Found// Patrick Madigan

Wow…. it’s been a while since I last posted. Since then, a lot of things have happened….

I got married

I went to New Zealand for the first time

My car got stolen…. then I replaced it with an even more awesome car!*

I shot a lot more black and white film

I changed roles at work

Kodak filed for bankruptcy…..

the list goes on. But during all this, I haven’t stopped looking and thinking and feeding my brain with photography. I’m hoping to do a lot more thinking, feeding, and possibly writing about pictures, after all, it is what I do all day at work and in my own time. Pictures, pictures, pictures!!

I come across the work of really talented photographers all the time, but it is only a small percentage whose work really tugs at your creative core and gives you a pang in the gut like you’ve just been hit by a bolt of inspiration…. or sometimes it’s jealousy. Why can’t I make work that is as seemingly free and visceral as this?

Patrick Madigan uses the landscape to tell stories. Stories that resonate with a childhood imagination. Stories that are dark, foreboding and a little bit sad. His images in the Following Footprints series are deeply textural and the tones hint at photos from times past. I’m not sure if this is his intent, but there is always a sense of mystique to historical photos, and this patina suits the anonymous landscapes he shoots.

 

All photos copyright Patrick Madigan.

*what awesome car you say? A 1969 MG B GT…..

Found// Michael Wesley

It’s not often that you come across a series, or style of photographs that makes your heart skip a beat. I don’t know why these images resonate with me so, it may be my current interest in shooting black and white again; it may be my interest in time, and traces, and memory; it may just be that they are astounding in how they’ve been executed and conceived.

Each of these photographs is taken as a single, three year exposure. Using home made pinhole cameras, set up on several corners around the construction site, Wesley was invited to document the construction of the Museum of Modern Art in New York as it renovated and expanded it’s building.

What results is a series of images, titled Open Shutter, that are so detailed, and layered with ghostly traces of the changing environment. You can see the solid masses of the old, unchanging buildings as a sub-layer. You can see the ethereal traces of the sun as it shifts and streaks across the sky. You can see the changing structures coming down and going up in layers. And you can see the evidence of life in the little nicks, specks and blurs that populate the outskirts and substrata of the image.

These photographs are so rich and painterly, like they’ve been drawn with ink, over and over.

9-8-2001 - 7-6-2004 Museum of Modern Art New York

7-8-2001 - 7-6-2004 Museum of Modern Art, New York

[photos via: Photo Slave]

Michael Wesley: www.wesely.org

Book

not exactly photographic….

my creative outlets lately have revolved around crafting and in particular knitting. In this cold weather, it is all I feel like doing these days…. and sometimes it is nice to have a break from photography, regroup my thoughts and thinking on my photographic practice, and take more time to look at and read about other photography and photographers, which you don’t always make time for when you’re making pictures yourself.

Here is a big, chunky, soft and cozy herringbone cowl scarf I am working on that I can’t wait to finish so that I can wear it to keep me warm for the rest of winter….

Found {strangers}

I’ve been adopting strangers I find in antique and op-shops….

My first adoptee is this adorable swimming suit lady.

Look at those bathers! and those little shoes. I wonder what beach she is at. What is her name…

In the same batch of old nitrate negatives I found these ladies:

Are they related to the swimming lady? Where are they? I wonder if they enjoyed their ‘frolick’ in the snow?

I am fascinated by who these people might have been, what the stories are behind the pics… perhaps I will make up my own stories to go with them.

More strangers to follow

PhotoAccess member’s show

This year’s member’s show at PhotoAccess, ‘Access All Areas’, kicks of this Thursday at 6pm.

These are the two works I have hanging in the show this year:

From my work in progress series ‘Paper Mountains’ {working title}

a drive in the country

CCP Kodak Salon

I have two works in this year’s Centre for Contemporary Photography Kodak Salon.

Starring the beautiful Kat and Galahad:

The show opens this Thursday 14th at 6pm. If you’re in Melbourne you should get along

urban grit

a couple of shots from San Francisco I happened across. I love the urban grain and grit.

and one from Montreal. A hidden laneway…

then there’s this one, from Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo, which I love. I love the results from my little old Voightlander rangefinder. It can be hit and miss, but these… with the quality of the film grain, I love!

DOH!-nuts

Well, it’s been AAAAAAAAAGES since I posted here last…. and as it happens, I’m about to make these delicious gems again!

That’s right… homemade doughnuts. I found this easy peasy recipe, and, my, they looked so delicious I just had to try them!

film goodness

one of my favourite film frames from the year thus far….

and a couple of others for good measure…..