SHOOTING PARIS

My ex photography lecturer, Kevin Ballantine, has an exhibition on at my ex stomping ground, the PCP. Sounds exy. Photographs of Paris, taken with a toy camera. (If you would like to read a sensible review of the exhibition, go no further: instead visit the Art Refugee).

Perusing this exhibition i see that Ballantine, who once operated under the nom de plume Arno Blax, has worked through the issues with aplomb. The catering consists primarily of large, 1.5 litre bottles of red wine. To hell with the cheese and crackers, let's drink. This is my kind of photographer. I select a large beer glass and ask the caterer to fill it to the brim, to avoid me bothering him unduly for a while.

The Diana is a plastic toy camera with an aesthetic all its own. It uses 120 roll film, but the image size is 4x4cm, rather than the 6x6cm image you get with a grown-up camera like a Hasselblad or a Rolleiflex. So you get 16 images on a roll instead of 12. Woo hoo. In the age of the digital and the "shotgun" method of photography, one can bang off 16 frames just to get one image. The technological advance which has had the greatest impact on the art of photography is that little trash can icon on the back of digital cameras. Which should, of course, be used much more often!

Safari Bob is here, as is Catherine, and the legendary Phil England of Terrace Photographers. Phil must have grown up with camera in hand in the sixties: he is very "Blow Up" once he gets Safari Bob's digital camera in hand. Darting this way and that, getting in close, legs spreadeagled, he strikes unsuspecting punters like lightning. You learn a lot seeing how other photographers work. When i get a camera in hand i look like one of the junkies nodding on the freo train. Huh? What am i doing again? Where am i? Mr England has more zest than a bagful of lemons. Where Mr England is like a 007 on speed, Mr Demolition, once he gets his camera back, is more from the Austen Powers school of photographic thought:

Tell me, Mr. Powers. Do you swing?
Mr. Powers: Are you kidding, baby? I put the "grrrr" in swinger, baby! Yeah!


Being both plastic and a toy, the Diana images are soft, with vignetting, light leaks - but therein lies its appeal: a random, snapshot aesthetic is enhanced by this lo fi apparatus. Visit lomography.com and check out the fanaticism. My personal favourite is the cheap fisheye camera. It's cute, with a 180 degree field of view.

All photographers are collectors, and all photographers love their toys.

There are moves afoot to charge professional photographers who wish to photograph parts of Paris. (I believe this is true for the beautiful French city as well as the vacuous skank). Clearly, one advantage of shooting Paris with a toy camera is that nobody is likely believe you are a professional, even if you wanted them to.

Ballantine describes the trials and tribulations of the process. "A toy like camera, with a plastic lens, that leaks light, unevenly exposes film, overlaps frames and produces softly focussed, hazy, whimsical and unintended images ..." he writes. "The colours of the flowers in the garden at Musee de Montmartre were intense. The geraniums were so red they seemed to pulse. They looked full of blood. In rue Lepic, where the owner's body was crucified on the windmill's sails, the borrowed Diana smashed.

"Norm's [photographer and lecturer Norm Leslie's] mint condition, hardly used, vintage, part of the history of photography, Kodak Diana seemed to float through the air like a piece of confetti. When it hit the cobblestones, it shattered. The lens wasn't damaged and the shutter worked, but a chunk of plastic had sheared from the top and part of the viewfinder had come unglued and rattled around inside. It was still possible to take pictures but when looking through the viewfinder the world was a complete blur. Rather than Diana the huntress, Norm's Diana Camera was reduced to the Cyclops whose one eye was put out by Odysseus.

"... Place Vendome and Place Concorde were just minutes apart on foot. Place Vendome was where Lady Di left the Ritz and crashed and Place Concorde was where Marie-Antoinette was guillotined. Paris can be rough on royalty ..."

- Kevin Ballantine, from Diana Pictures, Perth Centre for Photography Nov 16 - 26, 2006.

... and the cobbled streets of Paris can be rough on cameras. Safari Bob buys an image of a headless mannequin in a red dress. I am tempted by a low-angle, off-kilter image of two pedestrians at the top of a flight of steps. Streetlamp. Building. Sky. But i am distracted from my intended purchase by an attractive woman in a red top. Mmmm, i think. But of course i am practising celibacy, in preparation for my upcoming stint at sea. Besides, i can't talk to women, not properly, after my heart was broken by Mili the Ex. Oh, and since my front teeth were broken by Murphy. Suddenly, Moriarty appears. "Hey dude," he says. "What the fuck happened to your teeth?" Oh, you should see the other guy, i say.

The woman in the red dress fronts up and introduces herself. Well this is unusual, i think. Woman. Within two metre radius. I begin to feel slightly panicky. She turns out to be none other than Donsta the Pink Minx of The Block fame. This really unnerves me. It's somewhat disquieting when i meet a woman for the first time, who then says she has met me before. No; that wasn't me. That was some fucked-up drug fiend slash alcoholic. I am a cleancut, hardworking photographer. (And Dr Jekyll was a good-natured physician who was out most nights). I bumble my way through a few sentences before escaping to the relative calm of a conversation with Moriarty.

Meanwhile, Justin, Catherine, Safari Bob, the Donstar and others are heading down to to Billy Lee's in Chinatown. Do i want to come? I politely decline. "Fuck off," i say. "It's a shithole." Moriarty and i order Stones Pizza then walk round the corner to his new pad in Brisbane Place. Its late, we're drunk, his wife is not too impressed. We talk about the old days. Moriarty breaks out his new Gibson Les Paul. It's beautiful. Hand made. Purple glitter top. It's almost enough to make one think about Putting The Band Back Together. He's got this Framus valve amplifier, like a Marshall, only about 11 times better. Bought it on eBay from the US. How did he get it out here? "US postal service," he shrugs. "I got a call and they said come pick it up from the airport." Instead of speaker cloth, it's got like a chrome-plated grille with slots in it. Matching head. If it were a car, Moriarty's rig would be straight out of Tom Wolfe's The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby.

But wait, there's more. His wife says, "What about that camera." Oh yeah, says Moriarty. His father's Rolleiflex. He hands it to me, in its brown leather case. "Permanent loan," he says. "Put it to good use."

And the rest, as they say, is history.

TAKING A BREAK

Help yourself to a biscuit. Have a cup of tea and a good lie down. It's been a bit hectic lately, hasn't it? What with the weather and all.


As you can see, i am shooting more images for the Blue Room Theatre. Previous examples of my photography are all over their website. But if you just can't get enough of art director's photography, hell: click on the link up there that says "art director's photography."

Today Mayhem and i eat microwaved lasagne (oh and i swore i would never be reduced to blogging about what i eat for lunch. Well, there's that resolution gone out the window). We battle the heat and keep chipping away at the monumental task of editing our five minute rock'n'roll documentary epic, The Maestro. Monumental in the sense that it is like taking a large, rough hewn chunk of granite, and chipping, chipping, chipping away, until gradually it begins to take shape as a monument to Rino, North Perth's fabled Sicilian mechanic. The Maestro. You know he still uses those glass bottles to top up the oil on his customers' cars? Those old oil bottles have all but disappeared from the modern urban automotive landscape. Luckily we have them cleverly documented on digital videotape, along with Mayhem's legs.

Post production of The Maestro is scheduled to finish on November 22, two days after Mayhem's birthday. That's like next week. With delivery of the finished product the week after. Phew. For her birthday we will get whacked and tear around the Town of Vincent accosting possible sponsors and demanding money. Sicilian style. I mean, it's Mayhem's birthday for chrissakes. And five thousand dollars just goes nowhere these days. I mean, let's consider the budget just for cake alone ...


Enough biscuits for now. Back to work, all of you.

IT'S A LIVING

Nothing like waking up at five-thirty in the afternoon and heading out for a beer. I'm riding down William Street to the Brass Monkey to meet Jules and Das when my mobile rings. I'd left an early 20th century bicycle locked to a pole outside the Flying Scotsman, a For Sale sign tied to it with one of my shoelaces. (Yes, i'm broke again.) The idea being that at some point during the Sunday session, some drunk will want to buy it. It's a 28" women's bike with a curvy old school frame. A Flying Arrow, found on a recent street collection in Highgate. I answer the mobile. It's some drunk. "You selling that bike?" Bingo.

At the Monkey, we have a quiet beer. Safari Bob arrives and we have a slightly louder beer. Then, off to the Kerb to see the Red exhibition. All the artwork is red. The food is red. People, wearing red. One girl even has red hair. The lengths people go to fit in. I try some organic red wine from the Porongorups. It's bloody awful, so i switch to Red Stripe. I see a guitar and a keyboard set up. A Simply Red cover band? Sweet Jesus Sanchez, i hope not.

There are three paintings here i really quite like, so i grab a cattledog to look at the prices. NFS, NFS, and NFS. What is it with artists these days? Don't you want to sell your work? Three words: let it fucking go. Are you artists? Or sentimental, anal retentive art collectors? Paint it; sell it.

We drink, look again at the work in case we missed something, drink some more, and eat. Jules suggests we go up to the Brisbane for a beer. I am dumbfounded. Why, why oh why in heaven's name would you go up the road to pay for beer when there is perfectly good free beer here? "You can't stand around drinking their beer forever," admonishes Jules. No, that's true, i acknowledge. Just till it runs out. "But by then people will see you for what you truly are," he warns. Well, they see that the minute i walk in, i say. Jules then posits the thought that perhaps the women are better looking in places where you have to pay for beer. And the higher the prices, the better looking the women. Hmmm. Interesting proposition. I look around, and yes, it's kind of Skank City. So it's either the Queens, or the Brisbane. Das is in favour of the Scotsman. That's because has a penchant for weird and freaky looking women, says Jules. A quick rock paper scissors and it's decided: the Queens.

At the Queens, Das runs an idea by me for a photojournalistic expedition. The sand drags at Beverley. Blokes with beer guts, tattoos, and beards, who take a lot of speed, race motorbikes, dune buggies, and whatever through the dirt, drink and fight, camp out, and wreak havoc. Plus other assorted sundry carnage. Sounds great, i say. I'm in.

After plowing through a selection of ales at the Queens, i suddenly find enlightenment. I'd always thought the Sunday session at the Queens was just a meat market. In a blinding flash i realise that it is indeed a meat market. It is full of good-looking, available women. The wisdom of drinking beer in such an establishment dawns on me: because you never know.

After about two hours of never knowing, Safari Bob, Jules and i throw caution to the winds and visit the Brisbane. We take a walk down Beaufort Street and get there at around four minutes before ten. The bouncer outside the beer garden refuses to let us in, on account of it being nearly closing time. No worries mate, i say. We walk around the corner to the door on Brisbane Street and let ourselves in. Gabriel is tending bar. Gabriel used to work at the Grapeskin with Ausra the Lithuanian. He has a lambda symbol tattooed on his neck. Why, i don't know. How long have we got? I ask. Three minutes, says Gabriel. He recommends a beer. We buy a few pints, and wander out to the beer garden, and see the bouncer in a whole new light, i.e. from inside the pub rather than standing out on the street staring at his ugly face. Ha ha. Goose. I meet the former singer of Lash, a tall blonde who lends some credence to Jules' philosophy and whose name i can't possibly remember on account of all the (increasingly expensive) beer. But it must have been Belinda-Lee. Her chaperone slash drummer asks for, and takes, my card. I could definitely use another photoshoot. There's a limit to how many junked bicycles you can sell to drunks on any given Sunday.

Hey, it's a living.

THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY

Could somebody please explain how it is "hospitality" when you have to pay for it?

DEFLOWERING FLOWERGIRLS

Death Lilly: Performing the Flower Girl Role in the Age of Consumption"

(or: Please don't pick the flower girls)

The Age of Consumption. Consumed by free red wine, whilst eating wedding cake off a photographic cut-out enlargement of Catherine the Flower Girl's head, i wonder how the "Age of Consumption" fits into this exhibition. Or is it performance? Catherine is dressed in a bridal gown, serving wedding cake ...

The exhibition can be seen at Edith Cowan University, Building 3, Level 2. By digitally recontextualising images of herself as flower girl, photographer Catherine Gomersall invites the viewer to (re)consider this role. Her flower girl in front of the heavy metal mosh pit is a startling juxtaposition. Or the flower girl's legs swinging in the top corner of an arcadian wedding scene - a flower girl suicide. The image rendered complete with blood-covered refrigerator... [Note: this post has been edited for length. Pages of pseudo-academic writing were deleted after avid readers complained that they were reading, reading, and reading - but nothing was happening. Well of course not. Nothing ever happens in academic writing. That's why it is academic.] ... and catherine is decked out in some kind of wedding dress, but it's too hot for it. "It's like made of plastic." She strips back to a black muscle shirt, billowing ivory skirt, and boots. You go girl. Kick some patronising patriarchal arse! So long as it's someone else's. Not mine.

The redolent flower girl symbolises fertility, the female cycle, but not the recycling of the female. Women are recyclable aren't they? Flowers aren't. Once cut, they wither and die. But then again ... there was that bunch of orange liliums i bought for the spanish painter, but she didn't want to see me, so i took them back home and gave them to Mayhem instead. Community recycling in action. Mayhem's boyfriends never seem to buy her flowers. Are they too cool? Ah, Mayhem. "The woman is both 'inside' and 'outside' male society, both a romantically idealized member of it and a victimized outcast. She is sometimes what stands between man and chaos, and sometimes the embodiment of chaos itself." Terry Eagleton (1983) must have met her. Yes, she is the embodiment of chaos.

Examining the symbolic roles of women in traditional society, whether through art, anthropology, or philosophy (i.e., art) can help decentre and redistribute power by explicating the power relationships, making the normal and therefore invisible hegemonic structures visible. Death Lilly functions in this way.

But these hegemonies are not simply patriarchal. In one montage, Catherine has placed two brides together, in matriarchal matrimony, a framed picture of a pre-Columbian goddess of fertility on the wall behind them. One of the Brides holds puppet-master's strings, secured to the limbs of the flower girl (Catherine) who sits at her feet. Are these women complicit in maintaining a patriarchal power relationship, or subverting it to a matriarchal one? The disturbing subtext of Catherine's image is that men are longer required within this new symbolic order. We are replaced by cells, by technology, we disappear into our own invisible, troubled realms, we vanish up the orifice of our own technology. And life goes on.

These Honours projects are hard. I don't really understand them. I never did no Honours or no Masters or nothin. I'm just an ordinary bloke living an extraordinary fucking life. But i reckon these images of Catherine's decentre the viewer, breaking down 'safe' binary oppositions such as real/fake, normal/deviant, mine/yours, authority/obedience, sane/mad. Montage is, by its nature, a polymorphous and pluralist art. As such it diffuses the rigid compartmentalised phallocentricities of our partriarchal world.

I may not know much about wedding cake, but i know what i like.

REJECTION SLIPS

I have it from two separate sources this week that women outnumber men in this city by a ratio of around four to one. This knowledge, combined with the rejection slip from Asialink, puts me in a rather dejected state of mind. Why can't i get ahold of two or three. Then a friend, who shall remain anonymous, calls me on a Friday night because he's picked up two women at the Brisbane Hotel, and asks if i wish to accompany them all on a jolly jaunt to Fremantle. I'm at a party somewhere in the wilds of North Perth. The anonymous drug dealer who dropped me there (the anonymous people in this week's blog outnumbering the nonymous by a ratio of around four to one), who is currently on remand, has taken off in his borrowed (and promptly crashed) car to wreak more havoc upon the unsuspecting city. So i am slightly immobilised, particularly after dropping a full bottle of Coopers right smack on the end of my second toe. The party, at least, is still kicking. Whilst ostensibly engaged in scintillating conversation with Josef, i am mindful of the blonde siamese twins, Elle and Janelle, wriggling about in each others laps like drunken competitors in a game of musical chairs. It's a bit distracting. Then i get a text from my anonymous friend: "I have decided to go with plan A." Hmm. Quite obviously, Plan A is a drug-fucked threesome in a seedy motel room somewhere in Fremantle. So i stick around with Josef and, of course, Safari Bob, and get, of course, steadily shihtzu faced.

Asialink thanked me for the quality of my arts application (to spend three months in Bangalore with $12,000 of taxpayers' money) and encouraged me to reapply, saying my application could have been viable in different competition. Well, obviously. Particulary if the hypothetical "different competition" consisted of imbecilic, talentless morons. That would have made my application much more viable. But it was not to be. More reason to be shihtzu faced.

I did however discover that not all rejectees received these cheery words of encouragement from Asialink. An anonymous friend also received a rejection letter, but with no encouragement whatsoever. While it didn't exactly say go hang yourself, for a highly strung artist in a fragile state of mind ... well, things could have quite easily become even more highly strung, if you know what i mean ...

[insert animated gif of Art Director tapping side of nose here]

Coming out of the bathroom i run into siamese twins Elle and Janelle, about to enter, and suddenly have an idea of such startling clarity, it's like a vision. "I want you to have my child," i blurt out. I receive the usual response, incredulity mingled with contempt. "Oh Maa-aark," they bemoan in a united protest. I shake my drunken head. "No, no, you don't understand ... he's turning twenty-one this month and it would make the ideal gift - " but the Twins have disappeared into the bathroom, to do whatever it is blonde girls do in bathrooms.

Party ends as party does. I go home to find Jo19 is even more depressed than me, if such a thing is possible. Another argument with his anonymous. I won't disclose details, other than to say it seemed to involve the wastage of a perfectly good drink. Well, you've still got me. And the dog, i say cheerily. Jo19 is singularly unimpressed.

Good things never last, and i will soon be abandoning Jo19 to Hunter S. Thompson the dog, and going to make my fortune in the world. Things are afoot. Sunken treasure and pirates. Lawyers with islands, populated by palm trees and slaves. Turkish bakeries on the southern frontiers. More on these developments as they come to hand.

Meanwhile, the Perthites can keep their twisted little sex ratios. I'm leaving. And i'm taking my toys with me.

"Things never get better, only cheaper." - Art Director.