I have been taking a few photos of comedy gigs around Melbourne. Enough, in fact, to warrant a whole new section of my website. I’ve taken photos of stand-ups Charity Werk, Dilruk Jayasinha, and Claire Hooper among others for Glitter Bomb Comedy, and lots of improvisors from around Melbourne at The Improv Conspiracy and Lost Weekend. I’m really looking forward to MICF where I will be shooting several more shows and seeing some great comedy!
Photography
Uffizi Gallery /
I like art. I like art galleries too. Sometimes the art is worth the aching feet and the inflated food prices. Sometimes it's worth it just to see the architecture of the building. I regret not going inside the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona because I thought I couldn't afford it. I couldn't really, but I wish I had gone anyway. On the other hand, I am also so glad I went into the Guggenheim in New York. The art is amazing there, but the building itself is a true masterpiece. (You can see one of my photos of it here.)
The Uffizi Gallery is beautiful but I'm more glad that I could witness this scene: An Australian family on holiday to Italy. A shared joke and some cheeky grins. Seeing this kind of breaks my heart in a weird way. This picture really takes me back to the loving warmth of a family holiday. This family might take away memories from this day that they hold onto for a long time. Even if nostalgia makes them seem better than they were at the time.
View from the Ponte Vecchio /
I'm debating being pretentious vs. being accurate. I'm going to go with Florence (not Firenze) just for the sake of it. Florence has so many amazing vistas. The Ponte Vecchio is great, but this scene really seems to capture the timeless vibe of this amazing city. This photo might as well have been taken in 1876 (except it wouldn't have been taken with a DSLR, not would it have been in colour). I say 1876, but apparently this bridge was only constructed in the 1950s because the original was destroyed in 1944 by fleeing German troops during WWII. Appearances can be deceiving.
EDIT: This photo is from an iPhone camera, which explains why it doesn't look as crisp or high res as my other photos. I still like it in general, so it can stay.
Apartments in Antibes, Southern France /
Antibes holds all the charm that the Côte d'Azur can offer. Even in winter, the cold air didn't seem so cold. Winter in Australia is nearly over and I can't wait to feel the sun again. I would love to be in France again as soon as possible, but I guess I will have to settle for spring in Melbourne (which isn't that bad...)
Please Don't Feed the Pigeons /
With his back to the Atelier Brancusi (near the Centre Pompidou, in Paris' 4th Arrondissement) I imagine that this Parisian came to the same city square every day to carry out this task of feeding the pigeons. He was certainly an enigma to me and my friend Paul. I don't know if he knew he was contributing to the problem of an overpopulation of pigeons, or whether he viewed himself as their gentle caretaker. This mystery only became more confusing when one of the people watching him claimed to have seen him deliberately kill one of these pigeons. Unfortunately he did seem to have some kind of mental illness, and was abusive to another pedestrian.
Photography is sometimes a fickle pursuit. You can have an amazing vista in front of you and come away with no good shots, and sometimes you can get lucky in an instant. This is one of the latter occasions. I am proud of this photo, not for my own glory, but simply because I feel so lucky to have been able to successfully capture this chaotic and beautiful scene.
I'll try to update at least once a week for the next few weeks. My slow and even pacing of these photos has turned into a tedious and staggered drought. I plan to remedy this ASAP.
Flight /
Haven't updated this in a long while. I have a lot more in store, but this will do for now. I've uploaded a couple of touristy shots from London and elsewhere to the photography section.
I like this shot; I somehow managed to get a really clear shot of an American Airlines plane taking off from a London airport, bound to the US no doubt, on one of those cold, sunny winter mornings that the UK does so well.
This image really captures how I'm feeling right now. Sick of winter. Stressed with work and ready to escape the cold weather.
I don't really mean the following quote, but it does have a certain appeal to it...
“Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.”
The British Museum /
When you enter the British Museum you are struck with the scale, the beautiful architecture and the clean modern look of it all. The entrance into the Great Court is dazzling to any newcomer and when the roof was put on in 2000 it was the largest covered area in Europe. The coalescense of old and new is monumentally striking and neither jarring nor gaudy.
I love museums and the British Museum rivals any I have ever been in. There are artefacts from every age of history and millions of individual items. I could spend a week in this place and never get bored.
If you are in London, you have to go. If not for your own interest then at least go on my behalf.
Happy New Year /
So 2015 started great. Watching a nebula of fireworks explode off of a bridge on the Thames with my wife, two other great friends, and thousands of strangers.
With every new year comes apprehension and excitement and this year has both in plentiful supply. I'm now starting my second year of marriage and my second year of full-time work. While my marriage has been something worth cherishing, my work life has been a serious chore.
I have had so many doubts about my current work situation and despite having a love for some aspects of my job, the indifference to other aspects has started to turn into boredom, frustration, and high amounts of stress.
I don't know where I will be when the clock strikes twelve on the eve of 2016, but I hope for some positive change and if I get to have as great of a new year next year, well, that would be great too.
House in Scotland /
This is a house near Stirling Castle. It was such a foggy day that my camera could barely even see the castle until we were at the gates. On the way back we passed this house that is inescapably quaint. I wouldn't be surprised if JK Rowling lives here. If you know, let me know, but don't tell her I posted this here.
Kelpies /
The Kelpies are apart of Scottish folklore that I had barely heard about growing up in the UK. That is up until visiting friends in Scotland in December. As you can see, these kelpies are hard to miss. They are basically trickster horses that lure people underwater to their deaths. I saw a great post on reddit a while back that linked to a comic strip about these creatures. Wikipedia has a lot of information about the sculptures themselves, and they even have their own website.
We went there on a beautifully crisp winter's day. In Scotland, the days are so short in winter and the sun sets diagonally. This means that the golden hour can extend for what seems like way more than an hour. I can't verify that though.
Anyway, here is a blurry photo of the Kelpies. I am normally very particular about focus (who isn't?) but something about the lack of a hard focus in this photo really brings out a softness that I just can't part with. So instead of getting instantly deleted, I have put it up here. There are more up on my images page as well.
Stirling Castle /
The last few posts have been from New York, but this is from our time in the UK. It was taken in a Scottish Castle near Stirling (Stirling Castle) and shows my friend Ian and his incredibly cute daughter. Ian and his wife Jess let us stay with them for almost a week over Christmas and were overwhelmingly hospitable and welcoming to us, inviting us to every meal and family outing (which was incredibly fun). Also, their daughter is outrageously cute and could easily sustain her own instagram if she was allowed. The castle was great and wandering around in the mist provided some great shots but I just love this moment between father and daughter. I'm really glad I was lucky enough to get a good shot in the moment. So a shout out to Jess and Ian and their daughter for being great.
PS 89 Crossing Guard /
On a school day at the right time in the morning streams of young children children cross this busy intersection towards PS 89. It is a common urban sight to see kids heading to school in the morning. This school is uncommon though. Almost fourteen years ago it was one of closest schools to ground zero. It bears the following plaque:
"On September 11 2001 our beloved and brave children witnessed the best and worst in humanity. We honor the heroic and compassionate principals, teachers, and staff of PS 89 and IS 89 who brought them to safety, of both body and spirit."
It's so easy to forget the pain that exists within so many residents of this city. I'm thankful for the reminder, despite wishing I didn't need to be reminded.
New York City /
This image seems to express a lot of our feelings about New York and the experiences we had. Amid the sights and sounds of the city are smells colours, noises, tastes, emotions and many other varied sensory experiences that can't always be captured on camera. We saw wealth and we saw poverty. We saw style and substance, and we saw each one without the other. We each loved New York for different reasons and we both found ourselves getting pissed off with the little idiosyncrasies of place. You can love something and still accept its flaws. And if I'm not overstepping my bounds, I guess we feel that way about each other.
Trust Your Vision. /
A lot of the images I will be posting for the next little while will be from a trip my wife and I went on around the world. We left Australia in December (on the day of the Lindt Café Siege) and arrived home late January. We managed to visit New York, Edinburgh, London, Paris, Florence, and Rome.
This is an outstanding mural I saw in Brooklyn. It makes sense to start with this image. After all, New York was our first stop. This mural is by an artist called Gilf! and you can read more about it here.
I don't know where this blog will be going specifically, but generally I will be writing about photography, travel, religion, and will possibly meander my way into doing some fiction writing along the way.
Trust your vision. I hope you like what you see.