...on a new day

A new day, a new book and video, some changes and different attitudes…….

Shane on Bed

 

....... mentioned in the last entry that the book was supposed to be part of a competition for the Ballarat International Foto Biennale (17-8-13 to 15-9-13), which at the last minute I decided not to enter. The nature of competitions are such that they are always problematic in their impartiality and I really had to consider with this competition whether my book would really be suitable as an entrant. Arranging together the best of your work in theme, subject, style or concept is one thing but then to compare it with 80 pages of images that have been shot mostly in a single day, to me, presents a problem. 

Like comparing apples and oranges.

One thing I did learn was that I'll use Blurb's In-Design download again for future publications as the layout freedoms and flexibility were excellent. And once you have successfully navigated the upload procedures the book seemed to load more quickly than the standard Blurb templates.

Following are some of its images and a link to a preview if you're interested.

http://www.blurb.com/b/4450730-invitation-to-the-dance

Gottschalk

Chopiniana

Don Q

Concerto

rehearsal

The Swan

 This new video was a bit of fun and I found some surprising elements like the movement of light and the sense that some of the images matched so well as to look as though they were shot from a fixed camera. Generally they were shot each morning after breakfast with me standing on a chair and holding the camera over the beds on a monopod with a cable release attached so the idea that they match is a serendipitous fluke. 
http://youtu.be/xP0S7OwmDME
 I may do videos of the doors I shot in France and the crypt shots from Pere Lachaise 

Comments are welcome. 

Wombat Droppings or Politics in Oz

 Rudd is dudding da Liarbrils.... latest polls suggest things have turned dramatically and  are now neck and neck.

"Rabbott" is being unusually diplomatic (most of the time... see new image) but is being

hampered by answering every question with,"We'll-stop-the-boats,We'll-stop-the-boats, We'll-stop-the-boats"..... even when he's asked the time!

He's also been comparing (mine's -bigger-than-yours) expenses with "Slippery Pete", which is not a good look but "Rabbott" didn't get hounded the same way.

Rudd announced that the Carbon Price will be changed to a Emission Trading Scheme earlier than first planned which had the Liarbril's (who are fundamentally, climate change deniers) Greg (What's-an-Environment?)Hunt tying himself in knots trying to argue against something he doesn't believe exists..... and Joe(Oh-What-a-Feeling)Hockey keeps misquoting treasury figures supplied by "Drone"Morrison by about 50%.
Perhaps Joe could become a Chiropractor after politics?

Another nail in the coffin of mythical Liarbril economic rectitiude is being investigated in the $5,000,000,000,000 losses in forestry schemes set up by "Little-Johnny" Howard (and unfortunately not stopped by subsequent Labor Governments)

Here in the Tardis State(Pretend Premier, Dennis (Inutilis-Rusticus) Napthine was seen in a paddock with a large mushroom ...it is fairly certain he didn't eat it, since lately, no increase in imagination has been shown. 

370 Residents of Richmond have been in rapturous chorus for The Pretend Premier as they're to receive compensation for having their houses converted into a freeway and acres of Royal Park are to be concreted over at a cost of about $7,000,000,000,000.

Tardis State(Where-All-Goes-Backward) Health Minister (that's a joke, folks) David (Enema) Davies denies that getting an ambulance is a health hazard, is certain that all ambos  earn around $100,000 a minute but denies that the mess the ambulance and hospital system is in goes back to "reforms" made under the lash of Jeff (Bully-Boy) Kennett (the Dorian Gray of Tardis State politics) in cahoots with insurance companies.

A fossil has been found in Queensland. No, it's not Premier "Il Duce" Newman! 

It's a real fossil that has value.

Cheers possums,

Shane

...on Holiday at TarraWarra with Jeff and Robert

G’day Petals,

As it’s holiday time Mrs Wombat and I took a trip to the other side.

Tarrawarra panorama landscape

The Yarra Valley that is, to attend a retrospective of painter Jeffery Smart at TarraWarra.

TarraWarra Gallery

Although we would have seen this show at some stage the “critique” by Robert Nelson in “The Age” (9-1-13) “Smart Ticks Boxes with Signature Style” prompted a sooner-rather-than-later excursion whilst the critiques’ effect was still fresh in mind. 

It seemed to bear little relation to the tenor of the Smart work that I knew.

It was worth the early visit, for as the day panned-out there were many metaphors of 

contemporary society to be experienced other than in the paintings.

Amongst our favourite paintings were: “Self Portrait at Papini’s”, a work like “Morning Practice, Baia” and Clive James’ Portrait which seem to contradict Nelson’s assertion that “…….Smart is not an allegorical artist”.

Self-portrait at Papini’s 1984-85 by Jeffrey Smart, courtesy Artist and the TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria

The garage door in “Papini’s” looks to be a “send-up” of Dale Hickey’s “Untitled” 1967-8 and the blue door shadow of the paper, a dead fishes tail (?), leaves a deadpan Smart in between both and the possibility of his exit, “stage right” through the open door.

Dale Hickey Untitled 1967-8

A conflict engendered perhaps between figurative and non-figurative artist-practitioners by critics for the critics’ ego and existence?

“Morning Practice” seems to conjure a personal act of art in a primary sense in its shapes, activity and colours. Balance, form and colour, is a hard act to get together.

Morning Practice, Baia 1969

Clive James happily recounted being painted by Smart and delighted by the large portrait drawings he had seen was then bowled over by being finally represented as a tiny figure high up behind a big wall (fence) happily observing (chatting to) us down below. (pic on right )

TarraWarra Gallery

Asserting too, that Smart paints factories, high rise etc “….because it’s easy to paint….” Is (apart from being Brunswick St.-Barista-Bitchy) belied just by the detail of the crack and the wall texture above the “Hickey” door and in the solid reality of the figure in “On the Roof, Taylor Square” where, in this early work, the juxtaposition of the solidity of the figure and the flatness of the architectural forms behind seem to provide the “airy-ness” one can feel at heights…

On the Roof, Taylor Square 1961

…. but then  Nelson sniffily points out “…abstraction that riddles the design affords freedom from noise and chaos in the representation.” and that “… his Roof-tops 1969… look like flat pieces of graphic design” and further, “Largely sparing himself the pains of incidental light and shadows across complicated forms….” “In Italy… he couldn’t reconcile the inflected architecture with the festive spaces that it frames”. 

All of which only seem to suggest that Robert Nelson would paint Italy very differently to Jeffery Smart and that, ergo Smart should paint differently!

A criticism seemingly based upon what you would like to see, not what you have seen and understood

I’ve always liked the story of Francois Truffaut when, as a literary film critic he was challenged by the film-makers he was criticizing to “… go and make a film!”

He did. It was “The Four Hundred Blows.”

So here’s an example (I assume) of Nelson’s scenic painting style as a background to one of Polixeni Papapetrou’s (his wife) photographs, so you can see in comparison, his work for yourself.

Polixeni Papapetrou.net

Jeffery Smart painted to his own tune. He “hit” an “idea” young and developed it assiduously.

This exhibition is valuable in that you can partially track this development but also experience a wit, a somewhat sardonic view of humanity from the ordinary world culture of roads, freeways, car-parks and airports through the talent of someone who loving the works of  Piero della Francesca and Vermeer presents his subjects calmly in a similarly ordered space that allows the eye an extended looking to discover at its leisure.

Someone who obviously loved drawing, the placing of paint and the enjoyment of “working” a surface so that feeling and thought is revealed.

exterior : wine tasting and restaurant on left, gallery right

This beautiful space “….is the first privately funded, significant public visual arts museum to be set up under the Australian Government’s philanthropic measures announced in March 1999. TWMA operates as a not-for-profit institution, with a charter to display Australian art from the second half of the twentieth century to the present day.”…. and after an excellent lunch, General Manager Simon Napthine came back to our table provide more details of the history of the place as he had overheard us ask some questions of our waitress.

GM Simon Napthine and restaurant.

The corollary of the Besen’s philanthropy to the arts is that it has extended to the staff here and they made it a perfectly enjoyable day for us with their natural good service.

Wombat Droppings

Jenny Macklin (Labor)  put her foot right in it but did something unusual for a pollie. Apologised!

Incompetent Baillieu Liabrils blame Labor Feds for faltering hospital system after Feds cut $107 Million from State of Tardis (where all goes backward) Health while forgetting to mention the $616 Million they have slashed.

But they say, the plan to spend it all on a new Tennis Centre is a good thing for the Tardis State.

Jonathon Moylan has caused much embarrassment to the share trading community with his ANZ letter hoax as they splutteringly attempted to explain just how straight their operations are…. Oohh look… there’s a rabbit!!

…and Peter (Children Overboard) Reith reckons he ought to be punished …perhaps like he was when his son ran up a $20,000.00 phone bill on Pete’s Commonwealth Pollies phone card!  Howard, (He of the Profligate spending) was inclined to think “It’s not a hanging offence!”

Abbott staffer kicks own goal with a clumsy attempt to paint him as human.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4455364.html    from Anne Summers.

Chris (The Whyne) Pyne has been caught out lying again….again trying to support Abbott’s Neanderthal attitude to women

http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/printfriendly.pl?http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200504/s1354159.htm

“Slippery Pete” has been collared by the ACT rozzers and might go to jail if found guilty of defrauding the Commonwealth of about $1000.00.

Pity the Liarbrils’are so quiet about it happening when he was one of them!

Geoff Shaw, Liarbril Member for Frankston is still sitting in Parliament having been found by Parliament to have defrauded the State.

Hey, Big Bird Baillieu (Genus: Silvertail Incompetens)….. what’s the difference?

Melbourne Airport Carpark holds Tardis State  (where all goes backward) to ransom over easier access to airport.

…and a nice little movie celebrating our Public transport officers….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=tjtbmryzBGM

Cheers Possums,

Shane

...in a general fashion.

G'day fellow marsupials,

there's a new book on the shelves....here's the link

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/3340776

Started thinking about work for the new show in September .... ballet images... well let's say ballet based works. Will start shooting in a couple of weeks time once ideas have been clarified.

 ... a friend posted a portrait image she found attractive from the "Head-On" show in Sydney. It was fine except that it was a copy of a Scandinavian photographer's work.
This seems to be happenning more and more...which led me to think about the image above that has been "ripped-off" even to the extent of being used to advertise the thiefs website. It's not that you can't be influenced or practise the technique or adapt the lighting but to present a concept that is literally a plagairised image says a lot about your morality.

 From a fairly recent portrait session with Greta B.

 

And a couple of images from Paris 

The Winged Victory of Samothrace being a "still-point" amongst the lemmings in the Louvre .... and the delightful St Martin's Canal just awakening for the party... that was a good place....

Politics in The Tardis State 

 

Tim Smith Q.C. (Judge,Supreme Court) rolls his eyes and seems to shudder when asked in interview about IBAC’s  potential success in limiting corruption. 

Wonders why A/, Baillieu (Silvertail Incompetens) and a Premier of truly Lilliputian stature, didn’t just institute the NSW model and B/, how the Tardis model that will not investigate minor corruption; allows no further investigation of a suspect who says “I didn’t do it!” and shall not be coercive, can possibly work.

Penny Armitage (30 years, Dept of Justice) walks plank to swim with sharks at KPMG. Says she is very sad to go (?) 

Why go? 

Oh, she didn’t say it was to keep her quiet about who told her to ignore advice that Carl William’s life would be in danger in prison.

Sniff, sniff… smell a rodent called Peter (I-know-Nuffin) Ryan?

Sniff, sniff… did the Tardis Govt. pay off the woman mis-Planning Minister, Matthew Guy allegedly dudded over the re-zoning of her land at Phillip Island?

Sniff, sniff is Matthew Guy going to close down the Waubra wind farm?
Will he accede to the side issue demands from those who think that there is "...potential ill health..(effects) from windfarms and use their complaints "...to make the VC82 Amendment retrospective.." ?

And if so, how much will it cost the State for this creative vandalism? And is all electrical power in The Tardis State to come from Brown Coal?

Sniff, sniff… did the Attorney General of Tardis State, Robert Clarke interfere with the integrity and independence of the Equal Opportunity Commission by refusing the boards choice of chairman? He says not! The three board members (from four) who resigned in protest say he did!

And Big Bird Ted (Silvertail Incompetens) reckons teachers should be paid according to results?

Perhaps implementation from Premier level down might be a good way to see if it works.

In other likely but un-healthy realities, BIG Gina, the Miner-with-the-Most, stamps her foot in a hissie-fit with the Fairfax board…. says she’ll take her toys home if they don’t play by her rules.

Clive (Titanic2) Palmer gives a ROFL performance as a “stand-up” playing a democrat and upsets Mr Rabbit in the process.

The Slippery Pete “Affaire” is to be officially re-named “Godwin Grech2 The Sequel”.

Script by Pyne the Whyne (in lieu of policy development), ‘ghosted’ by “The Australian’s” journo’s, acted by staffers and asst. directed by Mal Brough. This reality/melodrama makes “Desperate Housewives” look Shakespearean in comparison and content.

Gillard and Rabbit are bickering over how best to treat people who are dying to come to Australia.

Indonesians give twenty years jail to Bali bomber assistant… Geez, Schapelle... wadderya reckon?

Cheers Petals,

Shane

...to the Dance

Shane as a Wili

G'day Possums,

we recently attended and photographed a ballet performance.... so thought I'd dress up.... gives you the "willies", eh?

Suffice to say it was a very good performance and congratulations to all: performers, choreogrphers and particularly the Director of Ballet Theatre Australia, Leeanne Rutherford.

There were a selection of excerpts on the program with Giselle Act 2 as a major piece and without writing much more I'll let some of the images taken speak for themselves.

For those interested in tech details
I used a 5D, and 5D mk2, 70-200 f2.8, 50mm f1.8 and 85mm f1.8 @ 3200 and 6400 ISO.

Suite en Blanc

Suite en Blanc

Suite en Blanc

The Talisman

Corsaire

Diana and Acteon

Diana and Acteon

Diana and Acteon

Giselle, Wilis

Mrytah

Giselle, Wilis

Myrtah

Giselle, Wilis

Giselle, Albrecht

Myrtah

Albrecht and Giselle

Hilarion

Satanella

Gypsy Suite

Wombat Droppings

The Premier, Baillieu (Genus: Sivertail Incompetens)  has had a bit on his plate this week.

Although handing generous bonuses to Liarbril Party supporters who just happen to be property developers is nothing new, I suppose it was a vain hope that the six new suburbs in “Green Wedge” and agricultural areas get at least sufficient developmental infrastructure to offset, to some extent, the loss of farmland. No such hope. 

All are going to rely on existing public transport. Some new development is “proposed” but the track record of this government in following through on promises is bad and as they wouldn’t want to interfere in the developer’s profits, I wouldn’t be holding my breath on that proposition.

“Silvertail” irritated a few when it was discovered that, in his words, “a hiccup” caused the overcharging the public $300,000,000 on water accounts and that it had been determined that it will only be paid back when the water companies are ready.

Nothing to do with the government’s dividend of $117,000,000, is it?

Ummm, isn't that close to fraud, Ted?

Only in The Tardis State

Police Minister Peter(I-know-nuffin)Ryan, has been in the news again for all the wrong reasons. It seems that colleague, Bill Tilley secretly recorded a phone conversation with Ryan as an insurance policy because he felt that the Police Minister was “verballing” him over evidence given to the Office of Police Integrity concerning the pushing out of Police Commissioner, Simon Overland.

Ryan said “..it’s much ado over nothing.”

Yeah, right!

Federally, things are looking very interesting in the “Slippery Pete” saga….

It seems to be shaping as another Liarbril “dirty tricks” concoction a’la Godwin Grech that may turn on the accusers and “bite ‘em on the bum.”

Messers Rabbit & Whyne, to deflect some of the heat, attempted, (hypocritically) to scamper for what they thought the “high ground” of moral indignation and criticised a report that PM Gillard has set up a “dirt unit” in her office. So there!

Apparently staff  are being instructed on how to use Goggle to dig info on opposition pollies!

Given their planning ability in other areas they will probably discover the NSW “right’ of their own party in less friendly than the Liarbrils.

Gina Rinehart (the biggest, wealthiest miner in Australia) now has nearly a 20% share of Fairfax .... and is demanding three board seats.....

Imagine, she's in charge of national newspapers and Clive Palmer (another big miner) is the new Treasurer...ahhh.... democracy in action, well at least till they get the jobs. 

Then, who knows?

cheers Petals

Shane.