In spite of me

For a very long time I've been a voluntarily sidelined opponent to the instagram movement, purely because I believe in notions relating to presentation and the presentation of Instagram, in both format and medium, is shithouse in every aspect other than the fact that IG has made people more attuned to photography, their environment, good photos and visual splendour, which is great, even if the pictures are 600px on an at most 4" monitor...   For a few years i've maintained a camera-phone journal within the app but my need to expend quality imagery can no longer be ignored and i'm never particularly pleased by phone-caf and inconsistency..  

the most shocking thing, and perhaps why i'm only just this month i've began fully fledging my way into IG, is that photos look really fkn pretty on there, albeit small but my average phone [htc one-mini2] makes photos look epic!!  plus i can look at them on the toilet and everything is great!  i heard in 2011 there were more photos taken than in the 180 years of photography leading up to that year.... which i do believe! but only because of the camera phone, what a glorious invention!    Oscar Barnack [Ernest Leitz] invented the first compact cameras [the Lieca 1] because up until that point there were no small cameras, let alone 35mm cameras, only massive rigs that you needed donkeys to lug around, hence the reduction in camera size, which is still ever present in the digital age but very much so in photography considering camera phones and gopro etc.

@jacoblambertphoto  is my fancy new account where i post 2-6 pictures a day because i've failed for so long to blog that my need to expend images is at an all time high...  

Our final evening at Transalpina was a rolling deadline for the moment in which i'd have to hike in the evening to get a particular vantage of a certain section along the Kings Road.   It was cold and lonely but definitely worth it even for just this shot but the road photo was very much worth the close cliff calls and ever-chilling distant wolf howls, a difficult notion to calm except i was privy to knowledge relating to the Carpathian Mountain Dog...

say your chyee's and hoo's

Hout Bay sits along the Cape Peninsula in South Africa and my goodness this image does minimal justice to the generaly glory of the place.  To this day i regularly attest to Cape Town as the sickest city i've sampled and it's surrounds are equally rad.   Just off the headland is Dungeons D: 

Llandudno beach sits between Cape Town and Hout Bay, where this was shot, is also incredibly ideal.

Maroochydore, stomping ground.

Swan of Beaver Lake, Vancouver.

whata fountain, Waikiki 

estranger

hello estranged blog that i may be turning to for some sort of anti-textual solace that i miss since seemingly slipping into the real world and having to deal with all the reality that comes with commercially concerned analysis.   I think i've been suffering from analysis paralysis induced by a long stint of operating with a purely commercial perspective and have seemingly forgotten about the very freedom that photography afforded me.  basically, i feel my passion for the irrelevant to be in jeopardy and that has presented some serious dissonance because if i can't find mutuality in photography's commercial and pleasurable aspects than I can't do both so perhaps this return to my log of estrangement is an attempt to claw back balance in my overly detuned mind.   I've been thinking a lot, ever since accepting that a dream is only relevant for the journey because once you've achieved it you will find normality.  I know that arming myself with only only introspection for subject matter is a self-prescribed curse that I should really move on from....   Consideration of the future has been my main subject matter but it stresses me out because 'living' in a world that is yet to realise itself is distressing and seemingly futile bt I figure the slow death of blogger will facilitate me in this pseudo-self-resurrection. 

a few months ago i bought a little underwater / shockproof camera, it's so epic!!  I figure the phone camera scenario will engulf cameras such as these in the next few years but for now i'm revelling in all the pocket-cam glory i can handle....  all bar the last two were shot in Lombok, the last two Hawaii.

there is much to be said about the tranquility in submersion but i feel comfortable drawing parallels to the sense of tranquility i find while downhill skating, it's a sense of calm existing in an environment of stress and although notions of submersion can insight calm in people the ocean can insight an equally anxious response.... sharks and drowning etc..

i shot this little suspension feeder (Crinoid Feather Star) utilising the microscopy potential of my aforementioned camera and i was blown away upon seeing each individual tube foot. 

uncle chases dinner out by Point Panic on Oahu's South Shore. 

In Hawaii the use of stranger's backyards in order to scope waterfalls is seemingly a casual affair but perhaps because the overriding respect amongst Hawaiians lends itself to trusting the strangers filing through your yard.

 

very

whenever i've a stint of not posting on my blog i can't help but question everything, mainly relating to my passion and what it is that drives me to make photos and i am posting now because i’m excited by the realisation that the reasons for inconsistency have always been very simple and the best bit is i’m fine with it... but this rant is in no way a means to an end, simply an introspection i wish to note. 

a storm over Bavaria, a few years ago i drove across the Czech, it's pretty sweet but not the best place in the world...

you see, back when i was cutting my photo teeth i enjoyed nothing more then taking photos for the instantaneous visual gratification [hooray for digital] of capturing something i considered beautiful or intriguing, this is still the forefront of why I've dedicated a solid part of my life to photography.  Getting stoked from the simple act of operating a camera was great, it got me hooked, however i was without an avenue to log my experiences nor share the documentary resulting from my personal intrigues regarding individual/collective existences that make us human's within this insanely rad situation of being alive and mostly free.  Now, that wasn’t a problem but what initially turned my attention towards photography was the joy and pleasure i obtained simply from witnessing a stranger photographically document a slice of my reality, more on this below.   I was driven by that stoke and it led me to aiming for the ability to send the stoke i now received by trying to give something to the lives of my homies through providing them with the means to perhaps obtain visual stoke and ideally motivate them to join me in the pleasurable comprehension of the visual world around us.

Big Lean being the one getting wet for once.....

That may seem altruistic but thats not the case for I am a very selfish being, I treat the world around me as an avenue to enjoy myself but i feel that is not necessarily a bad thing.. It’s only a bad thing if I don't respect my surroundings and its inhabitants...   Perhaps my only saving grace is that i know there is plenty of pleasure to go around and i want us all to have as much fun as we can.

an Albuquerque afternoon 

What got me into photography was watching a relative stranger have more fun then anyone else, simply through the act of operating camera and it got me stoked!  I'd never considered anything 'creative' as my 20 years leading up to that point were spent pursuing sport and things i thought were important, for no reason other than misguided preconceptions implicated in ideals handed down from schooling, i’m not saying i don’t like sport, I’m just saying i was close-minded.

nature is fucking sweet

Seeing that photographer, Megan Cullen, froth like that forever changed my attention and consideration of visual creativity and from then on I began getting great pleasure from simply looking at photos, at that stage taking them was not something i'd figured would be a thing i'd do but shortly after that I crippled myself in the surf and with that operating a camera became inevitable, as a means of starving boredom.   Thankyou Brisbane's insanely progressive electronica scene, a place where the most influential heavy bass players of the 2000-10s played infront of 8-15 people and thankyou Dank Morass.

now, i think i mentioned in the first paragraph that i'd touch on why i am fine with not posting- a realisation i've only just realised…  perhaps more then touch, I’m pretty sure that was the sole motivation for this post….  Basically, back in the day, this blog was my only means of hopefully spreading stoke through visual pleasantries therefore it was my most prolific application of imagery and also my sole avenue for self-promotion, nowadays I spend more time creating for other people, as a job for which I’m eternally grateful and my positions brings me copious stoke because it’s a means/medium of access that i’d never get personally, which makes me feel nice because it means i’ve the chance to share stuff with more people and get them stoked through our collective passion.   although it’s a commercial avenue i feel more people will give it the photos time, because its a company, not a singular lamb.  Perhaps there's something inside lamb that demands I dedicate a certain amount of time spent trying to spread stoke because i feel guilty that i can do all these fun things, back then that 'amount' was only attainable through this blog, then with facebook and now with downhill skating.  I can’t figure out which is more selfish, my desire to alleviate guilt or my desire to promote myself?  

billy bones in taipei

both sound pretty shitty but in the end i can’t worry too much because sad people make sad stuff and sad stuff doesn’t get people stoked, sure i dig the provocation but why be an advocate of tears when you can be an advocate of fun and stoke.  

kyle martin takes in the fresh air on cape town's table mountain.

however I’m in a spot, i felt like id figured my life out, i started working for a company of rad dudes a while ago but recently dabbled in more formative type operations, basically marketing, whatever that means.. i feel marketing requires only common sense that’s malleable enough to temporarily adjust ones perspective in order to gain insight into potential markets and those things probably can’t be taught but maybe learnt, perhaps you’re just born with whatever that is… also “marketing" is realistically 80% analysis, if you’re doing it right.      anyway, i dig it, but flexibility and instantaneous decision making is not something the corporate environment facilitates and that is what im struggling with, troubles resulting from my previous job of 10 years at a shop where i worked everyday with a boss that new how to hustle and make decisions before i'd even realised the options. 

30minutes from downtown Vancouver...

the punchbowl, behind me is the Korean DMZ, a stark bifurcation of beauty and coexistence.