I *did* bring a tripod, I *did* try and take some serious photos, but it all went down hill when I realized that abstract light trails and trippy visuals were more my thang.

olly e620, few different zuiko digital lenses.

Friggin around in my backyard after the rains. Okay I did cheat a little, had a spray bottle to assist ;). I wish I had an E3 and one of their weather-sealed bodies. *nods*.

Fuckarsing around in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens. Shot on Olympus E620 with a pair of bodged up antique lenses with some home made adapters and taped-on lenses and all sorts of other silly crap.

Also doing some more experimentation with motion-blurred photography. This is a bloody hard technique to get results out of, and trying to find any references on this style is difficult to say the least.

RvM 12 @ Enigma Bar (160bpm room). Olly E620, 14-42mm f4.5-5.6, FL-36R, and a whoooole lotta batteries.

Good times.

I figure I should do a proper recap of Year 2009, It’s been an interesting one, I’ve met a hell of a lot of new people, and shot them. I still haven’t managed to pull my finger out of my arse and do some more staged photoshoots, about the only one that I got up to this year was with the lovely Talia, Sam, Kimberly, and dear Jacky boy.

Shot was massively rushed, we had enough time to do the bodypainting and then it was shoot shoot shoot. I would have preferred some thought having been given to things like makeup, but alas, no time. We had a train to catch into town and drinking and a live act to be done.

I was a little disapointed with that outcome, and we keep meaning to take another stab at it and hopefully come up with some better results, but you know what it’s like with unreliable artistic types, right? ;)

Short of that, the bulk of my portraiture has all been improv at various events. I’ve smuggled my camera allong to birthday parties and other random shindigs, but my main work has been with an event held each month called Revolution vs. Machine. Industrial/techno/punchyearbleedmusic sort of event that attracts a fair crowd. I started out, as usual, invited by a (then) friend, smuggled my camera in, got to know the organizers, got the gig a month or two later. It’s all been probono. Despite the added stress, drama, and assorted bullshit that I’ve had to deal with as a result, it has really given me a springboard to advance my work and really start making some cool shit, and if you know me, you’ll know that I’m not that interested in Art as such, I’m interested in cool shit. Cool music, cool pictures, cool people. My definition of ‘cool’ is on a constant cycle, but it’s what I’m always trying to chase.

So yah, lots of photography madness is guaranteed to me each month with RvM, which I like. It forces me to get out and smash shit up regardless of how I’m feeling on the night. Being a staffer, I treat it almost more as a duty to rock up each month and try to do my best, rather than just taking photos whenever I ‘feel like it’.

Plus it means I can make cool shit like this.

Thankfully the event isn’t too super-strict, so I can shoot whatever I want and play around with my technique rather then having to nail a set of almost predetermined shots. I just go out there and break shit, blind people, dodge the rave-dancers flailing wildly, etc. etc.

Plus, meet moar people. :D

2009 was also definitely the year of ‘take more photos’. 2007 I racked up 2438 shots (No confirmed kills), 2008 I racked up 2433. 2009 I racked up 8396. Ofcourse that’s just the tallies that show in Lightroom, I took countless more shots than that, but they were all test shots that got deleted, or photos that were so bad they had to be put down. On the spot. I really tried to capture more of the dailly grind, the ordinary shit that I see from day to day. I tried to make sure that I carried a camera with me every day, and tried to make sure that I took a photo every day. Or atleast every week.

My usual bread and butter of photography for the past years, macro/plant photography took a bit of a backseat for the first half of the year. Part of that is blamed on spending too many weekends in town drinking and meeting folks rather than hiking around Mt Lofty or Adelaide Botanic Gardens with a bag full of weird lenses.

I was very upset to see my old Tamron 135mm f2.8 meet it’s demise. The lens was lent to a friend, who’s mother wrenched the thing too hard while manually focusing the lens and broke it. However, within the last few months I have discovered a new wild beast of a lens for plant photography whom I have named Doctor Bokeh.

Dr. Bokeh started life as an old Olympus OM 50mm f1.4 that I nabbed off of ebay. I was thoroughly disapointed with the lens when I originally got my hands on it, but late in the year I discovered that I owned a 49-67mm step up ring, and a 67mm circular polarizer…

The usual combo for Dr. Bokeh of the lens, step up ring, and polariser has a few interesting characteristics, the step up ring and walls of the polariser act as a lens-hood, eliminating most of the severe ghosting effects, the polariser itself then serves to knock off a few stops of light so it can be shot wide-open, and do some quality interesting things to the light as it moves accross the subject.

Without a doubt, Dr. Bokeh has changed the way I shoot the local greenery.

Just wish I had a set of step-up rings for him now, the Doctor has a terribly bad case of far-sighted vision.

Now what about me as a person?

Well, not sure really. Personal developments wise, I got laid off from Wireless Communications, work dried up over new-years and they just didn’t have the work on to sustain three technicians. Despite being a lead tech, and despite the work I had done, at the end of the day I was a PEER apprentice, and as a result totally disposable. With their own employees they had contracted on to them, they did what they had to do.

Yeah, I was pissed at first, and I still am in some ways. I put in a shitload of work for those guys, and it felt like a total kick in the teeth to be sent packing the day after my birthday, the day before I went on christmas holidays. But on the other hand, I knew when they hired the third technician that my head was already on the chopping block. Not in terms that they were going to replace me, I didn’t have to worry about THAT particular scenario, but it was more that because I was a PEER mong, I was disposable. I was nothing more at the end of the day then a kleenex tissue you screw into a ball and throw in the bin. Has nothing bad to reflect on Wireless, they had a harsh call they had to make, I just wasn’t positioned to come off well if it ever had to pass. Good news is that they may have an interesting new project opening up some time this year that they’re keen on getting me in for. I’m excited, but at the same time very very wary. Once bitten twice shy, and all. They’ve already burnt me once.

I’m working for Extra Dodgey Cun… Sorry, Expert Data Communications now. It’s pretty much a temporary thing as far as I’m concerned. Just want to finish my apprenticeship off, make some money, pay my bills, and start putting my rough little five year plan into action. We’ll see where it goes.

Now. Cars, another big topic of mine. The old Swift met a grizzly end, while it was parked and unregistered some punk broke in and tried to hotwire it, fucked up, and fried the ignition system. Thankfully I had already purchased my new beast, my 1988 Volvo 740 Turbo Estate (What a mouth full). I’ve always had a thing for these ponderous beasts ever since my very first one I owned. She seats five people, has roofracks, hauls asssss, and last month I crashed it into the guard-rail on Mt Lofty Summit Road. Fixable, but time consuming and expensive. The car is shelved for the moment until I’ve got the time/money to fix it.

I’m now rattling around in a NEW Suzuki Swift. It’s a 1995 model with a 1298cc 4cylinder engine, carburettor, three doors, and a 5speed manual box. And tires with some actual tread on them. She goes like a cut snake (a slowish cut-snake, though), is absolutely spotless (apart from the dirt and sand inside the car and empty drink containers, thanks to me), and handles quite nicely.

I’m trying to decide whether to leave the Volvo rather sedate once repaired, and turn the Swift into a little track-slut, or whether I should turn the Volvo into a drift-pig for Malalla (for shits and giggles), and dailly the swift which is incredibly cheap to run. On one hand I love the idea of upsetting the status quo at the track by bringing a volvo out, but on the other hand, this car has a bit of a history and I want to do it some justice, drift pigs tend to get very ugly very quickly.

I still want to buy a Suzuki Cappuccino down the line, it’s one of the parts of my little rough five year plan.

Speaking of which, I’ve sat down and tried to set myself some goals for what I want out of the next 4-6 years. I keep calling it the five year plan but it really has no finite schedule. My basic plan is to have a nice running Volvo wagon, and by nice I mean suspension, moar boost, nice rims, etc. A nice Suzuki Cappuccino, preferably in red. A nice small 1bedroom apartment in town. (around the $200000-250000ish mark) with a couple of carpark titles, two bedrooms preferably. I want to be earning enough money to pay for all that ish, I want to be in a decent position for myself at work. Definitely earning atleast 60-70k a year, the 60k target is my first, I’ll see where it goes. 50-55k is more realistic for the immediate future though.

I’m over women. I’m not aiming for a partner. That might change during the course of the Five Year Plan, but for the early stages it would most likely be a hinderance and a distraction. Which is good because I’m hopeless with women anyway and far too insecure to attempt another relationship after the last debacle in 2008… *rolls eyes*.

And I want nice cameras. Lots of nice cameras. They’re far easier than trying to make a relationship work ^_^.