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Narrative ideas

Television and I have a long complicated relationship.

We were only able to afford black and white televisons as I grew up. By the time I had moved out I still couldn’t justify the cost of a new colour TV so bought second hand ones for many years. By the time I was in a ‘commited relationship’ we aquired a discarded colour TV. Eventually at some point after, we bought a small colour TV.

In the interim however, for many years I was either too busy or studying to really engage in any serious TV watching. Often it was the late night rock and roll video show called Rage on the ABC that garnered the most attention from me.

At some point while studying my undergraduate degree, I decide to record some programming then take that recording into the Video editing suites to take stills from it. Late one night I stumbled upon a film starring Tom Waits, called ‘Big Time’ as well. It was a TV adaption of a live performance based on the album of the same name. Those pictures have been in my archive relativley unseen. Now that I have a scanner I can share them with the world.

Here’s a screengrab of them loosely organised in Neofinder. At some point I will sequence them and either publish them as a Zine or just make a gallery online.

screengrab of the TV stills I made in the late 1990s using film a tripod and a video editing suite

Now of course screens dominate my life. I often sit watching the things that interest me on free to air TV, while using at least 1 or 2 devices to do other things while the ads are on.

About the author.

Stuart Murdoch is an Artist and Part time Photo Educator, with over 30 years of teaching experience. He has also nearly 40 years of silver gelatin printing under his belt. He contemplates many things photographic. His ruminations include his own work as well other’s and the aspects of technology that impact on the sharing and consumption of Photographs. And of course the act of making and taking photographs in the 21st century. Photobooks sit quite high on his radar too these days.
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New Photobook & Sundry Upcoming Events

A selection of books made since about 2004 to 2022

I am in the end stages of a new photobook. It’s titled Not Landscape. I am hoping the print run of 20 copies will be here in time for the photo 2022 weekend photobook fair 21st and 22nd of May. This book came together relatively quickly. After discovering a website of obscure avant garde art UbuWeb, I watched a rare video by John Baldessari, titled “I shall not make any more boring art”. Baldessari had also made a series of photographs in the 70s that poked fun at the “rules” of photography, seen here on his website. Also here.

Concurrently I had been mulling over how I made an earlier book using Blurb. ‘What’s the ugliest part of your body?’. When making it. I had decided to compromise on its layout and not crop the images resulting in a book that few people handled correctly as it was landscape orientation. As a consequence it had lots of wasted white space. I feel this didn’t add anything to the idea. This time I decided that I would print full bleed, and use pictures that were portrait in orientation. I also wanted to add some text to engage the reader. So after perusing my library and searching the internet I found of series of snippets of text and quotes that posed pointed questions about landscape, landscape art, and landscape photography. With these two ideas in mind I collated as many images as I could that were portrait in format, ie Not Landscape, the book’s title, printed out a set of them. Then started editing them into a book.

A spread from the first draft of my 2022 book, Not Landscape.

I have some copies of my ‘What’s the ugliest part of your body?’ left. These are $15.00 each, and after making them now consider it unlikely I will make a second edition.

The cover of my 2017 book, What's the ugliest part of your body? — The cover of my 2017 book, What’s the ugliest part of your body?

I have one copy of my book Contact for sale as well.

Contact my Pandemic inspired photobook from 2020/2021

So pop on down to the Melbourne Art Book Fair this weekend 17th to the 20th of March, to purchase a copy of either ‘What’s the ugliest part of your body?’ or Contact. Hopefully Not Landscape will be on offer as well. Our stand is Melbourne Photobook Collective.

Alternatively the Photo 2020 is running a photobook weekend there will be some of my books there too, 21st May [12 to 7pm] and 22nd May [12 to 4pm] at PSC 37-47 Thistlethwaite St, South Melbourne.

About the author.

Ten Years Ago Today

Ten years ago today is a series of pictures I blogged on both my old WordPress blog, and my old blogger blog. I now also use tumblr as a separate standalone platform.

I continue this idea here on this blog, when it suits me.

This picture I made 10 years ago today on the 22-11-2020. It was part of a series I was exploring at the time, that looked at light and time. The project shifted focus when we renovated our home, and I picked it up from a different angle with a different set of parameters.

2010-11-22 19:52:52 from the facing north series

About the author.

New Photobook Idea

I have begun working on a new photobook idea. It is nothing novel. Just pictures of the 14 or so public phones that are situated throughout Sunshine. This screen grab from Lightroom showing 11 that I have already photographed.

The idea has sprung from a larger project I am working on about Sunshine, the place I live. I have repeatedly returned to several places around the suburb. At one point I noticed the phone box on the corner of Station Place and Sun Crescent which I photographed. I then found a website that lists all the public phones in Sunshine, and in one afternoon photographed 11 of them.

My research has turned up some interesting information. I will add some of this to the final book. At this point I’m unclear if I will use film or digital to make the pictures for the final book.

About the author.

Learning in the time of the pandemic

cover of photoshelter's 22 projects guide — cover of photoshelter’s 22 projects guide

This morning in my in-box was an email from Photoshelter. It had a link to a projects at home idea document, within that document a link to John Baldessari’s tasks he set for his own students. I am really like Baldessari’s you can download it from SFMOMA’s site the Photoshelter one was good too, access it here.

Here’s a quick a taster of Baldessari’s:-

“Using photography, prove a point as in a science fair diorama, display, tableau, such as: ‘How quickly does bread mold under certain conditions?’, ‘Is plant growth hampered by use of conditioned water?’, ‘What is the effect of colored lights on plants?’” He goes on to suggest a few more ideas, but you get the picture: use your camera to conduct a “scientific” inquiry into something that makes you curious.