Kamikaze, Rotorua

Relax, said the night man,
We are programmed to receive.
You can check out any time you like,
But you can never leave.

The Eagles: Hotel California

I am not sure what it is about circuses and sideshows, but they fascinate me. I think they always have. I would like to think it has something to do with a childhood fascination, from being taken to a circus as a child and steering in awe at the clowns and circus animals. But that would be untrue. I have a vague memory, as a child, of being led around the outside of a circus, but never actually getting to see the performance. So there is nothing in my past that Stephen King could use as a hook for one of his astounding horror novels. Yet, at times, whenever I spend an hour or so in a sideshow, I get this uneasy feeling that in some surrogate way, I’m participating in a Stephen King script. So, being a photographer of sorts, I use the camera to help me navigate a path through this sense of the surreal and bizarre.

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Oamaru Pony Club

Kia ora tatou:

It is that time of the year again ( isn’t it always?).With Christmas on us, the insane rush to shut New Zealand for a few days will see people buying as if the shops will be shut forever, and tradesmen working 28-hour days to complete work for clients ( you want it when?).

As a number of you know, I am on the road, seeking a new place to settle.Currently I am in Rotorua, spending Christmas with my mother (soon to turn 93!).

I want to thank you all for your support this year and in the past ( the blog is about to turn 400 000- I hope I do not!!). So I thought I would reprise this post from 2007.

I wish you well for  Christmas ( and indeed for all the year, every year.) Blessings to you all.

Things I do badly (the list is extensive) include remembering birthdays and writing Xmas cards. My apologies in advance.

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Christchurch1

Sometimes I forget. Sometimes I really do.

Over the years, as I’ve grown up, I’ve tried to avoid the fact that it was in Christchurch.

I guess my boyhood memories have not been very happy ones. I remember a city that was cold, unfriendly and not at all welcoming to a small boy fresh in from the country. I wasn’t used to schools that had more than 20 pupils, where nobody really seem to care whether you turned up or not. Certainly there was no sense of community, just variable friendship and competition. Furthermore, the winters, living down by the edge of the Heathcote River, were anything but warm and comfortable. Much of it had to do with the fact that our house was not insulated and, as a consequence, was an icebox in winter. I guess most houses in those days were like that.

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Cat woman, Colombo St.

I am sorry, but this is too good not to share……

( sent to me from a mole inside a government ministry…yes, really!)

Subject: Equalities Commission / HSE guidance on ‘festive’ songs

The Rocking Song

Little Jesus, sweetly sleep, do not stir;

We will lend a coat of fur,

We will rock you, rock you, rock you,

We will rock you, rock you, rock you:

Fur is no longer appropriate wear for small infants, both due to risk of allergy to animal fur, and for ethical reasons. Therefore faux fur, a nice cellular blanket or perhaps micro-fleece material should be considered a suitable alternative.

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Swimming Pool, St. Francis, Eastern Cape

When is a colour photograph?

Colour photography is one of those things I imagine most of us take for granted. We assume, because we see the world in colour (or believe we do), that everybody else does, and that colour is a given. Because we see something in colour, we assume everybody else does and that therefore they see the world in the same way that we do.

I would venture to suggest that the reality is quite something else.

Over the years, as I have taught people photography, I have come to realise that some people have a natural affinity for colour, or for the colour in their photographs. I have also noticed that others appear to have no sense of colour and inevitably, when I play with their photographs and convert them to black and white, they turn out to be infinitely better when rendered as tones.

Some people quite naturally see in black and white.

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Thriller, Colombo Street

Kia ora tatou:

Enough of the serious posts…for the moment…

I’ve noticed I am prone to a disease specific to photographers, which rears its head about this time of the year. It’s probably happened every year for the last 25 or so, so when the symptoms present, I’m fully aware of what’s going on. The symptoms go something like this:

For no particular reason I find myself parking up and wandering into my favourite local photographic retailer (you know who you are!). I really don’t have a reason to be there, but somehow it just happens. When they come up and asked me what they can do to help, I shuffle and mumble, and try to think of something meaningful to say. What I really should do is be honest and say: it’s that time of year again, and I need to kick some tyres. I suspect I haven’t got this problem on my own.

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There is a saying: one thing is an event, two things a coincidence, and three things form a pattern. Over the last week or two I seem to have been having a recurring conversation with a variety of different people, all along the same theme. It is only after having yet another one yesterday that I’ve begun to perceive that there is a pattern here, that something is being put in front of my face.

The conversation goes something like this: the person will ask me whether I think that it is possible to be truly creative. What they’re really asking is whether I think they are creative, and if not, what they can do about it. Often the conversation will talk about technical expertise, and whether there is any possibility of being different, unique and making highly original work.

Well, there is and there isn’t.  technique is no longer the answer. Things have certainly changed. Let me explain.

Back in the day, the difference between a professional and amateur was generally perceived as being one of a difference in technical expertise. With a lifetime’s experience behind him, a professional photographer usually had a more profound understanding of photographic process. So, the people who taught me had, between them, nearly 80 years of experience to pass on. Back in the day, mastering film-based technique was something similar to climbing Mount Everest. You looked way up into the sky, and since there had to be a summit somewhere (there wasn’t), you began climbing. When people looked at your prints, with beautiful deep blacks and subtly-toned whites, their respect  for you would grow because they were knew you were further up the mountain than them. Mastering film-based process was a long, involved and never-completed process. Mind you, it’s not that different with digital.

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