Remembering Megan

"What's so incredibly amusing with photography

is that while seemingly an art of the surface, 

it catches things I haven't even noticed."

Jacques Henri Latrigue

Today's post is dedicated to my wonderful niece, Megan. That's her above, snapped last century, when things were more carefree.. While I wander around Byron looking for waves today, she'll be doing what she did yesterday and the day before - caring for her terminally ill husband. 

Life makes no sense, sometimes.

Song for Dora

Harrison Roach x First Point

Word on the coconut telegraph is that The Who (or what's left of them) might be coming to our barren island this year.

It's part of what they are calling, the Last Tour Ever.

They'll keep making albums, but the logistics and physical toll of touring are now too much for a bunch of old geezers from Shepherd's Bush, London.

I for one, will be trying to get tix.

"I can go anyway, way I choose

I can live anyhow, win or lose

I can go anywhere, for something new

Anyway, anyhow, anywhere I choose"

"Nothing gets in my way

Not even locked doors

Don't follow the lines

That been laid before

I get along anyway I dare

Anyway, anyhow, anywhere"

from Anyway Anyhow Anywhere by The Who

Lone Xmas Tree

Couple of un-tweaked snaps from this morning's two and half hour bike ride.

 I saw this lone Xmas tree in the middle of nowhere a few days ago and thought  I should come back at dusk with camera and some portable strobe gear but the forecast is for extreme hotness, so it was dawn mission instead.

Doublers

Before I saved enough pocket money for my own second hand crate at age 10, we had one large men’s bike to share amongst the six of us kids.

We younger kids couldn't reach the peddles, so we became adept at "doublers" where one of us would sit side saddle on the main horizontal bar and the other would sit on the seat and steer.

It was a real trust exercise and luckily we never had any major accidents or "neckers".

Today's post is dedicated to my siblings. I still can't believe one of you used to ride over the rest of us Evil Knevil style!

Bush spring

bushfires 

and 

back burning

cold wax

to

warm wax

clear moons

surf checks

onshores

spring

Spring Doldrums

Monochrome Monday (randoms and remembrances)

Hughie parks the old car west facing the surf and grabs his leather bound Petri and hand held light meter. He knows its f8 and 1/125 second but checks anyway. He's been disciplined by poverty, the War and life on the sea.

He takes a shot of the line up at The Point and one of the family leaning against the wire fence above the cliff. It will be a few months before he finishes the roll of 36 and sends it off to the Kodak lab in Melbourne. Money's tight.

1970, the family's last holiday together . The oldest boy could soon be off to Vietnam, if his number comes up. Long haired hippies with bell bottom jeans and bare feet are everywhere. 

Hughie can smell smoke but it's nothing like his MacBarrens Navy Cut pipe tobacco. 

Monochrome Monday (Equivalent)

These first words for the new financial year are for cyclist photogs, Steve and Robert. 

Thanks for your friendship and inspiration.

Seems that, for a botanist, Minor White (1908-1976) spent a lot of time looking at clouds. He would get his cumbersome camera out and surf the light with the disciplined eye of a Zen master. Waiting and waiting and waiting and then when the light reflected or refracted in a certain way, he would capture etherial fleetingness onto big sheets of film.

Yes, anybody who was there then with that camera could have taken that shot of that barn or those clouds. It wasn't like he had to swim around the line up dodging rogue sets, anti-imagery locals or anything.

But his photographs were not just images of stuff - frost on glass, clouds, peeling bits of paint or gnarly old rocks. No, his compositions directed the viewer's gaze towards specific elements out of all the clutter that Reality presented at that moment for him to choose from. (And yes that probably makes his photos political, but let's leave that for now.) He called them Equivalents as they caused an emotional reaction unrelated to the content.

And what did Minor White do on days when there were no clouds? 

Well, he co-founded Aperture, one of the most influential photography magazines ever, still communicating on numerous media 60 years later!

Next time you pick up a quality surf mag, (one that makes you still go "wow"), take a good, hard look at the wow shots inside and consider the way the shooter chose to frame them and consider this. The shooter or the editorial designer was probably inspired by the great photographers such as Minor White or taught or mentored by those that were - shooters who knew a cloud was not just a cloud.

Duo duo

 Book of the week - "The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die" by John Izzo, who argues the following:

1   be true to yourself

2   leave no regrets

3   become love

4   live the moment

5   give more than you take

(I'm adding one for surfers

wear sunscreen)