Brendon Kearns

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Tag: Australia (page 2 of 4)

Sydney Mardi Gras: Part I

March 4, 2012 / / 0 Comments

I made it out to Mardi Gras again this year- I shot most of the afternoon with the M6 but swapped over to my GRD III for the night shots akin to what I had done last year.

The digital came in handy as I still dont feel confident in my ability to shoot with a flash.

It was good to have the display screen to see my results straight away and correct for distance versus flash strength. In addition, I had picked up an external view finder six months ago that made framing a lot easier, I updated the GRD’s firmware before I headed out hoping to try out its subject tracking focus option but in the end it was too much thinking so I swapped back to snap focus, set it to 1.5 metres and put it out of mind.

Based on gut feel, this year’s Mardi Gras had a way lower turn out- that made it hard to do a repeat of last year when the main drag of Oxford Street was so congested that I was able to run loops through the back lane ways and find plenty of material.

I’m also getting a little worn out on street photography, I think I need to find a singular documentary style project to work on for awhile although I’ve got no idea where to start finding some suitable subject matter.

I’ll try and get the rest of the shots developed, scanned and posted within the week.

February Mix of Shots

February 23, 2012 / / 0 Comments

I played around with the film this time a little more than normal- the meter in my M6 is about one stop over so I loaded it with Neopan 400, set it to 800 (effectively 1600), then shot most of the shots about one stop over and ultimately developed it in Xtol at a little over the recommended time for 800 with temperature around 24C yielding the more contrasty shots. Along with this I tried out a roll of Neopan Acros pushed one stop and developed in T-Max instead of my usual Xtol, while the rest were part of my first step toward shooting through the fridge load of HP5+ buy-2-get-1-free packs ordered from the states a few months ago.

Mix of the Past Couple Months

February 9, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Shots off some recently developed rolls from the past couple months

Unfortunately I never seem to shoot the same film stock consistently with the same camera so I never end up developing everything on a regular basis- I’d like to start ensuring I have everything I shoot in a given month developed by the time that month ends but we’ll see how it goes

Found Photography: Crown Street Cache: Part IV

January 23, 2012 / / 0 Comments

In an effort to switch it up a little I dug through the big bag of negatives to find something more modern

Someone’s vacation shots from a trip out to Alice Springs/Uluru National Park back in 1984- only thing written on the negative sleeve was “REB AIR AUG ’84”

I have no leads as to the actual photographer

Film stock was Illford FP4

Found Photography: Crown Street Cache: Part III

January 19, 2012 / / 2 Comments

A few more images off the negatives I picked up late last year

This hotel is still standing today in Mackay, Queensland

I had been contacted by another collector who identified the woman in many of the photos (including the image above) as Mollie Thomas; this is further substantiated by the name Thomas written on the actual cardboard negative sleeves.

I’d like to take more time to do some research on locations and people but trying to stay social, check off all the miscellaneous life errands, and keep on top of work is leaving me little time to even do any shooting of my own- the egg tray of my refrigerator is over loaded with rolls of unshot Tri-X and Neopan.

My study is getting full of stacks of old glass negatives, boxes of color slides, and rolls of black and white film that all need to be trayed, scanned and edited up- I’m hoping to get a breather sometime around mid-Feb when I can section off a clean weekend to keep things rolling.

Found Photography: Crown Street Cache: Part II

December 19, 2011 / / 1 Comment

I haven’t had much time to do any homework into these shots- I tried to see if I could look up the Exchange Hotel from the first shot but the subsequent Google results were too much to sort.

For now, I’ll focus on getting some scanned and posted- research can wait till later.

Reference:

Crown Street Cache: Part I

Found Photography: Crown Street Cache: Part I

December 18, 2011 / / 3 Comments

I found a second hand shop was having a 30-50% off sale last weekend so I swooped in to see if I could get a deal on any old negatives they had- I ended up with a sizable bag of what I would guess is going on a few hundred spread across multiple packets.

Since the quantity is so large I’ve decided to break it down into a few separate posts, I’ve dubbed it the ‘Crown Street Cache’ since the actual store I found them at was on Crown Street in Darlinghurst.

These seem to be the most promising find yet- with the sheer amount of shots taken, there should be plenty of clues as to decade and location, I’ll see what I can manage this week for research.

Mix of the Past Three Months

December 15, 2011 / / 0 Comments

I realized I had been forgetting to scan a few different rolls I had developed since I got back from the states so here’s a quick mix of shots in rough chronological order

That’s it for now

Found Photography: Australian Miners

December 11, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Quick update with an image I was able to scan off of a glass negative acquired here in Sydney

They appear to be either miners or possibly railway worker posing in front a monument.

There is a date on it partially visible over the shoulder of the guy on the far right on the back row but I’m unable to make out the last digit, its reads either 1913 or 1918.

October & November

November 28, 2011 / / 1 Comment

Quick update with a few shots of my own from the past couple months:

I snapped this first shot of Katie only to realize there was a way more interesting dude behind her

99%’ers camping out in Martin Place

Man who had just proposed to his girlfriend in the middle of Occupy Sydney

Enmore was over ran with teenagers expressing their identity crisis

Newtown’s ‘Reclaim the Lanes’ festival


Glebe Markets

I tried taking the same style shot multiple times, pocketing the subject in the bottom left or right corner while trying to give it as much context as possible

I’ve been working on doing my own film development and I feel like its giving me better results than anything I had got back from a lab in the past year- I’ve coupled this with using a Phaidon discount I get to buy up some photography books.

While reading through Danny Lyon‘s Memories of Myself he transcribes Hugh Edwards telling him how the best photographs imply movement. It seems an obvious statement in hindsight but I had never been able to put my finger on what the ‘poetic quality’ was that made some images stand out while others look stale and I think its that exactly- when it feels like the image is just after something started but before its finished.

After the Newtown Festival a couple weeks ago I was on my to Doughboy for a pizza when I dropped into Gould’s to dig through the mountain of books. I found a copy of Nikos Economopoulos’ In the Balkans which was the first time I had seen any of his work or even heard of him- its was 30 bucks (comparatively high for Gould’s) so I left it. By the time this Friday rolled around I had been thinking about the images so much that I sat through a jammed up CBD for an hour and a half on the M30 after work to go back and see if it was still there.

I consider it now the best photography book I own- in my mind its up there with Koudelka. Since leafing through it and studying the images, I feel like I’m reevaluating every shot I’m about to take. I dont know if its the cuts and crops he’s making after the fact or if he is actually getting that in there to frame while shooting but I’m amazed at each stray arm, foot, branch, bottle or cigarette in his shots.

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