August 7, 2008

I Have Laser Vision

I've been short sighted for 20 years. Ever since that day in year 5 when I cheerfully claimed I couldn't see the blackboard, I have been issued with spectacles of stronger and stronger prescription. The cute pink ones evolved into coke bottle thickness over the years. My eyeballs finally ceased their degradation at a focus range of 10cm - 20cm from my eyeballs.

It was the fateful years of 7 and 8 (& my choice of big round plastic glasses patterned in purple, black and silver spots) that caused my delegation to the 'dag group' and thus creating a lifetime of social insecurity.

In year 9 I changed to contact lenses which was a brilliant move but never managed to move the indent made by those purple spectacles. It is as though those big glasses have forever since sat upon my nose.

So I wore my contacts every day and this was fine for about ten years.
However in the last five years the contacts started getting scratchy, dry and causing excess blinking. Often people would ask me why I was pulling such strange faces (and I'm sure many others wondered). "Oh, that's just my contacts" I'd say. "I have to keep rolling my eyes around to avoid them sticking to my eyelids when I blink."

So laser eye surgery was my next step to social acceptance and lighter travel.

I started to dream of a life without contact solution bottles filling my bathroom shelves and the irritation of having to take my lenses out and put them in every single day.

So I weighed up the cost. $6000. That's equal to 9 years of blindness. ($4500 on contacts, $700 glasses and $800 solution.)

Not a bad long term investment.
It means that if I live til 70 then I will save $20,000.

I shrugged off the fear of staring into laser beams slicing at my eyeball but then there was that fear... what if something went horribly wrong... What on earth could I be without vision?

But with millions of procedures having taken place, what were those chances?
I made up my mind that the minute risk was worth taking.

I went to visit a surgeon and was astonished by his arrogance. So I went to another surgeon at Perth Laser Vision Centre and realised that they are clearly a breed of their own. No bedside manner at all. I don't think the man actually saw me as a person, instead as a walking set of eyeballs - to see, not be heard.
He even scoffed when I dared ask a question.
But with little other choice here, I handed over my precious organs for his operation.
Even if he rubbed me the wrong way, he was surely good at rubbing down corneal flaps... he's probably spent more time with them.

So here I am merely a week after surgery. I'm bouncing around with 20/20 vision. It certainly was freaky and something out of a science fiction future. But here we are! Living this amazing scientific reality.

As my dear surgeon said as he finished the 20 minute ($6000) procedure...
"There. You're Cured Now".

[current mood] Frangelico, Lemon and Ice & Not Snoring!

Posted by nat at 11:01 PM | Comments (6)

July 23, 2008

Printing in Kenwick

I took on the job of screenprinting 65 tshirts in 24 hours.
I had the tees, I had the screens but I was awake all night fretting about my ability to do the printing. So I googled and found John.
My lepricorn.
An elderly ferret-loving, boxercising printer with a most chirpy disposition.
He saved my day (or my butt) by dropping his other work to get the job done on time.

We spent this morning screenprinting at his home in Kenwick.
We were fed toasties with lemon cake and Irish tea for lunch.
I learned so much in 4 hours about screenprinting, about being in Vietnam at age 18 as a 'scout', about having a wife with terminal cancer, having a daughter die unexpectedly at 13 years of age... all whilst we screened and heated and folded tshirts.

They got delivered ahead of schedule.

He retires in a month and has already sold his equipment, so I know I'll probably never again cross paths with this man of stories and although I wanted to grab him and hug him and tell him how much I was affected by him, I just held out a hand and said thanks before driving away. That's all you can really do.
Everyone is a teacher, if you listen.

Tshirts I designed for FORM's photography workshops in Port Hedland.

[current mood] Little Creatures Pilsner & Lamb Rogan Josh

Posted by nat at 5:27 PM | Comments (0)

July 18, 2008

Abbe May Album

Do you relate to this?
I'm sitting here at my computer working and note that there is a sense of excitement in me. A feeling like something to look forward to yet I can't immediately recall what it is, but then... I remember. I still have one more square of Lindt chocolate left! Yes! I managed to forget about it consciously in order to delay its consumption but retained the good feeling about it existing.

And now that I'm conscious, I must enjoy it's dark milky splendour!

The same experience applies to remembering a new CD you haven't opened yet. I finally un-shrinkwrapped Abbe's May's new Album... Howl & Moan.

It is my most recent CD design. I also shot the cover and hand drew the type.
The shoot was in the Fly By Nightclub during the day. Abbe stood in front of some black curtain that was catching a shaft of window light.

[current mood] Surely God Was A Lover & Fresh Pistachios

Posted by nat at 5:40 PM | Comments (2)

July 16, 2008

Windows into 10.15 Saturday Night

I'm taking part in a little project called 10.15 Saturday Night.
Anyone can take part, the only rule is to take a photo at 10.15pm on a Saturday night. People from all over the world have joined in. Some with just a phone camera.

As a photographer and with a photographic partner, we're taking it a wee bit more seriously. We're trying to build a collection of images of a similar feel to see what kind of series we can make. And projects like this simply give me an excuse to take a photograph and to play with others, which I don't do enough these days... (note to self).

This image is one we didn't submit last weekend. But I really liked it. Alas, part of the challenge of photography is choosing the one photograph.

We're under a pseudonym in case it gets a bit revealing...

[current mood] Milky Lindt & Lenny Kravitz

Posted by nat at 2:57 PM | Comments (0)

July 14, 2008

Wabi Sabi

Here is my exploration of beauty using the uniquitous Australian Gum leaf.
I found these leaves on the grass of Bay Rd, Claremont, the street is lined with huge white gums that lead me home.

This little piece is about my understanding of the ancient Japanese aesthetic, Wabi Sabi.
It's ultimately about imperfection and how nature's hand provides the deepest beauty.

I believe that by connecting with this wild beauty we can embrace the marks of nature in us - on our faces, in our hearts and accept this right up to that point at which we are engulfed by the earth, to seed more life, to become all, again.

[current mood] ABC presenter voices & Smokehouse Almonds

Posted by nat at 1:15 PM | Comments (0)

July 4, 2008

When in Bavaria...

Ever since a 16 year old German lass, seeking revenge for my disobedience of her every command, forced me to eat a giant slice of her mother's cherry torte (causing me bulimic inspiration), I have never forgotten that a German is to be taken seriously.

So when in Bavaria I recommended that we follow the signage without fault, for fear of being force fed.

Unfortunately David was caught out (see picture 3) for having his legs "the wrong way round" and was thus detained until he consumed a dozen foot-long Wurst Sausages.

[current mood] Sleepytime Tea & Movies in Bed

Posted by nat at 12:48 AM | Comments (1)

June 28, 2008

R.I.P. Natalija Brunovs

It is quite a chilling thing, to see your name on a gravestone.
However in doing so I have (for the first time) experienced a sense of peace with the idea of being dead.

To stand on the soft earth flourishing greenery that makes a tranquil forest, housing birds and flying insects... in Riga, Latvia.
This place is nothing like a patch near the side of a road in Perth.

I felt like I could happily be under that ground, growing cornflowers.
I'll be buried next to my grandmother, Natalija Brunovs.

[current mood] Entourage Series & Heavy Bavarian Cuisine

Posted by nat at 7:05 PM | Comments (1)

June 15, 2008

Green with Envy for Munich

I'm in Munich, Germany, full as a goog on sausages and double-sized pints.
I've been walking around with no camera, pen or paper and just observing and trying to commit the images to memory...
Yesterday it was German womens' wrinkled faces, drab and expressionless on the tram, then the cyclists in their black and grey, highlighted by hot coloured scarves, typography that even on office windows and functional street signage had design style of exceptional flair, but it was the english garden that will really stay with me.
A secret garden in the middle of a buzzing city, sprawling with dense leafy trees of a green that is electric. The word tranquil runs through you as you walk and the opaque jade river gushes under the stone bridges.

Today I went back again without my camera (!) but stole my sister's happy snap to try some shots.

As we walked today, the six of us tried to invent new versions of
"Let's make like a banana and split"

We got a little obsessed. Here is our list...

Let's...
Make like a Tom and Cruise
Make like a tree and leave
Make like hay and bail
Make like a rock and roll
Make like a sprout and shoot
Make like an egg and beat it
Make like punctuation and dash
Make like a green light and go
Make like a gay man and come out
Make like a pram and stroll
Make like a plane and take off
Make like a gun and shoot
Make like diarrhoea and run
Make like a boot and scoot
Make like a board and walk
Make like Henry the 8th and head off
Make like Moses and d'part
Make like a market and flee
Make like an ipod and shuffle

[current mood] Beer & Neil Young

Posted by nat at 4:28 AM | Comments (5)

June 4, 2008

Pie Love

We're having a pie-fetish at home. Can't get enough pies. So we had a pie dinner last night where we tried to out-pie each other. A lamb, mushroom, onion relish and rosemary in various formats (most cute as 'little love pie'), a creamy vegetable pie and dessert was a raspberry and rhubarb pie.

Pies. They just taste so damn good don't they. They encompass everything you want in a meal, crunch, warmth, tenderness and heartiness.

Now I'm thinking about making a recipe book of pies. I just wish some publisher would call me up and say 'go make whatever you want, and we'll distribute it'... yes, I think that's my dream, to just make books on whatever the heck I want.

[current mood] Arcade Fire & G & Ts

Posted by nat at 4:20 PM | Comments (2)

June 2, 2008

Mingenew Media

I just found this recent media update by Drew Radford (The Bloke on the Bike). He made a micro documentary on the Mingenew Project which you can stream live from the ABC site using Real Player.

I'm impressed with it actually. He filmed it less than a week ago and has pulled it together into a sweet little documentary that captures the project's atmosphere well.

[current mood] Homemade Pies & Barry White

Posted by nat at 9:23 PM | Comments (0)