Archive for August 2009


Hey, Hot Shot!

August 10th, 2009 — 12:02am

Got a little write up for a submission I made to Hey, Hot Shot! A contest being run on Jen Bekman’s sites, she’s an innovative supporter of the arts in the digital age.  Jen, also curates 20×200 and runs a gallery that supports photographers and artists.  20×200 is one of my favorite innovations of the web and a great modern, web-savvy take on art; easily distributed, thought provoking pieces of art readily available to anyone, with a connection to their creator, not just coming off the presses in a warehouse run by small, underpaid, overworked New Zealanders.  That’s what they do over there between filming elf movies, right?

from 20×200

Red Truck on the Back Road to Manigango by Raul Gutierrez

Comment » | Exhibitions, Photography, the traps

My Favourite Photography Books 1

August 7th, 2009 — 10:01am

Stephen Shore – The Nature of Photographs.

It’s just one of the easiest reads on how to understand the vast wilderness that stands before you when looking at a photograph by one of the photography’s greatest.  The images range from some of the most well known photographs of the 20th century to more obscure frames to illustrate the many characteristics that photographs can have.

A pretty well studied and pondered S. Shore photograph:

Comment » | Uncategorized

Woops. . . Busted!

August 7th, 2009 — 8:52am

Samantha Beeston is a textiles designer from the UK who recently won a cash prize for a bunch of work it turned out was just a little too close to the work by another Illustrator, Lauren Nassef.  The post was on You Thought We Wouldn’t Notice, but the better images to compare the work are on the blog Books By Its Cover.  The original artist seems to be fairly upset about it all, and rightfully so.

I was discussing it with a very local textiles designer and she reckons that a number of her classmates and even some of the local designers she’d  visited were doing similar things.  In her class they were told that as long as they changed 20% of the design, all’s well.  That seemed unbelievable, especially if you applied that rule to photography.  Another website I found stated that the general rule of thumb was a 30% alteration to the design made it original.  I’m going to start cropping Ansel’s prints by 30%.
In the above examples it is pretty obvious that Beeston felt that adding many individual elements of Nassef’s illustrations she was creating a new work of her own.  There is a pretty rich history of that sort of thing, Duchamp, his urinal and the Mona Lisa and that lady who inspires all the reappropriation of photographs debates in photography school (who’s name i can’t remember).  The difference between those pieces and what Beeston did, is I guess that she was trying to pass copied Design work off as Design work.  Duchamp used a print, a urinal and a pen to create his mixed media art.  Even the photography example used non-artistic, found photographs in her mixed media and photographic projects.  As in most artistic endeavours it is the intended purpose that is most important and Beeston’s intent for the designs were far too similar to the original designer’s intent.

Design and illustration have a strong connection to commercial art and thus infer certain rights as intellectual property as corporations attempt to protect their identities.  Our society acknowledges the inherent worth of ideas as a result.  I suppose this is also why Shepherd Fairey and the Obama image are so controversial, the AP owned that image and the look that Obama had on his face, and when Fairey appropriated the image for his illustrations, the AP felt it was inappropriately missing out on the income it is due.  The differences between the Obama/Fairey situation and the designers is that the media are not the same.  The photograph is a reflection of nature, of the environment, and external objects.  Beeston took something that only existed in the original artists mind, was born of her imagination and came to life by her hand and much more importantly, by society’s standards, both target a similar market.

I think the moral of the story is, don’t steal, you’re going to lose more on legal fees than you’ll ever make on un-original work.  Not to mention that there’s just too much inspiration in the world to both copying someone else’s vision.

Comment » | issues, Piffle, the traps

Blurb.com

August 7th, 2009 — 8:15am

Blurb sent me a copy of a portfolio I had made that was pretty poorly crafted.  To there credit, after seeing examples of their dodgy craftsmanship, they agreed to send me a new copy.  Pretty quick and easy, and good to see a company treated a consumer with more respect than we deserve.  Thanks Blurb.  here’s a link to my book.  VOTE FOR IT!!

or cut and paste:

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/761492

Comment » | Uncategorized

AIME

August 4th, 2009 — 10:24pm

I did a shoot for AIME last night.  A non profit that uses mentoring to encourage Aboriginal kids to stay in school and go on to uni.  It was a pretty uplifiting event.  The CEO’s a young guy, Jack Bancroft, very enthusiastic and seems to have some good ideas.  It was an interesting crowd.  The governor of NSW, Jeff McMullen, Andrew Denton, Thorpie.  It was held in the new Macquarie Bank building down on king st. wharf.  The design of the building is pretty wild for a corporate HQ.  I’m not sure it’ll age so gracefully, but it is a very colorful and hip place down there right now.  Here are a few of the less boring shots:

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Comment » | Australianess, non-profit, Photography

Turned out pretty tasty.

August 2nd, 2009 — 8:20pm

Big thanks to Pat for the cooking.

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Comment » | (string+chaos)theories, Australianess

Zoe and the Squid

August 1st, 2009 — 1:42am

After my retirement from the frisball, I decided to take up some new activities.  Squash, Basketball, antiquing and fishing.  So far, in this calendar year, Tubs, pictured below, and I have caught 2 eels, 3 starfish and a squid.  Oh, and we lost one bucket.
We sat Zoe for a while and then headed out for a fish.  Not sure which was more productive.  Probably Zoza’s time on the computer.

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Comment » | Piffle, the traps

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