Abandoned Factory

All words and images © Matthew Venables  2011. All Rights Reserved.

Monday, June 13; 2011

Abandoned Factory

The other afternoon with colleague Bollywood in accompaniment, decided to have a look inside an abandoned local factory that I’d been driving by for months. I really love shooting these types of places and have a few more in mind to get to before the forces of property development gather inevitably and they disappear.

That day I made a number of OK pictures, but really only this one stood out for me.

Domestic Trinity

All words and images © Matthew Venables  2011. All Rights Reserved.

Monday, May 1: 2011

Whitegood Composition: Dunny (Ceramic and Moulds), Microwave (Plastic and Foods) and Cooktop (Steel, Foods, Oils and Charcoal)

Before you say or even think it, no, these specimens of domesticity find not their home at my abode. And no, I cannot reveal my source.

But there is something, attractive, to my eye in this grubby domestic trinity.

Saigonscape

All words and images © Matthew Venables  2011. All Rights Reserved.

Tuesday, April 18: 2011

Saigonscape

Just a quickie today from Vietnam, another that continues the thorough enjoyment I get making pictures from puddles…everything gets just that little bit abstract. This one makes me feel somehow liked I fumbled into a science fiction western.

Vietnam Rooftop Views

Ho Chi Minh City Rooftop

Hanoi Rooftop

All words and images © Matthew Venables  2011. All Rights Reserved.

Wednesday, April 6: 2011

It took me a while to get to these pictures, the frames released what seems like way back in January, holiday in Vietnam time.

For the majority of the month I spent having a look around the country it was overcast, light flat and uninteresting, and I made these panaoramas with a view to having a mate n colleague paint and draw all over them as part of some stuff we like to muck around with. I held low to no hope of these as `Photographs’, being intended instead as a platform from which Paul could leap any which way he felt it.

But theres’ a thing with working digital that happens often enough where something, having not earlier been self evident, emerges that you start to like. Starting to process these things, stitch em together into a panorama, crop, work the colours, I reflect back to somewhere in my mid-teen days having a book on photography cross my path…remembering being horrified that people would actually use filters to change how light entered lens, the horror, the unreality!…and now a multitude of processes deep in these massive scale files, push pull and nudging stuff round till you think it sits right, it’s just funny how that feeling, when you start to get a little fond for an image, happens sometimes not in an instant , like it might with film, with it’s alchemical processes, but aways further down the line.

If you click the pic, it should be able to be viewed a bit bigger.

The Rat

All words and images © Matthew Venables  2010. All Rights Reserved.

Friday, February 4: 2011

The Rat

This week had cause to make a return to the Dead Animals…a mate asked to use some of the oldies for a forthcoming publication. That gave cause to recall, a coupla months back I’d made this frame but been, for one reason and another unimpressed at the time.

Hadda another look this morning and thought, y’know that ain`t so bad, set to work `developing’ the picture. I recall at the time thinking it’s a shame you can`t see the face…which of course you can, and seeing that sad kinda peaceful head changed the complexion of the whole picture. Now  it hadda little somethin’ something I liked.

Da Nang Housing Block

All words and images © Matthew Venables  2011. All Rights Reserved.

Friday, December 31: 2010.

Da Nang Housing Block

Seeing that I’m trapped for what seems like it’s gonna be ten hours in a singularly unimpressive regional airport in Hue, Vietnam, it’s time to do something I’ve been intending for quite some time…Treading time like water, on hard plastic chairs for the second of three attempts at domestic flight, skinny cheeks already commencing a round of complaint and no excuse forthcoming from the airline cept a cover-all of “technical issues” I’m lookn’ at it like this: sometimes a thing that starts and ends as a pain in the clacker cycles though something good.

Time then, to reconfigure this blog and post once more. For those of you who’ve stuck, that’s great and you’ve my thanks…This operation here forward shall become An Image and Some Words Every Once in a While…Even though I’d set my aims, and for the majority of the year was grateful for this discipline, it proved ultimately to get atop me. Caught between a deal made with myself and nothin’ new to offer I became paralytic stone frozen at last offering. Selah.

* Recently realized something had gone funny with this post, done as it was at a low grade regional airport free wi fi..

Week Thirty Nine & some | Oh! Alfred

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All words and images © Matthew Venables  2010. All Rights Reserved.

Sunday, September 12: 2010.

Oh! Alfred

Few words, numerous pics this week as I’ve been following the Oh! Alfred crew for a bit as they coat the fence along Elizabeth Street and Clevland around Alfred Park for this years’ Art & About festival. Lead by head honchos Jess Cook and Kali Reid and supported by a cast of hundreds from a wide gamut of the community, they’ve gradually transformed the fence from eyesore to a stretch of naive lovliness. Get down there and check it!

Week Thirty Seven | The Bike Bike

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All words and images © Matthew Venables  2010. All Rights Reserved.

Sunday, September 12: 2010.

The Bike Bike

Spent some time in the last few weeks behind the scenes of the making of The Bike Bike with chief protagonist Alasdair Nicol and his assistants Neil Rahman, Jamie Gerlach & Takeaki Totsuka. It shall be an enormous sculpture on display in Martin Place, and was commissioned from Al by The City of Sydney as a part of this years’ Art and About festival.

It’s busy times, and over the next little period I shall have the pleasure of photographing three separate good sized public art projects, each of which shall be delightful. Shall try a couple more of these slideshowings, so be aware that if you really feel it you can press the stop button that comes up if you hover over the viewer and have a good long look.

More on that next time…and until then have a ripper.

Week Thirty Six

All words and images © Matthew Venables  2010. All Rights Reserved.

Sunday, August 29: 2010.

Gwago Patabágun ___ We will eat presently| Tessa Zettel & Karl Khoe

In the morning a couple of weeks back, earlier than usually I want even to be awake, and I’ve been following this strange cart for hours. Pushed from Taylor Square at sunrise, here we’re rounding the harbour foreshore in the Botanic Gardens striding towards the carts’ resting spot for a coupla months afront the Museum of Contemporary Art as part of the show In the Balance: Art for a Changing World.

It’s a beaut golden average work day morn as we traverse the city, cool and bright, morning folk everywhere seem most bemused by this jobbied up jerry rigging rollin’ out on old bike wheels. If they knew the rest of it.

After we’ve navigated the suited throng past the Opera House and through the Quay, rattlin’ our way to a rest on the lawn, Karl and Tessa open out their baby and commence making pikelets, open for business. As the sun is out and kissing, the native bees inside the clear cupboard enclosure of the cart start waking. No bigger than a mid-sized Aussie fly, they produce a very citrus tasting honey, quite unlike honey I’ve had before.

For future public picnic dates (there will be several over the next two months) and further information on the project please visit www.wewilleatpresently.net.

That’s it for now….over the next few weeks I’ve nice schedule that includes art doc for three separate sets friends/colleagues projects’ that I shall follow for a few weeks up to the installings in late September. Hope to post some developmental type slideshows, these jobbies look like they’ll be excellent.

Week Thirty Five & a Half | An Erudite Man

All words and images © Matthew Venables  2010. All Rights Reserved.

Thursday, August 19: 2010.

The Candidate #8 | An Erudite Man

The Candidate for Wentworth, a man well respected as cranially enormous, pictured here in earnest discussion with long time sparring partner,  grizzled campaign trail veteran Tubs Grogan.  In the wide ranging, soon to be published interview, Grogan attacks what he terms Nouveau Sheilism and in particular it’s capacity to influence the kids. Eventually, The Candidate simply smirks and quips, “Sheil be Right!”.