scrawl

overlooked

Wed, 7 Jan 2009 17:12:26 +1100

These are the very last photos I will be uploading from the fantastic weekend at Aradale Mental Hospital last August.

Hopefully I am able to return there at some stage to further explore and record the wonderful complex.

to wish impossible things

Mon, 5 Jan 2009 20:31:36 +1100

I was tagged over on Flickr by the extremely talented Rossina Bossio, so here's 16 random things about me:

1. This is from my first self-portrait shoot for 2009 which I did today. An impromptu shoot inspired by the light through my bedroom window as I was drying off from my shower at 5:30pm.

2. I'm a vegetarian; have been for 15 years.

3. I don't drive. I sat my learner's permit test and got 30/30 first go way back in January 1997 but as they are only valid for 10 years I had to renew it at the beginning of 2007 since I've not taken many lessons and never gone for my probationary license.

4. I was born exactly 61 years after my mother's father, and one day short of 76 years after my father's father.

5. I have an ever-growing list of photographers (many on Flickr) whose work I love that I would love to meet and collaborate with but I would probably be completely intimidated by if I ever did get to meet them.

6. I ache to travel more but I am terrible at saving and have too much debt.

7. I get crushes constantly, whether on people I meet in person or on people I know through the internet, but haven't been in love for over three years. There are only fleeting moments when I actually think I'd like to be in a relationship again. I fall in love with light more often than other people.

8. I am quite selfish with my time: I always have something I want to be working on and though I have some wonderful friends I love spending time with, I am also just as happy to be alone and working on my photos - whether taking them or editing them. I lost my focus on my photography for a while but that isn't likely to happen again anytime soon.

9. I talk to myself. Mostly cursing my clumsiness or absent-mindedness, but sometimes I have conversations I want to have with other people in whispered tones with people who aren't there or with mirrors as if they were that person.

10. I think I've worked out recently that I am not so much scared of heights, but I have a fear of falling. This goes hand in hand with my general awareness of my own mortality and this general awareness is part of the reason I don't drive.

11. I have had vasculitis since 2004 though it wasn't diagnosed definitively until 2008. Luckily it only affects my skin and not my major organs like my brain and my heart, and it doesn't flare up very often.

12. I dream a lot; both enjoyable dreams and disturbing nightmares. Sometimes I wish I didn't as I often sleep badly because of it and a night of vivid dreams can be more exhausting than not sleeping at all, but the idea of not dreaming (or not being aware of dreaming or not being able to remember my dreams) is a horrible concept to me.

13. I love words (words like anthropomorphism, pulchritude, omniscient, aubergine, courgette, perineum, expectorate, micturate, masticate, and copulate) and always resolve that I should write more. I also enjoy playing scrabble.

14. I don't colour my hair to cover up grey hairs, I do it to cover up a very ordinary brown colour. I also do it because often vibrant red or chocolate brown colours work so well with outfits and light in my self-portraits. And like Rossina I think of colour combinations all the time. Often my shoots are inspired purely by two items or an item and a setting and the colour combinations created by them.

15. I am a dog person. I like other people's cats, but could never live with one and would love to have another miniature schnauzer one day.

16. I don't ever want to imagine a life without photography and art. Like the previous two years, my only resolution for 2009 is to "make it count". To be able to have the freedom to pursue my art, and travel to further my art and exhibit my work and to collaborate with other talented people is my dream. I know, it's a small one :P

new year's day

Fri, 2 Jan 2009 21:42:39 +1100

Like many dogs, Vulpe is scared of fireworks so Karen was destined to be house-bound for New Year's Eve and I was happy enough to boycott, but on Karen's suggestion a small house party sounded like a good idea. So Karen and I sent out a small number of invites to our New Year's Eve house party. We didn't want more than about 20-30 people here at one time.

It turned out it was an excellent idea and I declare the party a success. Only one person was overly affected in a negative way by alcohol, and even then not really that badly; no fights; no breakages; and I believe everyone had a fantastic time and I met some cool friends of Karen and Nick's and enjoyed the company of the friends I invited.

On receiving her invitation, a workmate of Karen's declared she would only be in attendance if there were balloon animals. Although I'd only met Amy a few weeks previous at an after-work-christmas-party gathering here, I was totally up for the challenge. Admittedly I did ask Feih first about her skills with such things, but it only served to cement my resolve to "bring it on" when told that Feih's skills were rusty and she didn't have a pump.

So I went to Bernard's Magic Shop and found to my delight that they sell a "balloon modelling kit" inclusive of the right type of balloons, an instruction book and a pump, all for the bargain price of $20.

In the end I didn't have time to make any animals before the party, but (despite the obscure instructions) I did manage to get my head around the basic balloon figure (not quite a poodle, though Feih added the puffed tail later in the night) and was quite proud to show off my very first balloon animal created at the beginning of the evening.

These shots were taken by Anthony Horan on his cameraphone at around 6am on New Year's Day. I believe I was still conscious for a few hours after that.

I hope you all enjoyed your New Year's Eve and that 2009 brings you all you wish for xx

coming and going...

Fri, 2 Jan 2009 19:55:27 +1100

Four of my images accompany two short stories featured in the current issue of the Australian edition of The Big Issue.

The short stories are The Grey River Rest Stop by Romy Ash, and The Other Side of the River by Georgia Blain.

If you're in Australia make yourself and a Big Issue street vendor happy by picking up a copy for $5.

in country

Fri, 2 Jan 2009 19:23:07 +1100

between two eternities of darkness

Fri, 2 Jan 2009 19:09:22 +1100

The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence
is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. - Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory.

I've entered this image into the latest round of the Saatchi Showdown. Please vote.

just a little overcome

Fri, 2 Jan 2009 18:53:32 +1100

natural blues

Thu, 1 Jan 2009 21:34:25 +1100

through the looking glass

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 21:09:11 +1100

wish you were here

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 17:45:02 +1100