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)

May 31, 2008

Farewell Mingenew My Love

This is but one of the many images stuck in my mind of this month that has simply blown me away. I have never experienced such tangible success in a community project, such cherishable people, such hospitality, warmth and generosity. I am simply blessed that I landed in Mingenew and was gifted with the friendships of so many. In what other situation can you enter a community and be welcomed into homes across it, have conversations about life with all walks of life and be loved for what you can bring to them too?
I've experienced the luckiest of things, an authentic immersion and a two-way exchange. Words let me down... but I know that this month's effect on me will be very real in my future decisions on family and lifestyle.

I drove away from Mingenew this morning listening to the melancholy sounds of Mogwai. I said all my goodbyes last night at the exhibition (the final group hug sending me off crying to bed). I chose to leave it as just me today, packing up the car and heading off down the long long road alone.
By the time I got to Great Eastern Highway it was pouring. The ridiculousness of having driven 3 hours south from a drought ridden community to be hit with rain so heavy that I couldn't see through my windscreen, was a bit much on the already peaking senses.

As I listened to an old song about home, I thought of the home I just left and felt the tear of my departure. The love I feel for my new friends was shown as I joined in with the rain and cried heartbrokeness.

We all have to accept endings and know that life is full of them. Nothing lasts forever, and if it did, we wouldn't appreciate it anyway. The ends being pain only due to the beauty of the time we had before. The shorter, the sweeter, the sadder.

I try to remember to smile that I was able to have the experience, not cry that it is over.

[current mood] Mark Knopfler / Emmylou Harris - This is Us & Mandarins from a Roadside Stall

Posted by nat at 5:09 PM | Comments (2)

May 5, 2008

The Mingenew Project

This May I'm living in the mid-west Australian town of Mingenew.
A three and a half hour drive north of Perth.

I'm teaching photography and creativity to whoever in the community is keen. We're all contributing to a collection of views of this place. Farmers, teachers and sport fanatics who reside in this drought-ridden place are taking part to share what they love, what they live with, what they do, here, in Mingenew.

Here are some photographs from my very first workshop, by some farmer's wives.

The on-going website is www.mingenewproject.com

I'll be back on my blog after that.
Although I may have some random tidbits to share... like a little video of my car stuck on the railway tracks in an extreme error of driving due to blinding sun. That was a fun start to the trip...

[current mood] Meat Stew & Country AM radio

Posted by nat at 5:44 PM | Comments (0)