whitebait

Exhibition at Southland Museum & Art Gallery

Until March 2nd I have an exhibition of 31 photos that I took during
the 4 months that I was the William Hodges Fellow in Invercargill.

None of the photos have yet been printed up in editions and made available for sale.
However, Whitebait, the one above will be printed soon. Any enquiries about it
can be directed to Paul McNamara. It will be a silver gelatin print, about 300 mm square, in an edition of 15 one of which has been sold. (9/02/08)

I have been asked how took this photo. I went whitebaiting and these unfortunate creatures were emptied into a plastic bucket. The bottom of the bucket formed the circle in the photo. The light on the bottom right was a result of the sun striking the outside of the bucket at that point.

Whitebait Again

I’ve cleaned up this image, which appeared below a little, via Photoshop. It had a few
spots on which made a difference out of all proportion to their actual size.

Like the spots on my face when I was an adolescent. The back of my neck was a favourite target as were the inside of my thighs, although most particularly my armpits. At high school my face felt, in my imagination at least, like one big running sore. I exaggerate a little I admit, but not too much.


The Return of the Whitebait

Thanks to the prompting of a reader, I returned to this image which a week or so ago, I had nearly discarded.

I’ve spent more time with it and am now thinking, that richly printed, it could be a keeper. I’m not set up in this studio to make a high quality print but I look forward to experimenting.

I don’t imagine it to be a large.

I had an email suggestion that this was a circle of life. Like that.


Whitebait

Today I went with a friend, Simon, to help him fish for whitebait near Riverton.
This wonderful comfortable little building has a stove, and bed and a general feeling of great peacefulness.

The whitebait are not really running at present but we did catch some. Here are some of them in the bottom of a bucket. As always I was hoping that perhaps there would be a photo there but it not so easy to say anything original about them.