Capture by A photoblog

We are one.   Jolisa even made us an awesome cake.  Thanks J.  Seems a bit rich us celebrating only one year when PA itself is celebrating ten.  But you gotta start somewhere, and any excuse for a party, right?

It's been a great year, and a lot of fun, from our perspective.  Had no idea how engaging, disarming, inspiring, tearful, joyful - I'll stop soon - LOLful (ouch) it would be.

There are really too many highlights to make mention of, and a long list of guest photographers and enthusiastic commenters to thank for the contributions, which have made Capture what it is.

Thank you all.

I would like to single a few of people out though.  Jonathan and Robyn were instrumental in getting this off the ground last year, along with the guys at CactusLab, and of course our Über-host Russell for giving us a go.  Thanks yous.  Sophie G has also contributed a huge amount over the year, and when others lacked inspiration, seemed to have a great abundance. 

We have been very fortunate to have guest contributions from Murray Cammick, Adrienne Rewi, Alex Efimoff, Gudrun Gisela, Jocelyn Carlin, Martin Horspool and Doug Richards.  Great to have the privilege of showing your work, and would gladly show more in the future.  Hint hint.

Not forgetting our own PAS faithful Ian, Jackie, Sofie, Lilith and Geoff, who have contributed Guest Posts and/or helped maintain regular engagement in the comments.  Big hugs to you all, and to all the other PAS regulars.  Quite humbling to have so many new friends.

We hope to build on what we've started next year, and resources willing, may try to enhance things a bit.  And we had so much fun with our Pinhole workshop, we'll be doing that again, and hopefully other workshops/photography expeditions besides.

For now, however, we'd like to give something back.  So this post is the lead in for another photo competition.

Capture The Castle Competition

Between now and 21st December we would love you to go out and snap photos with whatever device you have to hand, of whatever inspires you, and at that time we will choose a winner, and give them a Lumix LS5 Compact Camera for Christmas.  (Bribery and corruption!)

Capture away.

Tank Art Project, Silo Park

Auckland has had an uneasy history with street art, but with the Tank Art Project reaching completion today, supported by local art stalwart Hamish Keith OBE, and inspired by the words from C. K. Stead's poem Auckland (included in the paintings), it seems we have reached more than just a happy coexistence. 

There is a plethora of information out there about the project, so I won't harp on about it.  Here's Campbell Live On it last night for starters, with C.K. Stead reading part of his poem.

The Artists themselves should be the focus though, with Elliot O'Donnell (AKA Askew One), and his team, including Elliot Francis Stewart, Gary Silipa, and many others doing such an incredible job on this.

I'm pretty sure it would be a great place to go watch the eclipse today, remembering of course to wear your shades.

Now, this being a Capture post, we'd love you to go find your favourite piece of street art, snap it, and post it in the comments.  There's a whole heap of wonderful stuff out there, so go large.

ETA:  Have added two more photos today (16 Nov) of the red and white silos, which show the complete poem, and the final two smaller ones set back from the road.

You can also read the whole poem here.

Capture away.

The Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 - Present exhibition opens at the Auckland Art Gallery on Saturday November 10. With 173 photographs and a handsome accompanying book, the show was curated by Gail Buckland and arrives here (for the first time outside the United States) from the Brooklyn Museum.

With the high quality of subjects and photographers on offer it's hard to know where to begin, but feel free to start with the preview samples posted below. I'll be checking out some favourites. A high quality silver gelatin or chromogenic print directly from the negative or transparency is visually as good as it gets. Can't wait to see the solemn Ian Curtis, framed by Kevin Cummins in a Manchester rehearsal room around the time of Unknown Pleasures. Or REM, when they were still enigmatic, captured sitting at the counter of Walter's Bar-B-Que in Athens, Georgia by Laura Levine. Check out John Lydon, all amphetamine attitude onstage, beautifully shot by Pistols confidante Dennis Morris. There is also the 'greatest rock n roll photograph of all time' - Pennie Smith's 1979 photo of Paul Simonon smashing his bass onstage that appeared on the cover of London Calling.

For someone like myself, who once spent a lot of time gazing at her book The Clash: Before and After this is exciting stuff, but Pennie Smith herself doesn't buy into the myth. In this fascinating 2003 interview she dismissed the whole idea of 'rock photography', while emphasising her self-taught technique, and claiming modestly that she doesn't see herself as a photographer, but rather as "someone who takes photographs".

 " … I don’t know modern technology, I know what works for me, with my sort of bashed up old equipment … I don’t use a flash, and I quite like wondering if I can make it with the lights that are there, and stopping the action in time. If it’s not dangerous – I don’t like it! There are no rock photographers, most rock photography bores the pants off me, particularly the modern stuff where it’s studio-orientated, glossy passport photos, no, don’t like …"

Rock on up.

Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 - Present  opens at Auckland Art Gallery on Saturday November 10 2012 and finishes on Sunday March 3 2013. Ticket information and prices (including detail of the early bird special) can be found here. There will be a program of events, talks, late nights with music, and movie screenings over the summer. See the event page here for more details.

The photographs below are reproduced by kind permission of Auckland Art Gallery.

(Our double pass giveaway has been given away to Gary, who was first in ...)

BREL - The Words and Music of Jacques Brel
Thursday 1 - Saturday 24 November
Concert Chamber, Auckland Town Hall

Last night we went to the opening night of Brel, performed by Silo Theatre, directed by Michael Hurst, with costumes by Charlotte Rust. 

It was a revelation.

The cast included New Zealand theatrical royalty in the form of Jennifer Ward-Lealand, Tama Waipara whose journey as a musician has been quite extraordinary, and the two ring-ins, Julia Deans and Jon Toogood, who hardly need any introduction round here.

I'm not really intending to write a review here.  I loved it.  You should go and see it for yourself.

What it did though is fill my head with the music of Jacques Brel, and that journey will go on for some time.  The incredible thing when you start searching is that there is so damn much of it, and it has been covered, interpreted, translated and popularised by everyone from David Bowie to Marc Almond. 

The Telegraph offers this 'Top Ten Jacques Brel covers' as a starter pack.  Of particular note the work of Scott Walker, at the top of this list.

The ones that really stood out for me last night were the following songs, as it happens, led by either Julia Deans or Jon Toogood.  Julia's version of Song for Old Lovers was quite simply magnifique!  She sang in both English and French, and at the end you could sense a mid-performance standing O only being suppressed by the next song.

The next song was in fact Amsterdam, perhaps the most popularised of Brel's songs, covered by David Bowie in 1973 (on a 7" EP with Rebel Rebel, Queen Bitch and Sorrow).  Jon totally did justice to it.

As I said, we could go on for hours with this.  If you want to get in the mood, just go YouTubeing, and if you feel inclined, post them in the comments.

One for the road though.  Jon also knocked this one out of the park.

As may be apparent, this isn't quite the photo post you might be expecting.  There was a strict no cameras policy, which I of course adhered to.  Well, apart from these three during the encore and curtain call.

Capture away.

We tend to stick around town on long weekends.  Maybe venturing as far as the Auckland city limits, which I guess includes Orewa, Piha, Clevedon or Waiuku.  Not forgetting Waiheke.

Mostly the historical troubles we've had getting in and out of Auckland on such weekends puts us off.  Although I've heard there have been some improvements lately.  Since the 90s at least.

Thought I'd bump this up today, so we can add photos of the weekend, during and after, as it unfolds.

Where has Labour weekend taken you?

Capture away.