...dancing about.

Shane up close and personal.....

 "Take a Bow" show has closed ....reasonably well attended and my demo's on performance photography had a small but enthusiastic audience over the four session on two weekends. 

Jana

Rachel

Fulsome thanks are due to Laura,  Mariah, Jana and Rachel for their sterling work on the weekend demo's.

The finalists' images will be getting another outing at a new venue.....
 Gallery Eleven40, at 1140 Malvern Rd, Malvern North 3144. 
The show will run from Friday November 30th until Friday 21st December with thanks to the Take a Bow sponsor, Gallery Eleven 40 who are responsible for the superb printing job done with the finalist images. 
Gallery hours are Monday to Friday 9am - 6pm, weekends 10am - 5pm. www.eleven40.com.au

It's satisfying when people reckon they have learnt something from you........ particularly when they work in the business, too.

 
I had the nagging suspicion after the last BIFB and it has now been confirmed from "Take a Bow", that there were two types in this medium: those who are professionally minded and involved and those who only have cameras and cyber-egos!

 
Invitation to the Dance" has also finished and I would deem it, (by comments left and offered personally), very successful.

The gels...

the fellows....

checking cossies...

 I have been attending ballet rehearsals and there are two gigs (Dance) soon... and then off to King Island to stay with film -maker friends.... rugged landscapes or limpid skies? 

L and M on the stairs at the Minerva Hall

Politics
It's a bit hard to ignore the American personality poll results. 
It's also difficult not to notice the bitter similarity's of the American conservatives' vituperative comments about Obama's win and our own conservative pollies attitudes.
One interesting observation was that for all the venom the Murdoch press had spat at the Democrats, people took little notice and it would seem that the power of the loony right-wing press may be much over-rated.
Poor Rush Limbaugh.... apoplectically useless to the last
Some disgruntled Americans sounded off (on facebook), that they would emigrate to Australia if Obama won only to be assailed by a torrent of rejection that ranged from a simple "F..k Off. We're full"!  ...... and "They would probably end up in Austria"!.......to a list (by a Felicity Ryan) of why they would not like it here:

Our Prime Minister is a unmarried woman and avowed atheist who lives with her B/F.
Her Finance Minister is a Lesbian who's just had a baby and there are other Gays openly in Parliament and in the Judiciary.
We have Universal Health Insurance (since 1975)
We have few guns and no death penalty and are pro choice for contraception and abortion,
we believe in evolution, which is taught in schools.....
...and voting is compulsary.
 It was also suggested that those who did arrive, declare their pitchforks on arrival at Tullamarine.

 Locally, 
Tony (the rabbit) Abbott's old University College, St Johns (Catholic) is copping a lot of bad press for it's endemic misogyny and appalling behaviour. 
Abbott giggled and excused it as "undergraduate fooling around"... 
Prime Minister material?.. not-on-yer-Nelly!
We've had The Melbourne Cup:.... and State of Tardis (where all goes backwards) Racing Minister, Dennis ( what's a backhander?) Napthine extols the quality and honesty in the Victorian racing scene/business/industry/take, only to have the press reveal that three senior jockeys are being investigated for being "on-the-take".  One does get the feeling that when this incompetent lot say it's BLACK, you know it's really WHITE!
State Govt. enquiry into Catholic abuse of children recieves thumbs down as it's underfunded and too like the manner in which the Church handled it's own enquiry.
Boom gates get the blame for drivers running into trains. 
Conflict of Interest is not a concept that "Big-Bird" Baillieu (Genus: Silvertail Incompetens) recognises.
Only in the Tardis State!  Sigh!

cheers Possums,
Shane.

...on a big rant

G'day... here we are at Oscars (in Ballarat) having a drink and a bit of a feed with some compatriots from the Ballarat Foto Biennale...

....Mrs Wombat left, Lucy, a new committee member, Elizabeth, Kieran, Aldona and Dave....apart from the meetings to discuss businees for the 2013 Biennale we or rather Elizabeth, has instigated these social gatherings to discuss business for the 2013 Biennale. Which is good fun. There is going to be an interim show in September/October this year and some other activities, details of which have to be finalised so more of that at a later date.  
On a personal note, I'm having a show as well in September October. And I shouldn't forget Kathleen (Mr & Mrs Wombat's youngest), her exhibition at Queensland Centre for Photography kicks off June 9th - July 5th... so if you happen to be in Brissie... pop in.

But this post is more about the dire state of politics in the land of Aus and specifically the return of Victioria to a truly "Victorian" approach to government. 

At the recent Ballan Autumn Arts Festival these brave souls were protesting that this......Bacchus Marsh Maddingly Brown Coal

was about to be extended into this.........

with the subsequent possible loss of this and other of the very best fruit and vegetable soils in Victoria that are reasonably close to Melbourne.

The Baillieu (Liarbril) Government has recently indicated that exploration and development for the highly polluting brown coal is to get fast tracking. (Hazelwood Power Station in the Latrobe Valley by itself alone, contributes a full 15% to Victoria's pollution and greenhouse gases with its brown coal.) This, allied with their draconian restrictions on the siting of wind farms which are so severe that there is almost no place in Victoria with suitable wind where they can be approved for siting indicates where their policy is at.
At the Ballan festival I quipped to a fellow with a petition against the coal mine "Is this the place where you sign to get a coal mine?" He laughed and as he handed over the form for signing a young man, early - middle 20's standing near-by said, "I'd certainly sign to get a coal mine!" Noting he was wearing a "Tee" with some logo which said Global Warming is a Myth or some such.. he proceeded to tell us that solar was no good, nuclear was better: wind generators had killed more people than nuclear accidents (apparentley people fall off them) and were more polluting than brown coal generated electricity... (it seems they have gas turbine engines which have to be switched on if they can't generate their quota of power) and trotted out some figures (completely wrong) on the German Solar and re-newable targets and job creation from new technologies.
He had all the dead-pan fervour and certainty of a fundamentalist religious zealot.. and it seemed, during the following week that he had set a worrying tone in this re-newable energy area.
Bailleau's Liarbrils announced the cutting of 350 State jobs in the climate change and conservation/ environment areas. The Minister, one Ryan Smith interviewed by Josie Taylor on ABC's Stateline program http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-31/environment-jobs-slashed/3924840  was all at sea. I'm not sure whether he was nervous by being talked to by a attractive woman (possibly a rare thing) but his frightened eyes rolled about like two raisins in a pudding bowl and when asked what IS the govt. doing for the environment he said that they were changing the light globes in traffic lights!
I'll repeat that  ".... we're changing the globes in traffic lights".
It would be funny in a film.
This government has gone on the nose very quickly.... The Deputy Premier Peter Ryan had a "minder" who was up to his neck in the demise (resignation) of the reformist Police Commissioner, Simon Overland.  Ryan's line of "I know Nuffin' Mister..." beggars belief particularly as the police then get huge pay rises easily whilst the nurses get protracted 12 month of fighting, threats, bullying; and from Bailleau's Uncle... plain bad manners.
Ambo's are going through same, as are Teachers.
But Bailleau still commits to $40 - $50 million subsidy to the Grand Prix so petrol heads can watch cars going in fast circles... and let's not talk about the nanny-state insanity of his upping the fines for sayng "G.. F.....d!"
Although it was Brumby who brought that one in
Planning Minster Matthew Guy was looking like being sued by a woman he apparently mislead about land re-zoning... don't know what happened there ...all gone quiet.
Lorraine Wreford, Liarbril member for Mordiallic waited a week to (formally) tell  police that the gunshots that hit her home were due to her eldest son owing a drug dealer $5000.... nice.
Defendents all plead guilty so the Wrefords don't have to appear in court. Really nice.
When Kennett became Premier he said the State was broke ... proceeded to rip up the foundations for the new museum so his mates could have a casino there..$8,000,000... closed down the SEC's research into re-newables before selling it all off .... don't ask what's happened to maintenance and consistency of equipment across the privatised power suppliers  ... sacked all the language teachers in primary schools and put sattelite dishes in their place so that 100 children could learn on-line all together....never did see the figures on that system which lasted all of 3 months before quietly disappearing....
There's a myth that they (Liarbrils) are good economic managers... they're not: they show no imagination or innovation and instead rely on the fear of change in a ill educated and basically selfish population: they're not conservative, they're dead.... and we'll end up paying for their lack of imagination. I rather suspect Kennett is the primary advisor now.... I hope it doesn't take the state 10 more years to wake to this next con.

Sorry Petals...  that all got a bit serious but Aus has some decisions it has to wake up to... and quickly
and below is the person who will not be able to.

Far

  And let's forget about promoting all those stories about suffering maladies from the turbines... I want to hear from those who get paid from them and seem to suffer no malady... please note the sheep in the photo suffering migraines .. cows look suitably distressed under them, too.  (Wind Turbines, Waubra, Victoria)

Cheers,
Shane.

...with publications and publicity

Geez Petals,

it's been a long time between drinks so just to keep the ball rolling, so to speak, I'll take some advice from "Blurb" and advertise a few of my books ...including the newest, which arrived today.

Blurb was suggesting a link to their site and had provided the html; but being a Wombat of limited technological capability I couldn't get the thing to work so  a "Cut & Paste" approach will have to suffice.

First, I might clarify why two books on different subjects have the same name: 
I knew during the research for the French sojourn that I would be exhibiting the images and making a book on return to Aus for the Ballarat International Foto Biennale. It was during the research that the name "Continuum"  seemed a most appropriate to title the show considering how the plannig for the trip was developing. 
Then, before leaving for France, Leeanne Rutherford and I were in conversation about a possible title for her Ballet Theatre Australia's next performance title and "Continuum" seemed again, to be the most appropriate for the time and dance concepts being performed. 
So my book has appended to the Continuum title ...a French experience. 

If you take the opportunity to review these books please remember when looking at "Continuum", "Counterpointe', and "Counterpointe 2" that these were all shot in a single session: dress rehearsal and then a single performance.
To Blurb... thanks for the production quality and the quick turn around from publishing to pick-up... the best was "Continuum...a French experience": eight days turn-around and as the helpful Blurb reps indicated at the Biennale, if you get the timing right in the production cycle  things happen quickly. 
Also, Fed-Ex's parcel tracking has been excellent ...I've now picked up books from the Post Office (no parcel delivery to troglodyte burrows this far out) on three occasions before the Post Office has noted me as to their arrival. 
Now, to the books:....................................

 


"Class".. shots taken from various dance classes over a number of years.  I think this book contains the essence of Ballet
A  collection of  candid images from various ballet classes which embody the reality, nuances and dynamic inherent in people whose intense commitment is rare in today's world.
Not a book about ballet per se , a book more to do with people of grace.


http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/678721

"C.V.'s etc." studio shots for dancers promotion, dancewear and performance advertising and audition material.  

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/562805

"Continuum"  a record of a single performance.

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1845287

"Conterpointe"

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2487381

"Counterpointe 2"

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2885822

"Continuum ...a French experience"

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2369030

and last but not least a lovely little sketch/note book

still available from the Wombat himself and perhaps to be republished by Blurb in hardcover format if there is sufficient interest....

...see my website

http://www.sitedfigures.com.au/publications

I have also been considering a book of Nudes covering some ten years of personal work which I think has produced many memorable images..... with tech details / lighting plans / raison detre etc... I'd really like some feedback on this one, Petals as it's a big one.

Cheers and ta for reading,

Shane.