Day Fifty Three - New Friend

This gorgeous Kelpie lives a few houses away from Max's Dad's place where we spent a few nights while in Melbourne. Everytime we walked past he'd squeeze his head through the hole in the gate and beckon us to come and pet him. He was lovely. After a few pets and licks he'd run off and get his ball, dropping it through the hole for us to throw it for him. Poor little guy. Obviously didn't get enough loving from his owners. I want to take him home.

I should also mention that Max's dad is actually Shaggy from Scooby Doo.

Day Fifty Two - Premiere

PREMIERE PREMIERE!! Two Wheels 'N' Pub Meals, our latest BMX video premiered at the Anchor tonight and it was nuts. Heaps more photos over here!
The DVD will be available for sale in a few weeks. I'll keep you posted.

Day Fifty One - Hungover

25. Around the number of drinks consumed the night before, many courtesy of Rupert.


Max took this one straight after I took a photo of him looking very similar on the other side of the table. Breakfast in Yarraville.
I love Melbourne. Here's Rupert being a turtle. Silly boy.

Day Fifty - Rupert

This is Rupert. One of Max's longest good friends. He met up with us on the first afternoon in Melbourne and we proceded to drink into the evening. It was fucking amazing. The night included Melbourne's Ice Bar and Drag Queens. Nuff said. I'm tired and have five days worth of photos from Melbourne to post so I'll just let the photos speak for themselves. Aparently each photo speaks a thousand words so this will be one hefty essay...

Day Forty Nine - Dusty Keys

I'm going to Melbourne tomorrow for our Two Wheels 'n' Pub Meals premiere and to get smashed. I'm pretty fuckin' excited. However I won't be back till Tuesday so I'll then have the task of finding a photo from each of the 6 days over there and posting them all! I suppose that'll be fun. Beh whatever.

I was at the arts school today burning the master to DVD as my burner at home is rooted. It was taking forever and I was restless so wandered around and took some photos of this old piano sitting in the Video Studio. No idea why it's there, but it has been for about 2 years and I think it's kinda cool.

We didn't win the UTAS Ad either. My mates from uni (who also made one) took the $5G, including Mark, the star of yesterday's photo. I'm not too fussed though. Good on 'em! Honestly, their ad was much better than ours both in concept and quality.

Also 14 days until Katie's home. =)

Nikon D200
50mm f1.8
Ambient Light.

Day Forty Eight - Mark

I wandered into uni at 10am this morning for what I thought was a normal E-media class, but we were asked to help Leigh Hobba set up some installations in the Gallery downstairs. You wouldn't believe how spatially and logically impaired these middle-aged artists can be. I was working with one middle-aged woman mounting a shelf and also measuring out and hanging some picture frames. I'm a little carpentry challenged myself but at least i can work out half of 14cm without thinking about it for 30 seconds. Yeah. Really.

Anyway this is Mark, a good friend of mine and always there when I need any sort of media assistance. Dave and I used to fondly call him Dad, as he'd often be the one organising things on shoots and making contact with clients and people involved. He's great.

Sometimes I wish my 50mm was autofocus. This was basically just walk up to Mark and fire off a couple of shots hoping one is usable. All ambient lighting from random downlights spotted throughout the gallery space. I haven't had heaps of time for photography the past week. My head's been full and focused on getting the DVD done by tomorrow, uni and my new job. I'm quite excited for this weekend. Bring on Melbourne.

Day Forty Seven - Lattés in Shiny Land

I consume at least one or two of these every day so it seemed fitting that, lacking any other inspiration, I take a photo of one.

I'd like to do a decent-lit version of this at some point. This one's dull and boring. Salamanca is Shiny Land. Shiny rich people eat there and drink lattés with their poodles and chiwawas sitting in their handbags.

Nikon D200
50mm f1.8 at f2

Speaking of rich people, I hate bluetooth headsets. They're one of my many pet peeves. I suppose because it seems no different to the crazy inhabitants of Hobart who stroll around aimlessly, chatting to themselves and harassing people. Until you see the stupid flashing blue light attached to their ear, you're led to believe they're just a well dressed homeless person who has noone to talk to but themself. Of these homeless people who intrigue me are Moggy and The Bag Lady, neither of whom are well dressed, nor have I had the pleasure to photograph either of them. The only reason I carry my camera everywhere with me is in the hope of running in to her again. Actually not really, but it's definitely one of the reasons! She's pretty amazing. So is Moggy for that matter. I love Hobart's freaks.

Bluetooth savvy man in the rain. Obviously important enough and expecting that many calls that it would inconvenience him a little too much to use his hand to hold his phone to his ear. Having a cord dangling from your ear is pretty comfortable anyways.

Day Forty Six - Barrios

Please click over to flickr to view this photo large.

This photo has a very studio feel to it, which I was kinda going for. The piano bouncing bokeh in the background, the blue light, the harsh outlines. Yes. I like this. And it's not too often I can say that about one of my own photos.

This wasn't really intended to be a photoshoot as such. Max was in my room playing Barrios' La Catedral on my guitar and trying to learn the second movement. I wanted to go do something but decided to set up a couple of flashes and take some shots of him playing.

Nikon D200
50mm f1.8 at f2
Vivitar 285 HV at 1/4 above left fired through a jb-hifi docket to diffuse (yeah i really need those umbrellas!)
Vivitar 285 at 1/16 under the desk with blue gel pointed at max.

On that note, I'm about half way through learning the first movement of Barrios' La Catedral on guitar and it's quite exciting. I endeavour to learn the entire piece within a month. If you don't know what I'm talking about click here. Barrios is beautiful.

Day Forty Five - I Don't Need High Definition

Really. I promise I don't need HDV. I'm completely happy with SD. *bites lip*

Okay so no. I actually really do want to upgrade to High Definition but I'm too poor at the moment. I was way too hungover today to think about anything at all until about 5 in the afternoon. I worked on the cover for our bmx dvd for a while and that's about as productive as it got. So here's my little baby. Sony DSR-PD150. Standard Definition isn't a dinosaur yet!

I like this photo. I'm not sure what it is about it but it grabs me.

Nikon D200
50mm f1.8
Vivitar 285hv at 1/16 to camera left bounced off the roof.

All that said, here's a rough draft of where the DVD cover is at. The idea is to smother the page with a bunch of bmx photos I've taken over the past 2 years that haven't ended up being published or used for anything in particular. It still has a little ways to go as making every image look like a polaroid film photo is a little time consuming, but so far I'm pretty happy with how it's coming together.

Day Forty Four - Steam Train

Not much to say about this one except i'd downed half a bottle of Canadian Club in an hour beforehand.

Obviously too drunk to get the flash out of the frame.

Nikon D200
10.5mm fisheye f2.8
VIvitar 285HV at 1/4 to the left bounced off the wall
Vivitar 285HV at 1/16 to right with blue gel