I can’t quite remember why I took this photo.
I think it was due to finding it interesting that a rower was facing away from a barrier.
I do like how it works in terms of suggested interpretation. I also like the scenery as I think there’s a nice layering going on with the various structures.
I hope you enjoy.
A hot day is here and soon I will be heading out into it, which is something that I do not want to do, but sometimes you do the things you don’t want to do in order to do things for other people, or something.
To clarify, I don’t want to be in the heat. I want to help out someone with something they asked me to do, but I don’t want to be out in the heat. Ultimately though the temperature is not that big a thing and I’m just complaining over something that is more of an inconvenience than something actually worth complaining about, which I guess is the way it goes sometimes, but that sometimes is not something I should be bothering with at the moment. What I really should be bothering with is the preparing to prepare to get ready before I head on out. Still, there is a little bit of time so I think I’ll be okay so long as I keep an eye on the time and get things done in a timely manner.
Of course I will be making some time to go for a walk beforehand. Help me think about how I’m going to approach this photographing of which I am going to conduct. Also help get some of the nervousness out of my system, though don’t know if it will help or if it will exacerbate the issue. Either way, there will be some lovely views and of course lovely views are something nice to appreciate and behold and all of that other stuff.
OF course I need to live for the views and the scenery and the experience of experiencing it all, but whether that does or does not happen is another story entirely. I think I’d much rather look to try and capture things in a way that I feel is interesting in a way that the way that something is shot may invoke something, whether that be discussion or some sort of mood, or just some sort of noted enjoyment.
I want to capture things in a way that makes me think that they’re worth showing in the way that I’ve captured them, but of course getting a good photo and getting a good photo that is worth showing off are two different things. Most of the stuff I share here is not worth showing, but I share it here as I enjoy sharing my “work”. If the audience gets something out of it, then to some extent I’m content. If the audience doesn’t, then at least t hey checked it out.
However, the push is always for quality over quantity and I hope that the stuff I share is worth sharing more often than it’s not; at least, at the time of sharing that is. When I look over some of the photos I’ve shared here it becomes apparent that a lot of the stuff is not, but I still share anyway as you never know who will get something out of something.
I think I’ve gone slightly away from the topic. This is meant to be about helping out a friend with a thing and therefore I should probably write about that, but perhaps that really was just a springboard to whatever this is now about, which is photography. I think I’ve just got an itch that I need to scratch and doing this is doing the scratching of which I am doing, but perhaps the itch is being missed and as such I’m just rambling about photography, though in some ways that’s fine. Talking about photography is fine.
Maybe I’d much rather talk about music, writing and “drawing” (in the sense that whilst I do sketch on the odd occasion, I’m talking about MS Paint stuff here) and maybe that desire to talk about things that aren’t photography says more about my relationship to photography than it does my relationship to anything else. This is assuming that I have a predilection for discussing those other things over photography and maybe I do. However, that probably isn’t something worth thinking about at the moment, but now I have a desire to take my sketch book with me when I head out so that, whilst I am trying to kill time, I can do a bit of drawing. It’s not something I’ve done in a few months and I’m feeling that particular itch also, so maybe I need to double my scratching.
Maybe I won’t do the walk and thus leave home a little later and go straight to photographing the thing I’m photographing. It’s going to be outside but hopefully I’ll have a little bit of shade. Not sure yet. Depends on how the sun travels through the sky.
Wait; it depends on where the sun is when the photographing begins. Nothing I can’t work with, however. Just need to make sure I work with it rather than against it, which is doable. All of this is doable.
This is something that is going to happen and I’m going to do it and hopefully there will be some good photos to come out of the whole thing. Maybe there won’t be, but so long as I did the best I could, that’s the main thing. It will allow me to think about photography in a different way once more and thus be a good challenge, I think. On a non-personal level, I get to do something for someone I know and get to capture something that is about them, so hopefully I do well by them and get what it is that they’re looking for (or at the very least reveal things that they weren’t expecting), thus capturing a moment in time that they can treasure in a way that doesn’t just pertain to the thought component of memory.
Well, I should probably start getting ready shortly. Need to make sure I’m prepared. Need to be so I can make sure I capture the moment.
The time it took to write one thousand words: 16:59:80
I was hoping for something fictional, but instead this thing came out.
I’m mostly fine with this. I wasn’t feeling like writing “personal” stuff, but it’s what came out, so… yeah.
Written at home.
It is morning and this will go up in the morning and there are a few things of which I need to plough through if I am to leave home at the time that I am to leave, but of course I will get through them as I do them, so here’s hoping that they get done all in a timely manner, or something.
Of course this all depends on numerous things of which are numerous and vast, but of course that depending on depending on things depends on other things and there is so much depending that it all piles onto each other and then I have little else to say about the whole thing, so really I should wrap this up now so I don’t go about embarrassing myself with the inane rambling that I usually do, as that leads to some paths I don’t want to walk and I am trying to not be a comedian of the laughing at one’s own expense type. That is not something I want to do. I want to be taken seriously and seriously is how I shall demand to be taken.
So… yeah. This is where this bit of writing ends for the day. You don’t need to see any more and therefore I won’t write another word as I want to end this here. It does not need to end later. There is little else that can be said, other than “I need to get on with things so I better start getting on with things”, which is what I am doing at the moment. I am preparing to edit some things and write some other things and then do some other things after that editing and writing. There are a few things out there that require attention.
Of course perhaps there will be some more writing after this bit of writing. However, it will not be related to this bit of writing and will instead embrace something different. That is the hope anyway. Whether it does or does not is an entirely different story and that is not one that I feel much like engaging in at the present moment as there are other things that I want to tackle and all that tackling takes time and effort; both things I do not have much in high quantities, though that is (perhaps) untrue and I’m just pulling your leg, but then with all of that being said it does not add up to much and so I’ll just look at other things that I need to tackle before I go toward the next thing which is whatever comes after this.
So I guess that with all of that being said, seeing as this bit of writing wrapped up already, this is where this bit of writing ends and there is little else that can be done about that. I think that knowing where to end this is a good thing, so I shall say that this ends here.
The time it took to write five-hundred words: 05:29:75
This feels like cleaning the palette, so to speak.
Written at home.
When I took this photo I was trying to capture the trolley in a certain way.
Not sure if I got quite what I was hoping for, but I think I got pretty close and I’m happy with the result.
I hope you enjoy.
Gotta do that no faffing about thing this morning. Need to power up and power on and get on with the things that I need to do. Need to slay the obligation beast and bury it and pay my respects. It was a good fight and one that I would happily have again… wait; no it isn’t. I don’t want to fight that thing ever again and it was not a good fight in any way, shape or form.
There are other things that need to be fought and slayed and they shall fall in line. It will all happen in some predetermined order, though of course there needs to be some sort of implication that the order is not predetermined, despite how flimsy that implication is.
Personally I’d prefer the implication to be incredibly flimsy as that makes more fun for me, or something, but that is not something that I will get into at the present moment as there are other things that I want to talk about. Of course I won’t talk about them and instead go on an aimless diatribe about how I won’t be explaining the implication thing and moving onto other things, thus taking up far more time than necessary, but that is the way it goes here and sometimes that is the better way of doing things, or something.
Of course I need some space and preparation to do all of that and of course I won’t make the time to have the space to be able to prepare, so therefore this is doomed already. It was probably doomed before I even started writing, but there is always the direction of “up” that can be taken and therefore I could go “up”, but who knows if that is really leading “down” or not?
Certainly not I, for there are many a thing I do not know and this is (of course) just one of those many a thing. Therefore, where do I go from here? Do I cross the crossroads and then go somewhere away from the crossroads, creating my own path, or do I follow the linearity of it all and let that take me to the next battle?
I can feign surprise both ways, but there needs to be a decision made and I don’t know how to make that decision at the present moment which of course creates its own path that I may or may not follow.
Maybe instead of all of this I shall just dig downward and then tunnel my way away from this situation in the hopes that I find something that I can get behind. That might present itself as something far more ideal, but of course it might not. There are so many options here and I just need to go slay some concepts and then continue on my merry way. That is what I need to do, but of course it may not be done, unless it is, leading to it being done.
The time it took to write five-hundred words: 05:45:17
Not sure what to make of this one.
Written at home.
Today there was a bit of walking in my day.
I walked through a place where I had previously lived and went around Blackwattle bay.
I walked across ANZAC Bridge for the first time in a long time and that was a thing that I did today.
Why did I do these things?
I had some time to kill.
Well, truthfully I factored it into the events of the day. I had to meet up with someone in the morning so I decided to have breakfast at my old regular cafe, then go for a lengthy walk and maybe think about how things had changed, or something. Not sure. Just mostly wanted to see a place I hadn’t been to in a while.
Of course these things mark changes in scenery and location to ourselves and as such we can see the act of progress after it happened whilst it is happening at the same time and that makes for some interesting contrasts. Some change is good and some is bad and when you want to prevent the bad stuff, it can often become something that seems insurmountable. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t.
Of course the good change is always welcome, even if it doesn’t seem like something good at the time and thus there is fighting against it in some way. Sometimes that’s just the way things are.
Of course what has changed is both the external and the internal but there still remains something resolutely familiar about it all, as though it is the experience and memory that has helped to shape it all. Not just those, but those certainly are a big part of it and they can thus inform perspective and opinion and a bunch of other things.
Sometimes the temperature is not one that you remember but it too can help to shape the feel and general outlook when in an area that was once familiar in a way that it no longer is, but of course it doesn’t get completely in the way of things for the scenery is painted and you’re just there experiencing it in perhaps a different way than the last time you had experienced it, or the time before that, or the time before that…
And on and on it goes and we reflect and ruminate and sometimes miss the past, but leave it behind for, as good as those times may have been, it is in the present which somehow manages to be better, even when it might not necessarily be so as there still is a chance for positive change and sometimes it is better to be alive than thinking of a time when you were alive. We don’t live in the past and although it is sometimes a nice place, it is a distant place and it’s not one worth trying to get back to as you then leave the present behind and all that other stuff.
So yeah; it was a pretty nice walk.
The time it took to write five-hundred words: 06:45:13
My plan was to write about the walk.
Instead this came about.
Written at home.
The day starts early. It starts with waking up. There are things that need to be done and there are things that need to be done in order to progress through some sort of imaginary obstacle course.
The course is long and lengthy and sometimes it stretches far beyond what the imagination can see. It constantly changes shape and reforms itself as I try to get through it one step at a time.
Whilst getting through the obstacle course I occasionally decide to pause and just sit there. Often in these times the course ends up shortening itself quite considerably. So long as I sit there long enough, the exit approaches and I have less to do to get out. However, this has the undesired effect of making the next obstacle course longer than I would have hoped and so therefore I end up having to work that little bit harder to get to the end.
I could argue that this is not my fault, but of course it all rests on me to take care of the issues at hand and thus complete the course rather than let it continually elongate over successive days. However, I do like sitting down and so the course will keep on reshaping itself into successively longer forms and there will be nothing that I can do about it unless I get the doing of the things done and then move onto other things.
Perhaps I will exit the obstacle course and find some sort of beach on which I can just relax all day and therefore do nothing other than relax. That would make for a lazy process and a lazy proceeding, but perhaps that’s just the way that I am feeling and as such that might just be the best course of action that I could take in any given situation, which might just mean I might just do.
I shall cast off all obligation and abandon the obstacle course and then do this thing instead. I will relax all day. I may even go for a small swim. There shall be much doing nothing and it will be just what the metaphorical doctor ordered, so that is what I will do. I will throw all obligation by the wayside and embrace this thing that I would prefer to do, which involve very little and reading my book, and some photography and some writing and some swimming and a few other things, but mostly doing nothing. Nothing is the way to the thing and the thing that involves relaxing is the thing that I shall embrace so that I can relax and do nothing and all of those other things that I want to do that involve doing either nothing, or as little as possible.
However, before all of that I need to run an obstacle course so I can get a few things out of the way, so I will do that, then discard everything, then do a lot of nothing.
The time it took to write five-hundred words: 05:39:48
Not sure what I was going for when I wrote this.
Written at home.
I think I may have shared a photo of these apartments before, but I’m not entirely sure.
I like the contrast between the reflection and the actual buildings. I think it works in terms of showing how the same thing can be represented in different ways.
I also like how the apartments feel “heavily unnatural” (so to speak). Even though there is a lot of development in this scene, they make for an uncomfortable feel sitting among the vegetation and The Cooks River.
This is my submission into Leanne Cole‘s “Monochrome Madness” for this week.
I suggest checking out Leanne’s photography, as well as checking out what other people submit.
A lot of what people are submitting will likely end up here.
I hope you enjoy.
I’m gonna rush through this one as I should have done this earlier in the day, but I didn’t, so consider yourselves warned, unless for some reason you’re fine with me rushing my writing more than usual, in which case, strap yourselves in as I don’t know what I am doing after this sentence concludes, which may pose a problem as that means I don’t know where I’m going and I don’t know as to where I go from here and all of that other stuff, so there you go and all of that other stuff and so on and so forth and… yeah.
So anyway, here is the writing and the writing is presented and I am going to get the writing written as that is what writing does when it is written, which is being done, or something. I may shake my head at the silliness of all of this, but right now I do not and instead focus on the writing as I am writing it so that I can say that I wrote what I wrote and it was written and all of that other stuff.
So the question that needs to be asked is “Where am I going with this?”, and I think that is a fair question to ask. Of course I cannot say. It is not because I don’t know, as I do know. It is because I can’t say as it is a secret and if I reveal anything, then the wheels will come off and there will be some sort of downfall and as the rain falls and fire ascends from the heavens, there will be some sort of tut-tutting and I don’t know as to where I would go from there. My hands would be tied and I would have revealed far too much and therefore there would be no stopping me at that point as I would have said too much and all of that other stuff.
Other than that, it is a secret. Wait. I already said that. It is THE secret. It is something that I shall never reveal for as long as I can be bothered. Until that day comes, not one word or hint or suggestion will escape from my lips. Maybe my ears and eyes, but not my lips. That is what I have to say about all of this and this is what I will feel compelled to stick to, and no one person can make me change my mind. Not even many a person. There is no turning back and I shall not whisper a single sound about the matter of which I am not talking about as that is what I will avoid doing.
Now, with all of that being said I must attend to other things. I am needed elsewhere, though that elsewhere is here, so therefore I shall continue on with this path I have created and find a way to bring this all to some sort of rest.
The time it took to write five-hundred words: 04:50:52
This was a thing that I wrote.
Not sure if I had fun writing this, but I know it wasn’t an unpleasant time.
Written at home.
This review took far longer than I had hoped.
I created a WordPad document for the review two days after 10 came out, so I suspect that I started writing the review either late October or early November.
I wrote some notes and then left it for a while. When I came back to the review I added a lot more.
December came and my focus went elsewhere for a while, but I tried to make a few attempts at editing what I had written. Due to being tired, as well as a desire to not look at what I had written the attempts would end shortly after they commenced.
Earlier this month I almost scrapped the whole thing and started again. Instead of doing so I started working on editing. Whilst slow at first, as I reworded sentences, moved things around and removed a lot of sentences whilst adding a few, both speed and efficiency increased.
I’m glad I stuck it out, but I feel as though maybe I should have scrapped the whole thing. This isn’t a well-written review. I don’t feel it says enough about the album at all. There’s suggestion, but perhaps not enough to get across what I was trying to say, which is that whilst 10 could have been much better, it still is a good album.
The upside is that now it is out of the way and I can work on other reviews.
This one is shorter than the previous three I shared. At the moment I’m fine with that, but I’m feeling a strong desire to write more akin to what I described in the preface of this review whilst also making more use of long-form. Maybe the best way to put it is long-form impressionistic writing, or long-form abstract writing. Not sure. I still want to make sure that my intent is clear where possible, however.
Most of my interview and review work now appears on Culture Eater.
My colleague and I set up a Patreon to further develop Culture Eater as a source of good quality arts coverage from both ourselves and our contributors.
We’re looking at what we can give to supporters as we don’t want to set up a one way relationship, so suggestions are welcome. Podcast Eater is one of the things we’ve got going.
Please consider supporting, or at least sharing the Patreon page with others. Please also check out what our wonderful contributors are contributing.
I hope you enjoy.
—
10 (Jū) starts with “You” (“おまえ”), an energetic track that mostly follows a straightforward, high energy route. There are a few twists and turns along the way but the flow doesn’t lose sight of its path. Quick and punchy percussion, passionate vocals, and (mostly) hard-hitting guitar and thick bass keep the song sounding thick and full; no doubt aided in part by tricot’s deft and vigorous performance.
From there tricot play around and push outward a bit. “Summer Night Town” (“サマーナイトタウン”) sounds like it takes queues from disco and “WARP” from disco and funk. The intricate “Box” (“箱”) goes for rhythmic interplay between all instruments, whilst keeping percussion in strong focus. Comparatively “Fried Rice” (“炒飯”) keeps things much more simple, laid-back and airy.
“I Won’t Give It” (“あげない”) starts sounding relaxed and soothing and remains as such. The bass is thick and the drums strike out, but the song doesn’t push itself as some energetic rush. Near its end the song blooms into a wider version of itself. From start to finish it sticks to one pattern, but tricot make the most of it through how they grow the song. It’s direct, but expansive and atmospheric enough to stop it feeling one-note.
Essentially 10 is an exploratory album which works in some places and not so much others. “Box’s” middle section is an appreciable shift, but its adaptation for closing the song, whilst enjoyable, doesn’t gel with what felt like a natural conclusion. “Prank’s” (“悪戯”) angular playing drives a strong melody forward until, in the second half it almost suddenly and awkwardly finds its momentum halted for what feels like an enjoyable, yet intentionally awkward jam on the opening verse’s pattern.
“Ghost Ship” (“幽霊船”) sees tricot bringing in a heavy melodic focus and keeps itself balanced quite well. There are some smooth shifts that feel playful without taking away from the emotional thrust; At the same time song’s main melody and its big choruses, whilst appreciable, speak far too much of familiarity, almost as though tricot found themselves willingly lost in a long-gone crowd. It’s also something tricot have done far, far better with 3‘s “Wabi-Sabi” (“侘寂”), which held a similar approach whilst not feeling so firmly rooted in the past.
One 10‘s highlights is the album’s version of “Laststep”. A song seemingly about desiring some sort of freedom, it keeps things at a “slow” flow, allowing both the lyrics and music to carry a sense of heartfelt longing. In a sense it ramps up and allows itself to flow with ease. Its closing passage is much harder in sound than its start, but the song doesn’t lose sight of itself at any given point.
Having “Laststep” end the album would make for a great choice. It neatly concludes and ties up a variable album and sort of bookends this period of tricot. Being one of their earlier-released songs in a new form that sounds definitive the whole way through helps to bookend tricot’s first ten years as a band. However, more importantly, it plays to tricot’s strengths well without announcing them.
Instead the album ends with “Body” (“體”). It starts as a tightly-constructed drive into something “heavier” before becoming that sort of unravels itself (so to speak). Without saying too much else, it fits with in terms of tricot experimenting with their sound. However, it feels more like its inclusion was so there were ten tracks rather than for what it provided. Maybe it’s a hint on how the next album will sound; maybe not.
“Body” is a solid song and it sounds like a closer, but it doesn’t quite cut it as it sounds too far and away from everything else to quite work.
10 is a mixed bag; Whilst it is enjoyable, it is inconsistent in places. As a group tricot know how to work with each other to get the most out of their music. As such, the performances are excellent; all the guitar, bass, vocal and percussion really knocks it out of the park. It’s difficult to fault that aspect, as well as tricot’s desire to grow and refine. That said, some stuff transitions awkwardly and some songs don’t feel as though they developed enough. Perhaps more refinement was necessary.
Considering that 10 is (in a sense) celebratory and commemorative, the sense of experimenting works as it allows tricot to touch on their past without being completely beholden to it. Not everything hits the mark, but overall none of the songs are bad and the album makes for a satisfying listen.
10 is available here.
Stupidity Hole 