We moved house to City Beach last week.
I thought it would be fun to see our progress over time. This happened every 60 seconds and I chopped out the boring bits like sleep and work etc. The room goes from neat-ish to messy several times.
As life would have it, when I want to ramp up more of the fun things, I get the things that I’d rather not have. A roster crammed with work, more consulting roles, more tastings, and less time to do it all in.
So you could say this is a form of apology for all the readers seeking small bar information. I’ll endeavour to visit more in the next few weeks.
But as for now, I’m a little anxious over a wedding that a friend of mine has shanghaied me into photographing. She ’strongly insisted’ that I do the photography for her, this being the first ever paid gig.
Ah well, she loved the pre-wedding shoot, and I’m sure it can’t be that bad. They’re an electric couple and capturing that energy won’t be hard.
And to the bride and groom, I wish you the best of what life has to offer.
Fingers crossed.
Living in a country with no native deciduous trees (except Tasmanian Beech), it’s quite a novelty this time of the year when we get treated with spectacular colours of ’Fall’. Most notable of all cases, Liquid Amber aka American Sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) appears to ignite into flames of yellow, orange, red then deep purple.
Its a commonly planted tree in the many Shires, adapting to the Mediterranean climes of Perth from it’s homeland in warm temperate America. One in full bloom is a awesome sight to behold, but as transient as this display is, announcing the shorter colder days of winter, is soon gone leaving a bare frame behind. Take in the free things in life; the beauty of nature.
Imagine you’re walking along the street in the city and you see someone ‘spray painting’ a car or building. An legitimate response would be “Criminal”, “Derro Kids” or even, “Vagabond youth causing wanton destruction”. But how about if it was virtual?
A relatively new outlet for artists to vent their creative talent (and non-damagingly on property) is street projections. This requires –you guessed it- projector, some digital interface (usually a laptop, tablet PC or palmtop) and a power source. Include in there eager crowds of onlookers wanting to give their ‘2 cents’ worth of contribution and you have a recipe for an exciting night. Jerrem , being the instigator of this new tangent, acquired the necessary equipment and we hit the streets of Mt Lawley one balmy autumn night. Prospect of imminent downpour from the burgeoning cumulonimbus east and west kept us on our toes; ready to dash for cover to save few thousand dollars worth of camera/ projection equipment.
The artist canvas is the table pc software designed for drawing. You use a stylus like a brush and choose from a virtual paint board. You can mix, smear, splodge, dab or any other highly technical paint action. You can project pretty much on anything but obviously white flat surfaces work best. Curious passes by are encouraged to paint what they like; in a hope to encourage expression of that particular individual (within reason obviously). The hope for this is to foster interaction between strangers, creating a sense of community; grandiosely in the end, to a better society.
What lies ahead in street projecting you may ask?
With the advent of Wii remote (Bluetooth infrared sensor enabled camera/ controller), you are able to, whilst using it as either a camera sensor, or controller, ‘virtually’ control the street projection. Now a whole box of goodies has come into the equation. Infrared enabled devices like pens, mock-spray cans, ‘IR bouncy balls’ and paint rollers etc… You could spray paint a car, or buildings legally, ‘tag it up’ and not have any trace of it after the projector is silenced. Jerrem is fast developing this new interface, with sometimes the help and sometimes hindrance of me. But all in all, it’s for creative freedom and fuller expression for us and for passersby.
To begin with the famous and perhaps clichéd maxim, ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’, is often reiterated ad nauseam, for countless images of meagre sentimental value. It is only natural for us- as the trivial humans that we are- to place things in boxes, to categorise and bring seemingly inordinate array of items/ themes/ narratives into some coherent fashion. Perhaps this makes us make sense of the world. After all, in a world where things followed no course would be like a ship without a sail (not to mention counter-evolutionary – when you are being chased by a predatory cat you need to make quick decisions). I would hazard a guess to say it would be a sense of ‘meaninglessness’ that would be forever enduring, if we never categorised anything. That’s not so bad, right?
I’ll leave you to ponder that one.
This brings me if I may, onto the subject of photography. Opening this little Pandora’s Box circa 2007 (admittedly I’m a newbie to this art); I found a new way of expressing myself creatively like many other hobbyists discover. It was on holiday to South East Asia (Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam) that I found myself thinking ‘in pictures’. Strangely you see mundane moments of human interaction transform though a lens. Things that we all have: faces, hands and feet convey much more when one can take away the distractions of race, class and creed. Things that are undeniably human: assurance, love, solidarity and aloneness. It’s also things we don’t notice, things that we dismiss at a glance not taking in the ‘beauty’ of all things not only great, but also so small that it would make ant wonder.
I would very much like to ask my readers what their opinions are of the following pictures, how it makes them feel; first impressions, likes- dislikes, their reactions, thoughts and feelings. I will follow with my own feelings on them after a couple comments, there are also more on the flickr link below.
