Photography, both mine and others’.

A laugh and a metaphor

My friend showed me this off failblog, it was just so funny I couldn’t not post it –>

I don’t have anything of interest to record other than the following:

1/ I’m going to Clap Clap Riot in town on Friday night, and I will be photographing for Cheese on Toast – super excited.

2/ Very likely also that I will be seeing the Handsome Furs later this month.

3/ I can’t believe I’ve just renewed my domain for the… 3rd time? So that’s like, Happy 4th Birthday (soon) to StaticImage.net.

4/ Lastly, I just wrote this – any guesses what it’s about? Someone thought it was a vibrator, before I wrote the 3rd part… it’s not, haha.

Steel-bodied, so velvet,
In your hands, you see through
t’Wind the time, start at centre,
Can you, can you, develop her?

Hardened core, so ice cold,
Turn her on, let light in
Uncap the blinds, turn the ring,
Can you, un-blur everything?

Smooth-cased, so focused,
Snap in place, the view you see
Construe, the picture you prefer,
Can you, can you, capture her?

Shaky Hands

It’s taken me a week but I’ve finally managed to sort through, resize and upload my gig photos from last weekend: Cut Off Your Hands at the Ellen Melville Hall, supported by (in chronological order) Brand New Math, Oh Mercy, Bionic Pixie and Collapsing Cities. I’ve attached some to this post, but the rest are here.

I remember years ago when I used to complain that all decent gigs were R18 – and indeed they were – everytime a band I was keen on was playing, I had to check everywhere to find out whether or not there was an All Ages section separate to the bar at the venue, or if they were going to forgo admitting youngsters altogether. At the time, older friend had said “You’ll be grateful and understand why gigs are R18 once you turn 18”, but I never fully understood until I was at Ellen Melville last Saturday night. Overall the gig was great though – $15 for 5 bands, now that’s seriously impressive. I would’ve paid more than that just to see COYH alone. Kudos to Savvy for making it non-profit, with COYH shirts going at $15 also (I’m currently wearing mine, minus the hems that I tore off).

The real downer for me was more the fact that, for once, I felt quite old at a gig, and felt like I had to be nice to the people around me. Upon arrival at the square on High Street, I had a 16 year old asking if I could buy her cigarettes. I really didn’t like the idea of her approaching anymore strangers, and there were a lot of dodgy men lurking around. Later, whilst hogging my prime position in the front row just in front of the Ampeg bass rig (I want to play through one of those again, they’re truly amazing!), I came across a boy behind me that looked no older than 12 or 13 – I wasn’t even allowed to the movies down at the local mall that late without strict parental guidance to and from the carpark, let alone at a concert in the city when I was that age! The point was, I felt truly bad during every changeover when I’d turn around and sit on the edge of the stage, looking at the rest of the audience behind me. I guess I haven’t changed much in the sense that I’m still the over-enthusiastic girl right at the front in a band shirt, although I’d always hated the taller, older people in front of me, on the occasions where I couldn’t get in the first row; and ironically, I was now one of them. I guess you can’t really win. But I felt bad having to nudge people half my height (and looked half my age) out of my way, so was a lot gentler than usual. Gah.

I was going to do a brief review of the gig, but I seriously can’t be bothered right now, seeing as I have A Level English and History essays to write. On a completely different note, last night I was down at Cassette 9, and I’m thoroughly annoyed at my lack of sleep (and therefore judgement), because I’d chosen the easier route to town – via ferry – which meant that I never got to see Shocking Pinks because I had to catch it back! It didn’t help that 2x teapots and 2x beers didn’t get me tipsy enough to not feel disappointed; and my Long Island Iced Tea was also a denouement: so many people have recommended it to me, but finally I tried one last night, and for some reason I could hardly taste anything that went in it – for some obsurd reason, it tasted like a bourbon and coke. A $15 bourbon and coke at that. Ouch.

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I look like a druggie

I can’t remember what made me want to do a mini shoot today. I think the combination of little sleep and very early winter mornings for the past 3 days in a row, along with a lot of music practise and reading history textbooks resulted in my need for an alternative outlet. I haven’t done any photos in quite a while, let alone self-portraits, so there’s still a lot to be desired. But for now, I’m just happy that I did something today, other than looking and feeling drugged out, running on adrenalin all day. An hour ago when a friend asked me on MSN how training was this morning, I almost said “excuse me, what?” because this morning seems more like a faraway dream. The other thing I managed to achieve today was open a couple of new bank accounts and set up a Visa Debit card at ASB bank. Now all I have to do is give my new account number to my boss, so I won’t be the only person to not receive pay on time!

Anyway, I should be getting some sleep now, I have a long day tomorrow that entails a hockey game. But hopefully sometime in the next couple of weeks I’ll have dveloped my black and white films and get them scanned/printed – some are from last year but I’m working on some at the moment.

These aren’t in the right order, but here’s a handful, starting with the one I look most like a druggie in, haha:

V Weekend

I just watched a depressing 2-hour documentary on the Documentary Channel and I’m not very coherent right now. I hate Sundays, I really, really do.

University starts in a month… unfortunately, I’m not going to be there for yet another year, but it means that a lot of my friends are leaving. One has just been accepted on a full scholarship to the music conservatory in Singapore, a couple others are awaiting on acceptance into American Unis; but the one closest to home is V – she’s not even leaving the country but in about a week and a half she’ll be moving down to Palmerston North, which is about 7 hours drive south. Friday night we had a party, with farewells used as the excuse. I’m not sure why, maybe it’s the shitty mood that everyone’s been in, but most people go drunk much faster and with less alcohol as usual, and the party ended a lot earlier than usual. I think it’s rather ironic that some of the finest students in the country are forced to give up their (entire) social lives and move down to Palmy for up to 5 years in order to complete their veterinary degrees, as it’s the only place available in the country. Mind you, I suppose that cons them into studying much harder?

As for Valentine’s this weekend, amongst other things, I got a rose and tulip. The tulip’s an inside joke though, but I liked its shadow on the wall…

“Let’s go, it gives you a drive and a beach”

Today was the last day of a long weekend – thanks to Waitangi Day falling on a Friday this year, it merged with the weekend, instead of us getting a random week day off school – so I wasn’t in a particularly good mood, what with school having fully kicked in, and Sundays generally being rather depressing. Sitting around at home seemed like such a waste of such a nice sunny day, so the boy and I went for a long drive out to some beaches whilst I clicked away and even took some polaroids. This is one of my faves – it’s a view through the windscreen, with a blurred reflection of a polaroid I’d taken.

In other, exciting matters I just bought my ticket to see THE KILLS on March 26th – screw it being a Thursday (school) night, it’ll be bangin’!

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