Welcome to Paradise

Welcome to Paradise

"Would the swimmers to the south," crackled the bored voice from the speaker above me, "please return to the shore. It is not safe to swim outside the flags. Please, come back to the shore and swim between the flags ONLY."

Anyone who's been to Florida (or seen Miami Vice) will be familiar with the collision of natural beauty, tourism, and commercial development. If Australia has an equivalent, it's here - Surfers Paradise, on the Gold Coast in Queensland.

A place once known for unending white sand stretching off into the distance has, in recent years, become better known for theme parks, marine animal shows, 'schoolies' (school holiday binge-drinking sessions), 'bikies' (motorcycle gangs), and gold-bikini-clad meter maids...

I Live To See Another Day

PHOTOGRAPHY AND TEXT BY STEVE SHIPMAN

I Live

I live with cancer. My life was turned upside down with that diagnosis five months ago. I struggled to get to grips with a life possibly curtailed to 12 months or so. Actually, I can't get to grips with that idea at all. It sits in my mind as a dark point in time, not that far ahead.

I am, or was, a reasonably successful photographer shooting mostly weddings - 30 a year or so. I made a painless transition to working with a brace of XPro2s, and a bevy of primes. I closed the business. I began the endurance test that is chemotherapy every three weeks - feeling crap, feeling ok, feeling good, then doing it all again. During the feeling good week, I am able to focus on my well-being a little more - enjoying my food, having more energy to see friends, and getting out with my camera, my beloved X100F. I live

To See

to see my two daughters growing into capable young women. To see my grandchildren one day. To see everything with more clarity, understanding and meaning and distil all of that into a photograph. My state of mind affects my image making profoundly, some days are better than others. Street photography isn't easy, and for a long time I avoided including people, not having the nerve, thinking it was too confrontational. I was simply looking for light, shapes, and textures. That's changing. The near invisibility of the X100F makes any shot possible. It all comes down to my own vision and reflexes.

Photographing on the street makes me happy. It's a brilliant distraction from the legal, financial and medical paperwork that needs my attention. It fulfils me creatively. The more I look the more I see. I'm getting bolder at including people in my images, and I complicate things further by seeking colour combinations and juxtapositions that I hope will lift the images to another level. To see

Another Day

another day is now a gift I seize with both hands and which I no longer take for granted. Cancer is an insidious disease, creeping malignantly and silently along its deadly course, robbing my life to feed its own. I have had four months of chemotherapy, along with the expected side effects (hair loss and fatigue) and some unexpected (a twice-torn retina and numb finger tips). I am very fortunate to now know that the treatment is working, and the tumours are shrinking. I have a temporary reprieve, and can relax a little. I have time to rebuild my body, and build on this body of work.

Yes, cancer has changed me. I'm more focussed. I try to cut through life's clutter more decisively. I make sure I have things planned and things to look forward to. I spend time with my family and friends, without whom I would have crumbled psychologically weeks ago. I have a joint exhibition next year to focus on, a couple of self-published books to plan, and a lot more images to create. I feel positive and excited and more conscious. Street photography is both rewarding and frustrating. That's its appeal - I never know what's round the corner. And if I don't get the shot this time, there's nearly always another day.

Editors note: Take a look at Steve's impressive celebrity portraits HERE and make sure to follow his personal blog HERE

The Gentle Breeze Of The Blast

Photography & Text by Derek Clark

I had planned to follow-up my H2O post with another elements based piece about Air and decided to shoot something at Whitelee Windfarm on the 23rd of May. But that morning I woke up to the news that a suicide bomber had killed 19 people and injured many more at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester (UK). More details found their way into each news bulletin as the morning progressed and the death total rose to 22.

I eventually got to the windfarm around 1:30pm and decided to listen to Ryuichi Sakamoto's latest album ‘Async’ as I began to photograph my subject. Ryuichi is in the middle of a battle with cancer and this album is heavily influenced by life and death. A perfect choice of music for this place and time. The mixture of vast open space with the eerie sounds of Async, mixed with the noise of the turbines that crept past my earphones. Then track 8 'Fullmoon' started to play and the voice of American author Paul Bowles spoke these words...

"Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really! How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood? Some afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it. Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that.
How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty, yet it all seems limitless."

Some of the victims of the Manchester bombing were children, the youngest being just eight years old. They'll never get the chance to look back on a special afternoon of their childhood. Likewise the countless others that have felt the wrath of western drones. It's all too easy after a devastating event like this, to see everything as good or bad, black or white. But there is no black and there is no white, only grey.

All pictures were shot with the Fujifilm X-Pro2 and the Lensbaby Composer Pro with Edge 80 optic. I used the Acros+R film simulation and applied a tone curve (S Curve), plus Clarity in Lightroom to the JPEG's. I also applied a vignette to some of the pictures. I shot RAW files too, but didn't use them.

Walk The Line

Walk The Line

As cities grow, they evolve. But sometimes evolution is cyclical, it seems.

Sydney streets have been torn up before, many times, and for many reasons - this time, it's light rail, coming up the heart of the downtown and through the neighbourhood where I live; but it's not the first time trams have run through many of these streets. They're literally finding some of the old tracks when excavating to make the new ones.

It's just the first time in a generation or two; and, in the same way some people opposed the original trams and had them removed, some people are against the new ones coming back.

Meanwhile, these old buildings have seen it all before...

X100 Series : A Brief History Of Time

TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY DEREK CLARK

Back in the first quarter of 2011 when I was lucky enough to get one of the first X100's in the country, I had no idea how this little camera would change everything for me. Fast forward to the last quarter of 2016 and I'm being asked to be a part of the Aquarius project and test the pre-production X100F. I'm so glad the embargo has finally been lifted and I can now talk about this new supercharged X100. You can find my review and other X100F posts on my site by clicking HERE , but I wanted to showcase a few pictures I've shot over the last five+ years with the X100, X100S, X100T and now the X100F. I hope you enjoy.

IMPACT

PHOTOGRAPHY AND TEXT BY DEREK CLARK

My family has been cruising for a long time. By that I mean we have been luckier than most when it comes to tragedy and drama (maybe a little of the latter now and then). So it’s always been at the back of my mind that every good run must come to an end someday. That day came on the 17th of November when I was sitting in a coffee shop with my two photographer friends.

My phone rang and I checked the screen and saw it was my dad, so I answered it straight away. He told me that he had bad news about my sister. Bad news on this occasion was an understatement. He said that she had been diagnosed with a brain tumour. Time slowed, my heart rate rose and I felt everything from my shoulders to my stomach go into free-fall. Nothing can prepare you for a kick like this. I knew Joyce had been taking seizures lately and had been getting tests done, but I never thought for a minute that it would be anything serious. Not this. Not my family. Not my sister. But cruising was over. Time caught up, the red button had been pressed and the missiles had not only flown, but found their target and hit with full force. IMPACT.

Within days she was under a surgeons knife, in the form of a four hour operation to perform a biopsy, resulting in the picture you see above. The size of the scar and the metal staples that hold it together have taken something that wasn’t visible, but lurking beneath the surface, and brought it out into the open. All of this shit and I haven’t heard a single complaint. She takes it on the chin and moves on.

It’s too dangerous to try to remove the tumour, but the results from the biopsy say that the size of it can be reduced. So weeks or months of Radio and Chemotherapy are stretched out in front of her. I always think this time of year is all about looking back at what you have done and planning ahead for the year to come. But at least for now, the future isn’t what it used to be.

So right now it feels as though there is nothing much to celebrate. But. Celebrate courage. Celebrate modern medicine. Celebrate the man that dedicates his life to Neurology. Celebrate a country with a health service that treats everyone equally, not just the ones with medical insurance. But also celebrate the little girl in the old black and white photo with faded handwriting on the back. Because she shouldn't have to go through this! And lastly, celebrate the parents, who in their 70's and 80's are still looking after that little girl.

horizons

White Sands, New Mexico, USA

By Charlene Winfred

Reflecting on the different edges of the world, all of the metaphors that come to me are an echo: boundaries, fences, walls. Go forth and conquer, but leave the strangers where you found them. The horizon as a line in the texture of numerous such edges, fruitful and varied, is hidden.

It has been three years since I've started returning to the mother country regularly. This time, I find myself appreciating subtleties that were lost to me before. Finding hope in small corners, against the onslaught that usually drives me to despair and a whole lot of anger. I am learning to listen, and finally understanding what I cannot yet hear. In doing so, shrugging off my own yoke.

Third time's the lucky charm. 

Long may we seek to broaden our horizons, and discover all the remarkable things that lie between ourselves and eternity.

To Be Free Is To Have No Fear

To Be Free Is To Have No Fear

I'm as bad as anyone else, really.

I spend too much of my time trying to improve things, to make something better, or to upgrade - whatever the 'thing' is, there's a new one, and it looks better than whatever I've got. And this time of year just amplifies that feeling, many times over. Every second email shouts 'New! Shiny! Buy!'

But when you look around - really look - it's hard to miss the fact that actually, there are much bigger problems to solve in the world than the tiny incremental improvements I could make to my own life…

Moments of Cheer

By Kevin Mullins

As we come to the end of a very busy year for myself, both personally and professionally, I'm drawn back to a single day in March.

I'm not a gambling person, but once a year I head to the Cheltenham Festival or racing.  I'm always drawn to those that seem to have so much resting on a four legged beast as it rumbles over the turf.

It's been a year of turmoil for many, with huge choices being made in the political world, and for me, personally and professionally.

But one thing will always make me smile.....and that is other people smiling.

Keep smiling folks, and have a very wonderful end to 2016 and a most prosperous 2017.

Lose Yourself

By Flemming Bo Jensen

In that moment,
Everything feels right.
We are all in this together.
Celebrate the music.
Dance your cares away.
Worry's for another day. 
Music is the answer.
To your problems
Keep on moving
Then you can solve them.
Music sounds better with you!

(Credits/inspiration: Human Traffic, Eminem, Fraggle Rock, Danny Tenaglia, Stardust and others I may have forgotten)