Freedom, Light and Photography - Catherine Opie (Mon 20 Jun 2016)

red, white and black - Vivid 2016 - Sydney Opera House (Sat 18 Jun 2016)

Catherine Opie on Freedom:

I can pretty much do whatever I want, because I’ve always understood what light and photography do together

via An inconvenient vision by Anne Marie Burke.

Searching - Brooke Holm (Thu 16 Jun 2016)

tree / shadow - Vivid - Circular Quay (Tue 14 Jun 2016)

Brooke Holm on Searching:

I’m still searching for the answers, observing and documenting

via Brooke Holm · Salt and Sky by Lisa Marie Corso.

The Beauty in Small Things - Francisco Cubillo (Sun 12 Jun 2016)

stairs - White Rabbit Gallery / Chippendale (Sat 11 Jun 2016)

Francisco Cubillo on Small Things:

[With photography] beauty is found within simplicity, which is portrayed in small things that most people take for granted

via 5 questions for a Costa Rican photographer by Elizabeth Lang.

The little things I appreciated here are the lines of the handrail and the light on the steps in contrast to the staircase darkness.

Photography - Adam DeBrosse (Sun 05 Jun 2016)

Smile - Coffs Harbour (Sun 05 Jun 2016)

Adam DeBrosse on Photography:

The essence of photography is putting yourself in the right place, taking advantage of the opportunities that you’re in to take a photo

via Photographer Nolan Isozaki inspired by the pretty and the gritty by Kayla Hausmann.

Photography - Drew Kelly (Thu 19 May 2016)

panorama - Wilpena / South Australia (Tue 12 Apr 2016)

Drew Kelly on Photography:

photography should allow you to transplant yourself to the moment it was taken

via Instagram of the Week: Candid, Vibrant Street Photos From Inside North Korea by Jenna Gattett.

This photo I made on my Phone as the sun set over Wilpena on the distant horizon near the lone tree

The panorama covers more than 180 degrees and I used the tree to hide the sun and my shadow is hidden in the shadow of the tree on the left. My Mum and Joanne are in there also.

Everything about this photo reminds me of this memorable moment so far from anywhere. A moment I will remember for a lifetime.

Uncertainty - Eric Kim (Wed 18 May 2016)

mural - Chippen Lane / Chippendale (Wed 18 May 2016)

Eric Kim on Uncertainty:

my favorite days are when I have no plan — that I take everything as it comes. Uncertainty, randomness, and chance is also what street photography is all about. Serendipity is about not knowing what is going to happen, or what lies around the corner.

via In Praise of Shadows in Photography by Eric Kim.

Stance - Streetshooter (Wed 11 May 2016)

trees / rocks / shadows - Wilpena (Tue 12 Apr 2016)

Streetshooter on Stance:

I felt an energy come into me, not over me but into me. [..] What was born back then was not just me as a photographer but a photographer with a stance. I mean it gave birth to a realization of my own self worth. [..]

I don’t practice photography, I live it. I don’t just make photos, my photos define me as well. [..]

It requires a firm appreciation of the whole that we are and a total committed love of what we do and why we do it and how we do it.

via Streets of Phila … A Visual Diary … Page 76 … Unheard Voices … The Stance | Streetshooter by Streetshooter.

A Story About a Camera - 2015 Inspire Award Reflections (Fri 27 Aug 2015)

Memories of Jenny - The Time of Your Life (youtube)

This is my 2000th post here at eljeiffel.

I always try to write something for the Annual Presentation of the Inspire Award. Most times it is just for me, but sometimes I share it with a few people. So here it is, unedited from the time it was written on the evening of Fri 27 Aug 2015. I think it is a pretty good way to mark the milestone.

As many will know, I have another obsession in my life - Photography.

I started out buying a small digital camera for our Dec 2000 trip to the Cook Islands to visit Jenny and Jo's Meditation teacher, Barbara, who had moved there to help setup a refuge for women . We didn’t know a thing about paddling back then.

I had bought the camera hoping I would be able to capture our memories. It was a tiny digital camera by today’s standards, 1 Mega Pixel and it cost $1600 duty free and a 64 MB compact flash memory cost more than $300.

I did not flinch and I thought it was all worth it, as my credit card was swiped at Ted’s Camera Store the day before we flew out. 15 years later I can tell you here that it was one of the best things I ever did.

My motivation for the camera came from that fact that Jenny had 11 tumours in her lungs and I did not really know how long we would have together. In the end we had just over 9 years of married life. Given Jenny’s condition, a miracle really ..

We were married on 30th April of that Sydney Olympic year and we honeymooned on Lord Howe Island for 10 glorious days in May 2000. Jenny had a film camera and she took many photos.

On our return flight to Sydney, I remember a conversation we had at the Departure Terminal with an older couple from Whyalla who congratulated us on our marriage. We had briefly met them at dinner at one of the small restaurants on the Island.

They told us they had been married for many years and the trip to Lord Howe Island was a way of creating another experience in life and expanding their memories. Better than [running a busy business or] sitting at home and watching the Telly, they said.

This conversation and piece of simple worldly wisdom has stuck with me and I remind myself of it constantly. It was my main motivation to buy that small expensive digital camera for our December 2000 trip to the Cook Islands.

I took many photos that trip to Cook Islands, even of the Outrigger Canoes in the lagoon at Aitutaka, we had no idea what they were – who would guess our future.

Shortly after our return, Jenny and Jo found Dragon Boating. And over the ensuing years many experiences and memories were created, dutifully captured by our cameras.

I documented the many dragon boat campaigns here and abroad, and ensuing holidays that followed each event.

In the process of this documenting I came to realise the power of photography, not only its visual power, but its ability to record our experiences and remind us of things we have done and who we were. We were doing selfies before the term was even invented. We called them “Holdouts” and I think this might be the main cause of Jo’s shoulder injury.

In those last few weeks at St George Hospital in Jun 2009, I captured the last moments of our lives together. They are the best I ever made.

After Jenny’s passing, It took me a while to pick up a camera again. I had lost my purpose and will. I was hurting and numb all at once but paddled through for a year or two – it helped a lot to be busy and in the company of friends. New experiences were created and I even smiled [for] a little [while].

Lost in the enormity of what had happened so quickly, though it was not a surprise, I found my first moments of comfort and hope, when I decided to start looking at some of the photos from our lives together. It made me cry, but it also made me smile. I was so happy that I had this archive of bits and bytes to remind me of Jenny, Joanne, myself and who we were.

It was only after Jo told me to organise my photos and my Mum said I should start making photos again, that I started to move forward. I was completely broken but I took up their advice and kept myself busy again, organising and photographing again. I am still broken but I live with it better now, it is part of me and who I will always be, but I am happy, optimistic, naïve and creating more experiences.

So I guess what I am trying to say is that we have to go out there and make our memories through the experiences we create for ourselves. And this is what I love about PD’s, we are always out there doing something. This time last year we were in Bologna on our way to Ravena, this year we are heading to Hawaii in the next week and month, next year Adelaide and who knows where after that.

Finally, in our lives we have loss, grief and bereavement. It is a part of living. You make a choice when it knocks on your door. And we have chosen to live in the Afterglow of our loss of Jenny – to remember and honour and be guided and inspired. Accept it and live with it and make the most of it, even let it inspire and motivate you. And that is what Jo and I have done, I would like to think.

“Believe in Hope” as the graffiti’ed wall in Cleveland Street said for a few weeks in July 2015.

Believe in Hope - Cleveland Street / Chippendale (Wed 29 Jul 2015)

With this post it is time to let go of a lot things, including the photos of another time and life. I have shed my life here (and Facebook more recently) like a snake sheds it skin and there is nothing left but to start over again. Time to move on, but it is hard to let go .. but I will.

Trying to make a new start here (arotlt.com) with photos from this point onwards. There will be the occasional post at eljeiffel to mark the odd moment in our lives that are relevant, but for now thanks for coming along for the ride these last, almost, 7 years.

symbolically the black rose suggests death, or the completion of a long journey (Trent Parke’s moving Black Rose photo exhibition at Art Gallery of SA ) - Black Rose / Fitzroy Street / Newtown (Sun 29 Nov 2015)

He Who Seeks Beauty Will Find It - Bill Cunningham (Oct 2008)

He Who Seeks Beauty Will Find It - Bill Cunningham (Oct 2008)

Paul Byrnes on Bill Cunningham:

His own mode of dress is self-effacing, workman-like. In Paris every year for the fashion shows, he buys a $20 blue smock with lots of pockets, the kind worn by Paris garbage men. There's a funny scene here where he wears a new one to his investiture as an Officer of the French Order of Arts and Letters.

via Life through a lens by Paul Byrnes.

I saw this movie at the Dendy Newtown in Sep 2011 shortly after our return from the USA. It was an unusally cold rainy working week day, but he brightened my day with his enthasasim for life, fashion and photography. Forever an inspiration ..

"Very deeply I think he feels he does not believe he deserves it. That's why he deserves it .. Even more."

It's not work, it's pleasure - Bill Cunningham (Oct 2008)

On Photography and Discovery - Mike Peters / Bryan Formhals (Sat 03 Sep2011)

path - Mount Kosciuszko (Thu 08 Jan 2004)

Mike Peters on Photography and Discovery:

For me, photography is a path of discovery that reveals itself as I move along , one foot in front of the other, one image at a time.

via Mike Peters – The Dream by Bryan Formhals.

On Finding A Solution - Blake Andrews (Mon 14 Dec 2015)

Untitled - SIRC / Penrith (Sun 13 Dec 2015)

Blake Andrews on Finding a Solution:

Sometimes the solution is just out there helicoptering somewhere beyond our grasp.

via Go ahead, just ask a question by Blake Andrews.

On Photography and the Ordinary - Adam Marelli (Wed 09 Dec 2015)

Untitled - Fushimi Inari-taisha - Kyoto (Fri 14 Sep 2012)

Adam Marelli on Photography and the Ordinary:

The more ordinary the better.

via What did Japanese art do to photography: Part 2 by Adam Marelli.

Another common term photographers use to describe the ordinary is banal, being the hallmark of my own photography. In Japan in Sep 2012 I was at my banal best.

On Photography and Understanding - Colin Pantell (Fri 20 Nov 2015)

An Angel's Wing over my Right Shoulder - South Cronulla (Mon 02 Nov 2015)

Colin Pantell on Photography and Understanding:

the act of photography [can be a] form of personal understanding of [our] own past

via Dear Japanese: A genuine struggle with the past by Colin Pantell.

I have felt a presence greater than myself, over my right ahoulder, twice in my life. Both times were since Jenny's passing. Will write about it and another moment one day. Have tried not to understand it beyond acknowledging that there is soemthing beyond me that I will probably never quite comprehend or understand. Just happy that I had someone looking over my shoulder when It counted. As the song goes Riding on the Wings of an Angel. Nice photo Rachel.

Self Portrait - South Cronulla (Mon 02 Nov 2015)

On Fear and Creativity - Seth Godin (Mon 23 Nov 2015)

Untitled - La Perouse (Mon 07 Sep 2015)

Seth Godin on Fear and Creativity:

fear is a necessary part of actually being productive in doing creative work

via Is productive the same as busy? by Seth Godin.

On Photography and Ambiguity - Streetshooter (Thu 29 Oct 2015)

Shroud of Erskine Creek - Water - Erskine Creek / Mount Gower / Lord Howe Island (Mon 22 Oct 2001)

Streetshooter on Photography and Ambiguity:

The thing is, to have all three elements of the self - find and realize your intent. The Eye, Heart and Mind work together to find the subject and realize the intent. The entire process from start to finish is ambiguous and should be allowed to remain that way.

via Streets of Philadelphia … A Visual Diary … Page 28 … Street … Deciphering and Realizing Intent by Streetshooter.

Our group stopped here about half way up Mount Gower to rest and to refuel for the second and more difficult half of our ascent of Mount Gower. For some reason I made a photo of the water with the reflection of the over head canopy and shafts of light breaking through. It was just a photo of the water, I thought. When I saw this photo on my computer screen a few weeks later, I decided it would look better in Black and White and made the transformation. In doing so a beautiful women revealed herself out of the relections in the water. I hope you can see her. Not everyone can. For me I see photos and I see people in photos.

The words Ambiguity and Uncertainity are interesting words. Closely related but very different. I think I can understand and feel the difference. Hence I would like to substitute the word ambiguous above with uncertain. I'm not exactly sure as I feel the word ambiguity has quite a few shades of meaning in that it can be difficult thing or a good thing depending on the context of its application. Post inspired by a engaging discussion with Carla. Thanks Carla.

On Photography - Past, Present and Future - Joel Meyerowitz (Tue 27 Oct 2015)

School Holidays - Camera in Hand - Canberra (late 1960's)

Joel Meyerowitz on Photography and the Past, Present and Future :

We can never imagine the work we might make in the future – that’s part of the wonder of all art making – but when we are in the present and can look back, as I can, over 50 years of work, there seems to be a continuous path that unwinds in a way that sometimes seems inevitable.

via A Full House by Joel Meyerowitz.

On Photography and Discovery - Streetshooter (Wed 21 Oct 2015)

Untitled - Molokai (Sun 11 Oct 2015)

Streetshooter on Photography and Discovery:

We all start the journey of life different, but we all end up the same. The beauty is not in the destination but in the journey itself. That means to be in the here and now [..]

During our travels thru a life with photography, certain milestones or markers make themselves evident. These are points of inspiration or interest that we are drawn to. We see these being borne in our photos. [..]

If you take the time to discover what you are doing naturally without realizing you are doing it and make an effort to discover the points in your photographic journey, you will never be bored again.

via Streets of Philadelphia … A Visual Diary … Page 25 … Street … Memories of Future Past … Fuji X100s by Streetshooter.

On Photography and Memories - Streetshooter (Wed 21 Oct 2015)

Jenny and Geoff - I remember it being very hot - Prague (Wed 30 Aug 2005)

Streetshooter on Photography and Memories:

Photography is one of the seductive means of making memories. So I wonder why many aren’t aware that they are making memories. [..]

What’s really going on is that you are making memories and maybe just maybe those photos will have importance to someone. [..]

[during the Vietnam War] I became acutely aware that photography is about memories. It’s about other shit too, but memories are the main source of image information transference.[..]

See, they are not just my memories. [..] All will be forgotten of the pain that still hurts 45 years later.

the photos, well… they are just memories…………..

via Streets of Philadelphia … A Visual Diary … Page 25 … Street … Memories of Future Past … Fuji X100s by Streetshooter.

The very reason I bought a small digital camera in Dec 2000. And just as important as recording memories, you need to make the memories happen. You have to live while you can. And we did just that. Thanks Jenny and Jo.

On Photography - Saul Leiter / Sam Stourdze

Shadow - Chippendale (Tue 06 Oct 2015)

Saul Leiter on Photography:

I go out to take a walk. I see something. I take a picture. I take photographs.

via Saul Leiter or the art of going unnoticed by Sam Stourdze.

On Photography - Personality - Harry Gruyaert / Lucy Davies (Tue 23 Jun2015)

Orchid - Alexandria (Thu 15 Oct 2015)

Harry Gruyaert on Photography:

photography is all about personality

via Harry Gruyaert: 'I discovered how to see' by Lucy Davies.