[link]
NUDE Themes & Ideas



also  available as an "E" book.....

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

"Take a Bow" show has closed ....reasonably well attended and my demo's on performance photography had a small but enthusiastic audience over the four session on two weekends.
It's satisfying when people reckon they have learnt something from you........ particularly when they work in the business, too.
I had the nagging suspicion after the last BIFB and it has now been confirmed from "Take a Bow" that there were two types in this medium: those who are professional and involved and those who have cameras and egos!
"Invitation to the Dance" has also finished, and, would deem it, (by comments left and offered personally) very successful.
Attending ballet rehearsal tomorrow and two jobs (Dance) on weekend... and then off to King Island to stay with film -maker friends.... rugged landscapes or limpid skies?

A title borrowed from a film Gene Kelly produced
and starred in which was at the time and possibly still is
one of the most innovative dance films made.

At photography's inception capturing movement
was impossible and even a subjects head for a portrait was
clamped into place to limit any blur through movement.
In all art forms the attributes of  the medium modify
and inform the methods and conceptual paths the artist can take.

Photography's 150+ year history has culminated in todays
digital cornucopia;  a veritable feast of image making equipment
and modification and manipulation methods which allied to the
quality and longevity of the final print is releasing the production
of new forms of expression in graphic art.

There are a variety of performance modes in dance and each
can be realised in photography through a variety of techniques
which hopefully give true expression to the qualities of the
choreography, the dancer and dances inherent theatricality, a
theatricality that is in part the ability to suspend belief: to make you
believe a woman is a Swan or a spirit and that weightlessness
is normal.
It's the illusion of human aspiration achieving completeness.
(from my current exhibition material)

I've also been shotlisted (2 of 3 works submitted) for the "Take a Bow"
photo comp hosted by the Ballarat International Foto Biennale
[link]

Show's up ...
see: www.shanewombat.blogspot  for details...

A new show  September _ October... ballet stuff. more closer to date.

Sad news from The Catherine Edelman Gallery earlier today



lauren e. simonutti
(1968-2012)

It is with great grief, a heavy heart and profound disbelief that I find myself writing this email to let you know that Lauren passed away last week due to complications from her illness. As many of you know, I found Lauren's work to be the most honest photography I have ever seen. She gained my respect instantly, as she welcomed me into her home, where she created small intricate tableaus that invited the viewer into her imaginary world, laying bare her fears, hopes and pain.

Through her photography, Lauren gave a voice to those that suffer in isolation. Her life mattered, and her legacy has yet to be written.  She will forever be in my heart, and while she may have felt alone, she always believed that her photographs would be her lasting memory – the one gift she would leave.

My heart goes out to her family and the people whose lives she touched.  She was a brilliant writer, with great clarity.  She wrote often about her struggles, and it would only be fitting to give Lauren the last words:

Sometimes the difference between living and dying is just a little bit.
Sometimes the difference between living and dying is just a sigh.

Over (five) years I have spent alone amidst these 8 rooms, 7 mirrors, 6 clocks, 2 minds and 199 panes of glass. And this is what I saw here. This is what I learned. I figure it could go one of two ways- I will either capture my ascension from madness to as much a level of sanity for which one of my composition could hope, or I will leave a document of it all, in the case that I should lose.

...............................................................................................................................................................................

I had known Lauren from this forum and eventually met her when she was a core artist at The Ballarat International Foto Biennale in 2007. I discovered a woman of great wit, perception and taste.
She was talented.
She was a professional.
She was a fighter.

Vale Lauren Simonutti (aka: lauren rabbit)
There will be many who will miss your visions.

Lawrence

"Bah Humbug" was it that long ago.......?

aaahhhh. .... what news........ hmmmmmm!

Playing w/ 5D Mk2..... video is becoming very interesting.
Its limitations in focus make you (old school) much more conscious of D o F  
and I suppose pro-active in determining what you get.
Quite enjoyable.

Have had some fun beginning to learn video editing processes..
getting there ....it's another process to be absorbed and controlled.

Some stuff shot was interesting as to framing, panning and "leading" the performer
...the whole compositional detail always being "landscape" (duhh)... came as a bit
of a frustrating limitation 'cause as a stills person some sequences presented
themselves better as "portrait" format....but ... Hey Ho...
I can always remember a panning shot in Bergman's "Seventh Seal" of the performers
and Knight traveling through the stormy forest and remembering a first impression that
said sequence seemed a pefectly composed pan for its entire film sequence...

I wonder if experience with Still photography makes you a better cinema-photographer...
..as was said many years ago .....flying gliders later made you a better powered pilot?

cheers,
L.

It's nearly Xmas after all.

The Ballarat International Foto Biennale has a "fringe"  show... and if you care to pop along to The Bean Barn, Cafe 217 Sturt St Ballarat you can view my works "Continuum..... a French Experience" from 20.8.> 18.9 20-11.

I have produced a book of the same name too....

[link] is a larger version of the exhibition .

Cheers
L.

... Ballarat International Foto Biennale....2011.

Conditions of entry: one (1)  only self portrait by "tog"   not by other..
Size: up to 24" longest side  (no minimum restriction)
Medium: Only recognised paper based photographic mediums.... NO metal, stucco,or similar rigid materials...(sorry)
Image can be either analogue or digital BUT NOT CGI.
Closing Date: Monday August 1st, 2011.  business hours  ( be late... sorry...not included)
How to submit:  Unframed & Unmatted.. no backing material.... entries only accepted by post to....
BIFB
R Chee Ball Prize
PO Box 41
Ballarat Vic.
Australia 3353
Entry Fee: $10.00 au (free radicals & bifb's), others $15.00 au
More later.......

...digital is wonderful and I also appreciate democracy...but I think I'm about to do a rant about bogans who have little "point&shoots" and don't know what they're doing.... but think they know as much as anyone... 'cause it's quick and cheap.

The most really bogan moment at present is the incarceration of Julian Assange in solitary in a Brit prison for having the temerity to publish information that was generally assumed (but now proven) that showcases the childish duplicity of western governments... mind you, it's a pity he couldn't have access to Chinese, French, Russian, Indonesian, Korean (both N & S), Pakistan, India, etc, etc! I doubt they would have been seen in a better light.
This man is only being punished for embarassing the Americans for the sloppiness of their diplomatic notes regime and also their own guilt for their historical ineptitude in foreign affairs.(With the exception of the "Marshall Plan" in post '45 Europe).
The world cannot survive with companies like Union Carbide, (remember Bophal), Monsanto (GM crops), General Electric (Nuclear Waste) etc, etc, etc... without disclosure of truthful and unbiased information.
It may have been tolerable in the middle of the C18th; but not today when the world has been made smaller by communication. We now know that what I do here in Australia can have impact across continents.
Nations cannot assume the role of the serf in the face of unbridled capitalism, it's deceits and manipulation of resources soley for individual profit.
Support Julian Assange's defense.


Also a new book..

[link]

.... it's been six months since my last journal entry...... bless me fath....ooops, wrong church..,,.,.,.so this is more of a online-guilt-trip than a real entry....  I mean, if you really need to justify your existance by writing to strangers; (99.99% of you ARE strangers...)
Well I suppose it's cheaper than paying a psychologist or psychiatrist.... and with less problems than having a one-to-one with a priest. Hmmm?

NOW FOLLOWS the ADVERTISMENT...

OK... Ballarat Foto Biennale 2011 ..... check the website .........   .org ,...etc...

Also the "Ron Chee Self-Portrait Prize"  (free-radical inspired  ... interssssssting  sssstufff...with a very "physically" BIG Cheque as prize) I'm sure there are enough ego's out there to make this little offshoot of the photobiennale a memorable experience in seeing who you wouldn't walk down a dark lane with.....
MORE LATER... if interested note me.... and details will follow.... eventually!

My world ....I've really,really discovered bogan's, cretins, upstarts, wankers..(geez these really need a journal to themselves) in the past six months... what is becoming of Australia?

Lawrence

Ta, all for the Llama stamps; tasted much better than chocolate bunnies.

... Sat dish is fixed ... phwaaaarrrr what a saga...
I'm not sure I enjoyed the realisation of the dependency we now have  on third parties.

Broadband has been knocked off due to some unpleasant weather... satellite dish kaput .....It's not that I'm ignoring you all it's just that I haven't got internet for at least two weeks....
Cheers
L.

I need a female model w/ tatts for a portrait session.
Some nudity required . This is not a commercial job so payment is only TFCD.
Studio shoot, 2-3 hours this week only (1st - 8th) day or evening to suit; will re-imburse travel.
If interested, note me here or email me from my website.
Lawrence

................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
L W

Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck!

We're as fucked as the future ... unless politicians and systems are peremptorarily told in no uncertain terms that they are our servants and that  "economic growth", "capitalism" "gross domestic product", "futsi", "wall street", "hang sen", "ft100", "command economies",  and all the rest don't bloody-well exist without this planet... and for all those armageddon-wishing-bogans of right-wing (so-called, Xtian) beliefs... your wish is coming true... I hope you appreciate that your grandchildren may not enjoy their uncomfortable rapture.
Governments bailing out bankers whose greed was a major part of the so-called "edt" and now caving in to big busines again; so fucking much for democracy and leadership..
Raise the Red Flag anyone....(?) but please don't quote Lenin, Stalin or Mao ... let's start afresh!

When the Copenhagen Meeting delegates dismally fail to proffer any cross national agreement on substantial guidelines to avert the looming destruction of our eco-systems and future perhaps we in protest, could collectively flatulate in their faces on as many occasions as possible?
Not pleasant but more tolerable than death!
I include as a target, the industrialists, who have been marked as to their unusual quietness of late regarding this topic... lower profile than a snakes belly, perhaps?
It seems to me that the destruction of our only habitable space has made groups like the Taliban and Al Queada (?) as relevant to the peoples (particularly those they say they are fighting for) of this planet as pimples are to a persons whole existance....as is the notion of Nationalism.... well.. it's as dead in the water as the mythic jolly bloody jumbuck...eh?
I mean to say, if Nationalism wins the day we're all really stuffed...

Cheers all, 'tis the silly season after all...so what sort of result did you really expect from Copenhagen?
Lawrence