You won't see this at MoMA

Sands of Time

noreply@blogger.com (Just Another Light Monkey) — Sun, 02 Nov 2025 02:46:00 +0000

In the depths of Upper and Lower Antelope Canyon, Page Arizona

Shibuya Drift

noreply@blogger.com (Just Another Light Monkey) — Sat, 07 Dec 2024 06:14:00 +0000

Shibuya Crossing was feeling very Blade Runnner like on the night I went there. The rain drenched streets and umbrellas out in in full force and a kind of human density energy that few places can match. Still dreaming about this place.

Constellation

noreply@blogger.com (Just Another Light Monkey) — Sat, 18 May 2024 04:34:00 +0000

Went down to the Perth waterfront at Elizabeth Quey to checkout the interactive art installation Ephemeral Oceanic created by design firm Atelier Sisu.

In a public space, interactive art, I think is the way to go and in that goal, they succeeded for the most part. Although think it would have been cooler if you could actually be enveloped by the bubbles but can see all the people management and public liability issues you would have with that. Maybe even some sensors so that there was more meaningful interaction with the public like the lighting would change depending on how people moved around it or or like those plasma balls if people touched the inflated balls.

At first wasn't really thinking I could get much visually out of the installation which was the case for the straight photography. I think the transiency of the bubbles would have worked better visually during the day but started to mess around with a longer shutter speed, wider aperture and camera motion.

Started to feel a bit 2001 a space odysseys when it starts to get trippy at the end.

Welcome to Rotto

noreply@blogger.com (Just Another Light Monkey) — Fri, 17 May 2024 17:14:00 +0000

Spent a day walking around Rottnest Island a 45 min catamaran jaunt off the coast of Perth. Irrespective of the population of Quakkas propping up the local economy it was possible to circumnavigate the island by foot hitting up all the tourist touchstones (both light houses, a bunch of beaches, wind turbine railway station the inland lake).

Probably could have gotten a few series out of Rotto if I had a few more days, so really four for the price of one:

- The gnarled and deformed trees seem to be everywhere on Rotto and really quite beautiful like full size bonsai.

- Looking back to the skyscrapers of Perth with different foregrounds. I remember a Melbourne photographer who did that with the the gas power plant stack in south Melbourne and more recently with the viral video on Instagram of the Berlin TV Tower.

- People leaving clothing hanging out like laundry at the access points to beaches reminded me of a series I wanted to do in Japan of all the umbrellas that were left in this bins outside shops but at least with the umbrellas it was a more temporary thing.

- It's low hanging fruit but People taking selfies of Quokkas. Probably could go full meta and do a series taking selfies of me with people taking selfies of Quokkas but someone has surely done that before.

- There were all these no entry signs everywhere. a commentary on human's relationship to the environment? just liked that juxtaposition.

- Rotto was going through a fair bit of redevelopment [insert some social commentary here]

I got the sense that the ratio of apartments to nature seemed pretty high making it feel a bit like Yosemite. From all the hero photos of Yosemite ever produced you get the sense it's a pristine environment untouched by mankind's then I rocked up there and my jaw dropped by the asphalted accessibility of it all. Given it use to be a military base during the 2nd World War the overdevelopment makes sense. But get out the backside of the Island and nature opens it's self taking back over.

There was this sense of almost like been in a video game open world. The two light houses and the wind turbine acting like visual map marker points of interest with a sweet spot of appearing close enough that it was walkable but not far enough away that one would not be bothered.

In hindsight I would have highly recommended hiring a bike as I defiantly got my 10,000 steps in that day with only 45 mins of change remaining.

Welcome to Berlin

noreply@blogger.com (Just Another Light Monkey) — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 04:17:00 +0000

Street photography of Berlin. I really liked Berlin as a city. Lot's going on some great art galleries, architecture. Public transport was easy to navigate and defiantly would have liked to spend more time there as left a few things on the table. One thing that surprised me the most was all supermarkets shut down on Sundays. Crazy.

Reconstruction

noreply@blogger.com (Just Another Light Monkey) — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 05:52:00 +0000

Long time exposure taken from a ropeway car going up to the summit of Mt Inasa, was getting too dark and didn't have a tripod so just played around with the light. Stunning views of Nagasaki, a city with a dark but also bright history and future.

Red Dwarf

noreply@blogger.com (Just Another Light Monkey) — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 03:46:00 +0000

Doing what I enjoy the most abstracting the crap out of architecture. In this case the Colosseum. One of my mentors in photography told me once I needed to stop photographing older buildings and focus on more modern stuff. They had a fair point and really didn't go back as a result but when in Rome went back to my roots.

Walked all around the Colosseum and found these gems on the backside.

Gives off a real surface of Mars vibe.

Think the sequence here works well with the intro and outro images kind of completing a circle metaphorically and physically. Might work well as a 3 x 3 square with the first and last in the corners.

Would have been interesting to see what I could have done had I had full access to the inside rather than just walking around the outside.

Circumnavigation

noreply@blogger.com (Just Another Light Monkey) — Mon, 11 Sep 2023 14:21:00 +0000

Frankly, it was probably quicker walking around the entire wall of Vatican City than it would have been to wait in the line to checkout the Sistine Chapel thus the genesis of this series. Pretty simple premise walk around the outside of Vatican City and see if I couldn't find something worth capturing. Don't think about it too hard.

Note a few of the images are B Roll as went back the next day to a few places I didn't capture the day before.

Fissure

noreply@blogger.com (Just Another Light Monkey) — Mon, 11 Sep 2023 10:53:00 +0000

Series of images taken from my reflections upon The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The space in it's repetition and shear density of blank sarcophaguses creates a sense of weight that cannot be escaped but only confronted. Would recommend any visitor to Berlin to experience this memorial and take some time to reflect on those lost to needless hatred.

National Treasure: The Colosseum

noreply@blogger.com (Just Another Light Monkey) — Mon, 11 Sep 2023 00:52:00 +0000

The idea for the national treasure series came from the white trash and Melbourne cup series. I wanted to go to a bunch of national monuments in the USA and capture bins overflowing with rubbish if for no other reason than I liked the juxtaposition. I never got around to doing that but going to the Colosseum and seeing all the trash lying around was quite apparent so I found my way in and somewhat resurrected the idea.

Thinking about it after the fact really should have done a hero image a full wide shot rather than just all these detail shots to round out the series.

Trevi - B

noreply@blogger.com (Just Another Light Monkey) — Sun, 10 Sep 2023 02:46:00 +0000

The day time version focusing on specular reflections caused by the sun reflecting off the water in the Trevi fountain. Specular reflections from sunlight are more of a challenge as only one light source and the light source keeps moving throughout the day so the best place for relictions will shift throughout the day. Only had one session here but would have really got more varied results had I spent the whole day there, could I really be bothered? Not really, will leave that up to someone else to pickup the mantle.

All the images turned out about the same, so really couldn't edit a series out of this so just included them all.

If you want to see the effect of specular reflections at night time see Trevi - A

Trevi - A

noreply@blogger.com (Just Another Light Monkey) — Sun, 10 Sep 2023 01:58:00 +0000

I think a lot of the challenge of photography is about finding a way in. Once you find your way in the photography takes care of itself. Case in point went to the Trevi fountain in Rome arguably one of the most photographed fountains in the world. Walked around it trying to find a way in seeing something that caught my eye or peaked my interest. Besides focusing on a Martin Parr style take on the massive sea of tourist just left without getting the camera out. After taking some thought about it and go to my fallback position abstract the crap out of things, so went there at night time and focused on the specular reflections off the water. Not sure what the cops thought about me using a long lens but whatever.

Little from column A a little from column B. focusing on specular reflections from street lighting around the fountain.

So A was at night and then B was during the day.

State Transference: Part iii

noreply@blogger.com (Just Another Light Monkey) — Sat, 16 May 2015 03:33:00 +0000

My third in a series of studies of graphical abstractions of specular reflections over bodies of water this time using the moonlight of the water to the inlet at Anglesea, Victoria Australia.

drawing reference from Mark Rothko's colour fields

Out a Window: to Cottesloe

noreply@blogger.com (Just Another Light Monkey) — Tue, 28 Apr 2015 04:11:00 +0000

Photographic series using a candid snap shot aesthetic of a journey from Northern Perth to Cottesloe Beach*.

I 've never been a fan of been fully in control of the photographic process and like how and interesting composition can be arrived at from the randomness of daily life.

*The third, fifth and last photograph were taken on a road trip the day after although felt they added to the series.

Underworld

noreply@blogger.com (Just Another Light Monkey) — Mon, 27 Apr 2015 01:57:00 +0000

Graphical abstraction of the interior sandstone walls of The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart, Tasmania. Quasi meta-art two steps somewhat removed. Art from a place within a place that holds art. Follow up to my coastal series [link]. It would have been great to use a tripod although wasn't an option, so jacked up the ISO.

State Transference: Part ii

noreply@blogger.com (Just Another Light Monkey) — Wed, 31 Dec 2014 07:08:00 +0000

Abstraction seems to be a theme I always return to and this series was somewhat going back to the future having competed part one [link] on new years eve last year so only fitting to complete part ii at the end of this year. Channelling Rothko's colour field work with the specular reflections of the Christmas tree lights in Geelong off the waters of Corio Bay.

night garden

noreply@blogger.com (Just Another Light Monkey) — Mon, 10 Nov 2014 23:44:00 +0000

Finding beauty in nature after dark in the coastal moonah woodlands in Anglesea.

Trees that may or may not look like the Telstra Tower

noreply@blogger.com (Just Another Light Monkey) — Mon, 10 Nov 2014 23:01:00 +0000

A series looking at the similarity or lack thereof between gumtree and the Telstra Tower. Once again a series that took all of about half an hour to finish. Taking the Bern and Hilla Becher [link] stylistic approach to objectivity.

Nixi Killick - Colour Tribe

noreply@blogger.com (Just Another Light Monkey) — Sat, 06 Sep 2014 14:28:00 +0000

Imagery from Nixi Killick's Introducing the Colour Tribe laneway runway as part of the Melbourne Spring Fashion Week. (MSFW)

https://thatsmelbourne.com.au/msfw/event/curevnt17

Note - You probably will see these at MoMA, Nixi's [Mad Max (circa Return to Thunderdome) on an LSD trip] designs that is.

Storm Surge series

noreply@blogger.com (Just Another Light Monkey) — Thu, 07 Aug 2014 00:51:00 +0000

I remember the impact that Naoya Hatakeyama's Blast series [link] had on me when I saw it at his retrospective at the San Francisco MoMA back in 2012 [link]. The wonder of seeing something that before the human eye could not really see, much like the ground breaking technology created by MIT Scientist Harold Edgerton and the stunning interactions he was able to capture [link]. There was some pretty wild weather down along the coast over the past week and wanted to see that same beauty in the stillness of the energy of the storm surge.

Glitch - le Tour de France 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Just Another Light Monkey) — Tue, 05 Aug 2014 02:29:00 +0000

Drawing on Thomas Ruff's JPEGS series [link] and Fred Cray's Movies series [link]. in the digital age looking at the noise to signal ratio and the glitches that make up the greys. more than anything I just like how randomness can lead to something beautiful. Images taken from the 2014 Tour de France TV coverage with the digital signal for whatever reason dropping out, to varying degrees. I guess with photography, the photographer is in complete control of everything that goes into the final image. I've never been a fan of been in complete control of something let randomness intervene.

Layers series

noreply@blogger.com (Just Another Light Monkey) — Sun, 27 Jul 2014 08:44:00 +0000

Graphical abstractions of sandstone rock formations located at flat rock in the Northern Grampian's Victoria, Australia. I love this small rock formation to have so many different shapes within one place created from so many layers of compressed sand over a millennium

My interest in graphical abstraction came from my interest in comics as a kid and coming across the work of Jeffery Smart [link], Roy Lichtenstein [link] and Piet Mondrian [link] I like the idea of a one to one relationship a two dimensional medium representing effectively a two dimensional subject.

le Tour 2014 series

noreply@blogger.com (Just Another Light Monkey) — Sat, 26 Jul 2014 12:16:00 +0000

followup to the le Tour series of 2010 [link] drawing upon the work of Ernst Haas [link], Thomas Ruff [link], John Cura [link] and Sugimoto [link].

Dissolve - Rip Curl Pro 2014 series

noreply@blogger.com (Just Another Light Monkey) — Sat, 07 Jun 2014 23:32:00 +0000

Sun. Sea. Surfer. The crowd. It all dissolves into one.

David Beckham's Junk series

noreply@blogger.com (Just Another Light Monkey) — Sun, 13 Apr 2014 01:38:00 +0000

Using H&M's ad campaign for David Beckham's bodywear collection to highlight the objectification of woman that is so pervasive in the media today through the objectification of David Beckham. It's not often you see a man getting most of his kit off in advertising in comparison so wanted to highlight it and the double standard it creates.

#davidbeckhamsjunk