One of the truly special gifts was a book called a Welcome to the Zoo by Alison Jay.

It is a wordless story book. Alison's work is rich with stories within stories, intriguing personalities, and beautiful imagery.

The thing that struck me the most was the unspoken freedom I had to create my own stories. This is partly due to the lack of words but more-so to the rich content of the illustrations.

Albums can be like this.  In fact they should be!   We want our albums to tell many stories  so that they will endure time and fashion to become the catalyst for many memories but still be personal to the viewer.

Cheers

Johannes

While in the UK I spent one night in the home of a couple I had photographed two years earlier.

They were both paper conservators. One of them was restoring a series of Picasso pieces and a Miro. His workroom was also the spare bedroom.  You get that in places where space is at an expensive premium.

So  the journey was a mixed bag of accommodation as I tripped around the countryside. From two stays in smokey old rooms at two Hilton hotels that had seen better days, to a very agreeable but brief stay in a hotel in Falkirk.   Two nights in the home of a friend when I first arrived shell shocked from lack of sleep, I had kicked baby Oliver out of his room, and was not very sociable.   A, thankfully, brief stay in a dodgy hotel in the centre of Edinburgh proved the well worn theory of 'you only get what you pay for' .... dare I say 'I should have paid more' (a lot more).  Jo hunted out a more agreeable bed at the Hudson Hotel that proved the theory that a comfortable bed (with clean sheets) in a tiny room is endlessly better than a scary one in any sized room.  I developed a theory about the evaluation of accommodation. The true measure of a decent Hotel is one where you go to sleep at night not thinking about how many people may have slept there before you.  From there it was a small olde English Pub in the Lakes District .... modest was my best description ... then a bed and breakfast where I had the privilege of sleeping in the room (and bed) of the owners deceased parents. It was the biggest bed of all and strangely comfortable. Finally I get back to sleeping with Picasso .... I was well looked after and slept soundly oblivious to my salubrious company.

I was lucky to have had the variety (because that is the spice of life) ... but I did feel like a bit of a bed slut by the end of it all.

Thank you to my friends for keeping me sane.

All the best

Johannes

This town, Lyttelton, is inhabited by artists, port workers, librarians, vegans, fast-food workers, teachers, authors, poets, real-estate agents, carnivores, designers, musicians, coffee addicts, and several photographers.

It is very real and surreal in the same moment.

I have never been to war, and have lead as normal a life as most, suffering only at the hands of love, fate and opportunity. I did once find a dying man, and have often wondered if I could have saved him had I not been only 11 and naive to the ways of people.

I have nothing to say that hasn't been said before.

In a short time I am making a tour of the UK to talk about my photography.

What can I say?

I thought about musicians ... not the rock stars, but the ones who are musicians because they need to tell a story to those who will listen.

I thought about the musicians that write a great song or three, and want to share it with the world, not because they want to travel the world in limousines, but because they have stories to tell. Their stories are made up or based on their experiences. Sometimes they tell other people's stories. This is me, I am telling other people's stories, but as I see them. I photograph who they are, and the things and people they Cherish. I create a story for them, in a moment, or over time. This is the luck I have created for myself, it is the privilege of telling the stories of others.

So again I ask what can I say?

I want to tell a story about love. I want to tell another story about death, and then one about life. These are my stories. The stories themselves will probably change very little for you if you are a photographer coming to hear me speak, but if you can understand 'why' I am telling you these stories, and how that is important for you, then I will have done what I set out to do. I could teach photoshop, I could teach business ideas , I could talk about album design (and I probably will)

I guess that what I want to do is not to talk you into becoming more like me, but better at being you.

If I was a musician this tour would be acoustic, honest, and personal. I hope that if I end up somewhere near you that you will come and see me.

cheers

Johannes

and then there was postcard 3 and 4 ...

Postcard 5 image

Postcard 5 text

Postcard 6

Postcard 6 ...

I knew that if I had burdened my friends with the random thoughts I was having I would probably have run out of friends.

Its a thing that many of us do ... it helps with clarity. (Write things down instead of burdening our friends)

I recently read some of the things that I wrote and felt the urge to share some of them with those enduring enough to read them.

I hope that if you are reading them and get an opinion that you will share it with me.

If I didn't share them then their only purpose will have been to clear some room in my head.

In rereading this it would seem that I am about to burden you with my random thoughts ... Not true!

I will spare you the angsts and stick with the observations.

I drank a lot of coffee at a place called the Globe.

It was a regular thing.

One time I started a series of postcards which I put together as an exhibition. ( It was before I became aware of the work of Nick Bantock.)

Here is the first.

Hugs

Philip said 'but you aren't even cool now.'

How true.  We often hope that the future somehow has the answers when really we are the answer, ... or not.

When I travel I get to look at myself from a distance. I get to stand away from myself. I get to look at others and wonder at the differences.

Luis is the antichaos.

Simple, dark, well pressed clothes.

Colour coded order, and all that might be random has been carefully placed that way.

At any time a thing could be found with ease.

Or

Crumpled, multicoloured, and often displaced.

Everything is everywhere.

At any time a thing could be found with luck and persistance.

A full life filled with fractions and disorder, but sometimes the chaos gets too much.

Should I colour code my life?

Just a  question.

Hugs

Johannes

I think the trouble starts when you begin a conversation there is always an evangelist standing nearby ready to tell you why what they have is better than the alternative.

The trouble with these evangelists is that they can be singleminded. The best ones are the ones who have looked at the options and believe from experience.

Who do we believe???

I was talking with four different colleagues about spending 18 hours photographing for one wedding and each of them said 'yeah, I had one bigger than that.'

They could have said 'thats a long time' or 'you must be buggered' ... but no, it was always that 'theirs was bigger'.

Is it the competitive nature of our industry that compells photographers to have a few fishing stories at the ready, or is it some universal principle?

Just a question.

If I were to try to be profound it would quickly be seen as the semi-intoxicated ramblings that they would be.

... so I should definitely not be in charge of any profound words.

.... the dangers of a long lunch with friends.

I have several answers 

To share my recent work in an immediate way.

To have a voice

To start a conversation

To get stuff out of my head ... 

Maybe I am proud of something.

Sometimes I want to show people how to do stuff.

But then what?

It goes up on a site ... the curious look, the stalkers look, the involved look, and sometimes the lost look (by accident), I think some of my family also look.

Thank you for looking.

But once it is 'up' ... what then?! .... the hope that maybe the brave also looked.  The brave that might write a comment.  A comment of opinion maybe. Are we doing the right things? What should I do more of? Less of? Do you disagree? or agree.

Maybe the comment is the beginning of a conversation.

But this is the problem ... nobody really wants to be first ... and then maybe wrong .... or outspoken ... well really the problem is being first  .... because who says what is wrong ... or right! 

I say make a comment ... start a conversation with me ... be excited about being the first.

Cheers

Johannes

Too much to do, too much going on, too many people needing things, and a broken car.

Not just a broken car, but the only VW Golf in New Zealand with this one broken bit that only could be replaced out of Germany!

It is never good to be on the receiving end of the conversation that starts with 'you'd better sit down for this'

So not only was it going to be expensive it was also going to take nearly a month.

Dark became gloomy, and silver-linings were hard to find.

Saturday I had a wedding out on the Peninsula, about 80km of winding hilly roads away.

My assistant , Lillian, was going to bring her car for the trip.

But Jo had different plans and organised another option.

the TD2000 replica

She snuck out of the studio and picked up this little number for me.

Somehow driving this car made me Mr Popular. People I didn't know would wave and smile. It was not possible to feel dark.

I had parked on the way, to buy some wedding supplies (Coke, Chocolate, Muesli Bars, and Water), within seconds somebody had stopped, got out of their own car, and was nodding nostalgically as they talked about owning one in a  previous life.

At the wedding It was not a problem parking right in front of the venue, and during the wedding I went from being 'the photographer' to 'the photographer with THAT car'.

Unfortunately I had to give it back.

But for one day I was King of the Road. (In a Replica roadster kind of way).

Thanks

Johannes