January 2012

16th: Here is a little something that I did on the weekend. It involved laying underneath Chantal while I roasted in the sun. It is titled 'If Pigs Could....' Nope, for all my efforts you cannot see me but check out the pigs.

12th: Phew - Is it hot again? Yes - if temperatures stay this hot I reckon that I am going to reverse millions of years of evolution and as I slowly turn in to primordial soup. Yip I know I should just stop the whining.

So what am I doing for this years Artists Associations annual members show? Well I have taken some of the duds from my shots from Chantal and hung them from a mini black board which has some musings of a mythical beasty.

4th: Well I have taken a few shots with......yes I have to give her a name...hmmmmm think I will name her Chantal. No reason other than it was the first name that popped into my head. So anyway took my first shot with Chantal and I have to admit that it didn't go well. I was able to use her slideable shutter to stagger the exposure. Half way through the sequence though it started to bucket it down. So I had to move her into the garage to continue. The first image suggested that the exposures were going to have to be in the region of 20 or so minutes. The results from the next few shots revealed that I would have to take out all the lenses and resanding them to make them that much bigger. So anyway here is the first test shot.

April 2011

2nd: Well despite all glitches and stuff ups work on Trinny (the three panel camera) is going really well. Am onto the finishing stage of the/her body. This involves a lot of sanding and patience. When that is done I can get on to fitting the hinges that will hold the sections together. After that I will be making and fitting the holes which means that she will be ready to go in about a week or two. Hopefully no longer than that. The image below shows her closed but with the back panels of the two side sections open.

 7th: Well I have finished off sanding and varnishing Trinny. Busy with the lenses while trying to work out a system for keeping all the panels and wot nots secure and in place. I am trying to make the lenses in batches. Making them one by one seems to take forever. It does mean that you get a lot of duds but if you are careful there shouldn't be too many. To make my lenses I am using drinks cans for my lenses. They have been sanded down to make thge metal thinner. I have then used a biro point to make a slight bump which I then sand down. Usually this creates a tiny hole in the crown. To give an idea of scale the squares in the image below are 10mm x 10mm, the hole in the square in the top left is far too big.

Went up to the Vortrekker monument yesterday to take a photograph of  it with Shirley and then today went into to Joburg to take a photograph of  the Ponte Building with Helga. Going to develop the pics tonight so we will have to see what comes out.

 8th: The photo of the Ponte Building came out alright and while the one of the Voortrekker Monument came out so so. Think though I will do them both again just to see if I can get better shots. I know that the Ponte building image shows some signs of fogging. Maybe because of the covers that I was using as a lens cap, we will see.

 10th: What is it? Well 'it is a box from the olden days that people used to sit on and shit', needless to say Shirley wasn't best pleased with this discription given of her by a passing tourist. We had to go back to the Voortrekker Monument as I had forgotten the battery for my camera in the library. This provided me with the perfect opportunity to try and reshoot the monument while dodging the entry fee. I have to be honest as impressed that I am with its size, this is a building that I don't ever forsee myself falling in love with.

22nd: After a bit of a delay work on Trinny is getting on again. I have started to fix the lenses in place. 

As you can see it is an 'Uber' sophisticated bit of technology that is being used for this particular part of the process. The plan is to start trying to take phtos with Trinny next week. I still have a couple of things to sort out. At the moment the two 'door' sections are just catching a little.

Had an all new South African Experience this week - traffic fines or at least the process of trying to pay for them. The one was a breeze. The other a right pain in the arse. I tried three different points - including the local traffic department - and each of them turned me away. Now I understand why paying bribes to traffic officers is endemic to this country. Its not because the fines are expensive, its just that with the effort that is required to pay a fine it simply not worth the bother of trying to be  a law abiding citizen. Why waste a day trying to pay a measly fine when you can just get the pain and misery over with within the space of a couple of minutes. The benefits are two fold; both money and time are saved. Very tempting indeed.

March 2011

6th: The image above is a photograph taken with Helga. I continued with the experiment of opening half the holes. And then flipping the camera and opening up the other half. This time round I asked our gardener, Big Boy and his wife, Grace to first sit and then I sat with my wife for the second exposure. We are the left part of the image and they are the right.

I have to admit that I often if people here have any idea of the difficulties facing the staff they employ when they scream and shout at them for being late. I had no idea the distance that Big Boy and Grace had to travel until last week, and then I was just gobsmacked. They live some two hours away by taxi (south africa style). it seems ridiculous that they travel so far for work but I guess when you have no other option that is what you do.


 13th: Veni...Vidi...Recordabar...Life eventually catches up with you when you are trying to juggle too many things at once. Fortunately this time round it was only an egg that slipped through the net.

The Intoto opening went well. It was very different from any other opening that I have been to. Usually what happens is that a good percentage of the people that go to openings are artists themselves.  We are there to support, socialise and drink. The opening at Intoto was very different , while every one that was there was supporting, socialising and drinking, a good proportion seemed like they could actually afford to buy something and did not view the snacks as a cheap way to dine out.



27th: Work is underway on a new camera. The idea is to take photographs with it that can then be used in the Leonard Cohen Altar piece that Gordon Froud is curating. As is usual with these things you start off with the idea, then comes the drawings, then you buy the materials, then you start working on the materials and then you screw up leaving you with two options; A: buy new materails or B: curse the gods of fuck ups and just redesign the whole thing. In this case I have gone with option B. Hopefully there will not be any further screw ups as there is no option C.

So how will it work? The camera has three sections. These will close in. As each of the sections is a camera it will take three images when opened up. The two side panels will take photos that will be half the size of the one taken by the central section. 

29th: Plodding along with the three screen camera. I haven't given her a name yet but I am sure that I will think of something in due course. I am still being beset by errors, it has to be said that this is mainly due to a lack of concenration. A couple of the pieces made very good frisbies and actually flew a bit further than expected. As you can see the one section has since been claimed.