Travel
Vacancy outtakes- Boomtown Belle
Vacancy- Boomtown Belle, Louisiana Delta
The shots taken between the motel rooms.
Photos taken during our mission to find oil down the Delta, only a month after the BP oil spill. We didn’t find oil, but we found a lot of disillusioned people, and very few animals to give us their account.
This is the bus I peed behind. That is the Boomtown Belle looming in the background. An abandoned casino steamboat.
This is the guy, Boomtown Bill who called out from the ‘abandoned’ steamboat to ‘watch out for them gators’ as I covered my bare ass and did up my fly.
This is the same guy, Boomtown Bill who invited us to walk over the plank (and waiting alligators) onto the Belle. He showed us around, we shared some beers and cigarettes in the stinking hot heat, and went gator fishing off the side of the boat. When in Rome.
This is where he slept at night. Under a universe of stars, the warm Gulf air blanketing his sleep. Huck Finn.
Vacancy- the last motel
If I haven’t spammed you already of Facebook, I had a solo show opening, as part of Head On Festival last week. Featuring 16 large prints of desolate motel rooms, empty corridors and lonesome guest pools. The show also houses a reconstruction of a motel room, and, on the opening night gallery goers could peek through the windows and watch a lonesome traveler dress and undress, bathed in the light of the TV and an amazing ‘Vacancy’ pink neon sign I had made for the show. It was amazing how shy most people were to see a little bit of flesh!
A video now loops on the TV showing the footage from the opening night of our lonesome traveler. The show runs for 2 weeks all up, and it’s been amazing thus far. Please head down if you haven’t already!
Conceived while driving between towns in the deep south of the states, the show is a nostalgic trip back to the era of road trips and dingy motels. An homage to the 20th century which is rapidly slipping out of our reach. No planes, no chains, Daniel and I stayed in humble old motels down the west coast of the states (except for a couple nights at the Roosevelt LA- it was a holiday after all), and then followed the I-10 from Louisiana across to Florida. My mum and I traveled from NY up north along the I 95.
Once Head On had accepted my proposal to exhibit my friend Imogen and I drove my new wheels up the east coast of Australia in search on more kitsch motels. They were plentiful. We are talking about country NSW and QLD after-all. Daniel met up with me for the last leg of the journey back to Sydney.
Long and short, come check out my exhibition if you haven’t already, it will be open till Tuesday 15th May. Here are some links to reviews and info.
Vacancy- GAFFA GALLERY
156 Clarence St, Sydney CBD
Open Monday-Friday 10am-6pm, Saturday 11-5pm, Closed Sunday.
Alt Media- great interview by Angela Bennetts, The Thousands, Kluster and Yen.
For those who haven’t got to GAFFA yet, I won’t blog all the pictures from the show till the close, so instead I will release a few series of proof prints from the trip that didn’t make the show. All that happened between the motels. Some of these shots are from two years ago, but it’s amazing how the tiny details in the memory come back when I look at these pictures. I want to go back and travel! For the camera geeks, I used a Bronica Zenza and my trusty Nikon F90.
Man v Nature
I took these while in the American Museum of Natural History Museum NYC. Somehow it looks like the stuffed animals are examining the viewer. The humans are the subject of scrutiny. And so we should be!
Ah Berlin! Formerly known as ‘The Kingdom of Prussia’
So, finally going through my massive backlog of photos from last year’s trip to Europe, in an attempt to pump myself up enough and bite the bullet and buy tickets to the US this year….. and seriously, there is nothing like a holiday, with no clients, no briefs, just you and your camera and a whole new city to discover. Here is the first installment of a few series of pics from Berlin, Paris, Athens, the Greek Islands and lastly London. Enjoy!
