More Monty.

Can't get enough of my new Lumix camera, a hand-me-down from Shaun after he treated himself to the camera he mostly uses now - a Fuji X100 (which he won't stop talking about). Of course I pretty much only take photos of the cats with it, but I see that as a perfectly valid thing to do with an expensive gadget; and Monty does so love to laze around the house being precious and photogenic...

 

More Angel's Trumpet

 From Sue's beautiful garden.

 

 

And then, suddenly, something interesting happened...

http://shaund.posterous.com/

Riding the ascending comet of bad postmodern art.

Actually, the full title of this photo by art-world-hating photographer Les Krims is 'Two Feminist Artists Riding the Ascending Comet of Bad Postmodern Art, Buffalo New York 1976'.  Lord only knows how jaded he must be by now.

Ambient abstracts.

Some of the photographs Shaun’s been taking recently, which can be found on his Flickr page. Together with the futuristic-sounding names he’s given them, created by a  random word generator, some of them seem to me like they’d make great Autechre album covers. Apparently they’re mostly photos of concrete and other ordinarily boring surfaces that he’s carefully processed to bring out the textures and colours. Also check out his newest blog (replacing all his other ill-fated ones), Lucida Obscura, where you can find some of his photography, music, influences and ideas.

Apelecon.

Ans.

Neboachea

Wuhad.

Cropan.

Plone.

Diogredh.

Disor.

Nizardech.

Sheighain.

More Shaun appreciation.

The other day we received Shaun's results for first semester of photography studies, and he got straight high distinctions... I'm a little bit proud. Here are some of his recent photos, taken after breaking into an abandoned brick factory:

and a few of me at work for his photojournalism assignment:

Tibetan Conch Shell

My going away present from my friends and coworkers at The Body Art Shop when I moved to Melbourne was this lovingly decorated Tibetan conch shell, and it's one of my most treasured possessions. I have a personal infatuation with conch shells after I had what I can only describe as a mystical/revelatory vision of one a few years ago. I won't go into depth about that, but needless to say my friends could not have given me a more perfect gift. Shaun had to take some still life photos for his course this week and this was one of them.  Check out his new photography blog here.

Family Portraits

Cats On Shaun While He Is Asleep

There are quite a few things that suck about Shaun working a night job; the insomnia he suffers, the eating dinner in the morning and breakfast in the evening, the having to leave gigs half way through (Mastodon) or missing them all together (Black Cobra) because he starts work at 11pm...but the thing that saddens me most is that I no longer have opportunities to take amusing photographs of the cats using him as their personal lounge suite while he's asleep.  Hopefully he'll get a day job soon so the tradition can continue.

Dead Bird

So Austin brought in this noisy minor the other day and politely dropped it at my feet. Judging by how intact it was I'm guessing it died of natural causes or fell out of a tree because it didn't have a scratch on it, just a tiny trickle of blood issuing from it's beak. It was my day off and the light outside was nice, so before giving birdie a respectful burial in the garden I decided to take some photos. With Austin locked in the bathroom and Monty being far too timid and obedient to cause too much trouble, I was able to pop the deceased on the back step and get some nice closeups. After watching me for some time, Monty finally made an opportunist attempt to drag my subject away by its head while I adjusted the settings on my camera, but he immediately dropped it when I cast him a stern look and spoke his name in a disapproving manner. Bless him.

Shaun Appreciation

Since moving to Melbourne Shaun has temporarily placed his film-making obsession to one side and has become obsessed instead with taking photos, which he's pretty damn good at as it turns out.  It's nice to see him creating so prolifically since film-making, being expensive and complicated, doesn't allow for the same level of experimentation. Of course, in true Shaun-the-eternal-pessimist fashion, he immediately became drawn to capturing images of things he found depressing....missing pet posters,  old men with one leg sitting on unpleasant park benches, high-rise council flats, dead possums, hard rubbish on the side of the road, Ballardian building developments...but surprisingly he has managed to create some very beautiful pictures from these subjects and as a result I'm rather proud of him. Recently he's refined his tastes a bit more to include more classic photographic imagery as well as trashed buildings, ugly graffiti, and general urban decay.  Here are some of my favourite photos that he's taken in the last few months.

Birds outside the bedroom window.