why not? “Lonely Boy”

January 21st, 2012

Start the year in reverse: why?

January 11th, 2012

James in the street (London, 2005)

I recently watched Simon Sinek’s talk entitled ‘How great leaders inspire action’. Although I don’t agree with everything he’s saying, the base principal of reversing the typical what? how? why? sequence, to the why? how? what? sequence used by those we are all aiming to be…seems an interesting place to start the year from.

Food for thought.

Dry Line on the Horizon

December 27th, 2011

Amongst other things over the Christmas break, I have been reviewing a heap of slides and negatives that I took as a teenager during various trips we took in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia. It was the time of the trusty RICOH 35 EFL and Pentax P30n, 35mm film cameras. Below 3 shots of the vast Etosha Pan in Namibia.

It’s my retrospective tribute to Hiroshi Sugimoto. Happy Holiday’s from Australia!

Fibreglass and Megapixels

December 27th, 2011

Just caught this on Channel ONE. Derek and Craig Hoffmann’s documentary on surfing photography on Hawaii’s North Shore. Check it out…

Advent Conspiracy – Something different?

December 18th, 2011

I was shown this promo clip this morning which is worth linking to … it’s easy to forget all the people in need … whilst the first world drowns in typical year end consumerism.

1650 Group Show – Untitled

December 10th, 2011

Two photographs selected for Group Exhibition at 1650 Gallery, Echo Park, Los Angeles. See the Exhibition Print and the selected photograph for the Online Annex Photograph above. For further details on the Exhibition please visit 1650 Gallery.

Plastic.Excess.Selfish x (all of us) = BIG PROBLEM

December 3rd, 2011

A while back in Perth (Western Australia), I went to the opening night of Lincoln Fenner’s More for Me documentary movie considering the vast differences between those of us who have and those of us who have not. I encourage you to watch it and if possible support the causes and charities that are mentioned.

In a similar vein since my last post ‘midway to destruction’ and the unusually high no. of email responses that I received, I continued to research the work that Chris Jordan has been doing and the plastic problem in the North Pacific Ocean…becoming more interested in both as I did so.

It’s probably unusual to do another post on another (the same) photograher again, but Chris Jordan is doing the stuff that really needs to be highlighted. No suprise then, that the ever brilliant Chase Jarvis has a fantastic interview with Chris over at Chase Jarvis Live which is very much worth watching as a truly insighful and inspirational interview.

Chris has a more formal but equally moving and shorter message over on TED here (for the time starved its only 11.17 mins).

And, then back to the plastic situation and to truly get the ‘ocean is a plastic soup’ concept embedded in your memory watch this you tube link:

Charles Moore: Sailing the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Plastic.Excess.Selfish x (all of us) = BIG PROBLEM

MIDWAY TO DESTRUCTION

November 13th, 2011

I guess like most people who have their heads down with work deadlines there is the tendancy to sometimes just ‘miss’ things, when something really important just happens to slip past your radar.

And when you eventually stop and take it in, and actually ‘get it’ you wonder how on earth you had hadn’t known about it sooner? Maybe you missed the News that night, TV coverage or Tweet…or maybe you watched it, but in a blur of media channel hopping one night – it didn’t stick?

The ‘Pacific Garbage Patch is one of those things for me. I had heard of it, I had googled it, watched a few you tube clips, and thought to myself something really really must be done about this huge amount of garbage floating around the North Pacific. This especially, as I had spent almost a month in Hawaii a few years ago and couldn’t reconcile plastic with the remoteness and beauty of the Hawaiian Islands.

Then I guess like can happen to most of us, it slowly slipped off my agenda as I got busy again. That was until I randomly came across this article on the Environmental News Network entitled: Birds and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Enter the work of photographer Chris Jordan & his team at Midway.

Copyright Chris Jordan - Midway: Message from the Gyre

I followed up by researching some of Chris Jordan’s photographic work on the Midway Atoll and have to admit being deeply impacted on what I saw and read on the links below. I implore you to take 5 minutes read the text, look at the images and watch the movie clips. Hopefully it will impact you in the same way.

“On Midway Atoll, a remote cluster of islands more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent, the detritus of our mass consumption surfaces in an astonishing place: inside the stomachs of thousands of dead baby albatrosses. The nesting chicks are fed lethal quantities of plastic by their parents, who mistake the floating trash for food as they forage over the vast polluted Pacific Ocean.
For me, kneeling over their carcasses is like looking into a macabre mirror. These birds reflect back an appallingly emblematic result of the collective trance of our consumerism and runaway industrial growth. Like the albatross, we first-world humans find ourselves lacking the ability to discern anymore what is nourishing from what is toxic to our lives and our spirits. Choked to death on our waste, the mythical albatross calls upon us to recognize that our greatest challenge lies not out there, but in here.”
From Chris Jordan’s Website http://www.chrisjordan.com

See the Photographs: Message from the Gyre

Copyright Chris Jordan - Midway: Message from the Gyre

Copyright Chris Jordan - Midway: Message from the Gyre

Copyright Chris Jordan - Midway: Message from the Gyre

Chris’ short movie trailer that must be watched can be viewed here:Midway

MIDWAY : trailer : a film by Chris Jordan from Midway on Vimeo.

“In the Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a king who was cursed to roll a huge boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this throughout eternity.
A beach cleanup on Midway Atoll made us feel just like Sisyphus.

There are millions of tons of plastics present in our oceans, and these are constantly fragmenting into smaller and smaller pieces which are scattered throughout the water column and present, in different densities, throughout all the world’s oceans. Contrary to what many people believe, there are no visible islands of trash anywhere –even if some areas, the gyres, accumulate higher densities of plastic pollution. In actuality, what is happening is much more complex and scary: our oceans are becoming a planetary soup laced with plastic.

To make thing worse, these tiny pieces of plastic are extremely powerful chemical accumulators for organic persistent pollutants present in ambient sea water such as DDE’s and PCB’s. The whole food chain, from filtering invertebrates to marine mammals are eating plastic and /or other animals who have plastic in them. This means that we are. Like the albatrosses on Midway, we carry the garbage patch inside of us.

Cleaning up this mess is not feasible, technically or economically. Even if all the boats in the world were put to the task somehow, the cleanup would not only remove the plastics but also the plankton, which is the base of the food chain, and is responsible for capturing half of the CO2 of our atmosphere and generating half of the oxygen we need to breathe.

But even if this problem was solved too somehow, the amount of plastic that we could capture, at an immense cost, would be a drop in the bucket as compared to the amount that flows into the ocean every day. No matter how hard we push, in terms of technology or money, the boulder will be rolling back down the hill, throughout eternity, unless we stop putting more plastics into our environment.

The good news is that we can do this. We can do this now. We need to start a social movement that spreads virally and creates a critical mass of concerned citizens who pledge to move away from our disposable habits, and who raise their voice to reject and reverse a throwaway culture that might be profitable, but whose consequences are intolerable.”
From Manuel Maqueda.(Used with permission from this link: http://vimeo.com/8177268 )

I am left wondering; How on earth, can the world at large let this continue?

We need to be affected and moved to do something about this.

Having asked friends from Cape Town, London and New York if they had even heard about this, the response was unfortunately the same. NO.
So apart from the obvious action, to create awareness…blog, tweet, email, etc…to get the word out. We just have to stop buying and using disposable plastic.

(To quote Manuel in an email response to me): ‘Plastic pollution needs to be stopped at source, by refusing single use and disposable plastics.’

To make a small impact to an enormous problem, please visit and support the links below:

Chris Jordan’s website and contact info: www.ChrisJordan.com
Midway Project blog, team details, photos, videos: www.MidwayJourney.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Midway-Journey/117981432917
Donate: www.razoo.com/story/MidwayJourney

*Images and text are used with permission.

And finally for the sceptics…it’s not setup: http://vimeo.com/6640042

Has it really come to this?

November 3rd, 2011

Worth watching Adrian Grenier’s Teenage Paparazzo.

DORP* series features on Urbanautica

September 30th, 2011

I am very pleased to have recently had a series of my photographs featured on the contemporary landscape photography platform, Urbanautica. You can read the accompanying text and see the featured images on the Urbanautica site or alternatively visit Urbanautica’s facebook page.

I have included the introductory text by Steve Bisson, Urbanautica founder below, as well as a few thumbnails.

DORP*

DORP*

_Statement

The series studies the architectural aesthetic created by the need for physical and economic survival in ‘small town’ rural South Africa.

In Adelaide (Eastern Cape) and countless other poor provincial towns like it, the traditional western notion of home within an urban context has become altered by the need for economic and personal survival. Homes, shops and places of business have security bars over the doors, windows and patios, creating almost ‘zoo-like’ enclosures.
Often windows and doors are removed to the absolute functional minimalism to ensure security. Allowing a sense of normal ‘function’ within the dwelling itself, the resultant net effect on the urbanscape becomes quickly self evident.

The street effectively becoming lined with ‘human cages’ for living and shopping, the latter, with no promotional budget, showcase the veneer of local advertising. An attempt at economic sustainability.

*Title from the Afrikaans phrase ‘DORP’ meaning village/small town. The images were captured in and around the small rural town of Adelaide, Eastern Cape.

This is an ongoing photographic exploration.

To view the series on my own website please follow this link.

Latest Published Book Cover

September 30th, 2011

The Dispatcher - Ryan David Jahn

Kissing & Driving

September 30th, 2011

I recently received a request from the french Graphic Designer/Stylist/Art Director Isabelle Rivoire-Grange to feature one of my shots on the new blog ‘TOO MANY KISSES’.

Make sure you sure to have a look at Isabelle’s diverse portfolio of design work! And her other blog: Smile and Save the Planet. Something we could all probably do more of!

Permanent Error

September 30th, 2011

I have wanted to do a brief post about Pieter Hugo’s Permanent Error since seeing the BJP Article back in July this year and just somehow never got to it until now. The photograph of the young man in the Agbogbloshie market is continually and uncomfortably haunting.

A very relevant series of work from a very talented photographer. The book can be ordered here.

Grafitti Cat

July 31st, 2011

Grafitti-Cat

Latest Published Work

July 23rd, 2011

inwards and onwards/foam/amsterdam

July 3rd, 2011

If you happen to find yourself in Amsterdam between now and September you might want to go and see the Anton Corbijn – inwards and onwards exhibition at Foam. For along time one of my favourite photographers.

Reverence and Redemption

June 25th, 2011

In my opinion, probably Johnny Cash’s most moving song, a cover version of “Hurt”
and the song below “Redemption” both just seem to flow on from the theme of last post;
The (Good) Book Of Eli.

For whatever unrelated or connected reasons take a listen.

The (Good) Book of Eli

June 23rd, 2011

Shot on the RED system, the Book Of Eli ends with the beautiful prayer below. Unusual but no less powerful given the graphic visual content.

Dear Lord, Thank you for giving me the strength and the conviction to complete the task you entrusted to me. Thank you for guiding me straight and true through the many obstacles in my path. And for keeping me resolute when all around seemed lost. Thank you for your protection and your many signs along the way. Thank you for any good that I may have done, I’m so sorry about the bad. Thank you for the friend I made. Please watch over her as you watched over me. Thank you for finally allowing me to rest. I’m so very tired, but I go now to my rest at peace. I fought the good fight, I finished the race, I kept the faith.

Photographically, dusty, desaturated, hyper-sepia, HDR esque, it’s a very interesting film by the Hughes Brothers and Director of Photography Don Burgess.

Fog on the Tyne – Book Cover

June 16th, 2011

Fog on the Tyne

Bestselling author, Bernard O’Mahoney’s new book, Fog on the Tyne features Douglas Mark Black’s photography on the cover.

Hartslag – Book Cover Image

June 16th, 2011

Douglas Mark Black’s photography features on the cover of Holt & Holt’s book Hartslag.

HARTSLAG

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