fell in love...

View Point. Magnifies the view 10 times.

- Bognor Regis, 2006.

A sheep

M's father has a house in northern Spain - Asturias - in a little village called Santovena. At the back of the house is an orchard and a river. A little sheep visited us every day. We ate fruit from the trees. A few days later we drove down to Madrid for a few more days before returning to London.

A large format and a digital

So, I've been the owner of a large format (a 5x4" Tachihara) camera for a few months now. I bought this a month or two before M presented to me the gift of a new digital SLR. The two couldn't be more different ... the first is careful, considered, time consuming, expensive... the second the antithesis of that.

I love them both!

Admitedly the 5x4 has taken a bit of getting used to (6x loading film in reverse = underxposed shots, 2x removing from the camera the film holder minus the slide = ruined shots, 5x light getting in the top of the film holder = exposed edges, 1x double exposure of the same sheet of film (when i get the results back my subject tells me it's "artistic" - I think it's crap) ... etc - you get the picture) but the rewards are great. Examining a good transparency on the light box with a loupe the quality is incredible. I love it.

Here is a large format photograph of my dear Nonna, taken two weeks ago in Melbourne, three days after her 90th birthday:



It loses something in the scan and down size of the file but you get the idea. I don't normally mention what camera took what image on the blog, but the above one here is taken by the large format. The new digital (a Canon EOS400D) took the photos of M smoking posted a few days ago. The rest are taken with either a medium format (Mamiya 7ii) or 35mm (Leica M6TTL). Carrying about all 3 formats is a bit of a feat, especially when it's on a flight to Australia (a few weeks ago, stopping off in Dubai and Singapore) i thought my shoulder might just give way. But just look at the pictures!

I like using the large format because suddenly subjects realise the importance - the gravity - of what's going on when this huge contraption is pointed at them. They concentrate and learn not to move and are interested in all the flapping about with reflectors and light meters and such that the large format requires. So consequently the results reflect subjects' sense of import. I like that. I'll continue to post some results as I get them processed.

M&O, Santovena, Spain. 2006.

M smoking, London Jan 2007

2007 - first post

i've been thinking, i need to get back to the blog. So, here's a photo i took in Australia a few weeks ago. My nephew / godson, O.