Art By Mistake

In this day and age it is imperative that one has a “hobby”. Anyone who’s anyone knows that if you truly want to be unique you must be able to cooly discuss your participation in one of the following types of hobbies:

- Music (this includes being in a band, playing an instrument or djing)
- Art and / or photography
- Running a monthly club night
- Writing Blog or possibly a zine
- Fashion, in particular making your own clothes

If you can’t claim one of these hobbies you’re no one. And don’t even talk to me about sports. I myself, feel I’m really falling short in my recently selected genre of blog. I’m pretty sure I SHOULD be saving for a laptop by now so that I can trawl boutique coffee shops in west end, ordering soy chai lattes and regularly calling my friends so that I can loudly announce that, “oh me? No, I’m not doing much- just at three monkeys- writing my blog... my blog... MY BLOG!”.

With that in mind I think hobbies are great, they’re life’s little band-aids that you pursuit with vigour for a couple of months after a break up, a break down or when you simply realise how boring and sad you truly are. Today I wanted to discuss one of the more pretentious and fearful of the hobbies listed above: Photography. Usually this is one I steer clear of. Frankly, I don’t give a fuck how that angle you shot of a flower growing from dog shit on the footpath represents your pitiful tortured soul. Snore.

A rosy introduction indeed, I’d now like to introduce one of my best friends in the whole world, Katie!

...Who is into photography!

Hang in there now as I do my best to reconcile the awkward foot-in-mouth situation I’ve just created:

Katie takes amazing photos, there is no denying she possesses a real talent for what she does. It’s not just this talent that thrills me though, it’s the attitude Katie has towards her hobby of choice. She produces these brilliant photos but her passion is for the sake of passion. A concept many people seem to be unfamiliar with. Katie doesn’t forcibly inflict her tortured photographic soul on the world, she doesn’t even go on flickr. Nor does she talk about the camera she just ordered off ebay like it was the missing link in curing Africa of AIDs. And when you ask Katie if you can be in a photo? She doesn’t give you a look like you just asked if you could spit in her mouth, she smiles and says sure. Like a descent person would. However, you do have about 0.3 seconds to pose. That’s the point though, these photos are taken more in the hope of capturing a moment- there’s a real honesty to it. The essence of the night is captured in a net of hazey figures, ghostly layers and blurry lights. It’s all an experiment, 3 parts creative and 1 part scientific. There’s a fascination in what will come of each new trick. And if it turns out looking like crap? That’s just all part of the experiment. The art she creates seems almost by mistake, a superfluous by-product that comes with sincerity. Therein lies the charm.

Anyway, here are some of my favourites:

(Katie uses a whole lot of different cameras with hot chick names like “Holga” and “Diana”. She also had some really old school camera at one stage and occasionally dabbles with the trusty digital. You can tell I know little to nothing about all this, but the point is I want to show her knack for capturing moments like some crazed safari hunter, no matter what the medium. Also, these aren't photoshopped or anything, all the colours and layers etc is how they were taken.)