Camera Work

Yeah no worries :)
Also in the spirit of plugging ones self

I just started up a new blog that will follow myself and the absent photography community of New Zealand. Over the next few posts I'll be talking about the current Auckland Festival of photography and the exhibitions I've been to.

Perhaps not the most interesting read for the discerning RFF member, but it's a bit of causal photography insight on my behalf. So have a read if you wish.

http://rustyclockwork.blogspot.com/
 
Lots of snaps, pretty average reading. :D
I don't think it's that appropriate for this thread, but I'll post up what I wrote the other night about the exhibitions.

It's really casual and it's my blog so of course it's entirely self centered :p
I do plan to show some of the books I own at some point on it. All the photos are mine.
It's really not an 'intelligent' blog, just a diary really.

I'll put up the first post. Check out the link in the signature if you want to ever read some more though.

The Rusty Clockwork said:
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The Auckland Festival of Photography is on at the moment. It's really the only time of the year that you can visit various photography exhibitions around the city. So I've hit up quite a few already, the best being that of (now deceased) Magnum Photographer Brian Blake. His work is great and the exhibition was pretty huge covering all the areas of the world he worked in. One of the exhibition... I don't know what they're called... workers? Anyway, this young guy was there. He was pretty friendly and we had a long chat. I think he approached me because I had the M6 around my shoulder. He said "Oh, you're using the same camera Blake used" and he took me over to a glass display box with Blake's M3 and M2 sealed inside. The M2 was originally black but there was hardly any paint left on the damn thing, it had been used down to the bone. I wish that for my own camera one day. So I walked around the exhibition three times finally taking a few shots of the photos I liked best so I could remember them. Then I headed to the next show.

I traveled out west to Unitec to the show Leonid Tishkov's 'Private Moon'. That was another great one, really loved the idea behind it (the guy makes this giant light in the shape of a crescent moon and then takes shots of it in.. private places). They had the actual moon in an empty unlit backroom with nothing else but a couch inside it, pretty smart idea. Though unlike Blake's, this show only had maybe 10 prints. I don't know, personally I feel that's just not enough to really explore the subject. Although it was exhibited alongside a sketch artist (whose name I've forgot and it's not listed in the exhibition guide either) who did sketches of the scenes similar to those in the photos. There was a middle aged couple there discussing the work, so I asked them for their opinion because I really had no idea. I asked "Were the sketches done before or after the photographs?". Neither of us could really figure it out, so I think that was a great thought to leave the exhibition on at least.

Anyway those two were yesterday, today I was at this 'Q' show at the Auckland library. It was something like photographs of theater actors, I didn't really understand it, rather I didn't have time to understand it. I got halfway around the show and I saw this print that I really liked. I was the only person in the room, I knew because I did this shady look over my shoulder, then I raised the camera to my eye to take a shot so I could look at the print later again at home. I focused and just as I was about to take it, the lights slowly dim and turn off. I was thinking "damn, security probably caught me on camera" or something like that. I waited for a couple of seconds and then went searching for the light switch. Of course there wasn't one so I went to get one of the staff to help me. They then had to go get another member of staff to help them and we ended up searching for a light switch for around 15mins. But we didn't end up finding one, all the surrounding rooms we found them and turned them on. Just the room where light was sort of necessary you know, nothing. But they explained to me that the only other place to control the lights was with security and I was thinking "dammit!" but the lady explained that their security chief was off on Sundays meaning that the security room was unmanned. So... it was just some coincidence, that happened to be at the exact same time of me doing something naughty (though there wasn't any "no photos" or anything, but most galleries disapprove). Anyway I left and told a couple of visitors who were heading that way that the exhibition was 'malfunctioning'. It's a shame though, now the library had to deal with all the visitors to the show that closed 5 hours early. But, I left with this feeling that it was my fault somehow.

Also, when I got home after the Blake exhibition, I took the batteries out of the M6. The red arrows in the viewfinder had always annoyed and distracted me. I have always guesstimated pretty accurately when I shoot medium format. So why not 35mm too?
"Blake's first job was working under a hard taskmaster in a Wellington studio. Blake complained about the photographers not being allowed to use lightmeters when working to which the man replied 'You have eyes boy, use them!'. For his entire career, Blake used fully manual cameras and had to guess the proper settings for exposure."​
On that note, for the festival of photography I'm participating in a group exhibition as well starting on the 13th. It's a black & white show, although no subject theme. I've got a number of photos in there, looking forward to it because I haven't really exhibited anything this year so far. If you're in Auckland, rock up to Cafe Roy's on K-rd after the 13th.
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