My best photos of 2013

It’s been an interesting year. It started with all of us living at my parents’ house, then we spent a couple of months moving into our new home and finishing things off, I also got to apply for my own job (thankfully successfully), battle for 6 months with the local council about building a deck (a Pyrrhic victory at best) and discover that ‘no, it’s not just the light in here…I have some grey hairs!’
So to finish the year on a high note, I thought I’d select my favourite photos from this year and tell you why I like them.

So in no particular order…here are my favourite photos for the year (I’ll be honest, the photo functionality in this WordPress theme isn’t dazzling, so you can always just head here to my Flickr site to see the photos without the reasons why I chose them)

Sun rises over Victoria Park — I had travelled past Victoria Park a couple of times on my way to work and thought ‘that would be a great place to take some early morning shots’. So I got up before sunrise and headed there on a cold winters morning. I really love the way they have made the park open to the public and made it a lot more inviting, while still maintaining some of the elements of the spiritual home of the Magpies…and this photo came the closest to capturing that.

I took this one while I was on a lunch break from a course. I had set myself the challenge of only shooting on the 50mm and was trying to get shots to enter in the Age photo comp which had the theme 'light'. I liked this shot...sadly they didn't — I took this one while I was on a lunch break from a course. I had set myself the challenge of only shooting on the 50mm and was trying to get shots to enter in the Age photo comp which had the theme ‘light’. I liked this shot…sadly the Age didn’t.

I was taking some photos after my interview with Geraldine Quinn, and I tend to put my lens cap in my mouth when I'm shooting (if I put it down I lose it and if I put it in my pocket I sit on it)...clearly Xavier thought this was what one does with a lens cap and I couldn't resist getting this shot — I was taking some photos after my interview with Geraldine Quinn, and I tend to put my lens cap in my mouth when I’m shooting (if I put it down I lose it and if I put it in my pocket I sit on it)…clearly Xavier thought this was what one does with a lens cap and I couldn’t resist getting this shot

This photo was taken just before we headed on to stage at an open mic night. I'd never sung on stage before...and may never do it again, so I took the opportunity to grab a shot. — This photo was taken just before we headed on to stage at an open mic night. I’d never sung on stage before…and may never do it again, so I took the opportunity to grab a shot.

Luke Vesty and I headed down to St Kilda pier to take some long exposure shots. It was a really good learning experience, and it was awesome to have someone else to shoot with. This photo was the pick of the evening.

On the night our choir (The Septemberists) were performing, I figured this was an excellent opportunity to get some experience shooting photos of bands on stage. I set myself the challenge of shooting everything manually (exposure, f-stop etc). It was a complete disaster...so out of desperation I took a shot of some worn out sneakers, on sticky carpet and with an amp in the background. It said pretty much everything I wanted to say about rock n roll — On the night our choir (The Septemberists) were performing, I figured this was an excellent opportunity to get some experience shooting photos of bands on stage. I set myself the challenge of shooting everything manually (exposure, f-stop etc). It was a complete disaster…so out of desperation I took a shot of some worn out sneakers, on sticky carpet and with an amp in the background. It said pretty much everything I wanted to say about rock n roll

Admittedly this is more about the back story than the image...but I do love this shot. About 10 seconds after this shot, a woman walked along the beach in front of me with a child on her back. She had a hat that resembled a bright yellow turban, and it was unfurling in a golden wave behind her. With the white sand at her feet and the blue sea behind her, it would have made an amazing photo! But at the same time, Xavier was tottering towards the sea. I had to choose, the shot or the child?! I went for the child...but I still have a few regrets ;-) — Admittedly this is more about the back story than the image…but I do love this shot. About 10 seconds after this shot, a woman walked along the beach in front of me with a child on her back. She had a hat that resembled a bright yellow turban, and it was unfurling in a golden wave behind her. With the white sand at her feet and the blue sea behind her, it would have made an amazing photo! But at the same time, Xavier was tottering towards the sea. I had to choose, the shot or the child?! I went for the child…but I still have a few regrets 😉

This was taken on an excursion to Footscray. I'm not a massive fan of excessive HDR...but I reckon the balance is right in this one. I also had a weird moment where I had taken some shots down near the the river of a guy in a red hood looking towards the city. When I looked at this photo I saw someone in a red hood and thought 'That guy was following me!' But it was a different person...I think. — This was taken on an excursion to Footscray. I’m not a massive fan of excessive HDR…but I reckon the balance is right in this one. I also had a weird moment where I had taken some shots down near the the river of a guy in a red hood looking towards the city. When I looked at this photo I saw someone in a red hood and thought ‘That guy was following me!’ But it was a different person…I think.

Once a year we make a pilgrimage to my Uncle's farm for a family get together. Under a tarp in a shed lives his beautiful Monaro. It's been a long time since I've heard it tearing up a paddock...but I hope I get to hear that glorious v8 again. — Once a year we make a pilgrimage to my Uncle’s farm for a family get together. Under a tarp in a shed lives his beautiful Monaro. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard it tearing up a paddock…but I hope I get to hear that glorious v8 again.

So many of Mick's songs are amazing stories, told with complete honesty. And I think I came close to capturing the same thing in this portrait. I got some nice ones of him smiling as well...but the eyes on this one catch me every time. I was also pretty nervous taking a photo of someone whose work I really respect, so it was great to get a few images that really worked. — So many of Mick’s songs are amazing stories, told with complete honesty. And I think I came close to capturing the same thing in this portrait. I got some nice ones of him smiling as well…but the eyes on this one catch me every time. I was also pretty nervous taking a photo of someone whose work I really respect, so it was great to get a few images that really worked.

After a drive along a corrugated dirt road and a brief walk you end up at this lighthouse on the Gippsland coast down near Sandy Point. Obviously this shot would have been a lot better with some hefty ND filters and a long exposure...but I don't have any ND filters and I do have 3 children who were running all over the place near the edge of a cliff. So this shot had to suffice, but it's definitely a spot I will return to. — After a drive along a corrugated dirt road and a brief walk you end up at this lighthouse on the Gippsland coast down near Sandy Point. Obviously this shot would have been a lot better with some hefty ND filters and a long exposure…but I don’t have any ND filters and I do have 3 children who were running all over the place near the edge of a cliff. So this shot had to suffice, but it’s definitely a spot I will return to.

It's getting harder and harder to get the kids to sit for even 10 seconds for a photo...and even harder to get a shot where it doesn't look like they're posing. So I will treasure this photo for a long time as it truly captures Josh at his best. — It’s getting harder and harder to get the kids to sit for even 10 seconds for a photo…and even harder to get a shot where it doesn’t look like they’re posing. So I will treasure this photo for a long time as it truly captures Josh at his best.

At age 3 Holly told me to 'Take the camera off your face'...so it's fair to say getting photos of her has been a challenge since then. She had her 5th birthday party at Fairy Fields and in one room the only light was coming through a skylight, I stood up on a chair and asked her to look up and before she could complain I took the shot. If I ever take a better shot of her, I will be a very happy man. — At age 3 Holly told me to ‘Take the camera off your face’…so it’s fair to say getting photos of her has been a challenge since then. She had her 5th birthday party at Fairy Fields and in one room the only light was coming through a skylight, I stood up on a chair and asked her to look up and before she could complain I took the shot. If I ever take a better shot of her, I will be a very happy man.

I love this photo for a number of reasons. The shot I wanted (of the wind turbine at Toora) was a disaster, and I was on my way home when I saw this. Actually stopping the car when you're already late, getting out by the side of a road where cars are hurtling past at 100kms/h and waiting for a 30 second window where there isn't any wind or cars to ruin the shot can seem overwhelmingly frustrating. But sometimes, it pays dividends. — I love this photo for a number of reasons. The shot I wanted (of the wind turbine at Toora) was a disaster, and I was on my way home when I saw this. Actually stopping the car when you’re already late, getting out by the side of a road where cars are hurtling past at 100kms/h and waiting for a 30 second window where there isn’t any wind or cars to ruin the shot can seem overwhelmingly frustrating. But sometimes, it pays dividends.

A storm had just come through and the light was amazing. Our deck had just been completed and Xavier was out playing in the residual rain. I got this shot set up while he was playing and then asked him to turn around and smile. He chose to walk off. If he had a speech bubble it would say 'Yeah sure Dad, I'll just stand here and smile while you take a photo. Idiot.' — A storm had just come through and the light was amazing. Our deck had just been completed and Xavier was out playing in the residual rain. I got this shot set up while he was playing and then asked him to turn around and smile. He chose to walk off. If he had a speech bubble it would say ‘Yeah sure Dad, I’ll just stand here and smile while you take a photo. Idiot.’

Working for a Govt department that works with a lot of people in crisis, I spend a lot time trying to tell stories without identifying anyone. Clearly that is starting to flow into the photography of my own kids. But I just love Josh's pose and Xavier's clear exuberance at being allowed to roam free. Either that, or Foster's criminal were about to face the wrath of a new superhero and his sidekick. — Working for a Govt department that works with a lot of people in crisis, I spend a lot time trying to tell stories without identifying anyone. Clearly that is starting to flow into the photography of my own kids. But I just love Josh’s pose and Xavier’s clear exuberance at being allowed to roam free. Either that, or Toora’s criminal were about to face the wrath of a new superhero and his sidekick.

Creativity…I kinda got me some

At the end 2012 I made the bold decision to focus on being creative for a year…so as I round out the year, I thought I’d have a look to see what worked and what didn’t…and to see if it made any difference to my life.

2 Degrees of Melbourne videos

One of my goals was to shoot and edit some videos of local Melbourne people who I think reflect what a great city Melbourne is. On the plus side, I got three of these done…and I was really happy with them (Andy White, Mick Thomas, Geraldine Quinn). On the downside…I only got three of these done over the course of an entire year, it’s not like I’m creating episodes of Sherlock FFS!
But on the whole I think that this was a triumph for creativity…they pushed me out of my comfort zone in terms of asking relative strangers to come and do something for nothing…and definitely out of my technical comfort zone as I tried to be interviewer, sound guy, camera man, lighting dude and editor, all on very basic equipment. But if the essence of creativity is doing a whole lot of work and not getting paid anything for it, then this was an unparalleled success. Plus I got to have Andy, Mick and Geraldine just hangout for a coffee and chat in our kitchen…and that is freaking priceless.

Singing

Another goal was to get some singing lessons and possibly sing in public. This was also a success. I did singing lessons with the amazing Emily Hayes (if you’re in Melbourne and want to learn to sing I cannot recommend her highly enough) and that lead to joining a choir called the Septemberists (we sang an entire Decemberists album…in September). Getting to rehearse and then perform with a group was an amazing experience, and getting to sing with Katie Hull-Brown and Emily during my singing lessons was again a great opportunity to push myself well beyond my comfort zone. It also got me back to playing a bit of guitar. But most of all it made me realise that there are few sounds more captivating than voices singing in harmony.

Photography

I really wanted to push myself with my photography this year as well. One of my goals was to do a masterclass with Veeral Patel, but my moving house…and his heading off to shoot the Tour de France made it impossible to lock in a time that worked. But I will do this…oh yes, I will do this (or possibly hide myself in his luggage and head over for next year’s tour!) I did manage to do some long exposure photography that I was really happy with,

ISO 6400, 17mm, f2.8, 30 Seconds — A shack just outside of Foster

and took some portraits that I thought really captured the subject as a person rather than just an image.

I tend to put the lens cap in my mouth when I use the camera...Xavier clearly likes the look — I tend to put the lens cap in my mouth when I use the camera…Xavier clearly likes the look

But at the same time, I didn’t spend nearly enough time using the ‘manual’ setting on the camera…and relied on Lightroom to make the images really work, so there is still a lot of work to be done.
Also, 90% of taking a great photo is actually being there to take the shot…an average photographer who is actually there, has a much better chance of taking a great shot, than a brilliant photographer who isn’t there. So one of my big aims for this year was to get out and about to take more photos. But with three young kids and a house renovation to keep me busy, I only managed to head out for a dedicated photo session 3 times for the year. Which is pretty shitfull…but leaves a lot of room for improvement!

Surprising synergies

Not only was this the title of my highly unsuccessful 2002 business/management book, but it was also one of the big things that my year of creativity taught me; creativity in one area opens up creative options in others. If you go to a gig and ask if you can just stroll up on stage and take a photo, you will most likely be politely told to sod off. But if you’re there to sing…then you have full access to stage and can take shots like this with impunity.

And if you walk up to Mick Thomas and ask to take a quick portrait shot of him, he may explain that he has better things to do with his time…but if you’ve just filmed an interview with him, he might let you take a shot like this.

And if you shoot a video with Andy, you might be asked to ruin breakfasts around Melbourne by appearing as a page 3 boy in the Sunday Age.

So in conclusion…

While I certainly didn’t dedicate sufficient time to being creative, the benefits I got from the time I did put in were fantastic. My videos and photography for my day job came ahead in leaps and bounds, I got to meet and work with some people who I really admire and I had some experiences that I’ll remember and draw upon for the rest of my life. The challenge will be maintaining it next year when so much of my focus will be on getting physically ready for a tilt at the Melbourne Ironman in 2015…and of course not thinking to myself every time we visit someone out of Melbourne “I wonder if I could get any good photos there”.

2 Degrees of Melbourne: Episode 3 – Geraldine Quinn

Late last year I attended the live recording of one of my favourite podcasts (for the podcast fans among you it’s ‘The Sweetest Plum‘, I suggest you go out and subscribe to it). Part of the entertainment was a performer called Geraldine Quinn who was introduced as ‘a local star on the cabaret scene’ and my first thought was ‘Oh Christ, here comes a jazz hands solo.’ Now admittedly this was based on a single cabaret experience from about 15 years ago in Las Vegas that involved a very large gentleman dressed as Cher from the ‘Turn back time‘ film clip, yelling songs and telling dick jokes…but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let go of my ill-informed prejudices!

Anyhow, it would have been socially awkward to have just stood up and walked out, so I stayed and listened to Geraldine rework a well known song into a song about the two guys who do the podcast (Declan and Nick). The lyrics were really funny and she clearly was a fan of the podcast, but what really made me reframe any misgivings I had about cabaret performers was when she hit the chorus like the proverbial freight train. Not only could she sing…but she could REALLY sing, and she had a voice that filled the whole room and said ‘I’m not doing this by halves, I’m going to give this everything…and by the end of it, you will almost like a Whitney Houston song!’ (you can hear the podcast here, Geraldine is about 80% of the way through).

So when I embarked on this little project of interviewing people who represent my favourite things about Melbourne…I knew that Geraldine had to be one of them.
Now it may have taken about 2 months of organising to finally sort a time, but on Monday she came into the 2 Degrees studio (aka the dining room) and here is my interview with her

Two Degrees of Melbourne – Geraldine Quinn from 2 Degrees of Separation on Vimeo.

I’m really happy with how this video came up…so happy in fact that I had to break with the traditional ‘black and white’ look of the other videos because the colour version looked so good. A huge note of thanks to John for bringing me a tripod at very late notice when the base plate to mine failed to re-appear…and an even bigger note of thanks to Geraldine for making the time to be interviewed and being such a great interviewee.
You can check out where Geraldine is playing on her site or on her myriad social media sites…but whatever you do, get out and see her, you won’t be disappointed!

The Septemberists choir

Readers of this blog may remember that one of my challenges for this year was to learn to sing. I didn’t have any real intention of performing in public…I just wanted to be able to sing ‘Yankee Bayonet’ with Katie (my wife) when The Decemberists inevitably invited us up on stage to sing with them (admittedly it was not the world’s most realistic plan). But when my singing teacher (the brilliant Emily Hayes) told me she had a friend who was putting together a choir who were going to sing Decemberists’ songs…I knew that the universe had other plans. So I joined the choir.
Now I should stress that ‘So I joined the choir’ wasn’t as simple as that. I’ve agreed to play basketball or cricket games on a whim, and I’ve gone on long bike rides with people who I’d never met but I suspected were a lot fitter than me, and I’ve agreed to MC an event at winery even though I’d never done anything like that before. Because at my very core, I felt that I could do it or at least do a sufficiently decent job that I could fool people in to tolerating my presence. But singing? That was something I really didn’t feel comfortable doing in front of people. Plus I knew from a few people that men who are willing to sing in a choir are pretty thin on the ground…so there was every chance that I would be the only guy singing…which would make it really hard to simply pretend I was singing.

So when Katie I walked into a flat in Thornbury for our first session with the choir, I was pretty comfortable with my plan to fake a phone call and make a run for it if I thought that anyone in the room was going to Linda McCartney me.
But of course these people weren’t there to make fun of me or to delight in my mistakes…these were Decemberists fans! So of course they were wonderfully welcoming an accommodating. Best of all, while the vast majority of choir members were women…there were three other guys!
The choir was the brainchild of Erica Pringle, who had arranged five songs off the Decemberists album ‘The King is Dead’ for choir, and was then teaching us all of the different parts, and being incredibly patient and encouraging…and doing all of this while pregnant (Colin Melloy may be able to do the many of these things…but he hasn’t done any of them while pregnant!)

Tricks for young players

One of the big mistakes I made going in to this was that I thought we would all just be singing the songs as they sound on the album…and this would be fine as I knew those songs inside out. But that’s not how things work in a choir. Sometimes you’re singing the song as the per the album, sometimes you’re singing it with totally different notes as a harmony…and sometimes you’re singing one part one way while another part of the choir is singing it another way. It’s a bit like going to a job interview and having everyone suddenly start talking French half way through…it’s baffling, but it does sound cool.
I also didn’t know whether I was a tenor or a bass. I had narrowed it down to these two (because that’s where the guys were), but I had no idea which one I was…in fact, to be honest I didn’t even realise that there was a difference between the two. Fortunately we had one guy who could sing the tenor part really well and one guy who could sing the bass part really well. So I just applied my years of learning as a child in Church, and copied whoever was closest to me.

The gig

Our weekly Monday night rehearsals soon segued into a performance at an open mic night

which in turn gave rise to a session in a rehearsal studio

and then suddenly we were on stage in front of an audience singing, and it was awesome! Yes I hit a couple of notes which were off, and yes I may have sung a few words that have not yet appeared in the English language…but no one noticed because that is the joy of a choir. When you make a mistake it is absorbed…and when you all do it just right, it sounds freaking amazing.

So would I recommend joining a choir? If you can sing, or if you’ve ever wanted to sing…then ‘yes’ you should. There will always be a litany of reasons why you think you can’t do it…but the most rewarding things always do. If nothing else you may find yourself on a Tuesday night in a pub with a beer in your hand having complete strangers coming up and telling you how much they enjoyed your singing.

So while my year of focusing on creativity may have got off to a slow start, I’ve now produced a few videos that I’ve been really proud of, taken some photos that I’m really happy with and performed on stage with a choir…the challenge is now to get even further out of my comfort zone and do something truly memorable.

Sadly I haven’t got any photo of the choir or myself performing (apparently taking selfies mid-song is considered ‘poor form’), but I did get a couple of shots of the other performers on the night.

Night time photography

One of the things that I love about photography is that there is always something new to try (and of course new gear to wish you had). I have recently been trying a bit of long exposure night-time photography, and figured seeing as I have done it twice, I’m clearly now an expert and it’s high time I started dishing out advice.
I was originally going to do a bit of an explanation of what long exposure photography is and how you do it…but then I realised that all you have to do is type ‘long exposure photography’ into Google and you can find any number of people (hah, who am I kidding? You can find any number of men) telling you how to do it. So instead, I’m going to tell you a few of things I’ve learnt after my first couple of forays into the field.

What do you need?

Camera – Clearly you need a camera that will allow you to keep the shutter open for an extended period (most DSLRs will let you go for 30 seconds).
A tripod – no matter how steady you think your hand is…taking a photo for 30 seconds without using something to keep the camera steady will lead to an image that looks a little like the last thing you saw before you passed out having consumed ‘snake blood’ on that trip to Vietnam.
A torch – Ideally you will be shooting somewhere that is has almost no light pollution (ie light coming for streetlights, or houses etc), which is great for your images. But it’s not so good for setting your focus or changing settings on your camera…or working out where the hell you put the lens cap.
A torch can also be really helpful if you are trying to frame a shot and can’t see anything through the viewfinder. You can shine a torch to get an idea of where your frame starts and stops.

30 seconds can be a long time

This is particularly true if you are standing alone in a field in absolute darkness, and all you can hear is the heavy breathing of cows and their occasional footsteps. It is incredibly unnerving and you will regret watching any horror movie you have ever watched.
However you will not leave, because the 30 seconds it takes for the camera to take the shot is like a distilled version of Christmas Eve when you were a kid, or that time you spent shaking a Polaroid picture back in the 80’s…for that 30 seconds, the photo you are taking could be an award winner, it could be one of the greatest photos anyone has ever taken, it could be AMAZING!!!
Then the photo appears on the screen on the back of your camera and you realise that you must have moved, or that thing you thought was in the shot actually isn’t, or that you have got the ISO/apperture/shutter speed wrong. And so you reset the camera…and spend another 30 seconds living in hope!

That photo looks amazing!…on that tiny little screen on your camera.

Unfortunately, while the shot may look fantastic on the screen on your camera…by the time you look at it on your computer screen, you’re going to see a lot of ‘noise’ (this is a photography term for anything in a photo that makes you walk away from your computer and swear). But don’t worry. You can remove a lot of the noise in programs like LightRoom, and if you managed to get a great shot without any noise or movement on your first couple of tries, everyone else would hate you.

Plan your shots…if you can

While I was driving around Sandy Point during the day, I saw a couple of things that I thought would be really good to have in a photo. So I identified a couple of landmarks that I would be able to use when I was driving at night, with zero visibility other than what was in my headlights. It worked a treat.Having said that, my whole reason for heading out that night was to get some photos of the big wind turbines down there. This would struggle to have gone any worse. In my mind, the spinning blades would create an amazing effect with the long exposure and I would be hailed as a genius. In reality, the blades were spinning so fast that after a 30 second exposure they were invisible…and so I had a brilliant photo of a pole. Needless to say, the job offers haven’t been rolling in.
But on the way back from the wind turbines, I spotted this little shack and pulled over to take the photo. There was a service station across the road about 200m away, and while it was closed there were a few lights on which gave just enough illumination for me to get this shot.

Bring a friend

You are going to be doing a lot of standing around in the cold, trying to be very still for 30 seconds and then swearing under your breath…why not share this experience with a friend/fellow photographer (ideally someone who is both). They will probably have different gear to you, so you get to see how it works (and if you should buy it), they will probably have different ideas and approaches (which you can steal and claim as your own), and standing out in a field under an enormous canvas of stars is a pretty amazing experience…but it’s much more fun to be able to share that experience with someone.
Most importantly, if you are stuck out in the middle of nowhere in a field of cows and there is a psycho killer waiting in the darkness…you don’t have to be faster than the killer…you just need to be fast than your friend.

If you’ve go any tips or tricks I would love hear them…and if you’ve got any questions about any of the photos in this post, I’m more than happy to answer them.

Music from back in my day

I recently purchased three new albums on CD…and I realised that for my kids, at least three elements of this may not make any sense by the time they are teenagers. I mean who the hell will still buy music?…and if they do why buy an album when there’s only one song that they really like? And CD’s? CD’s?! For Christ’s sake Dad, you’re embarrassing us and yourself.
So I wanted to write some timeless advice to my kids about how to enjoy music, no matter technology brings…and why they shouldn’t throw out my CD collection when they eventually put me in a home (although this can pretty much be summarised by ‘there’s a CD of the Dandy Warhol’s debut album signed by the whole band…you don’t want to know what Daddy did to get it…but it’s probably worth some money now’).

Albums

In the past bands have released the ‘best’/’most likely to move units’ song off their album…in the hope that you would purchase the whole album. That was basically the choice, if you wanted to buy a single song, you bought the single…if you wanted more than one you bought the album. But of course nowadays you can simply grab individual tracks from an album, and ignore the rest. This is CHEATING!
Look, I like chocolate, and I like eggs, and I’m willing to tolerate flour…as individual ingredients they range from tolerable to delicious…but all combined, they can make an amazing cake (or a horrifying breakfast). And that’s what the band wants you to eat (the cake that is…not the breakfast). They have structured the album to be enjoyed as a whole, not broken up into individual elements and digested in isolation. So even if you don’t like some of the songs on the first listen, you should always buy the whole album. If for no other reason than there will be songs that on the first couple of listens don’t do anything for you…but suddenly start to grow on you, until they are the songs you want to listen much more than the song you originally bought the album for.

Hi Fidelity

No doubt by the time you read this, you will have no problem streaming enormous audio files at full quality anywhere you want (unless the NBN got scrapped and you have an elaborate network of strings and cans), but in my day we had to make a choice between high quality sound that took a long time to arrive, and lower quality sound that was there whenever we wanted it. We thought about this for about 6 seconds, and decided that we wanted our music now, now, NOW! and so the mp3 was born.
Now I’m not one of these people who demands that you listen to everything on vinyl*, and on a stereo* that has valve powered amps* and was designed by some German artisan who died while making it…but I do beg that you at least listen to music at the highest quality setting you can get, and that you get yourself some decent headphones. I have lost count of the number of times I’ve listened to a song through decent headphones or speakers and heard a whole new parts of the song I’d never heard before.

The music you listen to from age 16 to 22 will be the best music ever

Now clearly this isn’t true, because everyone knows that the best music ever made was released from 1991- 1997 (which coincidentally was when I was 16 – 22), but I’m sure that you will believe something to the contrary. Because the music you listen to from 16 – 22 will be the soundtrack to your teen angst, your first love, the inevitable first break up, freedom, repression, sex, drugs and haircuts that you will regret for the rest of your life. But most importantly, you will have large amounts of time to totally immerse yourself in music. You will have time to listen to songs over and over again…and it’s this repetition that will hardwire the songs into your brain and inextricably link them with the incredible emotions you are feeling and give these songs a potency and resonance that words cannot describe.
Nonetheless I will tell it’s rubbish and demand you turn it down, and, if my worst fears are realised, will insist you listen to music from 1991 – 1997 so that ‘you can hear some real music’. I apologise in advance.

Go see live music

No doubt by the time you are reading this, you will be able to access any concert anywhere in the world, and listen to it in crystal clear audio and with HD vision. But this is not the same as being there. You won’t feel the entire audience being won over as Beth Gibbons lays her soul bare by singing one line in ‘Over’ with such passion and intensity that 10,000 people at Festival Hall think she is singing to them, you won’t feel the sheer power of Dana Colley playing two saxophones at once, you wont feel the euphoria as DJ Shadow drops the beat on Organ Donor and every person around you collectively loses their shit. You won’t feel it, because you weren’t there, you weren’t part of that moment.
So get out and see as much live music as you can. Because one day all of this will have past you by, and you’ll be writing blogs about music to your kids instead of going out and seeing a band.
If genetic selection is true, then you will hopefully have inherited my love of music and your mother’s musical talent and will be able to actually play music AND have a fantastic music collection. But even if you don’t, music should be one of the most important things in your life. So whether you stream it, or play it, or it is fed directly into your cerebral cortex via a chip, expose yourself to as much music as you can and remember if a music style exists, then there is someone out there who is doing it well enough for you to listen it…you just need to find them. And most importantly, if anyone other than Daft Punk tries to make music with a vocoder or autotune…you just ignore it…just ignore it.

* Just Google these and stop trying to make me feel older than I already do!

2 Degrees of Melbourne – Episode 2 : Mick Thomas

Given the number of times I’ve looked up on a stage and seen Mick Thomas singing or telling a story…it was a tad surreal to see him standing in my kitchen chatting about the real life person that Dickens’ ‘Fagin’ was based upon. But when you bite the bullet and decide to put some energy into being creative for a year…these sorts of things start to happen.

A bit of background

For those who don’t know, Mick Thomas is a Melbourne based singer songwriter. He is probably best known for his work with ‘Wedding’s, Parties Anything’, but has also released numerous albums as both a solo performer and with ‘Mick Thomas and the sure thing’…and has written soundtracks and theater productions.
While I had always been vaguely aware of ‘Weddings, Parties, Anything’ (it’s a memorable band name…and their constant touring meant I saw a lot of their posters around) it wasn’t until a friend of mine (Dave Walsh) brought a song of theirs in to play on my student radio show. The song was ‘A tale they won’t believe’ and basically tells the true story of a group of convicts escaping from a prison on Tasmania, and eventually resorting to cannibalism. As far as songs about cannibalism go, it was pretty awesome.
I bought a couple of albums and was hooked. Having been raised on a pretty strong diet of Irish folk music and occasional ‘Bushwackers’ dances…I recognised the sound and the energy of the music…but suddenly it had lyrics about Australian history, or the trials of being in a relationship and working different hours, or being mistaken for Jack Jones. Most importantly a lot of the songs were about life in Melbourne.
So when I came up with the idea of doing short videos on people who I thought were an integral part of Melbourne…Mick Thomas was one of my ‘must haves’.
Flushed with the success of the Andy White video (over 2,500 views on Vimeo!), I just decided to try my luck and simply sent Mick an email via his website explaining what I was looking to do…and in a rare display of poor judgement…he agreed to take part!

Preparing for the interview

I love listening to interviews by Mark Colvin and Jesse Thorn…if for no other reason, than that wonderful moment you can almost hear the guest think ‘Oh wow…this guy has really done his research’. There is a near-tangible change in the way the interviewee responds to the questions, because they realise that they aren’t going to be asked the same questions they’ve been asked before, by someone who is contractually obliged to talk to them….they are talking to someone who has put in some effort, has some great questions and the mental agility to respond to anything they say.
Clearly I wasn’t looking to achieve these lofty standards…but I wanted to be closer to them, than to Richard Wilkins on the red carpet asking ‘So who are you wearing?’
So I did as much internet research as I could…which proved to be a good idea, because one my questions was going to be about the brilliant lyrics in one song he sings…which research revealed to be a cover he does. Nothing makes a songwriter happier than having someone praise a song they sing that they didn’t write.

The interview

One thing I’ve learnt over the course of the two interviews is that when you’re by yourself and filming on one main camera, and filming on a second camera (my phone), and monitoring audio, and asking the questions, and actively listening to the responses and framing your next question, and doing your best to make sure your interviewee is comfortable…you tend to get to the end of the interview and think ‘Well that seemed to go well…but I’ve got no idea if it’s going to work as a five minute video?’
But I think it does…and so here is Mick Thomas

2 Degrees of Melbourne – Mick Thomas from 2 Degrees of Separation on Vimeo.

In conclusion

The music I wrote for Andy’s video just didn’t work with Mick’s…so I had to write something else (and by ‘write’ I clearly mean ‘stick together a series of samples in Garageband’). But I’m really glad I did. I also had to call an end to the interview a little earlier than I would have liked because the the camera was starting to overheat…and I ran out of memory on the card (shooting at 50fps is all well and good to get nice slow motion…but it chews through the memory!)…and editing in 1.5 hour blocks between putting the kids to bed and going to bed myself was less than ideal.
But I can live with all of these little issues, the one thing I’m still annoyed with myself about is that with Mick standing right there in my kitchen I didn’t have the guts to tell him that I think that he is one of the best singer/songwriters that Australia has ever produced…and certainly my favourite. And that Melbourne is so lucky to have someone to immortalise it in song. So I’ll just write it here instead, and pretend that this somehow makes up for it.
But if you’d like to make up for my inadequacy, then I heartily suggest that you all ‘do yourself a favour’ and go out and buy a ‘Weddings, Parties Anything’ album or a ‘Mick Thomas and the Sure Thing’ album, or head to Tassie and check out ‘Vandemonian Lags‘…or just visit Mick’s site and see when he’s performing next.
You won’t regret it.

2 degrees of Melbourne – Episode 1: Andy White

A while back I wrote a blog about how this year I was going to focus on being more creative. It turns out that living with your parents while your house is being renovated, and then moving back in to the aforementioned house, leaves very little scope for creativity. But we have been back in our house for about 6 weeks now, and I have just finished my first real creative project…and I’m really happy with how it has come out.

The idea

I love Melbourne, and I love hearing people’s stories…so one of the big projects I wanted to embark on this year was to interview some Melbourne people who I admire and create a series of short videos. Basically to talk about my home city, via the people who I think make it great. In theory this is very doable…but in reality, people who are worth interviewing and making videos of, often have better things to do with their time than talk to you for a video that they are not getting paid for.
So it was with a fair degree of trepidation that I approached my first potential interviewee, Andy White (of Fyxomatosis fame). I put off writing to him for about two weeks, then I spent an hour or so crafting the perfect email, then I spent the next 12 hours preparing contingency plans for the inevitable rejection. So it’s fair to say that when he replied with ‘Sure. When/Where?’, I was both surprised and overjoyed…not to mention impressed with his brevity.
But once you have someone who has agreed to be interviewed, you then have to prepare for the interview. You have to make sure you have all the gear that you need. Most importantly, you have to believe that you are going to create something that your interviewee will be happy with, so that the next time they see you they don’t start screaming ‘You!’ and throwing things at you.

The filming of the interview

Andy was happy to come to my house for the filming, so at least I knew we would be able to get some good light…and if we used one of our new ‘Of course your happiness is my prime concern darling…wait, HOW MUCH?!!!’ chairs I might be able to claim them as a tax deduction. I used a roll of white paper as the background (I gave a guy my mountain bike when he was looking at getting back into cycling and he repaid me with reams of white paper, which make an awesome background for filming or photography) and I shot it all on my Canon 550D and my iPhone 4 (I used a Zoom H2 for the audio).
Any concerns I had about whether I would get enough good stuff to edit with were assuaged within the first 3 minutes. Andy is a dream interviewee, he was relaxed, fearless and best of all, engaging.
After 40 minutes of interview, the sensor on my camera was starting to overheat…and Xavier had returned to wreak havoc on my film set, so we called it a day.

The edit

As I said, the interview went for 40 minutes. Normally my first cut (where you get rid of all of the stuff you know you won’t be able to use) would whittle this down to about 10-15 minutes…then I would begin the tricky job of cutting it back to 3-5 minutes. But when I got rid of all of the guff from Andy’s interview I still had 30 minutes of footage…pretty much his entire interview was great! Which is great if you’re producing a half hour doco…but when you’re producing a 3-5 minute video for the web, it’s a freaking nightmare.
I was eventually brutal enough and cut it down to 5’30″(but there was some great stuff I’ll have to find another use for!), added some photos and footage that I had (and two that I got from Andy), wrote the music track in GarageBand…and the end result goes a little something like this…

or for the Vimeo fans

2 Degrees of Melbourne – Andy White from 2 Degrees of Separation on Vimeo.

So there we have it, the ‘Year of creativity’ is finally underway…my next interview targets are Richard Gill, Danny Collis and Hanna Assifiri. So if any of you have any good contacts with them, please let me know.

A big thanks

Last but not least, I’d like to thank Andy very much for taking the time, being such a great interviewee and most of all for running the best bike ride I’ve ever done, The Melburn Roobaix.

Recovering your Hotmail account

About two and a half weeks ago, I got a weird email from my wife’s (hereafter known as Katie) Hotmail account. Feeling quietly confident that she wouldn’t be sending me emails in German that were apparently trying to get me to click on a link, I gave her a call to let her know her account had been hacked. Turns out a few other people had told her the same thing and so she was heading home to change her password. It’s fair to say things turned crap pretty soon after this, here’s our experience.

Step 1: Hotmail sends an email to your secondary account with a verification code

When Katie went to log in there was a screen saying ‘It looks like someone else is using this account. We will send a verification email to your nominated account. Just type the code from this email into the box below and you can regain access’.
Clearly this is genius, and as I’m the person with the nominated account I waited for the email with the verification to arrive…and I waited…and I waited some more. If you’ve ever had to change your password on something, or you use internet banking, you’ll know these verification emails usually arrive within about 10 seconds. After half an hour, I got Katie to try again…then again after another 20 minutes. Nothing.

Step 2: Prove your identity

There is also an option to fill in a form that proves that you are the legitimate owner. Again, genius. The form asks you all the normal questions, but also asks you to list the subjects of your recent emails, as well as the addresses of people you have recently emailed. At first blush this makes sense, after all who else would know the subjects of your emails. But in reality, if you haven’t used the account for a couple of days, or if a lot of your emails are replies to other people’s emails…how the hell are you going to remember what the subjects were? How much tolerance is built in? How many of you (without taking a peak) can say what the subjects of emails that you sent 3 days ago were? How many of you actually know people’s email address off by heart? Most email systems autofill these when you start typing, so it’s become like remembering people’s mobile phone numbers…you don’t have to because the machine does it for you.
But don’t panic. After all, this is Microsoft…a multimillion dollar company. They will have thought of all of this and built in tolerances accordingly. Just fill in the form, and tomorrow you’ll be back into your account.

Step 3: Wait 24 hours…then be told that you haven’t proven you are you

OK…so the email verification never arrived, and now their system doesn’t believe that you are the legitimate owner of your own account. Just to be clear, the system that was apparently sufficiently lax as to allow your account to be hacked by a complete stranger…is now saying it won’t let you back into your own email account.

Step 4: Repeat steps 1-3…twice.

By this stage we are getting furious. Katie uses her Hotmail account for a lot of her business stuff, so it’s really important to get those contact details back from her account. In desperation I actually started scouring the internet for help. After 2 hours of being bounced from the form we had already filled in…to a series of FAQ’s…to a ‘help Forum’. I was starting to feel like one of those old people who say ‘I just want to talk to a real person!’
So I did the next best thing and sent a snarky tweet to @MicrosoftHelps (Microsoft Support’s twitter account). The next day I got a reply from them, and after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing they escalated our case to a ‘moderator’. At last! Clearly this was going to be the turning point…God bless Social Media!

Step 5: Abandon all hope

Ahh yes…I may have been a bit too quick on the ‘God bless social media’ thing (actually in truth, @microsofthelps were really good…it’s just the rest of Microsoft that was freaking useless). After a week of filling in the same forms (because clearly after two weeks Katie’s memory of the subjects of her emails was going to be better) and trying to convince Hotmail that Katie really is the owner of her own account. We were given a final notice that we had not proved that Katie was the real owner, so we could not get access to the account…but hey ‘Why don’t you set up a new Hotmail account…and this time be really careful with your password.’
Well there’s an idea…and here’s another idea…why don’t you go F$&# yourself?! How about you develop some security systems that actually prevent this from happening? If you can’t do that (and I appreciate it’s very difficult), then why don’t you implement some systems that actually allow the legitimate owners of the account to gain access to it? And if you can’t do either of these things, how about you don’t patronise people by saying ‘hey just set up another account’? Because sometimes people have over 10 years worth of correspondences and contacts and you can’t just get that back by starting a new account, you human paraquat!

Some advice

So after two and a half weeks of trying, we have finally given up. After over 10 years of being a loyal customer, Katie has set up a Gmail account…and all because Hotmail’s systems are so inadequate and their customer service has been so poor.
I realise that complaining about the customer service for a product that I’ve never paid for is pretty much a ‘first world problem’, but you know what? I don’t care. I’ve been nice, I’ve done everything they’ve asked, I have held fast to my belief that if you just do the right thing, then the system will do the right thing. But the system hasn’t done the right thing, it has strung me along for two and half weeks, and then dumped me on my arse (and I had more than enough of that during my teenage years from any number of girls!)

So here’s some advice for Hotmail:
Fix your systems.
Improve your customer service.

And here’s some advice for all of you:
Set up a Gmail account and transfer all of your contacts over there.
And if you you’re trying to get in contact with Katie…don’t send anything to her Hotmail account.

The song that changed my life…kinda.

Rafael Epstein has a segment on his radio show on 774 ABC Melbourne where people talk about the song that changed their life, and every time I think about it, there is one song that really stands out: ‘Red 2‘ by Dave Clark. But it’s not because it heralded the onset of some amazing time in my life, more that it marked the end of one.

The rave scene in the early 90’s

If this were a news report or documentary, this is the part where you cut to the footage of people dancing with glow sticks in a massive club while a light show explodes around them. But in truth this is not where this story starts. In year 11 and 12 at school (1992-93) I started listening to techno music. Back then it was called ‘trance’ and it was still well and truly outside of the mainstream. DJ’s who would eventually play at parties for 10,000s of people like Will e Tell and Richie Rich were still playing the back room at Insanity at the Chevron to a transient group of about 20 punters.

Community radio was the only place to find it. There was one show that I listened to religiously called ‘Beat in the street‘ (that later became ‘Transmission’) on RRR-FM hosted by Kate Bathgate. I used to tape every show, and then listen to the tape on my walkman again, and again and again at school over the next week.
Going to a private all-boys school meant that listening to anything other than MMM or Fox-FM was basically like walking into a steakhouse and just ordering a salad, it simply wasn’t done. So listening to these tapes in the common room at school had a sort of forbidden pleasure element to it.
I started going to dance parties (or in the parlance of 1994 ‘raves’) regularly when I started Uni and it was a total revelation. The venues were usually shitty warehouses with one toilet. The sound systems were prone to blowing just as everyone was going apeshit (Thomas Heckman, I’m looking in your direction) and the people attending them were the offcuts from society. There were tall and lanky guys and short squat women. They had their own dresscode (highly coloured clothes, with very wide pants and very tight tops). They didn’t drink and there was none of the agro that hung over the club scene like a fog as soon as the clock hit 2am. And the music…well it was like nothing I had ever heard! There was the big 4/4 beat driving it along, but there were also floating basslines and awesome melody lines that I just loved. If you can imagine my music up until this point being basically nothing but guitars and the occasional hip-hop track… then suddenly hearing this or this you can get an idea of just how big a change it was.
It was a very friendly and welcoming scene, and like so many sub-cultures, part of the pleasure was sharing an experience with a whole lot of like minded people. I would head to these parties at about midnight and then dance until the early morning…then catch the first train home. Some how I managed to also accommodate my exhausting 8 contact hours a week of uni. I was living the dream.

Cometh the drugs, cometh the pretty people…endeth the party

By the mid 90’s the parties were getting bigger and better, with the Hardware and Every Picture Tells a Story parties attracting thousands of people…and with that I started to notice more and more people from clubland appearing at the raves. It started with a slow trickle of muscly men in white t-shirts and their blonde bombshells…and eventually became a monsoon of pretty people armed with whistles, glow sticks and talcum powder. But of course these people weren’t here for the music…they were there because someone had told them that it was cool to go to raves and do drugs.
Now of course drugs had always been a big part of the rave scene, but suddenly people were no longer going to listen to the music and maybe do some drugs…they were going to do some drugs and maybe listen to some music. So the music slowly began to morph away from the flowing melodies and soaring chords, towards something that said ‘look, you’ve spent a lot of money on those two pills and that gram of speed…let’s give you something that you can just grind your teeth to all night’. To me Red 2 was the tipping point. It was so sparse, so mechanical, and so minimal that I felt no connection with it…and as the crowds around me generally lost their shit to it…I realised that I had no real connection with them either. And suddenly the spell was broken. I could no longer see my future self still going the these parties when I was 40 (I had earnestly announced this to people in the past), I couldn’t even see myself going to these parties in 6 months time. The dance was over.
Like any naive person in a subculture, I wanted the mainstream to see how amazing this scene was and to experience what I was experiencing. I was convinced that if the mainstream could just attend these parties, then the world would be a better place…but when the mainstream decided to drop by, they were like a drunken gatecrasher. They turned up at my house, made a pass at my girlfriend then vomited on the cat. In short they pretty much ruined everything, and Red 2 was the soundtrack they did it to.

That was 20 years ago. All of the flyers I used to have stuck on my bedroom walls are gone, the recordings I listened to religiously are on redundant technology and it takes weeks weeks to organise someone to look after the kids if I was to go out on a Saturday night…and even then, I’d have to be home by 1am because otherwise I’d be too tired for the next day. But while writing this I jumped on YouTube and started listening to some of the tracks I used to love, and suddenly I was back in a warehouse in Footscray, at 4am, dancing my heart out with a room of people who were having the best night of their lives…and I’m so glad that I got to experience that.