So as far as this index is concerned the shared global experience of COVID will be mentioned here this once. With the daily press updates all but gone, now living in a new city, new career, new dog walking park, I may just have time to spend enegry on this much loved hobby. Looking forward to continuing this work with a few new toys, finally some proper remote flashes and triggers, and having flirted with second hand CCD sensors I’m back with a relatively ancient Pentax K5 swinging around my shoulders. First trip post COVID allowed travel to Tasmania. The Pentax mounted with “new” AF lenses convinced me that I’m not missing anything by not having a battery of old SLR lenses floating around my bag.. Here’s to spending ones own time wondering. Looking forward to be walking around Melbourne again soon.
I started a wordpress blog for my own usage back in 2011, and well, it's been fun. This is a continuation for my own sake as well, I still enjoy taking random pictures of stuff.
The old site can be found, actually no it's being reindexed. For the meantime, no promises it will survive 2020, I'll have to pull everything out eventually.. To save you clicks, scoll onward for the early history oh why you ended up here.
It's not quite a livejournel(tm), heck it's not far from it..
This space has travelled far from it’s original intentions, and that’s ok. What has remained consistent however is an interest in the visual arts. If you are wickedly interested, start at the bottom and work backwards. That should near enough give you an overview in how it has globally changed since, er April 2011..
To centralise things you will find below updates to wild claims I have made every once and a while. Consider the posts below a topic sentence to explain the current thread or theme present in the posted material on the site proper.
If nothing else, a slightly more clearly articulated explanation of where my head rests in relation to the purpose of these posts.
Dan
Things slowed down here as life got in the road. A move to Sydney should have provided plenty of excuse to explore but I confess I have been caught up looking for my feet.
Feeling only settled now (4 months later) time has made itself available to me again to pursue things that go click. I’m happy, yet admittedly sad to have finished the 52 image work. The collection can be found here, which has provided a real treat scrolling over them all, as well as providing a bit of focus towards imagery it has accidentally become a wonderful time capsule of the last year(s).
The focus is still with trying to be as clear as possible with imagery.
More work to do.
Another year later and I find myself still enjoying this place. The act of discovery is slowing, but the enjoyment in structuring an image is still a focus and a cause of enjoyment.
This update need not be anything other then I still enjoying the art form.
A third party website has provided a nice challenge, no, cause for focus as I continue to learn. Half way through I’m looking forward to the story it shows me at the end.
I’m having a great deal of fun exploring light with a couple of remote triggered flashes. I think this must have been the most significant update and change to my preferences. All in all one step closer to inviting real people on to the other side of the lens.
Visual imagery still excites me and I still feel like I have some way to sharpen my tools so I can be clear in presenting subjects. A few online communities earlier this year gave me a good purpose to explore relationships in effort to stage a few shots, and this was far less daunting then I imagine it would have been 5 years ago. It was promising that at least I had in mind some plan of attack to present it all.
Still, more focusing of craft, more reading of other wonderful photographers before me, more experimenting, more playing!
Oh Marina Abramović. She needs to be listed here to remind me to focus, cut back, and present in the clearest and simplest way possible all whilst being strongly dedicated to what ever the task is.
Whilst the below still speaks true of where my interests lay, I confess to have not spent a lot time chasing it. A transition from uni to work has meant my head has been filled with other concerns. Time permitting I would still chase that expression. I confess to be using photography currently as a outlet and escape not thinking about creating cometary as I always imagined I would like.
I still enjoy line and texture most. Colour still isn’t a huge drive for me as I still enjoy the abstraction BnW gives.
During this time also I have culled my equipment considerably. It was getting out of hand to the point where it was hindering actually creating / listening*. The burden of glut has been lifted immensely and now I approach each outing not with thoughts of magical fairy dust that zyx lens would provide, but more practically with what kind of arrangements do I wish to explore. I do confess to appreciate how an interest in equipment and tech kick started an interest in the medium tho. I’m glad to be getting over that now however.
Still learning craft and understanding relationships, I feel I’m slowly approaching the medium with more respect. These pages here still describe more of a discovery on this journey for me.
I do wish I could be more bold, brave perhaps in my subject matter. I think I had filed this thought as once my craft is at a high standard I will feel comfortable in approaching interesting subjects, but perhaps that is just a cope out. To the deep end with me.
Daniel
* creating / listening. Meaning to some point we don’t create, but listen and observe what is being created around us. The idea I don’t like with creating is one of us taking it out of nature, as if we are responsible for it’s discovery. Although on face value our chosen composition suggests as much, is it not more true to say those arrangements where always there and we just noticed them?
I think the definition is subtle, but still worth exploring and noting.
Taking private troubles and focusing them as public issues. I’ve wanted a compact definition of what I thought photography to be (for me) for some time now. Before one understands the problem one has to know what questions to ask none the less, and it was just yesterday sitting in class that the light-bulb went Crash! C Wright Mills has been floating around forever in the basis of my educational pursuit and its shockingly late just for this connection to be made now.
Still, better late then never, and now I know what questions to frame, I appreciate just how much more powerful this tool of photography is for self reflection and communication.
I’m just glad I can articulate what I love so much about it now. Even if I’m still a little obsessed with form, composition, and other boring constructs of the discipline.
Dan
Now just for the record, I am not really interested in BOOKEH! anymore, I’m quite proud to have grown out of that phase. Also, Hyper sharpness that gets touted as nearly as often as a subject as BOOKEH is also not of interest. I hope this had been evident in what I have posted on here in the last 12 months (well since the last time with page was mended) either way. I really do think it was worth updating and resolving those previous comments that looked if I lingered in that direction.
I find myself still very much interested the communication of photography, and currently find my self mostly interested in trying to capture emotion, narratives and other feelings (Ed. isn’t that what photography is really for?) Admittedly this provides (aside from the continued want of imagining an image) the greatest challenge to strive toward.
This domain will still serve as a record of my development, and I will continue to treat it as such. In saying that I have already excused myself from changing tact some where in the next six months.
I’m still hording old camera gear, but thankfully that seems to be coming to an end now as well.
Looking over the last twelve or so months of posts it’s apparent I dig lines. I’m not sure if that’s telling of my tastes or desires, or just perhaps lines present an idea of stability and strength over what has been a varied year? I could spent the next 100,000w projecting on what I imagine to find interesting in lines, but I shall bite my tongue, finish it here, and keep that in mind as I continue to develop a naive skill set and hobby into something personally rewarding.
For that’s what this is. Personally rewarding in experiment and growth.
Dan
Five months in and well I have cheated from my original pledge and boundaries I set myself. I have become a slight snob and manage to take the K10 with me most places I go. All the glorious mantra once before about form, subject and content I still believe true, and think not my images have become any better because of this technology I now have.
Its just that it’s nice to use an “eye piece” camera as apposed to the viewfinder type of the cannon. I also enjoy better bokeh, and having to force myself to manual control everything with the older M-series and Takumar glass I have void of automation. What that has to do with subject and content however I do not know.. ..
Anyway its save to say that the majority of the content now will be from the hearts of the Pentax. If you are truly concerned the meta data I’m sure will provide ultimate proof as I’m to lazy to edit it.
Recently tho I have been distracted with novels by Ansel Adams and now earn for crazy sharp glorious images. What a glorious distraction visual communication is!
And that is more to the point. This whole .existence is a fantastical distraction away from anything I should otherwise be doing. I suppose every post here is rather proof that I was around and doing something or other where I can at least look back and catalog where my time was spent when the time comes for me to question where the fuck did the year go.
Daniel
Click
This below is the first topic sentence that got me started here. It was the motivation of a 365 challenge I must have read about on mymodernmet with a every growing interest in photography that started me here. Yes it’s worth keeping here (admittedly buried down the bottom) for it provides context as to what has changed since. The idea that tech doesn’t make a photo still resonates clearly within me, even if I do forget it from time to time.
Dan
So you like taking photos of things. Check. So you have trouble finding time to do just that, Check. So why not start some stupid 365 challenge and force yourself to do just that.
If at worst I’m taking better photos in 12 months time then its a win. If in 12 months I can have a chuckle at the year gone by its also full of win. So why not have a crack and catalogue myself?
This slow hobby started when I fell in love with a Pentax ME Super which I borrowed from a mate. The weight, the smell of old film, the cold metal against my hands the mechanical nature of it is just dam sexy! Springs, cogs, wheels, weights, pulleys and screws are just wonderful. I found myself attracted to these finely crafted machines, attracted to their simple execution of something as complicated like catching time.
Since then I have bought my own, and borrowed a K1000 I plan on never giving back. Some where in there I bought a lolly Cannon SX110, and it is this, that shall be my main instrument.
I tend to believe Tech does not make content so lets keep this simple and see how creative one can be with a throw away consumer grade digital.
For this experiment I’m going to try to stick true to treating it as if it is film equipped, and try to limit myself to a single shot for this purpose each day until the 1st of March 2012. In regards to post processing I’m limiting myself to resizing commands for good internet etiquette. That is as tuff as I’m going to get.
Best wish me luck.
Daniel