23/04/2012 – Arriving in Monterosso

Arrived around 5pm after almost 38 hours on the road.

We stayed at a quaint hotel called Degli De Argentine that apparently is very proud of its seaside; all decor is sea life-oriented including the blue-frosted toilet seat.

We ate at a small restaurant by the water and ordered a pescatora spaghetti and some tomato based pasta. Both were very good and went great with both the house reds and whites (250ml for 3 euros). As anyone who knows me will tell you, I’m a cheap drunk so we stumbled back to our hotel around 8.30pm and passed out. Pretty good ending to such a long journey.

24/04/2012 – Visiting Villages

Fighting jetlag, we were up by 3am and spent it listening to the crazy thunder outside our window. Breakfast was amazing with a really good variety of pastries, cereal, bread and amazing proscuitto, cheese and ham. The had a great blood orange juice there and you could order a cappucino, espresso and American coffee and they’d make it for you on the spot.

After fuelling up, we set off by train to the furthest village of Cinque Terre, Riomaggiore. The town is extremely hilly with really cute little houses lining the cobbled streets.

Down by the water, there are some amazing views and bright, colourful houses and some nice restaurants. From there, we took the Lover’s Walk (5 euros per person) to Manarola before catching a train to Vernazza. There isn’t really much to the 25 minute walk except some water views and small cafe. You’ll see lots of locks and messages left by couples but I found exploring Riomaggiore to be more interesting.

Although, I had originally wanted to stay in Vernazza, I’m glad we didn’t as the poor town was still under reconstruction from the floods of October in 2011. We had decided to eat lunch in Vernazza but there was a real, somber mood to the place with most tourists just watching the construction happening near the water.

We caught a train back to Monterosso and checked out the old side of town. This area was filled with restaurants and a church that was very pretty as well. It looked as if Monterosso had also been affected by the floods as there was some construction happening but noting in comparison to Vernazza.

We ended up having dinner at Miky’s, well-known and recommended fancy pants restaurant about 50 metres down from our hotel. I ordered a sea bass, grilled with olives and potatoes. It looked amazing but I have to admit I was disappointed the fish hadn’t been scaled and the potato slices were under cooked. I was extremely envious of the table next to us who ordered a risotto for two that came with this amazing bread that they lit on fire.

Chris Bryan filmed this great Teahupo’o during the 2011 Billabong Pro Tahiti Surf competition.

Kelly Slater described the day by saying “witnessing this was a draining feeling being terrified for other people’s lives all day long, it’s life or death.”

I’ve never seen a teahupo’o in my life and I’m not sure whether I ever want to be that close.

Kudos Chris.

Absolutely stunning.

Yesterday, in keeping with New Year’s resolutions, I did an interesting exercise to try and figure out where I want to be in a year’s time.

This stemmed from wanting to organise my life better and not let myself get lost in the monotonous routine of “work-eat-sleep”, rinse and repeat all over again. It’s probably also especially important to get into the right mindset of things since I’ve just graduated and suddenly have all this free time to myself.

I’ve only been working full-time for the past month and a half and already it’s feeling like I’m just living day-to-day and checking boxes. Some might say “Why don’t you change careers?” or actually do something in your industry. This would definitely help but what it probably comes down to is the fact that I’ve been planning my life around work; whether it be school work, university work and now full-time employment.

I NEED to work, to earn money, so I can do the things that I WANT to do.

But instead, I’m going to start thinking about TIME.

Time is actually what we have a finite amount of. We may run out of money but there’s always ways to get more. Time is what will eventually end – so using my time better is going to be a big goal for me.

As I said earlier, I did an interesting exercise in trying to figure out where I want to be in a year’s time. Everyone has obviously done this plenty of times but I was asked to close my eyes and imagine the experience rather than just listing off a bunch of things I wanted to have by 2013. For example, you might say you want a beach house. Focusing on the experience would instead be more like: “I see myself on a beach with friends and family around me. My beach house is just a little way behind me. The sun is bright. I can feel my feet sinking into the sand as the waves touch my ankles.”

I know. It sounds extremely airy-fairy but this time I decided to play along and it was a pretty inspiring experience. I was asked to picture a moment where I felt completely at peace and happy and then asked to describe what it looked like.

My vision included cliffs, driving down a winding road in a jeep. I was relaxed, in just a t-shirt and shorts, barefoot and completely enjoying driving down these winding cliffs. I wasn’t driving. There was a man driving me (someone I didn’t recognise), with a broad nose, toothy grin, dark skin, really grey hair. I was enjoying the sun and the crisp air from the water below us. I had a camera with me but it was just something small, not my chunky SLR. I’m also pretty sure I lived around this area.

I described a whole lot more about the vision but what I took from it mainly was the idea of a complete sensory experience. Understanding how you feel from what you could smell, see, hear and touch.

That was set as my one year goal.

I don’t know where this place is. I was asked and I had a feeling it was possibly Greece but that is purely a guess.

After the exercise, I was asked to go home and start deciding what 90-day goals, 1 month goal, 1 week goals and daily goals would need to be set to reach the “vision”. I left feeling both inspired and a little overwhelmed by this. One year. That’s hardly anything! It’s going to be a pretty daunting task but we’ll see how far I get.

Setting my goals will be my goal for the week.

]]> http://lingbotphoto.com/2012/01/one-year-goal/feed/ 0 http://lingbotphoto.com/2012/01/new-years-eve-weekend-day-trip/ http://lingbotphoto.com/2012/01/new-years-eve-weekend-day-trip/#comments Wed, 11 Jan 2012 12:06:15 +0000 Maya Ling http://lingbotphoto.com/?p=951 Continue reading →]]>

Sydney has been getting to be a little bit much for me lately. If anything, I think it’s just the routine of full-time work and the inability to not just waste my days away that has been getting me down.

To combat this aimless routine, I decided to drive to the Blue Mountains for a day trip over the NYE weekend and get a few shots in. I haven’t spent much time taking photos for fun in the past year which is something I hope to change in 2012.

I spent the day driving aimlessly around with Sabrina, discussing our New Year’s resolutions  with the only driving rule being “no turning back”.

The Teapot Museum and replacing one of my tires were some of the more memorable moments of the trip.

More photos can be found here.

My Honours degree has well and truly finished and all that needs to be done in a couple months is to put on a gown and receive a piece of paper.

Instead of waxing on a great deal, I thought I’d just put up a few pictures of the exhibition set-up process.

Overall, I was extremely pleased with the exhibition and it was great to see a bunch of my photos in an installation where the atmosphere of a darkened room and the soundscape transformed what I’d been doing all year into something so much more.

Throughout the year, I spent a lot of time banging on about the work expressing something that was intangible in nature and often felt like I wouldn’t be able to pull it off or make anyone understand what I meant.

I’d like to say a quick thank you to the following people who have been never-ending sources of support:

• Phil – for always giving me plenty of room to explore my ideas
• The COFA Honours crew – each of you have made the past four years delightful
• My parents – for putting up with an ‘artist’ – I promise you will reap the benefits someday.

I started off 11/11/11 at sunrise in Bondi. This was my first year seeing the sculptures in the morning and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked them this year. In the past, I’ve always felt underwhelmed by the sculptures but perhaps it was also due to going in the middle of the day when it’s extremely crowded and the photos turn out terrible.

Sculpture by the Sea is an annual exhibition of sculptures installed along the Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk.

More photos of Sculpture by the Sea can be found here.

Yes, there have been a shortage of posts. This is mostly due to not much changing with the work. That being said, my thesis has finally been submitted and I hope it gives a more solid grounding to my work. My first and only thesis – DONE. Check. Finito.

Enjoy.

Well it’s been a long time since I’ve posted. Again. This year seems to be a constant stop and start with blogging but I haven’t really been doing too much in the past month and half other than thesis writing and working.

Thought I’d just post a few extra photos that were part of my presentation in the mad rush to seem like I’d progressed.

Another couple weeks has come and gone. I’ve had the lights since Tuesday and have had a model in to shoot every second day or so. I was lucky enough to snag an extended loan of one week for the gear; so it’s been really great to just leave the stuff set up.

As a result of this, I’ve churned out ALOT of photos in the past week. Some, better than others; but always still a constant evolving process. One significant development is the lack of gels (yay!). I was finally able to figure out a proper set up with 2 x 250w and 2 x 400w lights. Here are some of the test lighting setups that almost drove me insane:

Tuesday – Michael

I’m not too sure whether I’ll be using these photos in the final work but it was something I really wanted to shoot to show off the intricacies of his tattoo. This actually stemmed from Mike seeing a couple shots of my own hand in the water and really liking how the ink just popped with the lighting.

Mike was also kind enough to dunk his head in the tank and here’s some of the footage I captured:

Wednesday – Sally

I didn’t actually shoot many photos of Sally but we experimented with coins and red chillis. Unfortunately, the water’s clarity became a major issue and I honestly just haven’t had the time to go and edit the crap out of them.

Friday – Evgenia and Brendan

As per usual, Eugie was a treat to shoot. She never lets me down and was ready to jump up on the table and I almost had to stop her from jumping into the tank. These were probably the best shots by far. In the previous shoots, I’d have people stand on either sides of the tank, which often resulted in some awkward angled hands. With Eugie directly behind the tank, it was alot easier for her to maneuver her hands and really just experiment with the water’s surface.

She also made an interesting video for me too:

Brendan’s video was also pretty successful. May need to reshoot due to lighting issues but his actual expressions and so on look great.

Sunday – Sam

Sam was my lucky last shoot. I decided to change the setup a little bit and turned the tank 90 degrees and got her to hop up on the table as well. This was mostly for ease of framing the videos but it kind of back-fired because there were reflections bouncing everywhere! I still got some great photos from her though and here’s a couple of them.

I don’t know whether it was the practice of all the shoots over the past week but I definitely found this one to be the easiest in directing. I’ve never found it easy to tell people what to do in my photos; which is also probably why I’ve shied away from video. But I think as I shoot more, I can see what looks good and I’m growing more confident in getting my models to give me those shots. Of course, it’s just their hands (and a bit of their heads) but it’s been fun trying to get people to make interesting hand shapes which could provoke a feeling in the audience.

The first week of our University “break” was a bit slow-going due to some extra shifts I picked up (got to pay the bills). But I was able to borrow the lights over the weekend. I decided to shoot against a black background this time. At first, I regretted the decision as I was worried that the black material would be too rough and the lights would show off the makeshift backdrop. I was right but I was able to lower the intensity of the light by again, adding some red gels to a couple of the lights.

Most of the images are relatively dark to hide the backdrop so I’ll still need to work on perfecting the light set up. But the work’s definitely become more interesting with these new lot of photos. I’m happy with the hand shots and know I’ve got some really interesting photos here. The issue now is how to expand on what I’ve done so far. How far can I push this process and style and what else can I shoot?

I did shoot a few more on the white background later on in the week:

This last shot is probably something I will be exploring some more. The interaction of two hands almost adds a new meaning as well as the inclusion of above the surface of the water. I’m also trying to find a stronger link between photos and thesis and portraying both the above and below the surface of water might be the smart way to go. Other than this particular shot, I still prefer the black backgrounds so it’s back to EXPERIMENTING.

I did get to shoot a little bit of footage on Monday night which I have to say, got me pretty super excited. I asked a friend to dunk their head in the tank, with one light shining on them and filmed a short clip on the Nikon D90. Though very rough, I’m excited to push this further and am starting to think my major work may end up as an installation of both photographic stills and video.

It may not be much so far but that red hair is hauntingly AWESOME.