Chris Allan

 I am pretty kak at being a photographer. 

Sometimes statements like this are met by the odd exclamations to the contrary by those friends and family close enough to me to care about my excruciatingly fragile ego, (and I am truly grateful for them). But nevertheless it is true.

I came to this realization when for the 3^rd weekend running I was trying to make sense of 7 years worth of organic archiving of my digital photography. Archiving anarchy. It feels like falling into a black hole of pixels. Years of organizing, decades of keywording, mountains of metadata, all sitting in a physical spaghetti junction of hard drives, and digital projects, most of which are sitting on the sides of the path to hell, alongside the good intentions they partnered with all those years ago.

Some days after a really strong cup of coffee I see potential. I see exhibitions, books, magazine articles. Just add a drop of time, and a whole bunch of determination and viola! After a while however, the sheer weight of megapixels and dwindling caffeine rush gently deposit me into an overwhelmed and depressed heap, and I shuffle back to the kitchen in my stokies to look for another cup of coffee.

Being a great photographer is about being able to deliver the whole package. Each 250^th of a second at F 2.8 means a few minutes work. Each magical moment, every stolen slice of time sets in motion a sequence of events which involve the transferring of data, the converting of files, the application of metadata, an editing process, a retouching process, more converting, some organizing and then, hopefully, if I get that far, the delivery of the final product for use to someone else. Whew.

This is not always the case. Sometimes the photo after tweaking and poking, shifting and cropping is blown up to full screen and, wrapped in an old blanket and wearing an adopted pair of stokies, at 30 minutes past my bed time on a Tuesday night, I will sit back and gaze at my handiwork. In the corner of the dark room my camera battery charger light is normally blinking away, and the only sounds are the whirring of mismatched hard drives and my wife’s light snoring coming from the next room. There the image will end its journey, immortalized in VGA clarity, and saved to the “portfolio� drive. Appreciated by one person. Me. Not with a bang, but a whimper….

To be honest, some photos are lucky to make it that far. The Gigabytes of unappreciated photography are many, and some images only ever grow up to be a thumbnail in a forgotten archive.

So when I do manage to initiate and then guide that moment in time from its origin in reality along a treacherous path through optical glass, mechanics, sensors, wires, central processing units, programs, hard drives and more, and it ends up somewhere, on another computer monitor where someone can double click and appreciate it, even for a few seconds, it really does make it all worthwhile.

So sometimes I give birth to an image that is worth looking at.

I am in awe of friends Shan and Jacques, who you may recognize from the pregnancy shoot in the galleries on the left hand side. They did the real thing and gave birth to Oliver. I was there a day later just in time to catch this wrinkly little guy’s experience of day 2. I got to see a dad that looked as if he were moving around on an extra springy pogo stick and who was suffering from a case of the smiles that couldn’t be cured. I saw a mom that was serene, composed, content and totally unafraid. I also saw Oliver’s second nappy change ever, which was enough to convince me I didn’t need to see the 3^rd or 4^th.

Check out the new Gallery “Newborn Oliver�.

Chris