52 Weeks - Week 4 (Am I really there)

Recently I've been finding that automatic doors are not opening for me, and on occasions have closed on me, it makes me wondering if I'm invisible.

You can see me, right?

Coopa

This is my lovely little boy. It's hard to get him to stay still but I managed a few shots, I call this first one "Moody Coopa" :)


I also have these two that I've been playing around with, I can't decide which one I like better, any opinions on which you prefer?

52 Weeks - Week 3 (Jai guru deva)

52 Weeks - Week 2 (Podophobia)

So I'm not afraid of feet but I hate mine. They're too big, whenever I find cute shoes they never actually have them in my size, when I was living in London the only shoes I could buy were sneakers and that's because they were men's shoes.

Besides being way too big they're all tough and hard from running and walking around barefoot all the time, I'm too lazy to paint them so the polish slowly chips away and I'm beyond clumsy, constantly running into things, stubbing my toes, dropping things on my feet.

This is an attempt to reconcile with my feet, they don't like me and I don't like them, but I want to change that and that's why I photographed them for this series, you don't have to like everything about yourself but it's still a part of you. As ugly as they are they get me around and help me run like the wind so they can't be all bad.

I give you, my feet.

Umbria Hill

As I said, another post soon. I popped across the street during lunch to pick up some film I had developed recently. This is from a walk I did recently up Umbria Hill in Canberra. It's amazing that there is such wild nature so close to the city.

We took this walk two weeks back on a lovely fall day, yup, it's fall here, and all of you in the US can laugh now but I'll be the one smiling when I'm having a bbq outside on Christmas Eve before going for a swim. I actually still haven't gotten used to the backwardsness but I figure it will come with time, for now I keep checking the date and getting confused as to how it's so cold so close to summer.

Since we took the dogs with us I became responsible for chasing off the kangaroos so that the dogs wouldn't do it. Dogs seem to really enjoy chasing kangaroos, who in turn love beating up dogs that try and catch them, not a good situation. As we walked up the hill we noticed the kangaroos in what appeared to be a race, they kept running laps around a line of trees before disappearing over the side of the hill, presumably towards the finish line.

Once we got to the top of the hill I decided to walk over to the edge and see if I could spot more kangaroos, a novelty that will never wear on me. I noticed one a bit down the hill so I started towards it, about halfway down I noticed a few more heads pop up and realized that there were about 5 or 6 kangaroos right in front of me. This is the point where I wished for my long lens which I'd left at home thinking I'd go for sweeping landscapes instead of close-ups. The kangaroos didn't seem too bothered by me and soon moved on.

As we started down the hill I noticed a few right near the trail and got straight to my job of chasing them off. It didn't seem like a big deal and soon I was stalking through the bush roaring like a dinosaur at them. It was only as I got closer to them and realized two things that I became a bit worried, 1- they weren't moving or the least bit scared of me, and 2- they were much bigger than me. One even hopped towards me to see how serious I was, my little dinosaur growl wasn't doing much. Luckily after another minute they got bored with me and wandered off to race through the fields.

I keep telling myself that I'm going to be more brave around kangaroos so I can actually pet one one of these days but there is just something unnerving about them when they stare you right in the eye, even the little ones are a bit intimidating.

Enjoy the photos and hopefully I'll get another close encounter with a kangaroo soon.

Soon

I know I haven't posted in a few days but it's coming. We moved this past weekend so everything was in a bit of chaos, but now I've found my computer and we should have internet up tomorrow (fingers crossed).

I have to say though, I never realized how hard it would be to move house with a puppy, I think it may even be harder than moving with a baby. The main difference is the baby will stay put while you're getting things done while the puppy will run inbetween your less as you move heavy furniture, pee everywhere, eating packing material and get stuck in tight little spaces he shouldn't be going in in the first place. We spent half the time this weekend chasing Coopa away from places he shouldn't be and trying not to drop furniture on his tiny little head. But now that the move is over the pictures are on their way, tomorrow :)

52 Weeks - Week 1

I've decided to do the 52 week project, where you have to take a self-portrait every week, the 365 one just seemed a bit too intense for me. My biggest problem is that when I have ideas I want to do them right away, I have problems pacing myself. Anyhow, here is the first one, a bit more serious then I intended but I think the whole point of this kind of exploration is to have fun and get some different results, see where things take you. So without further ado, the beginning of my 52 weeks.

Signs of Fall

In line with my need to photograph more I took a walk during my lunch break. It's turning to fall now and I love seeing the beautiful colours of the trees against the blue sky.





I noticed these two bottles and it almost appeared as though they were having a rendezvous in the sunny park, it's just where I wanted to be sitting with Andrew enjoying the day. It reminds me of when you see shopping carts in random places that make them appear as if they have a secret life.

Inklight

I just saw that one of my photographs is on the website of Afterimage Magazine - The Journal of Media Arts & Cultural Criticism. I'm currently trying to get an article published with them so this is a good step in the right direction.

Go check out my photograph and while you're there have a read over this magazine, it's really quite impressive.

www.vsw.org/ai/inklight/
My photograph is on the first page, bottom row, second from the right.

Vandalize America

One more oldie before I get on to the new work, it's just hard to resist reminiscing. I'm going to be a bit sad when we are settled into our house and I won't have moving as an excuse to dig back into some of my old work. I think I'm going to make this a regular occurrence because your opinion changes all the time and what I may overlook and dislike today will be brilliant tomorrow.

This is from a series I started working on while living in Philly. I saw a tag down on Penn's Landing that said "Vandalize America" and I thought it suited the graffiti and 'sticker' art that is seen throughout Philly and many American cities. These are ones that struck my fancy.



I came across these Eggyolk tags and I really enjoyed where the artist decided to place each one:

Ghost in a Wishing Well

So I've been slacking off a bit since I've gotten to Australia and I need a way to motivate myself, hence this blog. I figure if I'm showing off some of the stuff I'm playing around with it will force me to do some more.

I came across these while packing for our big house move. I was trying to recreate an old school, 1970s Rolling Stones-esque pictorial. Feel free to give me some feedback.