On Any Morning

While you and I

are slapping on

the sunscreen and the hat,

this guy is silvering up

to earn a quid

by staying still.

Gertrude Stein vs Neil Young

I don't set out to procrastinate or get distracted.

It just happens along the way.

For example, I'm cleaning up my desk. There's a pile of official documents, computer hard drive cables, business cards, shirt buttons (??), a funny note from my staff and other scraps of paper with stuff written on them - ideas from friends on where to buy silk for surfboard fabric underlays, repeat medication slips from the doctor, financial statements and then I spy a post it note with just this written on it "mexsgarage.com.au".

I have no recollection how that came into my possession, so I fire up the computer to investigate it via Google.
It's some sort of automobile website for a crew who do impressive classic olde cars makeovers.

I stare at the post it note again. Is it even my scratchy handwriting?
I decide not and turf it.

While the web is up, I check my email and there's something from one of those online travel agents promising bargain prices. Maybe I can afford that return trip to WA and catch up with Corey at Margaret River, I ponder.
So I send him a text to find out when he's flying out of that mining site in the middle of the desert - the one where he gets paid to blow stuff up and shoot critters like this.

In my distraction, I have let the water for the morning coffee boil and gone cool. I start to reboil it. The water here is suss in summer anyway.

While that's happening, I spot an interesting email from Byron Bay, the epicentre of the surfing rainbow. Ohhhh look at that! Jim Banks has a sale on and the photos of his new Indo board range have me dreaming of exotic locales.
Meanwhile,  the water for the coffee has boiled and cooled again.
I have lost an hour I'll never get back.

The photo below sums up my shifting focus and distraction perfectly.
I bought some beautiful little roses at the markets, thinking I'll do a macro Tina Modotti style shot. I got distracted too many times and now the blooms have gone belly up. Since we are having a heat wave I end up getting some nice shots of rosarian decay.

This is what they should have looked like.

"A rose is a rose is a rose" - Gertrude Stein

I'll probably get distracted and go off on an artistic tangent all the same again in 2014.

It's not all bad, though.

Sometimes artistic deviation can lead to interesting results. As the great sage Young once remarked when commenting on his various stylistic changes away from Mainstream Music:

"Travelling there was really boring 

so I headed for the ditch. 

It was a rough ride 

but I met more interesting people there." 

- Neil Young

Shrimps on the BBQ

I'm off to see a man about some prawns (shrimps) 

for tomorrow's Christmas lunch, 

so this is a quick post-modern post 

with a mashup  of some new 

and some old imagery 

- all taken with the Canon 7D.

6" x 6" x Summer

Closer **

Closer ** was the last album by Joy Division. I still have the vinyl. Great monochrome photography by Bernard Pierre Wolff.

Today's sunny, colourful post is the antithesis of that bleak music.

Sometimes you have to get closer.

Which is why I wear the red helmet when shooting in the water.

Missing Moffs Moments 2

HUGE APOLOGIES to my regular readers and Moffatts mates wondering where their photos got to. (Email me at: brinetimes@gmail.com )

Within an hour of downloading 1000+ shots of Moffatt the other morning, my laptop emitted a burnt wiring odour and decided to retire after 7 or 10 years of loyal service, which is like 100 human years.
I'm not sure how long it's been, but it was the white Macbook 13".
We went everywhere.
Governments came and went.
Despots fell.
Heros died.

The little white lappie just kept on digesting all manner of images - shots of weddings on the beach at Noosa, Maldivian moments, Morocco, WA, the NSW Central Coast and a trillion old analogue film scans from last century.

Thank you little white darkroom-in-a-box.

Bush spring

bushfires 

and 

back burning

cold wax

to

warm wax

clear moons

surf checks

onshores

spring

M0n0chr0me MOnday (me and m0ffs)

Today's post is dedicated to the pioneering O'Brien's -  refugee, boat people who sought a better life on the other side of the planet.
About 150 years ago, a boat named The Queen of the Colonies brought three brothers and their families from Ireland to Australia. On board was a two year old girl, who eventually mothered a girl, who eventually mothered a girl, who now lives on the point overlooking a memorial to the crew of the same boat.
The circle completes.