here lies a mondo rant that progressed from zero intentions and is of such length that i do no wish to read it over.. presume poor continuity, grammar and spelling.
if you're one that reads, scroll through and check what you're getting yourself into.
San Fran, feb 2013.
since 2 afternoon ago, I've never been so time rich in the realms of being productive on my computer, well not within the scope of lamb's modern history. The combination of quitting facebook and not being able to leave my house in any comfortable fashion obviously had one outcome, sitting on my computer and, not that I was expecting this but, quite honestly cooking the best food of my entire life.
This does all have a price though, a very literal price, $18.50 a day... for all the Culitin, Solosite and Nexcare paper tape.. The fact that I can't work is sub ideal BUT I have practically zero expenditure outside of first aid so it's a casj cycle. I've also been furious in my bookeeping in the sense of figuring out stuff in the ways of invoices etc etc.
The Scare, Clubhouse.
I don't think any of this matters, nor does any of this, but I feel like I'm repeating myself again, in my typical manner of self-confirmative repetition. However, this is a journal/diary and surely journals are free of reflective analysis as they stand to provide an often personal zone of musings and expression. although in the case of this particular journal it is far from deeply personal, but definitely a zone for bulk musings and expressing some things. What I like to express most is my lack of concern for writing concisely, ignorance to any real contextual ideologies or respect for anything other than writing misc about either a) nothing at all or b) everything. In the case of b) i am talking more about individual rants about a particular event, place, person etc etc and b) is something I've probably steered away from in recent times. Which is odd because I've been going on so many 'trips' lately and posting contextually is much easier than mashing buttons in a furious attempt to express my simple mind in a consistently different fashion (hence repetition perhaps).
1 of my top 3 critters of all time
I think the progression of my blog is as follows (it started within weeks of me getting my first camera, which was also the first time my mind had been willingly engaged in any creative process outside of sport, colouring-in and lego.) It started as a small scale situation whereby I'd post about little photo adventures which I would undertake with a buddy or solo, the range of these adventures could span from the coast (surfing at a great deal at that stage) or on my street. I started taking more miscellaneous pictures and within a few months it basically became what it still is today.. In regards to the photos i was taking, In those days there was no goal or care as I was yet to discover the wonderful act of analysing photos in a somewhat intelligent fashion, I guess i was too wrapped up in the magic of taking pictures (it is actually magical) to be concerned by the other things.
Cam gapping a barbwire fence in a pre-war train depot.
I cut my sport photo teeth with this sport.
By the end of the first year I'd began to fury, I was living out of home, working kinda full-time and living the permanent holiday lifestyle I, as a 19 year old freshly moved out of home, was chasing. I found a lovely girl who shared my keenness for adventure and I had no sense of saving money. I realised i could do what I want when i want, not just in the sense of chores and dinner, but in the sense of everything. It was liberating. I was posting sometimes just one photo, but never any mondo deeeeep rants.. the only big rants came from context such as a trip somewhere or trying to document an attempt to consume a free Slurpee from every 7-11 in inner brisbane. Looking back I saw that in November 2009 i made the same number of posts that i did for the entirety of 2012.
millions in some sort of promo shoot, never really been to down.
Through 2010 I started to develop in my ability to consider photos, not in the post sense but the pre sense. I learnt things about the environment and began to recall situations of visual significance (photon based) and stopped taking photos of everything. I was still taking lots of photos, but mostly taking photos out my window while i drove to something, drive by shooting was one of my favourite things ever. I was shooting nightlife and quickly getting over it but my passion for picture making was ever increasing at miscellaneous speeds.
Paris, 2012.
Towards the end of that year I started working at Brisbane Camera Hire which is most certainly one of the more pivotal moments in my photographic journey. Gaining insight into equipment without having to by it is cheating. It's actually cheating. Not because it was good equipment, stop fooling yourself, but because it FREED MY MIND from the constant qualms of being concerned that someone with good gear is going to make better photos than me and sent me to a mindspace where i stopped caring about technical reproduction, a place where my imagination was once again the king and if i couldn't create what i envisioned it was because it was physically impossble, not impossible due to camera gear restraints. Obviously good gear is fucking awesome, really fun and takes nicer photos BUT it doesn't take better photos. I look back through this blog to 3 years ago and see photos shot on my d60 and kit lens and think 'shiet, i wish i took photos like that still.' and that's because I miss those times, I am a different person in a different world and I won't ever see that reality again. I like them because of what they are saying, not what they're showing.
taking photos at night, forever nookied in my stoke gland.
2011 seems like the blurr year, i think it was the only full year of study I've completed, in 4 attempts at tertiary education and the only reason i lasted so long that time was because i was studying photography. My total posts halved from the year before but it was clearcut case of quality:quantity. I guess i got smarter, started taking better pictures and for the first time in my life legitimate gratification from thinking/generally keeping my brain intrigued and in unkown realms of thought and information. I think studying helped me immensely in the sense of thought, it engaged processes of thinking that I'd not ever considered whilst combining with a general acceleration in wisdom and maturity to be pretty life altering.
Italian Alps July 2012, to this day it is still my favourite zone in the world.
2011 was a year that i grew up a little, really became passionate about taking good photos and sold my soul to adrenaline and downhill skateboarding. I met Chad Gibson, one of the raddest dudes i know and more pivotal life figures for lamb, nothing will ever make me regret meeting that dude, so much love. I also met an angel around the september, from then on it was out of control, probably the best times of my life, but like all real loves it died, in a longwinded and tortuously painful fashion, but that was 2012 so I'll deal in the next paragraph. Both of these people proceeded to somewhat dictate the content of the blog, as i was spending bulk time with them and life was good. When life is good there are photos and good blog posts, thats all i know for sure. In terms of my photographic professionalism i was still maximum fledgling, i like taking photos of skating but i couldn't make money and enjoyed skating too much to pursue it.
Chaddy, one of the all-time greats.
2012 was the year of pears. I posted at about the same rate as I did this year but this year I've been overseas and on the road for more time than i've been home, last year I travelled to south america for 5 weeks and did 2 trips to europe, both of around 8 days... I committed to a year of distance based emotional torment and proceeded to lose everything that I knew and liked about myself. I'm going to stop preaching tears because there is no reason to write shitty stuff because recount shitty times of the past ruins the potential stoke in the now. I'm not going to forget what went down, I don't need to write it or even publicise it at all. In short, I degraded into an unmotivated shell of the person that I was and that probably showed in my posting. I recall posts titled 'deep' and no text, what a waste of time. I learnt a lot about myself though, I guess I consider 2012 the year that I grew up, but really I just scared myself upon fully comprehending emotions I'd never before experienced. My posts were beginning to transform into huge albums of photos from varying times and locations, kind of like now, but with a whole bunch less enthusiasm. I got through 2012, in the end everything is fine if you tell yourself it is because, ignorant to manipulation, you're the only one in your own head.
Matt having a shower at the bottom of a Japanese pass. Outside Hakuba, March 2013.
This year is not over but for the purpose of this rant it can be. Somewhat intriguingly I feel like i've been much more blog active this year, but comparing tallies and considering projections, I will have done less than I did last year but that is just posts. If you consider this post, a rant that started by whinging about bandages but progressed into, at this very word, 1544 words of nonstop fury, you'll see that the post depth has increased somewhat. Right now i'm crippled and stuck at home, hence my bulk posts, and its because i'm more motivated then ever but the most time poor. This year I've travelled internationally for 22 weeks to USA and Canada a few times, Japan, New Zealand, China and during those trips I've had either a) no time b) no internet. I post more bullshit than ever before, and less story like as the trips are long and often contracted, so i can't just chuck all the fots up. But everyone I work with is liberal and lovely/best dudes in the world so it's all gravy.
Big Sur, California, Jan 2013.
To sum up any blog-reflective rant I figure I should quote myself, this is from June 2001
'These days have been sick! I've skateboarded so much. Friends are rad.
Wooooo. Im so busy. I cry about tears. Fuck you time.
I love dubspress! Music is sweet dude, here's a song'
It may seem like I live in some sort of blessed dream state but I write for fun, and writing about fun things is fun, sense?
Beijing, September 2013.
All I really need to say is take responsibility for your own happiness. Other people might make you happy, but really it's you making yourself happy under the assumption it was their doing. Just do it yourself and revel in those good people because they're good people that are having fun, not because they're people making you happy.
Striker, stoked, Landy's Palm Trees RV.
thankyou lastfm, i forgot entirely about everything relating to this song, a 2010 favourite
this is probably the only photo of me on this entire blog. shot by my pal James while we were in san fran at the beginning of this year. Bob, pictured, is one of the main reasons i do what i do and for that i thank him endlessly.
