This little story and the photographs were previously published in the Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Weekend Travel Section in 2001.
Our luggage was being taken by someone we didn’t know. Four of us strung out in single file in a sweating procession along the hot and sleepy main street of Fang. Our Lonely Planet guide to Thailand told of the bus from Chaing Mai to Fang, the taxi from Fang to Tha Ton, and the boat from Tha Ton to Chaing Rai…but not about Mr Phing and his tricycle.
His initiative was admirable. At the bus stop he’d came up to us and said “Tha Ton” and when we nodded, he picked up our bags threw them on his trike and headed off.
He pedaled just fast enough to prevent us from catching up unless we broke into a trot. Over his shoulder he conversed in English that was better than our Thai…..
“which cunree you fhom”?
“australia”
“ahhh astaya nice…how many kangaroo astaya”?
“millions”?
“ahhh meeons…he your husban”?
“Yes”
“you vehy lucky….vehy hansome man?
Our new friends’ judgment was thrown into further doubt when he assured out of the blue
“John Howard nice man, I…love…John Howard”
On the edge of town the trike turned down a dusty side road, stopping only because we did.
“maybe you have some eat,…cool jink, some rets,….feewl better”
“No you said you take luggage…Fang Hotel, we follow…we wait Fang Hotel
..get taxi Tha Ton”
“yeh yeh first you feewl better…hod day…jink, eat”
“where?”
“my pace!”
Just in time the taxi pulled up beside us and the driver glared at Mr Phing who finally surrendered.
His eyebrows lifted as if he finally understood “oh you go Tha ton taxi ?!”
I liked his style.
Photo documentary, Photojournalism, Brisbane Photographer
(Wednesday, 10 March 2010)
I have to confess I love Moby Dick without being able to understand it. It’s mainly read as a rollicking sea yarn of a man’s quest for revenge which ultimately destroys not only him but everything around him. It’s worthy of great book status for the way it tells that parable alone.
Best of all though are the chapters in between the narrative that are contemplations on different aspects of whaling. Somehow Herman Melville manages to make each essay profoundly relevant to the experience of existing which is common ground to all.
The photograph below was selected for exhibition in last years Schubert Ulrich (the what? I hear you say). It’s a straight street photograph and I submitted the quote from the chapter called “The Fountain” as my artist’s statement. It’s basically saying seeing is not believing but Melville’s use of language, well it gets me in!
Imagine two people talking, and one asks the other to describe the spout.
“But why pester one with all this reasoning on the subject? Speak out! You have seen him spout; then declare what the spout is; can you not tell air from water?
My dear sir, in this world it is not so easy to settle these plain things. I have found your plain things the knottiest of all. And as for this whale spout, you might almost stand in it, and yet be undecided as to what it is precisely.”
Art Photography, Street Photography, Was Herman Melville the first Post Modernist without knowing it?
(Wednesday, 10 March 2010)
Phillip Adams often jokes on Late Night Live that he only has one listener and she’s called Gladys. I used to think it was just Gladys and me with this website. Ten weeks ago the site traffic began to be monitored.
Since then 170 visitors have been more than 15 times, 96 have been over 26 times and 34 have been over 51 times. One hundred and seventy three visitors have spent more than 30 minutes at a time on the site looking at 10+ pages.
I’m not sure what is usual but it was a surprise because I didn’t think you cared at all Gladys. So thanks but would be nice though if the relationship developed into a two way thing. I won’t get my hopes up, let’s just wait and see.
(Wednesday, 10 March 2010)
If I was to mention Post-modernism seriously, then those of you who’ve managed to read this far may be thinking “here we go …pretentious wanker”. But I’ll have a go; it’s a bit like speaking up for someone who has helped you out.
I’m not welded on to any beliefs, but P-M explains why the world can never be explained (if you’ve noticed). Simple insights like; things are more than the sum of their parts, and the truth depends on who is standing where and when, seem obviously true.
Why is it a such a misunderstood and maligned measure of the world? Anyway that can wait.
In the meantime here’s a minute in the life of a bird in a cage.
Art Photography, Polaroid Art, Lismore pet Shop 2001, Post Modernism ain't so bad.
(Wednesday, 24 February 2010)
“Did the Real Estate Agents send you?” I jumped and looked around. A guy in a suit was standing right behind me, his tie flying free in the cold westerly.
I was a little self conscious at being seen photographing let alone in front of a shop window full of undressed mannequins.
I wasn’t from anywhere and didn’t have a reason for being there, “Ah … no … sorry”
He looked down and noticed the camera swathed in black tape ...”oh”, and kept his gaze on me as we turned and walked away from each other.
Brisbane Street Photography, Fortitude Valley 1988
(Wednesday, 10 February 2010)
Ten years ago when I started shooting weddings around Byron Bay there were 3 other photographers putting their hands up for that work (digital photography and the internet has since unleashed a tsunami of contenders and there is now about 40 in the same area).
Greg Mace was numero uno back then and was getting opportunistic shots on film that most still can’t get with the luxury of digital equipment. Greg’s approach is down to earth photojournalism and he doesn’t rely on photoshop to “make” his images. They are of the “what you see is what you get” variety which appeals hugely to me. We have become good mates and he’s still floating on a rising flood of new contenders.
Three years ago I had a potential client book with another photographer. For me that’s a no lose situation. If I don’t like the photographers work I think oh well they weren’t my type of client anyway , and if I do like the work I think at least I didn’t lose out to a dud. That particular time it was Todd Hunter McGaw.
I looked Todd up on the internet and saw someone who wasn’t into cookie cutter shooting. His (and his wife Alyda’s) work is witty, intelligent and beautiful, but more importantly authentic. A bit like Todd and Alyda themselves, although Alyda is in my opinion is slightly more beautiful than Todd.
Lizzy Sawdon lives in northern Queensland and quietly does her work. The big thing for me is much of her work wants to cut through the bunk that sits over nearly everything, and which photography in the wrong hands perpetuates. This gives her a great photo-doco eye.
I can’t say much about Jonas Peterson that hasn’t already been said, I’ll spare you the wow’s, OMG’s, the awesomes, and the blah about tilt shift, he gets platitudes like
that daily by the dozen. He seemed to come out of nowhere in 2009 and is now a worldwide phenomenon. I found out about him the same way as with Todd less than a year ago. When I heard his name I thought who? His blog set my mind on fire (I’m one of many). The way he used the internet to communicate was a revelation. His unfailing aesthetic sense and sublime writing both show humour and beauty as well as the occasional acknowledgement of pain and melancholy. It gives his work a maturity and completeness that lifts it above the one dimensional stuff often held up as great photography especially within the wedding industry.
In one way or other I owe these photographers, there are others but first things first.
(Wednesday, 10 February 2010)
I’ve got a drinking problem, and its my problem not alcohols’. The issue is an intolerance which means even small amounts are potentially fatal. It was quite a process realizing this. As a sixteen year old I indulged in my first teenage drinking session and ended up being given the last rights.
My sweet father-in-law thinks it’s the worst affliction imaginable and most people have a “bummer, glad it’s not me” reaction, but really in itself it’s not a bad thing and arguably a blessing.
A short time either side of that event my elder brother Jim and eldest sister Christine died suddenly after drinking. Only with hindsight have doctors been able to finger the culprit though the chemistry is still not understood. All three of us shared whatever it is that causes a few drinks to be lethal. My elder sister Deb escaped that throw of the dice.
Drinking lubricates most socializing, and when you’re young there’s the peer thing too. In my youth I felt a little sidelined and became more of an involuntary observer than participant.
I wasn’t cynical, but fascinated with something I wanted to be in on, but couldn’t.
After leaving Art College in ’87 I began to record what I’d been looking at for the previous 10 years, by documenting drinking culture, mainly on Friday and Saturday nights in the Brisbane CBD. I wasn’t looking for the unusual or spectacular but the typical and mundane. I attempted to be as objective as possible usually shooting from the hip so as not to be noticed. The wide angle lens and camera body was taped up to lock its focus and hide its shine.
Often there was too little light to see and I never knew exactly what was on the negs until they were developed. Sometimes it was like randomly sending a remote camera to the depths of the ocean to see what was there. Technical excellence ran a very distant second to content; I cared only a bit about the zone system and zilch about the golden mean.
After a while I displayed thirty photographs at McWhirters Art Space in the “Valley” in a solo exhibition I called “A Shot in the Dark”. The exhibition ended up on the ABC’s 7.30 Report which was then state based, and once a week they closed with a story on a current exhibition. The comments book in the gallery was active. Entries ranged from “If someone told me I was looking at the work of the best photographer in the world, I’d believe them” to “not art, f#cking sh!t”.
The experience was in some ways cathartic and afterwards I had an “I’m done” feeling. Apart from plotting some personal stuff, for various reasons I put away the camera for nearly a decade until a few months before the turn of the century.
Brisbane Street Photography, Art Photography
(Thursday, 28 January 2010)
Please don’t read this if you’re offended by explicit descriptions of sex, it’s not used gratuitously but its necessary to help paint a picture of my late, great aunt Florence Sellers who passed away in 2001 at the age of 96 …. And no this isn’t a deviate story, the opposite actually.
As a kid it’s helpful to have adults around who show a non-judgmental interest in you as an individual, and right from the start we were friends. No one tangled with Auntie Florence and went away unscathed, but she only fired up if she felt disrespected. I never felt threatened by her and was intrigued with her pluck and independence. She could put anyone in their place, so to have her as a friend was always entertaining.
Unmarried until she was in her late fifties; well past children, she secured her place in the world via a career in nursing. A matron by the age of 35; it was a position held for 41 years. It’s easy to see what she was doing, she was not going to be beholden to anyone let alone a man. Her love hate relationship with men as a gender was a real marker of her personality. A superficial reading (by some of the males and females who knew her) was she was a man-hating militant feminist. But she actually loved men and was occasionally charmed by certain individuals, but more often couldn’t swallow the status quo. From her perspective men did most of the trouble making and deserved none of their unearned privilege.
We’d go out together and one time (1992) we went to see the movie Baraka. It was an awe inspiring depiction of modernity’s effect on the natural world and human culture. Its signature was breathtaking cinematography, a Phillip Glass soundtrack, and absolutely no dialogue. When it finished and the lights were coming up, she turned to me and said “Dear, …. it said nothing …. (pause) ….but said everything.”
In 2000 she caught the bus from Brisbane to Lismore a couple of times to visit, quite a feat for a 95 year old. I’d meet her and we’d drive out to our 40 acres at Jiggi were she’d talk all day about the past and her take on life, and potter around the garden. Outspoken about everything she would often jump into the deep end of a conversation and open it with a challenging question, “ Tell me Stephen do you believe in the Immaculate Conception?” It was difficult to predict which way things were going so I learnt early that it was best to speak your mind and hope for the best.
“No not really”
“Well I do, I’ve seen it!” Her narrative was laced with stories of nursing in the slums of Sydney during the depression, WW2 service in the Solomon Islands and 1900’s rural life and there was no telling were an idea of hers had its origin. They often had a theme of man’s injustice to man but more often to woman.
If there was point to be made she’d frown and tighten her mouth as she spoke, slowly delivering the story in a lilting rhythm.
“…. you might have this young girl see, … and she’s new to the city and she meets this young fellow … and he makes her laugh, and he’s handsome, and he’s a good dancer, … and they go out and have few dances, and he offers her a lift home, … and he starts kissing her in the car, … and next thing he’s got his bloomin’ pants down and before you know it he ejaculates, and a bit of semen lands on her labia … and semens like jolly lice you know!! , next thing you know the poor girls pregnant, and she hadn’t done a thing wrong, her hyman was completely intact!.”
She caught herself and laughed at her own brazenness “Dear what must you think of me?’ I didn’t say, but I thought the world of her which she realized anyway.
The next year, around her 96th birthday she took the bus into Southbank from Sunnybank to celebrate with friends. On her way home she hopped off the bus and walked in front of a car but survived with a badly dislocated shoulder, and a broken arm. So strong was her spirit she convinced the doctors to let her go home (and continued living by herself until the last 4 months of her life). They didn’t set her arm properly so she was lop-sided and learnt to do everything with one hand.
One of the last times we visited her unit, her by that time frail, bird like form disappeared into a room and she came out with a couple of old jars and said to Simone, “now your mother looks like a sensible sort of person who’d know the value of a good jar, do you think she’d want these”? It was a touching reminder of an almost extinct value system.
A melanoma formed under her injured arm and she was gone, not without a fight, a few months later.
At that time the Lismore Regional Art Gallery announced the theme of it’s annual art prize “Living legends”, open to all genre's. I don’t usually enter competitions if the only outcome is the chance of a pat on the head and a prize or some unbelievable title, but this offered a relevant forum for an idea/feeling.
Aunties’ last gift to me was a small box that had her life summarised in a few dozen photographs, letters and certificates.
If you live, at a certain point life becomes a gradual disappearing act, and there were photo’s of Auntie as a young flapper in the 20’s, a successful professional and an ageing recipient of an BEM. Naturally I couldn’t use her as my subject though she was my inspiration. So I enquired and found two centenarians at a local Nursing home. One (Irene Compton) was the wife of the NSW Minister for Lands in the 1950”s and the other (Syd Ballard) was once the Head of the Department of Agriculture in Northern NSW. The staff with permission of the families supplied me with a few past photographs and a beautiful recent letter to Syd from someone he’d mentored at the height of his own career.
I’d bought a Hasselblad impulsively 12 months earlier and finally found a purpose for its medium format potential. Syd and Irene were photographed against a simple background in their wheelchairs, the negs were scanned and I pasted copies of a few of their mementos and the memoirs onto the wall behind them. ….. alluding to their slip into obscurity.
To make a statement about the invisibility of the aged and to give them a presence, I made the enlargements life size and displayed them as a diptych.
The judge Alison Kubler, to my astonishment picked “Syd and Irene” out as the winner, and I got the $3k prize which just about covered the printing and framing costs, but that is the lot of most who consider themselves artists.
Art Photography
(Tuesday, 12 January 2010)
Simone received her PhD just before Christmas, after ten years of study mixed with full time work and children. When we first met she was in the midst of a Siddartha-esque career change. Several years of work as a clinical psychologist followed by a year of carefree travel had left her in a minor existential crisis, and she was briefly trying her hand at being a cleaner. Her aptitude and talent drew her back to psychology, and now she has a Doctorate!. She also has far and away the highest EQ of anyone I know (although inexplicably she gets me wrong occasionally). There is also a trustworthy wisdom to her, and if I was ever to share a lifeboat I’d want her in charge. Congratulations Dr Cuck we are all proud of you and love you.
(Thursday, 31 December 2009)
For a long time I hated Xmas. Hate is probably the wrong word, but I wasn’t part of the merriment. It was an association thing. When I was eighteen my eldest sister, up and died without warning two days before Christmas, … the third calamity in two and a half years to visit our previously sunny family.
One can only ever talk for oneself, for me it was the end of certainty. Security was replaced by angst, … something always felt wrong. After a while that feeling morphed into thinking something was wrong with me.
These two photographs taken when I was thirty summed my relationship with the season of greetings.
A few things have happened since. Simone, my life partner explained to me soon after we meet that yes I was indeed mad, but so was, without exception everyone else. This is an observable truth I now hold to be absolute.
Also the end of certainty that once confined me when I was my world, is now a freedom when thinking of everything else.
Plus I also recognise that my experiences aren’t unique and nor am I.
To top it all off, having a five-year old around is a total game changer. I’m not having a bleat; I actually enjoy this time of year now, but never expect anyone to feel the same way.
(Tuesday, 24 November 2009)
This was 1988 and the Fitzgerald Inquiry into the Queensland Police was at the front of almost everyones minds. I was using a lot of infra-red b+w film documenting drinking culture at night, and wanted to see what it looked like for daytime street photography.
A Koori group was camped at the front of The Reserve Bank building in King George Square. Two police officers were walking towards them with intent so I started walking in too. A few of them noticed me as I got there. I didn't expect the flower, the gesture or the mood. it was a lesson for me about assumption.
Brisbane Street Photography
(Wednesday, 11 November 2009)
It was xmas'90 and these merchants were selling to people at the Battery Park Ferry Terminal. They could have been refugees or the urban poor, kind of the same thing really.
My feet and jaw were frozen and the guy in the middle got my heart racing. I just kept moving
.
Street Photography, New York Christmas
(Monday, 09 November 2009)
I used to work on a ferry and the boat came out of the water every year. It often felt like a shame to cover up the marks that time and tide had etched onto the hulls. They would have taken pride of place in any gallery anywhere if they'd been done consciously by a sentient being.
Found Object, "Art" photography
(Thursday, 05 November 2009)