Focus is overrated!

I was out having lunch with friends, recently. The weather was not conducive to one’s health. The smoke from the bushfires raging in NSW had drifted south. A blanket of smoke covered Melbourne. We had hoped to have a drink in a little rooftop bar in Carlton. It was closed due to weather! But I did mange to fire off a couple of pictures. Sadly I was too quick for the camera’s focussing function to activate, so, the pictures are all out of focus. Still perhaps it amplifies the mood!

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Return Visits...

Southbank, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. 2019-09-26 12:20:32

I returned briefly on Friday the 27th to the site I drove by on Sunday 22nd and discovered much more than I had hoped

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It's all about the light!

Kensington, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. 2012-09-26 15:18:03

This picture was made on a solo photo-stroll in 2012 using only my humble iPhone. It was a pleasant surprise, as I trawled my archive looking for something to upload to flickr on Saturday morning. This is how I treat my flickr stream as a reverse order gallery hang. A stream of consciousness approach to displaying imagery in a screen based context.

What struck me as I looked at it was the delicate play of light and how the scene was almost luminous. A rare treat in the southern hemisphere and a real technical bonus for digital capture devices.

Software like Lightroom means that I can locate and manipulate these kinds of picture easily. As software improves then our ability to find and edit them also improves. Archives have always been important to me. Digital ones are easy to search and keep organised with a minimum of fuss.

Another reason I like to use flickr to upload and share work is the way I can draw connections between images. This image for example is in several 'albums'. Albums are a way to organise your photographs into larger ideas, from the most simple like date, to camera, or some other idea behind the image. The albums this picture is in are, 2012, psychogeography, still life, vertical, iPhone/s, it doesn't get any bigger than this.

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TYAT [rinse and repeat]

2009-06-06 07:53:39

Ten years ago today I was obviously in Hong Kong. I was also fortunate enough to be able to spend most of my time walking and photographing. A rarity when I travel with my gorgeous wife. My iPhone and Canon G11 are still 12 months away. I think I may have even shot film on this trip? Some of which has made it to flickr of course!

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Chelsea, NYC

2019-06-04 14:14:19

Chelsea Market in Chelsea New York City, New York, is an upscale market in a revamped industrial building in the meatpacking district of Manhattan. Chelsea Market was constructed in the 1890s and was originally the site of the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) factory complex where the Oreo cookie was invented and produced. The complex was redeveloped in the 1990s and features a retail concourse at ground level with office space above. Chelsea Market is currently owned by Alphabet Inc., parent company of Google.*

We wandered through on a Monday, early afternoon and the place seem busy enough. I personally would describe the place as hipster, or at worst a tourist cliche. The space is highly designed in a way I feel that perhaps 10 years ago was new and ground breaking but now is a little predictable. The vendors seemed to be predominantly food vendors with Mexican, Italian and other food styles well represented. Outside this building however, I see many empty shops. Leaving me to wonder about the state of the economy in the USA.

Despite all this I felt compelled to take out my phone camera and make this picture. I was drawn by the  retro analogue TV with it's white noise. No doubt chosen for its retro look. I felt it surmised the space well as just that, white noise. It wasn't until the next day the I realised the woman on the right was wearing glasses on her head.

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TYAT 2009-05-22

2009-05-22 08:26:10

Ten years ago today I made this picture with my then state of the art Sony Ericsson C902 Phone camera. I am guessing the location based on my local knowledge of Sunshine. Which in itself has turned into my lifelong 'project' both digital and analogue.

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Stephen Shore on Instagram!

Stephen Shore's instagram feed

This article was shared with me by my friend Robert.
I like this quote particularly...

I see some photographers, students of mine or other photographers, who shoot in a very intentional and thoughtful way with film, but when they pick up a digital camera, they lose all their intentionality. There is nothing about the camera that forces that, and you can use a digital camera with as much concentration, awareness, and intentionality as a film camera. Nonetheless, I see there is this downside where some people use it with less mental focus. So you have the positive aspect of less inhibition and the negative aspect of less intentionality.

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