James and Paul

Snap happy arvo

That feeling of getting a new board ready for the next day's dawn patrol.

Flow

 Going with the flow

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.

Quote - Week 3

"Life goes on"

Robert Frost

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

Sub-optimal

We've been talking a lot lately about why our friends gave surfing away and let their boards gather dust. 

Some got into other scenes. Some pursued careers far from the brine. Some were seduced by their demons, never to return.

We've also been talking a lot lately about why we keep surfing. 

Even in dribbly conditions, after searching for an hour along scoured sandbanks. And we keep coming back to the social aspect of surfing a quiet spot with a couple of pals.

Doesn't matter whether they are riding one fin, no fin or three finned mals. It's the social aspect of sharing the brine under a big blue sky with people dear to us.

A big feed, a coffee or three afterwards and talking story is the icing on the cake.

Here's one for everybody who still goes out even when it's sub-optimal.

Waiting for Dylan

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.

Sunday Drive

Save Kirra

Please sign the online petition
to the Premier of Queensland
(the elected leader in charge)
to stop
this ecological insanity - click here.

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

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.