Project 1 – Lo-Fi Self Portrait

As someone with a relatively routine lifestyle, I tried to incorporate as many different elements and aspects of my life as possible into the media presented for this project.

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Photography

This photograph is of my backyard, looking out from the open kitchen/dining area of my home. This room has large west-facing windows, and so often there is a nice sunset in the evenings and is often what I’m greeted by when I get home.

This imagine is used to convey I am a foodie, so I am a fan of the wide selection of cafes that Melbourne has to offer. It is taken at one of my favourites – Manchester Press – and by including a cup of coffee in the framing I am also able to convey my love of a good cup of coffee.

This is the view out of my bedroom window in the morning. Usually it’s the first thing I see when I wake up. Somewhat mundane but routine – which is (sadly) representative of a lot of my life.

This photograph is of my kitten Olive – whom I bought back in December of 2015. She has a habit of hiding in washing baskets and other things (this day she chose the carry bag for my ice hockey helmet. I think it conveys that part of my home life includes pets, and that I am definitely a cat person. It also conveys part of Olive’s personality – that she is, like most kittens, quite cheeky.

This photograph is of a few pages of my passports – with stamps received upon entering London, Amsterdam and Vancouver respectively. While these are just a few pages of my passport (and there are more stamps throughout from other travels through Europe and North America) – it conveys that I have travelled many places before and enjoy seeing the world.

I’m not entirely satisfied with the end result of this photograph and could have better laid out the subject matter, but this is a photo of just part of my vinyl collection. I think it conveys both that I am a collector of vinyl records; and also that I have a very eclectic music taste.

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Videos

This first video is of me performing the solo from the fifth section of Green Day’s “Jesus of Suburbia”. I think this simultaneously conveys that I am a muso – playing guitar – but it also helps to further flesh out my eclectic music taste. By using videography rather than just sound, it allows me to also show off the guitar I play – an Epiphone Les Paul Custom Pro.

The second video is a first-person view (shot from a GoPro helmet mount) of me skating out onto the ice for an ice hockey training session. I tried to convey in this footage what it’s like for me to head out onto the rink at a training session. I liked the visual side of this clip – being able to portray it from my perspective – but the audio of this clip was really not to my liking due to the casing surrounding the GoPro unit muffling the microphone.

This third video is of me skateboarding around some of the local streets in my suburb. I’m not really happy with how these clips turned out – so I used the “best of a bad bunch”. I wanted to convey this new hobby of mine (having owned a board for less than 2 months) but the action wasn’t really discernible when listening to just the sound. Unfortunately this meant I had to use this footage which is – at best – motion-sickness inducing.

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Audio

This audio clip – taken of my train arriving at Essendon station – obviously conveys where I call home. However, there are additional ties between my identity and the suburb of Essendon – as both my parents and their parents grew up in the suburb and had strong community ties to the suburb through business, rotary and sports.

This is a short preview of an original song (with the working title “Mango”) written by one of my bands – The Mocha Sins. Having already introduced my wide taste in music I listen to, I figure this serves as a good introduction to the kind of music I write collaboratively with other musicians – a low-fi alternative/punk/blues vibe. I provide guitars for this track.

This sound clip was recorded during the time before an ice hockey training session while I was waiting in the clubrooms with a few other players in my team, and we were discussing times in our lives we had encountered bad smells in schoolbags, sportsbags and suitcases. It conveys that I enjoy spending time hanging out with the friends I have made through sport, but also that I enjoy telling a story or two about my life. This particular story also light-heartedly highlights my nature to be occasionally forgetful but also usually reluctant to admit it.

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Text

A low, bitter southerly was sweeping the Victorian coast, blanketing the region with thick, blue-grey clouds. All along the shoreline, landmarked by rolling dunes and eroded rocky cliffs, white-capped waves lapped at the sand; pushing out messy tangles of seaweed, before covering them and rolling them back into the ocean.

The text I have included is a small excerpt from a novel I have been writing for a few years. In my downtime, I enjoy fictional writing; and often try to write in a style that emulates many of my favourite authors, such as Tim Winton and John Kinsella; paying attention to the description of the landscapes (based on Ocean Grove, a town I lived in for quite a significant portion of my life) that my characters find themselves in.