Photography, both mine and others’.

PIXXY.CO.NZ

I am so happy to announce that, after sleepless nights of battling with resizing photos, digging out old albums and trawling through then endless folders of my photos, I’m officially launching
PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ!

Whilst in the process, I found photos that I had long forgotten about, prime examples being:

Alex Freer, Artisan Guns Hearts EP Release. I remember squinting like a mofo to get the perfect focal point. Auto-focus is useless at gigs!

Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, Taipei, 2010.

Taken on Kodak Colour Reversal film with a Nikon F3, early 2008.

I wrote full lyrics for a song the other night, of which I’m quite proud, but I’m afraid this post is just too littered with random photos to give it any justice if I were to add it to the end. Here’s a compilation of last Wednesday night:

– Sinead’s first time driving into town
– Lottie debuting a dress I’ve been harassing her to wear for months and months
– Me scrambling to shower and get dressed after some very hot and sweaty hockey games. Luckily I saw no blood that night.
– Highlight of the night: watching 5 boys fail miserably at flat tire-changing attempts in the McDonald’s carpark! We watched for about half an hour whilst pigging out, then left in fits of girly giggles.
– Charlotte’s anchor deserved to be posted on its own at the bottom!

Don’t for get to visit PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ!

Oh, and how could I forget? Hats off to Dan Carter + Le Bron James shot 3 consecutive 3 pointers within a minute and a half against the Clippers today + my cat stole my side of the bed…

King of Nowhere

This post name is inspired by our national bigot – Michael Laws. Derived from one of my favourite Radiohead son’gs “There There (The Boney King Of Nowhere)”. The point is, I can’t even begin to express how I feel about THIS (go and read it, PLEASE!) so I think the easiest way out of working myself into a little frustrated corner, is by linking to this great man’s blog. I suggest you read it in chronological order, from the bottom up – it’s only 3 posts long so far, I think, but well worth a read – considering a prominent national figure (and mayor of Wanganui) basically told one of the awesomest music teachers I’ve had to “get over it you freeloader – get a real job”. Uhh, excuse me, what?! It’s 2.49am and I really don’t have the energy nor brainpower (let alone patience and coherency) to really explain what I’m bitching about right now, except go and read those two links and it will all become clear!

So as to not taint this post with any more negativity, this is how I spent my evening: went to Mezze Bar on Durham Street for dinner, followed by drinks (and an unexpected round of Jenga!) at the Library Bar for Christine’s 20th birthday. It’s scary to think that we’ve known each other for 7, going on 8 years – and she’s one of the few people I’ve been friends with, for this long. Time truly flies.

The cake I made for Christine. The icing didn’t want to be tamed today. I had written beautifully on the cake, but accidentally spilled hundreds and thousands on it… so had to cover it all up, and write happy birthday on the side. Ahhh!

My main course – Roast Chicken. It was superb. I’m definitely going back for some more of this stuff. Nestled on spinach and amazing risotto and flakes of cheese, oh my god…

The Spanish Meatballs that Tsui and I shared. Lovely stuff. Although I think I could pull this off at home if I made meatball sauce with more herbs.

View from the window behind my seat.

The cake that some other girls made for Christine. It was lovely to look at and to photograph (as you can see from the following bunch of photos…) but I must admit the difficulty with cutting it, along with the mediocre taste was a bit of a let down.

Birthday girl. The one and only. My mother has trouble keeping up with a lot of my friends’ names, but Christine’s is one that’s been well honed into her memory through the years! Haha.

On the matter of blowing out candles… I was only joking when I said “you can relight this candle and blow it out twenty times total”. Some of Christine’s other friend’s took me quite literally… I sound like an absolute bitch, but I really wasn’t impressed with the dslr they were passing around, and making her pose several times whilst kneeling on the floor, pretending to blow her candle out again and again. It’s just so posed and uncalled for. No doubt they will be found on facebook sometime very soon.

Christine and Tsui, so cute together.

I’m not going to lie, I got rave reviews – and was bloody happy about it too. “You need to spike this with weed! Then they will be looking at what’s to come…”

Some bar we walked past on the way to the Library Bar. A passing shot. Quite surprised that my snatch-focusing whilst breezing past actually worked out.

Dragged out some lights, of course.

We found this Canadian Club Jenga set that I really really wanted to nick off home with. The bartender gave me their supplier’s details since he wasn’t allowed to give it to me to keep, haha.

Some self indulgent photoboothing in my room. The fourth one down? Totally my expression towards Laws’ bigotry and ignorance. And maybe I should’ve put some pants on.

I could do it all again

I don’t think anyone else in the world could possibly make the following statement that I’m about to make: “In the past 12 hours I have been to: Malibu beach, the Getty Centre for sunset and then to a Lakers vs. Bulls game”.

Spent about 3-4 hours in total driving today, especially during peak hour traffic from the Gettys Centre to the Staples Centre. Dammit, I know here in America they spell it as “center” but I just can’t do that without forcing myself to. On the way back to Malibu from the Staples Centre, a bunch of cop cars closed down a huge section of the Pacific Coast Highway, causing me and all the other confused drivers to take a huuuuge detour around the Malibu hills, down Sunset Blvd in a huuuge circuit. They did it in the most unconventional (aka inefficient, confusing and STUPID) way ever – instead of just parking and blocking the road with their lights on like the police usually do, they decided to turn their lights on and start driving in a zigzag pattern down the PCH, confusing the hell out of us all.

Anyway, I’m too tired to recount my whole day now. I took a roll and a half of black and white film as well, but here are just a handful of digital shots from my epic 12 hours today:

Went to the beach at Malibu – froze our butts off.

California number plate! The car I’ve been driving around.

Obligatory jumping photo. Wish I could fly. It was so windy it sure felt like I almost could.

At the colony in Malibu. CUPCAKES.

Red Velvet was mine, and Chocolate Snowball was Liv’s. Weird iced tea I had with my macchiato.

Fancy schmancy.

If my life’s work ever got analysed, this would be the “epitome” of “me”: monochromatic, shadows, frames, self. All it lacks is reflection.

At Getty Centre.

Sunset. Reflection. Frame. How typically-Amanda of me.

More reflections.

Post-dusk view.

Tram.

STAPLES CENTER!!! There, I spelt it the American way.

Proof!!!

Lamar played amazingly tonight. Top scorer for Lakers. Sorry Kobe.

JACK! I didn’t have my long lens with me so had to wait til he got on screen to get a better shot.

Crowd goes mad.

Final score.

Your eyes say the things you won’t

A couple of weeks ago I got hired to shoot a band that a couple of my mates from jazz school play in; ironically (although, kind of characteristic of me, I guess), my favourite shots aren’t the “picture-perfect” ones, and are instead the more experimental shots I took towards the end of the set. Some people might say that these are merely flukes, chance shots I got by fiddling with slow shutter speed or smaller apertures for bigger depth of field thus forcing longer exposure times – partly true – but I must say that these aren’t merely the result of “chance” and play. I’m not sure where my interest in trying out different effects spawned from, but I remember the first gig that I really tried this on was the Animal Collective show at the Powerstation at the end of last year, but I hadn’t really given it conscious thought much since then. If anything, I think the influence is mostly based on the idea of trying to capture a double-exposure-like effect on the digital medium, without the use of photoshop.

I’ve actually got a roll of film floating around in my room somewhere that I’d done some double exposure on, but I haven’t been bothered to get it processed yet. For one, the only place in town where I can get that type of film processed at isn’t anywhere near my daily commutes; not to mention it’s not cheap.

Anyway, here are the shots – I haven’t done much editing besides making them black and white. Just cos y’know, I’m not a big fan of this particular purpley-pink light they used on stage that night:

I should really get off the internet and work on my assessments now, but I’m way too good at procrastination. I have at least one assessment/test/assignment every week until October 29th. I can’t wait for that day – it will mean hell on earth is over, I am alive and that I will have completed 1/3 of my bachelor’s degree. Yes please.

Randomly though, whilst lyric-scribbling the other night, the line “Your eyes say the things you won’t” (title of this post) reminded me of Radiohead’s line from There There: “just because you feel it doesn’t mean it’s there”. Sometimes all the speculation and self-torture in the world means nothing without the validation from a particular, spectacular person. Sometimes I’d prefer all the airy-fairy things to end, and things to be black and white, but isn’t this part of the package of “Joys & Pains of Youth”? And just admit it, it’s not quite as lip-bitingly exciting and dramatic if things were spelled out to the letter. But all hail the mighty mighty, they are still right through and through when they say “we are accidents/waiting waiting to happen”.

There’s a thunder in our hearts

Sometimes I just want to post a picture with no words. And sometimes I want to post just a single, striking line with no explanation. But I always think far too much to be able to do that.

The second half of semester 2 starts tomorrow – actually, by now it’s today – and I don’t feel ready at all. I haven’t done a fraction of the things I had wanted to do during this 2-week break – sure unforeseeable circumstances struck up, but I was also lazy. At the moment I also have a sinus and throat infection and dealing with it is just a pain. Not to mention last night we had a scare with the cat being ill and had to take him to the afterhours vet clinic and pay a hefty sum for him to be anesthetised   so they could look down his throat to see whether there’s something stuck or if it’s infected or both. Turns out it’s just infected, and apparently it IS possible the same bacteria plaguing me could have done it to him. Yikes. I only managed to get him home at 3.30am which didn’t help my sleeping pattern at all.

Irrelevantly though, I’ve been wanting to post these two moments of joy:

Left: A photo my mum took of my sister and I jumping on a bridge in Sydney. Looking at it really makes me miss school athletics days where I got to do high jump. I always made the “qualifying” jump but then bunged out and there was always a certain height that my foot didn’t want to get over.
Right: The present that I spent a lot of time thinking about and wrapping for W.’s (sic) 21st, and I put the card in there at the bottom too. I’ve even abbreviated his initials to the bare minimum, so unknowing people can always wonder who my long-time adored is.

My friend Lottie is crazy for the Arctic Monkeys and Alexa Chung, and I just can’t resist posting this, a love note from Alex Turner to Alexa: “My mouth hasn’t shut up about you since you kissed it. The idea that you may kiss it again stuck in my brain, which hasn’t stopped thinking about you since well before any kiss. And now the prospect of those kisses seems to wind me like when you slip on the stairs and one of the steps hits you in the middle of the back. The notion of them continuing for what is traditionally terrifying forever excites me to an unfamiliar degree.” This is the precise reason that I think great lyricists are underrated. I can’t think of a less pretentious and more realistic way of being so romantic in words. He hasn’t used any flamboyant adjectives, simply described and put it in such a way that is so heart-melting. This is also the exact reason why I love men who are good with words. I don’t think I could ever date anyone who tells me every other sentence that he doesn’t understand a word I used.

Something I wrote the other night, simply because I just had to use the word “bilocation”, although it might be a little… misused – I hear that’s called artistic license, haha:

You are
A rare occurance
When you talk
I want to turn you up.

You are
A bilocation
When you’re here
I never have you to myself.

You are
Inside, outside
Everywhere to me.
The places I go
And the people I see
The art I adore
And the songs that I sing:
You are
Too fucking much to me.

1 … 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 … 29