Wounded

Cleaning up my picture files over the last few days I have come across photos that I'd forgotten about. This one must be about 4 years old. It's a digital file and somewhere in it will be the precise date and even the time it was taken.

This photo, taken in my garden, still holds my interest so it's important for me to revisit it. I think it was Diane Arbus who said something about the importance of photos that don't quite work, how vital it is to print them up and live with them until you really really understand what the problem is, on a cellular level not just an intellectual one.

Rose

I've had this Dublin Bay rose growing in a pot outside for several years. It hasn't grown much, its roots need more room but still, every year it produces several perfect blooms. Soon it will have its realease.

Last year, when I was making one of my frequent trips from Central Otago back to my studio in New Plymouth, I took this photo.

Central

Central Stories, the museum in Alexandra, Central Otago, where I lived for the last year, has, in its collection, this wooden grinder, perhaps it wasn't a grinder at all, perhaps it was for making butter, I'm not sure. However in my imagination, I would like to think that it was for turning wheat into flour in order to make bread.

I photographed it two or three times over a few months but usually from further back.

The handle in the base of the device was fun to turn. It made the wooden section on the left of this image rotate, while simultaneously the base turned in a contrary direction. I found it riveting to watch. I even liked the sound it made.

I'm sorry that I have only this one photo left, but it was the last, and I think, the best, bread or butter!

Furry

I'm going through all of the photos that I have taken in the last 18 months and having another look at what is there. I'm organising them into folders.

This is a dyed possum fur key ring except that I have removed the metal circle that keys attach to. I've got a small collection of key rings.

Skoda

A very stylish 1961 Skoda, built in Checkoslovakia and taking part in a vintage car rally here on the weekend.

The engine is basically the same one that was used in the New Zealand built Trekka, a rather ugly vehicle but one that gained some fame recently when Michael Stevenson used it as a centrepiece for his work in the Venice Biennale.

Fiat Topolino 1938

On the weekend I went to a vintage car rally here
in New Plymouth.
I fell in love with this Fiat Topolino, immediately. It doesn't have a flat surface anywhere, every panel is perfectly curved. It was modern and still looks modern.

Topolino means something like little mouse.

The black 8 cylinder Buick behind it is strong too in a gangsterish way.


The engine is 500cc. The solid looking wheels especially appeal to me.

The rear window opens. No bumpers but a strong line that runs along the top of the doors and down to where a bumper could be, giving a feeling of strength and solidity.

European Hare

A couple of weeks ago I took delivery of 10 prints of this image, a portrait of a European Hare. The prints were made in Sydney.

Here is one of the prints at the framer, being prepared for the Auckland Art Fair on the 29th where it will be exhibited on Hamish McKay's stand.

It is my most recent photo, taken about 6 months ago. There haven't been any photos since then, but I'm not worried, it is something to look forward to. After a longish gap there may be a shift.

The photo is, including frame and gst, $4000. Unframed $3750. 3 have gone. Any enquiries phone Hamish 0274368368

John Reynolds...

....at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth, a couple of weeks ago.

The NCEA Best

There is a show touring NZ, recently set up at the Govett-Brewster here in New Plymouth by our national educational authorities who want to instruct teenagers of our country on how to become famous photographers.

Local secondary school students of photography were brought, even by bus, to see these portfolios, the top scoring ones from last year. They were being shown what the look was that the examiners were wanting. The remarkable sameness to the portofolios was, as usual, for they look similar year after year, truly alarming. Clearly it is a house style.

Once, a decade ago at Selwyn College, I tried to teach this approach to photography even though I knew that I would not be able to pass this exam myself. I quit after a year because I was ashamed to be part of such a questionable approach.