Takashi's return; "21"??

 The photos on this roll of film lay dormant in a drawer for two years with nothing but a "21" scratched neatly into the side of it. I always assumed the 21 meant "21 photos taken" but lo and behold, a fully exposed roll of 36 negatives. So who knows what it meant. Sometimes I think I do this stuff on purpose to introduce minor doubts into my future-self's life. I have actually considered doing such things in the past and for all I, with my atrocious memory, know I have gone through with many of them. It's like I'm living a self-inflicted, boring version of the movie "Memento".

Anyways that aside, I was really excited to discover the bounty contained in that film - photographs of the first house gig Paul and I organised. It was supposed to be the last Fairy Fort gig of the summer, before Takashi went home to Matsue to get going on his plan to open a café. But the gods of that crappy sort of rain that doesn't really rain but just sort of hangs around and clings to everything like a jerk had other plans and the fairy fort had to be abandoned in favour of Paul's sitting room. It was still great! And was the start of a series of really nice house gigs. Takashi's presence in Galway was short-lived but so hugely affected those he met. For me, he completely opened my eyes to the potential in everything: a discarded pipe for a bugle; a bag of crisps on the head for percussion; a field for a concert venue... It's coincidental these photos appear now, as Takashi's coming back at the end of next month and has been in touch recently about doing a tour with a few friends (Darugaries and Rokumantai). Yesss!

Some other out and aboutings:

Several seconds before (by Michelle) (though I'm possibly not right about that)

 

Digits

 

Drive home

Kitchen Roll

 

I left an old camera with a roll of out of date film in the kitchen for about a month, to be on hand for the various small occurrences in and around the kitchen table.

Then I finished the film and proceeded to leave it about month before getting it developed; typical.

Portrait of a Table Quiz

A grand table quiz and only two pens between four people.

Contact Sheets/2

Photographer-less Portraits

An idea I had for a school project a few months ago.

Rusted Rail at Citóg 8-10-10

More after that jump

FairyFortFour Photovideo

At lengthy last, with the help of Michelle's computer, I've stitched together the photos from the last Fairy Fort night and lined them up and made them play. After much frustration with my own technological limitations I'm relieved to have finally done this. I'm afraid the quality is a bit poor, I tried doing the highest quality at every step but still it ended up pretty blocky. Which is annoying as it really doesn't do Aaron's projections justice at all. Oh well, for now it'll have to do, til I figure out how to make it better (or someone else lends their expertise...)

The song is Yawning Chasm's 'To the Void' - from his 'The Shadow is that Hidden' EP - which is an effortlessly gorgeous tune.

Lights at the Fairy Fort

I wanted to go to the Fairy Fort to make the poster for the last gig with the idea of writing the "Fairy Fort 4" in a variety of lights, so off we went, Barry, Michelle and I in Michelle's car to tramp around in a field waving lights around for a while.

Barry and Michelle wrote their (full) names in the air:

The product of lots of tightly co-ordinated teamwork:

 

Go teamwork!

Jumping in place

Atlast

I feel like every time I look at these photos I'm a little surprised, I don't know why. They're the last photographs I took while still living in Dublin, my last couple of weeks there, though some are from home also.

My most recent, long suffering pair of shoes, donated to the side of the river and the world, generally.

A long walk and a high place.

Towards the end of the course I started taking the sort of photographs I was taking before; at least, it felt that way. Photographs that were not connected necessarily by theme, but more by mood or function; namely, these things I saw made me feel something and photographing them was an attempt to record that feeling. Or maybe an attempt to articulate that feeling in some way. Though I know it's inevitably futile, my response to these scenes now is, through the filter of memory, irrevocably changed. Still, what else can I do? I'd forget it completely otherwise.

One last trip to the Tesco down the road. Soon after taking this, the last frame of the roll of film, I saw a beautiful fox roaming the streets of an estate near my house. I stopped and watched him for a while, he spotted me at one point and stared hungrily back for a few seconds before slinking off behind a wall. I went home and ate whatever awful food I had, went to sleep and moved out the next day. I felt pretty good about that.