Time Capsule

The last roll of lomography from my trip to the States (plus one leftover shot of the Sydney Harbour Bridge). Got it developed yesterday.





A strange feeling.

Winter Kept Us Warm

The name Robert Capa might be unfamiliar to many, but show them a photograph of his and there's a good chance they'll recognise it. Covering no less than five separate conflicts over the course of his lifetime, the man personified the archetype of the globe-trotting photojournalist. And while he was heavily scrutinised for staging maneuvers, it's hard to overlook the fact that he stormed the beaches of Normandy wielding nothing but a camera (only 11/106 frames were salvaged, courtesy of the overeager 15 year-old lab assistant).


Ironically, the name Robert Capa was a contrivance of the artist and his photographic partner (and then fiancee), Gerda Pohorylle, in an effort to bolster his recognisability as a freelance journalist. Born Endre Ernő Friedmann in Budapest, the man who would be Capa chose his namesake as both a nod to the director Frank Capa and a play on the Hungarian word for shark ("cápa").


However, as astute as his nose was for smelling blood in the water, it seems that Capa himself was unable to duck his own personal tragedies. His fiancee, Gerda Pohorylle (or 'Taro', as she later changed her surname to), was killed on assignment in Brunete in 1937 whilst documenting the Spanish Civil War. Over the course of WWII and shortly thereafter, Capa was romantically linked to Elaine Justin and Ingrid Bergman, but both were short-lived affairs and he never married either.

In 1954, despite swearing never to photograph another war, he found himself in the middle of the First Indochina War. Whilst accompanying a French regiment and shooting their advance, Capa stepped on a landmine. He died with his camera in his hand.

Beneath A Steel Sky

Just as a disclaimer, Toronto really isn't this creepy/ominous/depressing. It is bloody cold though ...

Boy's Life

Window shopping in New Orleans.

Little Garcon

Street musicians on a sunny day in New Orleans.

Human Detritus

A little slice of creepy from down in New Orleans. I'm sure that kid's shirt just fell off a parent's stroller or something but it still sent my imagination spinning off into some dark corner.

Undiscovered Country

Found this last lomo image hiding on my desktop. If I remember correctly, it was shot in a Jewish restaurant in Brookline, Boston, where I had the potato pancakes.


I'm currently working on an ink drawing -- nothing too fancy, just something to get the wheels turning again (school starts in a fortnight, after all). Pencils are all rendered so we'll see if I can knock it out sometime today.

Plaisir d'Amour

While I was down in New Orleans, I visited the National WWII Museum. And apart from the wild celebrity-fueled propaganda of Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks' "Beyond All Boundaries", I thought they did a pretty decent job of portraying all sides of the conflict.



The photography alone in the museum was staggering in its brutality and sadness. As each room represented a chronological development in the war, the photos were arranged much like a timeline. One Life-published image in particular stuck with me: that of a homefront beauty smiling behind her desk, proudly displaying the Japanese skull that her boyfriend had sent back.

Ain't Got No Lullabies

Two lonely souls in New Orleans.

Spike

This is Spike, my friend's housemate down in New Orleans. He's got a penchant for biting fingers, licking the tap, and waiting for the mail. Somewhere in his head the wires got crossed and he thinks he's a dog. But that's a total plus in my book; I was never much of a cat person.



It probably also helps that he's been de-clawed.

Over The Mystic

Riding the 111 over the Tobin Bridge to Chelsea. Heading to court, no less.

First Breath After Coma

I'm going to interrupt the chronological continuity of my little photographic timeline and post a little something about an opening that I had the pleasure of attending last week in Toronto. The Taxali 300 showcased over 300 illustrations and prints from the collection of artist Gary Taxali (below: getting a hug). A lot of cool stuff that was way out of my price range ($200-700 a pop for a postcard-sized print). But even if I did have that kind of dinero, I'd have been hard pressed to find something that wasn't already sold -- by the time I got there I reckon 70% of the work had been tabbed. Easy six figures for Gary; not bad at all for one night of schmoozing.








Most of the openings I've been to have been strictly small-time or school-related so it was nice to see how the other half lived. At one point someone asked me who I was shooting for, which is exactly one of those times that you wish you could lie faster/better. These things really are great for networking though. I'm sure he has absolutely no recollection of the event but I did get a quick two minutes in with Gary who was kind enough to humour this strange kid with some words of wisdom. That's something I definitely appreciate.

Traffic In The Sky

In light of my recent photography binge, and in anticipation of a miserable 22 hour flight home, I thought I'd post an old project from my foundation semester -- nothing less than my first in-depth experience with 35mm film.

Our brief, if I remember correctly, was to document an environment in the manner of a character study. I chose the Kingsford-Smith airport and ended up shooting with a roll of drugstore 400ISO Kodak film -- both decisions mandated by the imminence of the deadline rather than actual preference. Fortunately, everything turned out nicely.


A lot of people have a preconception of the airport as a transitory stop rather than a location in and of itself, but I wanted to depict it as a place of permanence. Wandering around the terminals, I became fixated on all the people that didn't have a destination to rush off to -- the throwers and runway operators standing around having a smoke and a chat; the security officers and desk staff; basically anyone who wasn't a passenger. Capturing that hidden population became my goal.


This was really the first time that I shot anything with a sense of purpose or direction. I remember flipping through a big book of Pulitzer Prize-winning photo essays as a kid and becoming enamored with that kind of journalistic storytelling and I think that definitely influenced the way I approached this assignment. At the very least, it explains my aversion to posed subjects and staged photography.


Looking back on this project, it's clear to me that it has had a long lasting impact on my overall approach to photography. Not only in regards to the environmental fixation that's still evident in my recent work, but also in terms of how I tend to read people as descriptive extensions of their surroundings rather than characters in their own right. I'm not sure why, but in a strange antithesis of my painting practice, I tend to shy away from focusing on any recurring individuals within my photos.

(Couple of outtakes)

I suppose the reason that I like using a camera is because it offers such a refreshing change of pace from painting -- not just on a technical level, but also in terms of conceptual approach. For me, photography is much more about telling a story than conveying an abstract idea. Maybe I'll have an idea of what I want to achieve, but conceptual doctrine doesn't play nearly as big a part in the process. And aside from time of day/year and actual physical location, personal context is an irrelevant factor. Because the mechanics of clicking a shutter button are nowhere near as open-ended as the concept of moving a brush, all I have to do is walk around until I find something interesting. It's therapeutic.

The Happiness Factory

Pretty tacky place but it was still fascinating to wander around the giant warehouse at "Mardi Gras World" where all the parade floats are assembled. Just in terms of how mundane it all is behind the fun; how boring it is to sit in this room full of effigies.



I missed the festivities by a few short weeks but that's okay. One trip down Bourbon St. was plenty and I wouldn't want to be there if the Colts take the Superbowl.

You Can Run But You Can't Glide

Chasing a gaggle of ducks just outside Boston College, in Brookline.


Reminds me of when I was a kid and we'd go down to the lake to feed our stale bread to the ducks -- the bloody things would always bite my fingers.

Trucker's Lunch

Stein's Jewish Deli on Magazine Street in New Orleans. At the time I was just trying to burn through the last shots in a roll but I ended up pleasantly surprised with the results.






If I could ever set it up I'd love to do a week-long shoot in a restaurant kitchen. Get all the manic rushes and dead lulls on film. Maybe I've been watching too much "Hell's Kitchen" but I reckon you could fashion a nice little series out of the idea.

Double Vision Quest

An inadvertent overlap of two down-on-their luck Boston natives. I didn't notice at the time, but I failed to wind the film all the way to the next shot. A fortunate mishap.

Uptown Girl

A lady walks her dog through the ritzy Beacon Hill area of Boston. Not quite sure what the deal is with the police tape but I'm quite happy with how this turned out.

Watching, Waiting

Stalking some strangers in Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. I can tell you from experience that the echo of a shutter click in an otherwise silent room produces a very awkward fallout.




On a side note, these photos mark a transition from the 400ISO Ilford XP2 film that I was originally using to a Kodak CW400 stock. I definitely prefer the former (it produces a richer black/white contrast) but couldn't seem to find it anywhere in Boston. Oh well.

A Second Shooter

More proof that having a pocket-sized camera with an inaudible shutter noise is a dangerous combination.