If Ansel Adams surfed

When I was a lot younger and starting to learn the discipline of shooting, processing and printing film on big 5x4" cameras, most of my fellow students at Art College were inspired by documentary style street photographers.
But I was not.
By then I had seen enough of the street and was more interested in the brine and the bush.

Instead the two monochrome magicians that still inspire me years and a digital revolution later are the Czech Josef Sudek and the American landscape legend Ansel Adams.
Who knows why some aRt resonates with one viewer and not another. Maybe all that time swimming around with a Nikonos or waiting to catch a wave at Granite or Tea Tree nurtured a love of place and the way light skims off country at different times of the day and different seasons of the year.

“It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.”
Ansel Adams

“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.”
Ansel Adams

“To the complaint, 'There are no people in these photographs,' I respond, There are always two people: the photographer and the viewer.” 
Ansel Adams

But if you are devotee of gritty monochrome street photography, then check out one of my old Art College teachers, Charles Page 's page. His imagery takes a lot more guts then duck diving a few close out sets with a DSLR.

If Thoreau Surfed

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, 

perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. 

Let him step to the music which he hears, 

however measured or far away."

Henry David Thoreau

Quote Week - 5

"A ship in port 

is safe

but that is not 

what ships 

are built for".

Anon

Quote Week - 6

"Travel is the only thing

you buy

that makes you richer"

Anon

Windsong

Some days 

you just want to lie on the deck 

and soak up the rays

and others

well

you feel the pull of the tides

 and the caress of the wind 

on the waves

and so

you unfurl the main

check the stays

check the larder

and let go the anchor.

Same same

Bottom turn.
Same move.
Same town.
Same same?

Sunday Drive

Aloha Nikonos

If I count my phone, I have nine working cameras and one car to chuck them all into. 

My absolute toughest, go anywhere, quasi indestructible little light trapper is my second oldest camera, the hard working 35 mm Nikonos V which is 30 next year. 

It's taken a lot of beatings in the impact zone and never botched one exposure. While I've tumbled across the bottom of Granite Bay screaming quietly for a breath of air, not a drop of moisture has gotten inside.

This pic courtesy of Wikipedi

So I figure it deserves a little holiday over in WA with Margaret River surfer big Corey from the TooMuchFunCollective. Aloha little orange marvel and BIG thanks.

Film x film

A roll of 35mm film 

and 

a single shheet of 5x4" film.

One in a controlled studio environment.

The other at the whim of the ocean

and the talent that 

occasionally glides across it...

The Medici's Don't Surf

OK Santa, here's the deal.

Swimming around the impact zone 

with a film camera containing 36 exposures, max, 

is really so last century - like this shot.

What I need is a nice wide lens and port to go with my DSLR.

In return, I'll create a few memorable slices of time

that surfers can pass down to future generations.

So could you please hook me up 

with a rich patron of the aRts?

I realise the Medici's probably don't surf, 

but some crew like them or the Gates', yeah, 

that would suffice - lots of money to splash on The aRts.

Thanks

PS You might want to go easy on the calories, 

your BMI must be in the red zone

Something Borrowed

Continuing the bridal theme - "Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" 

Today I'm borrowing a few old film shots from my first blog, Brine Time (all 793 posts are still able to be viewed).

GfG at Granite riding the ancient Joe Larkin pig mal with no leggie. It was old even in 1984 and weighed a ton - an epic to carry around all of those points. Didn’t used to see many mals in those days. A couple of guys from the Alex Headland crew, but that was it. The Larkin is awaiting restoration.

GfG at Granite. Probably same session as the other shot. We’d backpack around to the outcrop overlooking the furtherst cove. Surf. Shoot. Come in and scoff down a Mars Bar and a Coke and go out again, eventually returning for a massive pancake and maple syrup lunch and game of Space Invaders (20cents in the slot machine) at the little shop at the entrance to the National Park called The Noosa Wave.

The second shot above is one of the ones that accompanied a story I wrote about Noosa that was published in the Switchfoot II book.

Something Old

This week's theme (as endorsed by brides around the world): 

Something old, 

something new, 

something borrowed. 

something blue 

Today's contingent consists of 35mm films scans from last century ie OLD.

 California dreaming. Huntington Beach Pier, January 1978. Handheld. Manual focus. 200mm. Kodachrome 64. This guy was getting barrelled and hanging five and having grown up with short boards, I had never seen anything like it - nobody was riding longboards anymore on the Sunny Coast.

Mooloolaba Rivermoth. Sunset late 1980's. These pilot boats had twin Rolls Royce engines and were quite a sight heading out when there were large swells. Somehow they would pull up beside a monstrous tanker and the "pilot" would scamper up a ladder and then guide the newcomer into Moreton Bay and the Port of Brisbane.

Hand held slow exposure with a Metz strobe that still works fine today. This was our local evening stroll on a sunday evening, when we lived about a kilometre south. A couple of times the rivermouth silted up and you could surf from Point Cartwright down the river, whilst avoiding boats.

Kings Beach, late arvo. Nikonos V 35mm Kodachrome. This was the camera I used to shoot from the water with and must have had a frame or two left on the 36 exposure roll. I quite like 35mm focal length on a 35mm camera -  little wider than normal but not too distorted.

I was never much good at street photography, but quite like this one. Of course the Kiosk is long demolished and replaced with some sort of bland structure.

The Clutter

I was smiling the other morning. 

The Spring sun was poking through the industrial jaggness that is the horizon here in the burbs as a huge garbage truck pulls up outside, grabs our rubbish bin with an evil mechanical claw, hurls it into the air and slams it back onto the footpath.

I'm smiling at the surreal nature of this weekly ritual.

I'm smiling at the fact that I go to work to earn money so I can pay somebody to take away clutter that I paid for with money I earned. 

I'm smiling because I'm stupid and I know it.

If I bought less clutter, I could spend less time working and more time surfing or shooting surfing or writing about shooting and surfing and clutter.

Simple.

Not.

My clutter habit is deep seated, beginning with a childhood where money was spare and luxuries non-existent. Add to that a lifetime of exposure to advertising with luscious photography promising an illusory life of wonder.

And so The Clutter creeps back. A shirt, a lens, a fin on sale. A DVD, a CD an MP3 here and there. Some new wine glasses. A bottle of red. A bottle of white. A bottle of authentic Canadian maple syrup for those pancakes only eaten once because I'm trying to get healthier and fittier. A bunch of film in the refrigerator past it's use by date for a variety of cameras busted out once in a while.

Clutter.

And so I do the Spring Clean again.

Until next year.

Monochrome Monday (is back)

Most Heroes Are Anonymous

 "Most Heroes Are Anonymous" the shoe slogan read, back in the day when I actually ran (as opposed to this morning's uncoordinated puffing shuffle).
Clever. Had me hooked. Still like it.
As a concept anyway, but not as a sneaky advertising gimmick designed to vacuum more debt out of one's "credit" card.

In the greater scheme of things, most of us would be lucky to know a couple of hundred other souls traversing Life.
To the rest of the planet, we are anonymous. Randoms. Faceless. Without a story.

But heroes no less to those we care for, to those we inspire, to those we love.
And that's enough.

Game Changer

The photo above was taken with a Nikonos 35mm film camera.

A lot of people get excited about film.

But not me.

It costs money and time waiting to see if you got the shot. And the camera above is manual focusing, manual film wind on.

Film does have it's time and places, depending on the light, the emulsion (affordable digital still can't replicate infra red mono film for my money) and the intended final use. 

I still use four film cameras including a 1936 6x6 and a 1980s Nikonos with two different lenses to shoot out in the water with. However, I mainly shoot water surf using a bulky DSLR in a robust professional housing.

But today, one can now buy a digital version of the legendary underwater Nikonos, complete with interchangeable lenses, small size, large resolution and 10+ frames per second. It's a game changer.

Hot Buttered

It starts with a young fella travelling up to the Gold Coast to learn the foam mowing trade under the guidance of the legendary Brian "Furry" Austin (RIP) at the back of Kirra.

Along the way, it intersects with the brains trust that was Hawaii in the 70's and the air brushed surealism of Martin Worthington. It now spans two generations of surfing and includes movies to boot.

It is Hot Buttered Surfboards.