I recently found out that soon Voigtlander will be releasing a 10mm Hyper Wide Heliar lens. I’ll admit, when I first found out about it I was quite excited but when I saw what price it was going to be I became a little less excited. As you probably already know #ilikeitwide, so can I justify spending another $1k on another ultra wide lens? Yes, so I’d better start talking myself out of it, quick. Firstly: I work in retail so I’m not exactly rolling in money. Secondly: I generally don’t buy new, the last new thing I bought was 10 years ago, so maybe I’ll wait until someone else buys it and decides that it’s way too wide for them. Thirdly: Exactly how much wider is the 10mm than the 12mm? And this is the bit that convinced me. The 12mm has an angle of view of 121º, the 10mm has an angle of view of 130º which means the 10mm is only 7.5% wider than the 12mm. Now let’s compare that to my previous wide upgrades: from 24mm to 15mm was a 31% increase in wideness, and from 15mm to 12mm was a 10% increase in wideness. Now for the motherload: from the Xpan 45mm to the 30mm was a whopping 84% increase in wideness! But that was one hell of an investment! Fourthly: I have been enjoying using the far, far less wide 40mm recently and the 21mm equivalent 43mm on the Mamiya 7 is beautiful. Fifthly. Is that even a world? I was sceptical about fourthly, no red squiggle, I’m going with it. Fifthly: I have always thought it was strange when people upgrade their digital camera just because there is a new one out, I don’t want to be one of those people. So for the immediate future I’m sticking with the 12mm.

23 April 2015

A student reviewed a couple of my photos when I was exhibiting in Unsensored in 2009 and I recently found a copy of it and I thought I would share it. Unfortunately I don’t remember his name, nor can I find it online. Thanks, you.

Bye Bye Birdie

The viewer is initially confronted with a scene of loneliness and depression in Matthew Joseph’s Bye Bye Birdie (fig. 2). This is communicated evoked / suggested through a cloudy background, derelict cottage, lone pine tree and a barren farming landscape in the midst of a drought. It is difficult to imagine the sweat and toil the farmer must endure in a barren landscape like this and it appears all the farmer’s hopes have been lost. A sense of depression also exists in the presumably isolated location of the subject, away from friends and all the opportunities that exist in a city area. Though this is initially unnoticeable, a close examination will reveal a couple wearing dark sombre clothes as if they were going to a funeral. The bird may symbolise the end of life in this bleak place and its ascent into a more peaceful existence in heaven.
Upon closer examination of this image, however, one may begin to discover that it is open to interpretation. It could also be imagined as a place to live in simplicity and retreat from the hustle and bustle of city life – to a place where the lack of city conveniences could lead one to reflect upon the meaning of life and of how tough times often strengthen a person. The farm and tiny home may be seen as a place that fosters feelings of resilience and a place where the family forms a close-knit community. A sense of mystery is revealed after analysing Bye Bye Birdie (fig. 2) for a period of time and it becomes difficult to know what to feel as you do not know what is going on inside the derelict cottage, leaving it open to interpretation.

Customers not Commuters

Directly below Bye Bye Birdie (fig. 2) is a contrasting image by the same artist called Customers, not commuters (fig. 3). The hustle and bustle of the suburban train is a great contrast to the slow paced life portrayed in Bye Bye Birdie (fig. 2). The old-looking train interior appears very plain and boring. The photograph enables the viewer to imagine actually being on the train and enduring the severe rattling. It even creates a dizzy feeling. As in Bye Bye Birdie (fig. 2), a sense of mystery exists as the fast-paced nature of the train trip is enhanced through the blurred scenery outside the train window, making it difficult to know where the train is travelling through.
Unlike the desolation displayed in Bye Bye Birdie (fig. 2), however, a ‘colourful’ sense of life is present in the people travelling on the train. A wide variety of people from all walks of life is represented and includes people from various age groups, ethnic backgrounds and socio-economic statuses. There is some mystery surrounding the activities people may have done before the train trip or intend to do once they finish their journey (such as work, shopping, going home or other activities). A variety of activities are also occurring as the journey is underway, including listening to music, reading newspapers and having a conversation. A sense of mystery exists again in what the passengers are thinking and talking about. Feelings of both contentedness and suffering are associated with the overall image through the portrayal of people’s various moods. The interior of the train, itself, evokes a sense of unease through its dated interior.

When I started this site, I wanted it to be a place for my friends and I to share our photos, discotheque means record library, fototheque means photo library. That never happened mostly because I am a more prolific shooter than most of my friends. A year or so ago I had the idea of having profiles of Xpan photographers associated to my Hasselblad Xpan page. I finally got around to it, http://www.fototheque.com/xpanphotographers So far I have 4 Xpan photographer profiles on the site and quite a few more in the pipeline. Check it out!

I posted a link to this on Twitter and Facebook but I didn’t put anything on here, so here it is. Last week a friend of mine Damo wanted to sit down and chat to me about photography for his website Inconspicuosity. So we met at The Spread Eagle Hotel while our SOs were stitching and bitching. It was a lot harder to be on the other side of questioning than I thought. If you would like to read the interview please click here. I think it’s time to start Photographer Stories up again.

Hi. Hey look at that! A blog post without words! So I’ve had this idea for a project in the back of mind for a few years now and I finally got around to starting it. It’s called Photographer Stories and it’s a podcast and each episode I will have a little chat with a photographer/photo taker/photo maker/someone in the photographic industry that I know, record it and put it on the internet. My biggest obstacle has been myself, I hate the sound of my own voice, like really afraid of it, I don’t even like how I sound when someone else reads what I have written. So then I realised I am looking at the cure for this right in the face, I make myself listen to my own voice and TA-DA! I am cured. So last Thursday I drove out to Malmsbury and had a little chat with my friend Rhys, recorded it and put it on the internet. Here it is.

Recently I uploaded my 4,008th photo to Flickr. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I fucking love stats so I thought I would share a few with you. Some of the information comes from Flickr and some comes from patchy data which started in 2012 on a dodgy 3rd party Flickr stat site, so it is what it is. A lot of info on this post is going to be clickable so go ahead and hover.

Of the 4008 photo on Flickr, 991 are tagged Xpan, 1,044 are tagged Voigtlander and 207 are tagged Mamiya 7. My most used tag on Flickr is film with 2,355 tags, tag #2 is Australia with 2,164 tags, tag #3 is Rangefinder with 2,154 tags. The Xpan tag has apparently provided 14,677 visits to my Flickr account and Mamiya 7 43mm has provided 6,934 visits. Even though there are only 31 photos tagged nude on my Flickr account (and only one actual nude photo of me) the keyword nude has provided 8,978 visits, thank you pervs! On the 15th of January 2013 I reached 1,000,000 views.

My best upload year was 2007 with 787 photo uploads, this was the year I moved to Melbourne so I had a lot more interesting things to take photos of, but far less spare time. As far as uploading goes my best month of the year is April which is 32% higher than my 2nd best month January. My best individual month was April 2006 with 151 uploads, this was just after I spent 3 weeks in Japan. My worst individual month December 2013 with a grand total of 0 uploads, Whoops! I blame GTA V. My worst month of the year is July, I blame this on Winter.

My best view day, on record, was Wednesday the 25th of July 2013 with a total of 6,569 views due to my photo More Momorangi being in Explore. Speaking of Explore I have 32 photos in Explore and I have had 69 photos removed from Explore.

My most interesting photo on Flickr is The California Hotel with 7,225 views, 136 favourites and 32 comments. My most viewed photo is My Kit 15/01/2007 with 12,313 views and my most favourited photo is Formerly the 12 Apostles with 189 favourites. My least popular photo is Hawthorn Fragments #23 with a measly 11 views.

Of the 406 groups I am in on Flickr, I am the Admin for 24 and Moderator for 7. The group I get the most referrals from is Mamiya 7 & 7II with a total of 2,347 referrals even though I only have 207 images in the group. #2 is the group 43mm Mamiya 7 with 1,560 referrals for 206 photos and #3 is Xpan with 1013 referrals for 632 photos (like I mentioned earlier the data is patchy and since 2012 only). The least amount of referrals is from the Rangefinder group, only 27 from 730 photos. Google is the #1 external referrer with 6095 referrals and #2 is my own website, fototheque.com with 5470 referrals.

So there you have it, far, far too much information. Thank you to both of you who read this.

Warning: May contain traces of nuts, spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and a whole lot of fucks I don’t give.

On Wednesday night Ambre and I got home from two weeks in New Zealand, the first time I have been to NZ without visiting Christchurch and only really the 4th or 5th time I have been to the North Island. We went for my friend Mark’s wedding and somehow I managed to squeeze in a road trip even though we only did that 8 months ago, I am going to pay for this for sure.

We started off in Auckland, we spent a couple of days there having a look around and after a 29 year wait I finally got to go to Kelly Tarlton’s (it’s an aquarium) and it did not disappoint. We also got to hang out with Mark and his now wife Olja. Then it was on to Rotorua for a few days for the wedding, which was amazing! I nearly forgot, on the way we visited Hobbiton formerly known as Matamata and Paeroa. I haven’t been to many weddings where I wasn’t there to take photos so that was nice. My friend Ben was one of Mark’s groomsmen (Ben & Mark are brothers), my friend Morgan was the celebrant and my friend Logan shot the wedding video. Their photographer was a massive bald man, I couldn’t think of Richard Moll’s character’s name from Night Court so I called him Lurch. The next day was a BBQ hosted by Ben and Mark’s parents at the holiday house they were renting, we ate and drank and talked shit, good times. I feel lucky to be friends with 3 amazing brothers.

The next day we drove to North East Te Kaha, there were some great seaside places on the way that I would like to visit again like Ohope and Opotiki. The place we stayed at in Te Kaha described itself as a resort, I wouldn’t, but it was the closest thing to a resort for at least 100km in any direction, so it was good. Even the food was good, but we had to eat early because the chef wanted to knock off early. Next was a 3 hour drive for which time itself stopped to Gisborne, Google lied, it was more like 5 hours. Again more cool seaside places like Tolaga Bay. The next leg was from Gisborne to Napier. I have wanted to visit Napier for years and it did not disappoint, mostly because my expectations were not that high but it was a lot better than I thought it would be. We stayed across the road from the “beach” and the room came with free apples, amazing, everyone should do this, apples, in a bowl, real ones. I had organised for Ambre and I to have a penguin experience at The National Aquarium and it was fun, we got to prepare their food, meet some sick and quarantined birds, feed the birds in their enclosure with an audience and then hold a penguin called Gordon, he was pretty cool. Then we went on an Art Deco walking tour of Napier and learned about the earthquake and the art deco movement.

Wanganui was next. The plan was to stay in Wanganui a night and then the next day drive to Mount Taranaki and then back to Wanganui for another night. We walked into the “city” from where we were staying, saw some interesting buildings, found a nice place to eat and walked back again. The next day day we got up and walked to get some breakfast, the weather was absolutely shithouse, there was low fog, it was windy, raining and cold. At breakfast Ambre had a psychic moment and read my mind, so we rang where we were staying in Wellington and they had a room available, previously they didn’t because of the Rugby 7s but someone must have cancelled. So we packed up and drove to Wellington. It was nice to drive through cities that I had only heard of on TV before, Fielding, Foxton, Levin and Porirua, oh and Bulls, Bulls and their Bulls signs on everything. For those of you who don’t know Bulls has these funny signs on most of the businesses in Bulls, for example, the Church has “Forgive-a-bull” on it and the police station has “Consta-bull” on it. Hilarious.

So on my first morning in Wellington I got up early and picked my Dad up from the airport and on the way I got to see a few Rugby 7s walks of shame, hilarious, because people go to the 7s in fancy dress, one girl, I couldn’t really work out what she was dressed as. So in Wellington the weather was still shit so we went to Te Papa and the City Gallery, the City Gallery was mostly closed but purely by chance there was an exhibition on featuring the works of Laurence Aberhart and William Eggleston, amazing! I have seen some of Aberhart’s work here in Melbourne but it was still good to see it on the wall and getting to see Eggleston’s tricycle in person was pretty cool.

The next day we went to Wellington Zoom where I had arranged for Ambre to have an encounter with a Red Panda, she loved it. On our second last day in New Zealand the sun decided to come out again so we went for a bit of a drive to a cafe on the water in Scorching Bay and then for a bit of a drive around the other bays. We then went to the Weta Cave and saw some Lord of the Rings crap and I got to hold a gun from District 9, it was awesome! Sadly there weren’t any Feebles there.

I haven’t even talked about photos! But I’m not really going to, you’ll see them eventually and in a month or two when I finish uploading them you’ll be sick of them anyway. The final film score was; Mamiya 7 – 15, Xpan – 4, Voigtlander – 3. There is still a roll of Ultra 50 in the Mamiya. Everything has been scanned already, so all I have to do now is crop off the exterior of the scanned frames, remove the odd bit of dust and upload. Obviously I shot with the Mamiya 7 the most but I tried to use the Xpan more than last time. I forced myself to use the Voigtlander and I think it proved a point for me, there is no point spending $2k on a digital version, especially with it’s disgusting pink vignetting. So for now film is it for me, the Mamiya gets all of the attention but I do still love using the Xpan, enough to keep it for another year anyway. Everything looks cool (in colour) and amazing through the 30mm viewfinder, I just wish I could scan colour film as easily as I scan B&W film, this problem requires more thinking or just getting over it and using the V700 again. Thanks for reading all of this crap, you are truly special to me, yes you, not those other people, just you. MJ

27 November 2013

I haven’t done a blog post in a long time so I thought I’d better do one.
I haven’t taken a photo in a long time.
I have been thinking about a large format camera.
I have been thinking about how of a pain in the arse developing large format film is.
I have been thinking about the new Sony A7.
I have been thinking about the fact that the lens I want to use on it I have hardly used in the last 2 years.
I have been thinking about how lazy digital photography makes me.
I have played far too much GTA V.
I have played far too much GTA Online.
I am looking forward to finishing my Xmas book.
I am looking forward to sending my Xmas book.
I am not looking forward to another Xmas in retail.
I am looking forward to going away for Xmas.
I am looking forward to my friend Mark’s wedding in Feb.
I am looking forward to seeing more of the North Island.
I haven’t missed being on Facebook.
I haven’t missed anything on Facebook.

8 July 2013

I get sick of saying “End of an era” but honestly I can’t think of a better way to put it, another one bites the dust? Anyway it is the end of another era. I, Matthew Robert Joseph of soundish mind and body have listed my 30mm Xpan lens on eBay. Don’t try and talk me out of it, those of you who know me will know that this won’t be an impulsive decision because I tend to over-think everything. I’m not selling the camera, just the lens. It has been on the chopping block a few times and it has been close, very close, this 7th year of our reign will be our last. Part of me even wishes I had sold it years ago when it was worth more and in better condition. So shed a tear, punch a wall, call me a fuckwit, it doesn’t matter. I like it wide but I also like it foreground. Here’s a link to the auction, you sick bastards: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/151077747631.

I like it wide.

It’s true, I have made no secret of this fact. But why do I like it wide? and why do I like it so, so wide? The answer?

Fucked if I know.

My first wide lens was on the wide end of a 28-200mm Tamron, I only used this for a few months before it wasn’t wide enough. Then came the 24mm, wow that’s wide! I actually liked the 24mm and used it for some time but inevitably it wasn’t wide enough. Then I wanted a 20mm, now that’s wide! But alas, I was too slow for a nice second hand one, certainly not buying new. Then I actually went a bit less wide, 35mm, that’s what that old French dude used to use so now I’m going to use it! Then I got the Xpan and the 45mm which is actually a 24mm, that’s kind of wide, but at least the neg is wide too. I desperately wanted a 30mm for the Xpan but I couldn’t afford it. I then bought a Horizon camera, this is really wide and really panoramic, this is cool. But something bad happened, it had some funky shit inside it that appears on all of my frames AND the shutter jammed open at the end of a roll and I rewound the film with the shutter open AND it was one of my last rolls of 35mm Agfa Ultra 50, You’re out of here! Then I find out about Voigtlander Rangefinders, this is a fun little camera and this 15mm is sooo wide, I bet there is nothing wider than this! Then as if by magic a 30mm for the Xpan comes into my life, is this what perfection looks like? And then… OMG! WHAT?! There is a 12mm? WANT! Then a few years pass and nothing much changes. 20mm on a APS DSLR, meh. A faulty 14mm fisheye. 50mm on 6×6? nice but not wide enough. I like 21mm now, no I don’t. I’m going to shoot wide video with this 7-14mm, no you’re just going to become a lazy photographer, that’s what. Have a look through the Xpan, cured, bye 7-14. I want a wide 4×5*, too heavy and too much work, try pinhole, meh. I want to shoot wide stuff on medium format, I want a Hasselblad SWC, but I can’t look through them properly, plus it’s douchey, no. Mamiya 7 & 43mm? Yes please!

* I should point out that at some stage in the future, provided the film is still available I would like to use a super/ultra wide large format camera but not until I’m old enough to get away with getting a camera bag that has wheels and one of those extending handles with the tripod mount on top.

But why do I like it so, so wide? A photographer once told me to approach my subject. Another photographer once told me to get close to my subject and one of those photographers once told me to connect with my subject. I guess my brain took all of this information and thought “Approach, get closer, connect, repeat” until I’m so close to my subject I don’t know who’s more uncomfortable. Shooting on the street is interesting with a super or ultra wide angle lens, people don’t know if they’re in the frame or not or they’re thinking he’s so close to me, he couldn’t possibly taking a photo of me, but I am. <RANT> While I am at it, street photography with lenses longer than 50mm should not be allowed. Maybe even longer than 35mm. How can you connect with your subject using a 70-200mm lens from across the other side of the street? I guess you could call them or use a signal lamp, the later would also help with the light situation on overcast days.Get close, deal with the consequences.</RANT>

Am I done yet?

No.

The pros and cons of shooting wide.

1. Distortion – Pro, learn to fucking love it.
2. The lenses are slow – Pro, your face is slow.
3. Taking photos of stuff from the footpath and not the road – Pro.
4. Taking photos of stuff in narrow alleys – Pro.
5. Taking photos of stuff far, far away – Con.
Couldn’t you just crop? – Fuck off.
6. Taking photos of people – Con, unless you’re careful, keep them away from the edge.
7. Taking photos at night – Con, the lenses are generally slow.
Use a tripod you lazy bastard – Kiss my arse.
Use faster film then – Ok.
8. Too much depth of field – Pro, Piss off, if you want to be one of the cool kids and shoot shallow DOF all the time go buy a fast tele lens, not a wide dumbarse.
9. That 12mm is unusable – Don’t fight with admins of the cool groups on Flickr.
10. Can’t you just move backwards? See 3 & 4.

I can’t think of anything else to say about the subject so I’m going to end with one bit of advice.

Get closer.

MJ