Lens Culture... new edition

Jim Casper has posted a new edition of Lens Culture. As always well worth a look.............. at http://www.lensculture.com
Here's a picture by Vee Speers from her Birthday Party series. Compelling.......

Shooting at last....

Why does the computer takes up so much time? When was the last time I made a photograph? Need a picture fix!
Here are two shot last night on a dull Auckland winters night as dusk descends......feels good!

Not In Arles

Talked last night to Jim Casper whom I knew was in Arles. As I suspected he is having fun in the sun and Arles is as wonderful as ever. I'm pissed to have missed the Lou Reid performance!! Jim told me Tina was not at the Rencontre this year, so I've just phoned her in Cologne. Seems Cologne weather is just like Auckland right now. Cold and wet. Reminded me of an early morning walk we had together along the Rhine after an all night celebration of my birthday back in July 2005. Here is a picture... grey and gloomy.... quite the opposite of my friends in Cologne!

My House My Head - Bowen Galleries Wellington

Monday night in Wellington for the opening of My House My Head at Bowen Galleries.

Cold winter morning here....

... but now past the longest day. Winter has set in. Far better to be somewhere in the South of France. Arles perhaps! Cold beer, friends, conversation. No rush. In the second picture, made from the terrace of my studio, the early morning wind drags at the flag on top the Catholic Bishop's Palace. No longer a palace but still the flag. And in the first, my studio and piles of work waiting. A good way to keep warm.......or at least forget about the cold.

My House My Head at Satellite Gallery

My House My Head opened last night....a lot of people and they seemed to like the pictures. Got some interesting comments about the possible readings of the works.....the balance between content and form and the relationship between the images in the diptyches. Nice. Now on to the the next project!

Mail with bises and pictures from Paris

Mail from Cat Soubbotnik in Paris. Sending me New Year wishes in June. Better late than never. I like her pictures, here is one..... well two....

No Photography

Spoke at the Auckland Museum today to a small but perfectly formed audience. Spoke about the Seresin (small but perfectly formed) collection of modernist photography. Despite the warning signs Julia Durkin managed to make this picture. Will we be invited back?

My Head Double Take

Abby, Shelley and I have just finished hanging my show My House My Head which opens tomorrow at Auckland's Satellite Gallery. Have included in the show Martin Parr's image of the back of my head which he made in Rome in April of last year. Shelley made a picture of me looking at me and here it is.......

Empty Mind Empty Sky (Auckland June 3)

If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few. SUZUKI-ROSHI. Ain't that the truth!

Images Against War

Tina Schelhorn is a photography gallerist, curator, critic, festival organiser and friend. Based in Cologne Tina has created a website, imagesagainstwar.com, where she has assembled images from over 650 photographers to make a visual statement against war. The collection is also a touring exhibition and has been shown in cities across Europe and in the United States. Here is one of my images against war, made in Prague in 1997 and from my book Vital Signs. The web-site continues, you can add an image if you wish. Contact Tina at lichtblick@web.de

My House My Head in Cologne

Mail from Steff Adams in Cologne this morning. Steff atttached this picture of My Head and My House, pictures I sent for her COME HOME exhibition. Now in her studio in her house. Nice. Thanks Steff. The world of photography is very small and there are some great people in it!

From my studio again, 7.10am, June 2nd

Making this picture reminds me of the movie Smoke made in 1995 with Harvey Keitel. Writen by Paul Auster and directed by Wayne Wang, the film is about a small Brooklyn neighbourhood tobacco shop where the proprietor, Keitel, every day makes a photograph looking across the street from the same spot. When I saw the film the audience laughed at this scene and this idea. To me it was the best part of the movie. You can see it's cooler here today and rain is in the air. Winter.

From my studio, Auckland - 7.10am June 1st

This morning I will go to the Auckland Museum and look at the Seresin collection of photographs which includes images made by Andre Kertez. After having made this picture I think of the pictures Andre Kertez made from his New York apartment window out onto Washington Square. There is a history of photographers looking out their windows and shooting.... after all you can make pictures of anything.

Graham Beattie in his element

Graham Beattie has a blog - http://beattiesbookblog.blogspot.com/ - a must go for anybody who is seriously into books. Graham passionately shares his ideas, reviews and anecdotes, most certainly a daily visit is sure to keep a smile on any book lovers face. This is my reply to Graham's blog about my blog, with an image of my friend I made this morning at Moa Hunter Books in Ponsonby Road Auckland. The book in Graham's hand was published in Paris in 1834, (have to work Paris in here somewhere) and is titled Pierre et sa famille. I'm sure blogger Beattie has read it by now and a review is underway as I blog.

My House My Head

My exhibition My House My Head opens at the Satellite Gallery Tuesday of next week June 5th. Here is what I've written about it. With few exceptions photographers mostly investigate other worlds, worlds outside their own. For the last fifteen years or so, this has been the basis of my practice. A dispassionate on-looker. Now, with this series, My House My Head, I am both the observer and the observed. I have turned the camera on myself, my life, to try and make sense of my world. To make a "snapshot" in time, to record the ordinary, my passions, my thoughts, what I see, what makes me, me. But when am I the observer? When am I the observed? This dichotomy makes the pictures for me emotionally loaded and highly subjective. Is it possible to separate these two opposing positions? Can I be in any way objective? Am I only making pictures I want you to see? I want to see? These questions interrogate the very nature of process. The very nature of me.
This work is about change, impermanence, attachment, balance, family and my work. About location and distance and time passing. About memory, desire, love, passion, food and sex. Short on formalism, my pictures have always asked the viewer to bring something of themselves to the work to aid its reading. What can you bring from your life to help you read mine? What can you take from my life to help you better understand your own? Is my life so unusual? Only you can decide.

20th Century photographs from the Seresin collection

Opening June 1st the Auckland Museum will show the Seresin collection of iconic 20th century photographs. The show
includes vintage prints by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Andre Kertesz, Eugene Atget, Josef Sudek, Bill Brandt, Mario Giacomelli and G.H. Brassai among others. Included is one of my all time favourite images the Kertesz Satiric Dancer, made in 1926. At 11am on Monday June 4 I will be at the Museum to talk about the show and what the collection means to me.

Blue-Beard's Workshop

It was a pleasure last night for me to meet and entertain the French Paris based writer Pierre Furlan, in Auckland to launch his new book of short stories Blue-Beard's Workshop published by Victoria University Press. Pierre will speak today at the Writers and Readers Festival. Extra special for me to have two of my pictures on the covers of the book, here they are....

Two portraits today

I made two portraits today. First of my friend Shelley in her army shirt. This is the last picture I need for my Short History book.
It works and Shelley's anchor tattoo gives the picture an edge. Second picture was of my dear friend Rowena. It's Ro's partner Michael's birthday today (a big one) and the picture is a little birthday surprize. Here they are:

NZ's Favourite

The image on the right is also in Webbs sale May 31st, as seen here at the Matakana Gallery.