Declined

Not too long ago my wife and I got ourselves a dog. A German Shorthaired Pointer to be specific. Since I’ve been keen on photography for quite a long time now (but unfortunately not always very active myself due to various reasons) it’s only natural that many photos will be snapped throughout the little fellas puppyhood and later life.

A friend of mine have been in this interesting group on Flickr called “52 weeks for dogs” where members get to submit one photo of their dog per week throughout the year, and I’ve enjoyed his photos during 2010. Since I thought it sounded like a good challenge and something fun to do, I decided to send in an application to join the group. I figured that it could spur me on to shoot nice and hopefully interesting photos of Ludo (that’s our dog) during the first year of his life.

Apparently I’m not good enough to be let in though, as the group seem to have a rather elitist set of rules. Here’s the very generic response I got a few hours after my application was sent:

Subject: Your request to join 52 Weeks for Dogs has been declined

Hi ejectbmx,

Your request to join 52 Weeks for Dogs has been declined.

The group administrator gave the following reason:

Thank you for your interest in our 52 Weeks project for dogs. As you have probably seen on the group’s front page, unfortunately we have had to make the extremely difficult decision to cap admission on the group. I would love nothing more than to keep the doors open, however, the beauty of this group has always been its intimacy and tight-knit community. In order to maintain that intimacy, we need to keep our numbers manageable so that members are still able to get to know one another and aren’t overwhelmed at keeping up with all of the posted photos.

Although admittance of new members has opened up again for the 2011 52 Weeks project, our waiting list is very long — having been started in Jan 2010 — and we haven’t been able to admit everyone on the list. Also, as per the group’s front page: “admittance is now based on a number of factors, including but not limited to: prior participation in the group, age of the applicant’s dog (because some dogs don’t have as many years left), the reasons and goals given by the applicant for joining, the applicant’s dedication to their dog and dog wellness and awareness, dedication to and active participation on flickr, quality and creativity of photos, the potential contribution to the group and an obvious desire to share, and/or recommendation of other members of this group.” I hope you can understand. My most sincerest of apologies, and we wish you all the best with your dog and your photographic endeavors.

- admin for 52 Weeks for Dogs

Allright then. I’ll just take a photo every day and post it in my own photostream.
Maybe one or two of my photos might be of high enough quality, or ‘creative’ enough to be considered for late admission in 2011 or for next year.

Oh, but I forgot…
I will most likely only be considered if I’ve also been a member previously and thus a part of the ‘tight-knit community’. Wanting to shoot photos of my dog and publish a photo every week is probably not proof enough of being dedicated to the dog in question. And I obviously don’t have a desire to share — I wanted to join the group in order to NOT post photos…

On second thought, I think I will pass — even if I’d one day be considered for admission.
Have fun in your group for internal admiration.

Trails Photo Exhibition

Raine Turnbull is a talented BMX photographer who is holding an all trails photo exhibition dubbed ‘Into the Woods’ this Saturday at Western Creek Scout Hall in Dillon Close, Canberra. I have no idea where this place is, but it’s probably somewhat close to a skatepark because a jam is being held there as well. The jam starts at 3pm and the exhibition opens its doors at 5pm.

As it happens, the event is also sponsored by Backbone BMX. Good to see that kind of support for the scene and its riders.

Check it out if you’re in the area!
Click the thumbnail for full size flyer.

Phototech

Cooper’s got a new feature series called ‘Phototech’ up on the Focalpoint site. As the name implies it’s like a photography school of sorts. Should be useful for all you aspiring photographers out there — or for anyone who just wants an insight into the makings of a good photo.

The second instalment that covers ‘Depth of field’ is up now. Go check it out!

James Wade — Photobook project 2009 retrospective

James Wade is a photographer, among other things, from South Australia. Back in May 2009 he started this thing he chose to call “the photobook project”, which is basically a monthly collection of his most recent photos. I’ve enjoyed flipping through the photos every month but for some reason I have not posted about it here yet, which is a little strange.

That’s why I got the idea to pick some highlights from each month and show them here.

First up, May: Action filled street, unconventional angle. Caught my eye.

June: You can never go wrong with a well executed tabletop and good composition.

July: Just a classic stylish air. Almost out of the frame, I like that.

August: One of the negatives of rinding, something we all have to expect sooner or later.

September: Can’t put my finger on it, but I just like it. Blue skies… what’s not to like?

October: Sometimes washed out and overexposed is good. Gives me a good dream like feeling.

November: I guess there’s something about me and cut off riders… I just like how not having the whole rider in the frame can be more interesting sometimes. This is a good example.

December: I like the colors. It’s also the time of year that require some way to cool off.

Don’t forget to check out James’ other projects ugzine.com and Dishonour Clothing. Also you should browse his portfolio.

FP photo gallery update

Mr. Focalpoint, aka Cooper Brownlee, just posted up some new photo gallery pics on the site. One is of Jadan Roxburgh and the other of of yours truly. I’m not gonna re-post the pics here, because they belong to Cooper and I’m sure he wants your clicks.

Clickityclick on the thumbnail below to be taken to the photo gallery. Be sure to check out all the photos, he’s got some darn nice stuff there!

oneloveonelife

Cooper Brownlee of Focalpoint Magazine has a new site up — One Love, One Life, which is a combined photo blog and portfolio. Good thing to have since photography is an integral part of his professional career. On the site there are photos not just of BMX, and the blog section tells you a little about each photo and the background for it. Interesting indeed!

Cooper also recently got a Shooter feature on the Dig BMX site. Check it out for some good words from one of the most BMX-dedicated people in the world.

Holga 35mm mod

A few years back when I used to shoot way more photos than I do now I was really into experimenting with my Holga camera. For those of you who are not familiar with Holgas, it’s basically an all plastic camera (even the lens) that shoots on medium format film and often creates interesting and characteristic photos. I figured out this mod for the camera so that you could shoot normal film in it. Here’s what you have to do:

• Get some thin rubber bands, a few peices of foam rubber (I took left over padding from a helmet), a completetly opaque (non transparent) piece of plastic or similar and some sticky tape.
• Wrap some rubber bands around each end of the film spool to create a narrower space for the film to be rolled up on.
• Cut some foam rubber to size so it holds the regular film canister in place in it’s compartment. The thinner piece of foam rubber is optional. I just found it to help keep the canister in place even better.
• Use the opaque material and sticky tape to cover the little window on the camera back. The normal 35mm film does not have the protective backing like medium format film, so any light from there would damage the film.
• Insert your film canister. Make sure the film will wind up properly on the spool. Put the camera back on and shoot away. Remember to turn 35 “clicks” on the film winding knob between each photo. It’s usually enough. Do a few less of you want the shots to slightly overlap — it’s a pretty cool effect.

NOTE! There is no rewind function on this. So when you’ve finished the roll of film you will need to enter a completely blacked out room to unload the film and manually wind it back into the canister.
When developing, remember to tell the people at the lab to NOT cut the film since the frames are oddly sized.

Here are 2 shots of what the resulting photos can be like. Sorry about the shitty quality. I only had the old prints I made ages ago and I had to photograph them with my camera as I don’t have a scanner.

Photography — Kai Kuusisto

My old friend from Finland, Kai Kuusisto, has been doing a lot of photography in the past couple of years and he’s producing some really good stuff! He’s also a great rider, so of course the photography is heavily BMX focused, but he’s got a lof of lifestyle and art phots as well.

Just the other day he got a gallery of snapshots from the BMX worlds in Jugendpark in Cologne, Germany posted on the Ride BMX website. Check it here.

Also I’ve added the link to his website in the links section.
kaikuusisto.com

Simple photos

A large portion of the Simple team was recently in Denmark for the yearly Roskilde festival of music and drunkenness. The festival is now over and it’s road trip time. They started out riding a few spots in Copenhagen and there’s a whole lot of pictures up on the Simple site.

Now they’ve moved on to check out what Sweden has to offer and I’m hoping on updates from there as well.

Toycamera Analogcolor

I know it’s very “in” right now with vintage looking photos and distressed type layouts. Aside from the current trend I’ve always like the imperfect look of old photos ever since I started to get into photography many years ago.