Sony A900. 24mm. ISO 100, f8 @ 1/320

The future was rushing towards me, drawing ever closer, arriving on the horned wings of an approaching storm. I looked up in horror, in ghastly realisation, and knew that there was nothing, nothing at all I could do to escape, to turn it away….

I am more convinced than ever that whatever we photograph, we need to be passionate about it, we need to embrace it.

Being a restless soul and a Libran to boot, and thus deeply aware of the duality which dwells in all of us, I cannot help myself. I need at least one other way of photographing. I love photographing the landscape, being out there with Creation and drawing it, drawing from it what it is saying to me at the time.

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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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Tiresias

I often wonder why so many of us are drawn to photography.

I never cease to be fascinated by the reasons, by the motivations, and by all the myriad-and-one reasons why we take up photography. Over the years when I ask people why they have do it, some have answered confidently, while others have dithered and become tongue-tied. There is no question in my mind that occasionally the reasons I asked those questions were as much for my own benefit, to explain it to myself, as it was to hear what you had to say. I apologise to all of you who thought I was genuinely interested in hearing your particular reason for being in photography, when what I really wanted to hear was an answer to my own question. Such are the ways of ego.

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Releasing the dryad

A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen.

~Edward de Bono

It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life.

~P.D. James

It has been nearly two years, but I am still haunted. The moment has yet to unhappen. May it never do so.

It was one of those late autumnal days, when the elementals were throwing the sky around, when the wind was capricious and well-intentioned, but largely unfocused. It would stop, scowl uncertainly beneath its dark cloudy eyebrows, and ponder mightily. Then its face would brighten, a childlike glee would fill its face, and it would dash around, shaking the trees, giving the waves a clip behind the ear and then rush maniacally over the nearest hill for a moment. But it would come back for more. I love the random unpredictability of days like this. (more…)

Kia ora tatou:

The following post is the first in a series I will write from time to time, depending on interest and feedback. In  the past I have tended to tallk about the how of photography and the why of photography, but rarely if ever together.

In these posts I want to talk about the journey from pre- to postvisualisation and the steps I have followed in making the image. I intend to offer workshops that explore this in the future and which marry concept and technique. Let me know what you think.

Clouds draw the wind

Brian Turner

You never really finish a piece of work; you abandon it

-Brian Turner

I am in haste. I can feel the land watching me and I am on edge, but I stop for a coffee anyway. (more…)