Family and Fun.

On a recent trip to visit my family in Warragul, I somehow managed to balance a day of skateboarding and photographing with a family lunch that I had to attend. I don't know how I did it but managed to get more skate photos in one day than I have in my entire life.

We started the day at about 8.00am down at the skatepark, probably the earliest i've been to a park in about 4 years. Timmy D, a rad local ripper was my subject for the day. The previous night he'd been slashing out some beautiful backside smith grinds on the vert wall so that was the first trick of the day. We managed to get two nice shots without anyone's hands falling off due to the cold.











































After warming up at the skatepark we decided to hit some real spots. A 5 minute drive was all it took to get to a primary school with a long set of stairs and some colourful benches and tables. Strangely enough, the only thing we skated at the school was something that hadn't been skated before. I had seen these water tap trough's skated before and posed the idea to Timmy to see if he had any tricks he could have a whirl at.

He managed to throw down a nollie backside Tailslide and stomp a frontside crooked grind.


          

 I then had to head off for a family lunch, I knew I could expect to chow down on a gourmet fest of Coles brand sausage rolls and donuts as well as other delicacy's that my nana might have prepared.


As well as the delicious food, I could also expect to take part in some intellectual conversation, popular topics include 'the fucken footy aye' and 'my flatscreen is bigger than yours'.


This was all well and good, but after a hefty feed and a kiss on the cheek from Nan I made my way back out into the elements to continue on our mission to shred hard and take photos...good.

                                                                       

I met Timmy back at the park and after a quick post lunch roll it was decided that we would  drive to a small town called Drouin about 10 minutes away. On the way we would stop by Josh Backman's house, Backman is another local ripper with fancy tranny skills in his bag as well as the ability to get fucking gnarly when the opportunity arises.
We arrived in Drouin at Backman's old high school. Towards the back of the school there is a super sketchy bank gap to bank. Backman managed to ollie from the platform above, land and then weave his way between rocks, weeds and pavers that can only have been designed with 'no skateboarding' in mind.

The last spot was a 'we're running out of light so lets go to one last spot' kind of thing. We headed to Dahlsens gap, a gap between two car parks out in the building/hardware area of Warragul. The light was fading and no one was really feeling the good vibes that had been with us earlier in the day, but Timmy managed to get a Front Shuv down the gap before we packed up and scurried home for dinner.

         

   

The Underhanded

I first met the Underhanded at the Anglesea music festival two or three years ago, back then they were just 15 or 16 year old kids going crazy on stage and makin their music as loud and as raw as possible . I sure didn’t know what to expect when I walked into their tiny, barely soundproof practice shed.

 For a bunch of 18 year olds, not even out of high school, these guys really had their shit together. I found myself nodding and tapping along to music that I can only describe as what felt like a combination of Dead Meadow and Black Sabbath.

After a few songs, we moved outside to shoot some photos and conduct what I guess was an interview but was really me just reading some questions off a piece of paper and hoping the guys could come up with the hilarious responses that would make for good reading.  We’ll let you decide that.

Me: Okay guys, I’ve got a few questions as well, so…yeah.

*at this point the boys had just finished climbing a tree

The Underhanded: sounds cool, lets do it.

Me: Where did this band come from? You guys all go to school together right?
T U: Well Cory was playing a lot of guitar and wanted to get a band together, so it really went from there pretty much.
* One of the guys then proceeded to quote something that sound really deep and meaningful that turned out to be from ‘Gangster Gumby’

Me: So once you started the band what kinda inspirations did you have? What inspirations do you have now?

T U: Well, I think we all watch the promo video on youtube for the new Tame Impala album about 10 times a day and when we first started we were all about ALMACKNJACK, also King Gizz, they’re awesome, but we don’t sound like them at all, they’re just awesome and Dead Meadow, we had a moment with them at the Nash once, while Doolan was greening out in the toilet.

Me: Right, so you guys all have special powers right? What kinda powers are we talking here?
T U: Well Ian has laser vision, sometimes stoner vision. Cory has fingers of fire, for guitar play. Doolan has single child ability, otherwise known as barrel scrapin’ ability and Jarrah eats easy mac.

Me: Very interesting, these all seem like valid powers to become the world’s next superband, might even help you guys get a bigger couch.
*The couch was really quite small
T U: We really do need a bigger couch.

Me: Okay, so I gotta know, who is Walt and why do you want to fuck him?
T U: Walt is this fuck who moved to N.S.W to smoke weed and go to court, FUCK WALT.
*for all FUCK WALT related items please refer too http://fuckwalt.tumblr.com/

Me: Have you guys got a favourite gig or venue that you’ve played?
T U: Well, we really like the Brunswick hotel, we’re playing their soon and our favourite gig was probably the first Anglesea music festival we played, that was heaps of fun.
*I was shooting at that festival and can vouch for the fun-ness the boys are referring to here, by the end of their set the crowd had invaded the stage in some sort of coastal dancing orgy.

Me: So what can the general public expect from you guys in the near future? Gigs or ep releases?

T U: We’ve got a gig at the Brunswick hotel next Friday, so everyone should come to that, and we’re playing at the Fort on August 10^th but don’t go to that.

Me: Sounds dope, okay time to wrap this up, quick! What are you favourite things ever?

T U: Ian: Grand Theft Auto *Not sure if he meant the game or the crime
Doolan: Being a dick, it’s really fun
Jarrah: Masturbation
Cory: Fuck Walt.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Underhanded/325708695984

Note: This interview may or may not have ended with Jarrah having a small piece of tree stuck in his eye.

 

 



   

Over The Mountains and Into The Powder

Hotham...

It's amazing what the world can come up with when you go to the very extremes of its nature.

On a recent Skiing/Snowboarding trip to Mt. Hotham we were greeted the first morning with this sight.

As the sun crept over the horizon it lit up a blanket of low-lying clouds that had swept in around the mountain ranges over night. To me, this was a perfect way to wake up before heading out into the sparkling snow to carve around the mountain all day until my body gave out.

Thank you, Hotham.

In the near future..

Semester Break..

Procrastination is a demon that has haunted me for nearly the whole of my high-school career. And this semester break I swore to myself that i would be proactive and get a whole bunch of photographs done.

Unfortunately my body had other ideas and I caught a super-gnarly cold as soon as the break began. This put a hold on some of the projects I had planned.

But now as I recover I look forward to completing some of the shoots that i planned.

Hopefully you'll be able to see really soon some of the final products of the ideas that my strange brain somehow conjures up.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I am looking into photographing early morning light that creeps through windows onto walls and floors inspired by the work of Uta Barth. As it is winter here in Australia I am struggling to get the strong harsh sunlight that I need, so below are some photos that I took instead.

          

               

My dear friends...

Influencing Traits...

A semester of Uni has passed me by and brought with it, the completion of my first major assignment. For this assignment I chose to photograph my friends, initially I wanted to explore the personalities that I see in each of my friends and try and capture that through each of their environmental portraits.

However, as I delved further into this idea, I realised that as I explored the personalities and traits of my close friends, I was actually exploring myself. Through the time I have a spent with each of these people I have tried to adopt into my own persona the things that I like most about each person. Each of these people have amazing qualities attributed to them that I can only hope to gain a fraction of from spending time with them, I can only hope that by spending time with such a unique group of people that I can one day be the best person I can be based on the influences that my friends have had on me.

For this assignment, one that was becoming more and more personal as I progressed through  the planning, I realised that location for these portraits was one of the most important aspects for each photograph. I chose the bedroom as the location for all of the portraits. The bedroom is probably the most personal place for anyone, it is the place where people let down all their defences, people feel safe in their bedroom and therefore they become vulnerable. A perfect location for a project that was analysing the personality traits of those around me. To gain access to my friends bedroom involves a level of trust and I would not have been able to make these photographs in the way that I have if i had decided to photograph those who were not close friends.

Anyway, here are the final photos.

                   
                                       

                                         

                                       

                                   

                                     

Projects

Plans...

Several photographic projects are on my mind at the moment, some almost finished, some barely even planned on paper.
One of them relates to the photo above, a Uta Barth Inspired image.
Barth creates images exploring how humans see things differently to the camera, and objects or scenes that often go unnoticed, such as early morning sunlight pouring through a window onto a wall, working with soft focus Barth draws valid attention to these scenes.

My Project will be exploring the early morning light that I am enveloped in when I wake up at my friends house on flinders st. It is quite a beautiful way to start the day and I enjoy every part that my bleary, sleep encrusted eyes will allow.

A whole lot of Barth's work can be seen here - http://www.sieshoeke.com/artists/uta-barth

Hopefully I'll be uploading my 'almost but not quite finished' project very soon.

An Unconventional Portrait.

A Self-Portrait.

Today I shot an unconventional self-portrait. I became inspired to do a portrait like this after watching a video of the 2012 GPP shootout, in which I witnessed the genius of Gregory Heisler go to work in creating a beautiful self-portrait that did not actually have Heisler himself in the frame, merely a large format camera with a top hat on top, framed in the silhouette of Heisler's spectacles. This to me was a brilliant portrait of Heisler and demonstrated the award-winning photographer's prowess and finesse.

If you're interested, here's the video - http://vimeo.com/39140805

I had this in the back of my mind all the while shooting this photograph, incorporating two aspects; The first being my favourite beanie that holds with it many memories, as well as a sense of my love for music. The second aspect being my camera (i had to take this photo using my old 1000D). I feel that this portrait captured who I am and i'm extremely happy with it. I hope you enjoy it too.