Sunday, October 16, 2005

correction for those who read this blog...

Caz isn't in Argentina, she's in Chile! and doing fine!
i'm doing fine here too, with the Christo, it's great, it's wonderful and I'll write more later, but for now, I've got some kissing to make up for... Ciao

Friday, October 14, 2005

crazyo

Wednesday was a crazay busay day!!!
We had a field trip organised for the "architecture and consumer society" class, so we visited the Casino, which was sort of crazy. It was sad to see people at 10 o'clock on pokies all by themselves... wasting their money... anyway, we heard many crazy facts... for example, you have to be able to see a clock wherever you are standing in the casino so that people won't lose track of time, since some people stay for days and days in a row, without seeing daylight...
After that, we visited the Powerhouse Museum, which was interesting. I had never been there so that was a good occasion, and the guy who gave us a talk and a tour was pretty interesting. He's the guy in charge of designing all the ehibits for the museum, it was really good.
After the visits, I invited Charmaine and fff to come with me to a photo exhbition opening in Paddington, at the Stills Gallery, where my current photo teacher also works.
The opening was pretty good, and some photos were really beautiful but the prices were equally impressive... well, I guess not so much if you have an extra 5000 dollars floating around with no purpose in your wallet....
After all that, I was exhausted, partly because of the interesting Sydney bus system... let me explain, you can take about 500 buses if you are going to circular quay, 300 for central and about 1456 to Bondi Junction, but when your destination is somewhere else, then you walk because approximately 0 buses go there..... so I walked and we walked and I walked again, all day long... with uncomfortable shoes giving me blisters... it was great!!
Yesterday (thursday), I went to another opening night, at the Blenders gallery this time, and it was great!!!!!!!! the exhibition was called the "body confessional" and it was exciting because the photographer had done precisely what I tought of doing a few weeks ago... The idea is basically to ask people to chose the part of their body they would like to have photographed and explain why. The thing that was interesting about it is the variety of reasons to picking a particular area. It went from basic reasons like the favourite part, to much more sensitive reasons like a family ressemblance, or a part they didn't like, or parts that people gave some kind of almost spiritual meaning to... etc.... It was good, and it confirmed that my idea wasn't that bad at all, and much more interesting than I had actually imagined when I had thought of it.
The other cool thing that happened last night, is that when I went to get some cake for Tina and me, (tina came along too), I put all my courage together and introduced myself to the photographer, Paul Mallam, who was the one cutting his own b-day cake and explained that i was getting into photography and told him that I had thought of doing the exact same thing a few weeks ago and so that i was really happy to be there because it proved that it was a good idea afterall, and that seeing it done showed me how much potential a simple idea like that did have...bla bla bla.... anyway, he was really nice and asked me questions about what I was doing, and how i thought of doing that too etc etc.... and the conversation concluded by exchanging our names, shaking hands and him telling me "well, you should really do it and contact me because i would really like to see your work" and me going "hiihihihii, thank you, hihihihi" (dork) but smiling broadly, I left and kept smiling!!!!!!!!
yesterday was also Christo's b-day so happy birthday again my little angel, I love you and we will be able to celebrate very shortly!!!! the man will be back tomorrow morning!!!!!!!!!!!! yeah!!!!!!!!!
Caz' blog has been updated too, she's going fine and is still in Argentina having a wonderful time!!

Monday, October 10, 2005

inspiration...?


no, more like not wanting to work anymore and knowing that a film is waiting to be used in the fridge....
there are a few more additions to the photo album, just for fun...

to many more, even better.....


it's been a year since midnight last night, and I hope we have many more to come and celebrate, I love you my angel

Sunday, October 09, 2005

who's gonna finish the week with me??

Hey Caz, you're not here to end the week end with a sunday night beer at the Royal... what am i supposed to do now.... this week can't ever end without a beer, it just goes against the rules of science and common sense too.................
This week end was pretty alright though.
Yesterday, I met up with fff and we went to the Primavera exhibition at the MCA. Well let's just say that, like last year's, the Primavera stuff, which is an exhibition for young australian artists, is the obvious manifestation of good will in this country.... could do better but they are trying.... which is still more than I can claim for...
After that, we went to the SuperStudio exhibition/opening/jury night... at Walsh Bay Piers near the Rocks. The superstudio is an archi student competition, that runs for two weeks and the winners win $5000.... noice. It was pretty interesting, we listened to the 6 finalists presenting their schemes for the East Darlingharbour development and then, the booze came out with loads of food, all for free, and so we didn't care about the schemes much anymore. They announced the winners a bit later, and everyone was happy, at least I was... well, jolly anyway...
We ended with one last beero in the Rocks with fff, and went home. While we were walking from the pub to the bus stops, fff's and my foot met accidentaly and it broke the buckle on my shoe.... so i had to walk with one shoe on my foot and the other in my hand.... as fff rightly pointed out, at least there isn't doggydo all over the place here....
Today should have been very busy with me trying to catch up on my work and well, I did try since I spent a couple hours at the library but overall, I don't really feel like working hard right now. I will give it another go a bit later but I can't be bothered right now....
Have you noticed a pattern in my behaviour....? the most prolific blog writing periods are exactly at the same time as my most intense times of the session.... hmmm interesting...

Friday, October 07, 2005

for the curious ones out there

hey all, I've updated my photo album so click on the link "my new super cool photo album" on the side bar and go check out some of the intensive studio photos that i've put on there....

photography, society and the built environment

This is the first draft for the panel that I will be presenting for my elective called "photography, society ...." in a couple weeks. This is not the panel that will be shown at the EBHouse.
For this one, the idea for the layout, and also for the actual pix that I took during the studio, was to go from the general to the detail... with steps in between. This is generally the way photo-journalism is approached, so I haven't really invented anything on that one, but what I am trying to express is the approach to a design project, going from a very general idea and going deeper and closer into details. This was even more relevant in an intensive studio setting when the changes and the level of resolution appears very clearly in an extremely short time. The thinking process has to happen fast and the decisions have to be made even faster because of the time restrictions and the need to have something to show for at the end.
It's really good though because in normal 14 weeks studios, the strong initial ideas never make it to the end, they are somehow lost in the process and as much as we try to hold on to them, they are never quite so powerful when the main concern becomes the color of the tiles in the bathroom...
Of course, in one week, there is no time for tiles, and there is no time to afford to lose anything, so all the strong powerful, and sometimes good ideas stay with the project because that's all we've got, no time, just ideas and decisions to make.
The idea is that the first photo, the biggest, is a general view of the studio itself, which then starts to break down into smaller photos of the general studio atmosphere, then portraits and then details. As the pictures get smaller and there are more of them, the viewer is actually forced to move in and get physically closer to the photos to look at them. As in a design situation, we focus on smaller and smaller things as the design progresses. Even our face gets closer to the page...
The other thing about the layout is that it is very dense, all the image are compressed into one block and from far away, would probably appear as a mosaic of colors. You do need to know that the panel it will be mounted on is 82x102 cm, which is huge, and at the moment, the first photo in this first proposal is about the size of an A3, so that gives an idea of the scale. Anyway, The block of photos is very dense and I guess that I was trying to express the intensity and business of the studio, rather than having lot's of white between the photos, there will be white around, but not in between them. The studio was concentrated in one time (one week), one space (studio space) and I think that it should also be concentrated in that manner on the pannel.
We are allowed to put text on our panels but I don't think I want to do that, I hope that it speaks for itself as it is now, but i might be wrong. I will be showing it to my tutor on thursday, and if any of you have suggestions, they are all welcome, i just want it to work....

still recovering

Yellow, I don't know why this is taking so long but eventhough i have been sleeping like a baby for the last week, i still feel pretty tired from those two all nighters in a row. It's taking me a while to get back to normal...
Anyway, the exhibition business is all done, we went there today to set it up and it looks good. I took a few more photos while we were setting it up and i think that it will be enough on this topic. Maybe i'll take a couple more on the opening night but that will be it. I have more than enough for the elective anyway and I think that people are getting sick of me taking photos of them all the time, following their every move.... The little photo panel looks nice, and it must have been funny for some people to see photos of themselves and not knowing when I took them, hiihihii.
Fff just won a competition at his uni or a short film about campus life etc... he's done good and won a nice 1000 bucks... good on him as they say.
I feel like taking a nap again....
I have to reinstall photoshop tonight because I had an evaluation version and last night, it decided it didn't want to work anymore, which is just not the right time to let me down right now.... i need you Adobe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I need you so badly, why do you do that to me?? why me?? why now???? Hum, i'm sure it's nothing personal but it does suck so i better fix that...
Ok, i'm back in the swing of writing on this blog, maybe it's the emptiness that caz left when she got on the plane. I miss you a lot Cazito, I wish we could go have a beer...

Thursday, October 06, 2005

aaaaaaall done...

... well nearly... after a hectic run from EB House to the city and back and forth, we managed to get everything ready to be set up for the exhibition tomorrow. The model is soo purty and the drawings look amazing. We had to reduce them and paste them onto one A1 sheet of drafting film, it looks really really good... so we're pretty excited about tomorrow I think. After that, we won't have to worry about anything for another 6 months which will be nice since this studio was quite the time and money investment of the season. It's crazay how much you can end up spending on materials, and photocopies, and.... coffee....
The photo panel will also be ready for tomorrow and I'm glad I wasn't in charge of having it printed. I hope it looks good, i'm sure it does.
Also I spoke to Rod on the phone today which made me happy. Rod was the tutor for the Landscape photography course i took last year, and he is always good advice and a nice person to talk to. He will be letting me know if he's going to any exhibition openings in the near future, so we can enjoy the free boooze and I can show him my new work... I hope it has improved since last time... I think so, but we'll see when it's a professional speaking...
Now all I want to do is work on my photo elective and get that panel together but there are many other things to get done to and so i'm a bit confused. I should be putting things in order of priority but what seems to be coming first is sort of boring right now..... uuugggh, it doesn't matter really because at the end of the day, i have to do it all, so who cares about the order... right?
Anyway, I feel like a little brain rest right now, so i might just put on some musica and lay on the coucho for a while,
see ya'll lata

Monday, October 03, 2005

rich and famous...soon

Hey yellow there,
I'm just dropping by to give a little update on what has been happening with the design studio and everything else...
After almost 48 hours without sleeping, we (as in Tina and I) managed to produce a great presentation with drawings, and a model of our project. I knew that the last night would be very very loooong so I brought what i would take along if i went camping. I brought lots of food, mainly peanut butter and cheese, a blanket, and the best was the kettle and some instant coffee to keep going at night...
The presentation went on all day sunday and went well. We could have talked about the project about many hours but only had 5 minutes which was very frustrating... Anyway, a few of the projects have been selected after the presentation to be part of an exhibition organised by the Historic Houses Trust in Sydney.
Let me explain, the design studio was based on the Elizabeth Bay house that I have shown in an earlier post on this blog. And the HHT is inviting designers and architects to propose ways of changing the house, which is a museum at the moment, back into a house...
So as students, we are also invited to participate in that project and, well, I know the suspense is unbearable but Tina and I are amongst the lucky ones who will be on show for the next 6 months...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the stuff has to be ready by thursday which is a drag since we have other things to do as well, but it's still very very exciting!!
the other, and maybe even more, exciting news is that , since I have taken photos all week of the studio, I have also been invited to make a panel of a selection of photos that will be shown at the exhibition too!!!!! yeah, i know, that's pretty cool and i'm really excited about that...
Ok enough talking about me,
Chris got back for the week end, and eventhoug I was in the studio half the time, it was still wonderful to spend some time with him. We went to a bbq this afternoon with a few people from Uni and it was really nice. It was very hot and the food was yummy, and basically, it was just nice to hang out for a bit. He is leaving tomorrow morning to go spend a week in Albury and then, he'll be back for good. In teh mean time, i'll just have to catch up on a few classes and it should all be good.
Finally, my Cazita has left this morning to go on her big trip to South America. The new link on the side is to her blog. I guess mothe will be interested in following that daily. I sure will be, if it makes her feel closer to here and the Randwick Royal. Oh cazita, what am i meant to do without you here!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm not sure how long you still have to go on the plane but you should be getting tehre fairly soon, i love you dragonita, fb
love ya'll