october 2022

I’ve enjoyed the holidays and putting the ARA study project on ice for a few weeks. The downtime from the pressures of image making has been great, and I’ve spent some time working on a new zine, as well as capturing images that I want to vs the intensively process driven work of the past 4 months.

Years ago I would get anxious during times of ‘downtime’, but not these days where I now know that a break always yields results instead of creative burn out – or even worse ‘getting bored’.

I’ve been investing a fair amount of time and spare cash into photobooks once again, and I’m now more of a fan of experiencing art through books/ zines / prints than ever before. I really dig that books in particular, by design, offer the very best way to consume the artist’s messages and the wonder of their visions.

Time with my head in a large printed photobook vs scrolling through a curated onslaught of adverts and the ever increasing disappearance of all history with the latest homogenisation of ‘trends’, is bliss. Like all pop culture the internet is now no more than a tool to engage consumption, and quite frankly It’s a pretty traumatic or manipulative experience overall online these days. We can’t get enough of it though right?!?

When Tim Berners-Lee invented the world wide web 31 years ago he thought he’d created an egalitarian tool that would share information for the greater good. But it hasn’t quite worked out like that has it?

From what I’ve observed, you can’t trust most content online anymore, and if you dare to have opposing views on any ‘popular’ topics, even though they are factually driven, you best be prepared for abuse, rather than intelligent discussion. With excessive censorship too, is there really a future for the internet other than controlling the masses? I quit Facebook and Twitter about 6 years ago now due to the power it held over societal decision making, and I highly recommend it. As for discussion, offline these days is best, and much better for ones mental health.

Anyway, deep breath…. and tomorrow I head back to school and onto the bee keeping project again, with the final push to the last week of November. It has taken four years to get to this point. I’ve stocked the fridge with Portra 160 in both 120 and 35mm for the sunny days at hives, and peoples ‘happy places’ – as I call it, and have a good plan. Sure it will be hectic pulling the project together in the final weeks, but I feel like I’m on the right path, and I can’t wait to make some artefacts to celebrate Canterbury Beekeepers, and their community.

Here are a selection of photos from the past two weeks and it has been great spending time outdoors under the sun with family, friends and Mother Nature. Ness also wanted some commercial imagery of his tattoo business, too, and I could not resist a portrait on film! The exchange will end up as more ink on my body, as I plan to get new art on my legs.