High Art/Low Life

Rainy Day Kitteh 12 & 35

2011-03-09T23:20:00.000-08:00

Trailblazing One

2011-03-09T06:49:00.000-08:00

Big Wednesday

2011-03-02T22:43:00.001-08:00

Jonny Joel

2011-03-01T22:53:00.000-08:00

Pool Swimmer

2011-02-28T22:25:00.000-08:00

Transkei Six

2011-02-28T01:09:00.000-08:00

Transkei Five

2011-02-27T22:49:00.000-08:00

Transkei Four

2011-02-25T06:39:00.000-08:00

Transkei Three: Beach Dogs

2011-02-25T05:48:00.000-08:00

I really fucked the exposure up on these two

Transkei Two

2011-02-25T03:10:00.000-08:00

Transkei One

2011-02-24T23:11:00.000-08:00

2011-02-20T01:33:00.000-08:00

empty

2011-02-16T05:18:00.000-08:00

somewhere on the weskus, 2004/5

high life low art

2011-02-15T08:00:00.000-08:00

seven hundred and thirty

2011-02-14T03:31:00.000-08:00

you are a jock but i love you

last band practice

2011-02-13T05:40:00.000-08:00

miss you band

Heidelberg Ten Ten

2011-02-01T22:57:00.000-08:00

Wet Hair

2010-11-29T00:25:00.000-08:00

Critical Mass - October 2010

2010-10-25T03:40:00.000-07:00

sleeping on a midnight lake

2010-10-19T04:01:00.000-07:00

Anyone out there?

2010-10-13T09:50:00.000-07:00

Hello?

Yours

2010-09-15T01:58:00.000-07:00

I took 3 pictures of tom falling into the icy pool with his camera

Dogs in the Moonlight

2010-09-12T11:54:00.000-07:00

Tom's tips #1

2010-09-12T06:26:00.000-07:00

Be sure to sit back and enjoy the view after a long day of exploring the city

Catch

2010-09-02T08:16:00.001-07:00

Young get younger

2010-08-30T03:26:00.001-07:00

27 August 2010

2010-08-23T06:41:00.000-07:00

Twenty-Two

2010-07-30T03:58:00.000-07:00

Behind the scenes

2010-07-19T00:32:00.000-07:00

So! My band recently shot and released our first music video! We had the most amazing team of people working with us

and it really turned out great! On the second day of the shoot I took some pictures of with an enormous camera.

Check out the video and see the full credits here.

Critical Mass Cape Town: June 2010

2010-07-13T02:02:00.000-07:00

If you want to join in - we meet on the last friday of every month - at the Baxter theatre at 06:45 and then further up ahead at the CTICC at 7:20.

Shoebox under the bed

2010-07-08T13:39:00.000-07:00

These shots are from one, maybe two trips up to the west coast in 2004/2005 with my friends Kurt and Thomas.

Rad morning. Look at the swell charging down the point!!

Kurt, running to see what farmers had to offer us.

MONSTER!!!!

Dawn patrolling, sussing out the scene.

This place! We had the most fun ever at this wave!! Gnarly as shorebreak!!

Depth-charge from hell!!

The goods. Packaged and delivered.

This is what it is/was/always will be about.

Disguised

2010-07-01T03:05:00.000-07:00

Getting older or Naturally hip

2010-07-01T02:10:00.000-07:00

28 May 2010

2010-05-25T04:28:00.000-07:00

Baxter - 06:45

CTICC - 07:45

quietly

2010-05-14T04:33:00.001-07:00

Homesick Forever

2010-05-12T07:12:00.000-07:00

I Love Screenprinting: Week Four

2010-05-08T08:59:00.000-07:00

Time flies when you are having fun. So, my last week at I Love Screenprinting is finished and I must admit, that I am both relieved and kind of sad that I am finished. It was a great four weeks filled with a lot of learning, interesting people, projects, experience food and times.

So I thought I would make some top 5 lists of things from my time at I Love Screenprinting:

Top 5 things that I enjoyed:

1. Takura's Morning Mealie Meal: Peanut Butter FTW

2. The smell of fresh metallic gold ink and clearbase: Almost like marzipan with extra fabnizz

3. The pressure washer when it's cranked all the way up: It's cathartic, trust me

4. The way that ghost images build up on screens over time

5. My cycle from Vredehoek to Saltriver: All the different smells, buildings, people, too good

My shoes have had it.

Top 5 things that I learnt:

1. Pansy hands + Screenwash = Skin Loss: Extreme Exfoliation

2. 300 DPI CMYK. Get it right, so many 'designers' don't.

3. You can practically 'gun' anything out as long as the fabric isn't white.

4. Separations are so much more than just separations.

5. Lunch is the most important meal of the day.

Top 5 things that I didn't enjoy all that much:

1. Falling off of the tall bike.

2. Having to strip and paste screens via my pansy keyboard hands.

3. Really big, repetitive runs: It's in the nature of the business

4. Making mistakes which are real: "Where are these inky fingerprints from?!"

5. Realising just how awkward my motor skills were in the beginning.

So yeah, to conclude, I am very happy that I spent my time the way that I did. I learnt alot, not just about graphic design or screenprinting or whatever, but about what it is to be involved in a small business, what it is too be a young person in Cape Town in 2010, regardless of background and about a million other things that I would have never been able to have thought of when I started there, a month ago. Oh and also that a tablespoon of peanut butter really can make a bowl of mealie meal all that much better! I ended off my time at I Love Screenprinting on a real high note. I also came off my bicycle on the way there on friday morning. I hit a patch of oily water. did some interpretative steering and then decided to go feel the curb on the otherside of the road with my hands real good. Rad, now I can't cut a piece of bread.

So have my hands + wrist

bye bye

Mike

Boulders to Breakers! Saturday 1 May 2010!

2010-04-30T04:18:00.000-07:00

This is going to be really rad and good fun! Check out Fixed Gear Cape Town for more info

I Love Screenprinting: End of Week 3

2010-04-30T04:13:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update. Critical Mass this morning was super good. All 3 of us from here rode, and we cycled back together from town to the workshop at about 8 this morning. Takura and I just finished the last of the 75 prints for Madame Zingara. Crazy crazy crazy hard work. Each shirt has 7 separate prints, each needing atleast 2 pulls to ensure good, even coverage. But its done and the shirts are busy drying in the rack, as I type this. I'm about to bike down to the spar to get some lunch and then it's just the curing of the aforementioned prints for today. Whew!

Cool

Mike

Week Two: Update

2010-04-29T02:00:00.000-07:00

Hello! So my second week here has been crazy. Barnard has gone to Nam, so it has been mostly just the two of us, Takura and me, manning the I Love Screenprinting fort. Some technical hiccups last week, computer issues and so forth, really slowed us down with alot of the work that we have been doing. Otherwise, we are busy with a large run of shirts for Madame Zingara. They are very very labour intensive prints, involving take the shirts apart and using gold ink. I'll say no more!

Otherwise, it has been good and definately proving very useful in terms of research.

Learning lots of interesting things and definately changing the way I think about process and techniques and what is actually possible. However, my research paper is causing me big stress. I have barely had anytime to make more progress with it, as I have been so busy here.

Mike

Heidelberg Forever

2010-04-25T08:40:00.000-07:00

I Love Screenprinting: The First 5 Days

2010-04-21T03:45:00.000-07:00

I am little behind but I guess late is better than never? To fill you in, I'm studying towards a Bachelors degree in Graphic Design at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology at the moment. The first semester (now) is all about research and writing the dissertation. Part of the course involves doing a month long internship/apprenticeship which is what I am busy with.

I am doing mine at a screenprinting studio in Observatory called I Love Screenprinting.

I chose to do my time here, as opposed to an advertising agency or design studio simply because I want to get away from the glare of a moniter, work with my hands and learn something that I am really interested in. It is also related to the topic of my dissertation, so I am killing two birds with one stone here and getting some real good research in.

I got a little bit lost, cycling to work on my first day

Anyway. My first week here was nuts, the shop had a lot of work with a tight deadlines. We printed the posters for the Verb launch, tee-shirts for the City Slickers exhibition as well as a few other smaller jobs, including some more tees and making some positives.

The Flyer for the Verb Launch/City Slickers Exhibition

The shop is super cool, with prints off all of the posters hanging up on the wall, lots of ink everywhere and stacks of crazy rad bike parts via Tobie. The computer's speakers play a good mix of music, from Bad Religion to Bruce Springsteen to Bloc Party. If you know me at all, you will know that I am in my element! I work with two guys, Barnard and Takuru. Tobie is usually here in the morning before going off to Fittees, which is just up the road, close to the Salt River Circle.

The inside of the shop, featuring the drying rack.

I learnt how to tape screens up, dry prints, strip screens, coat screens, expose screens, pick up ink, look for pinholes, flood screens, stuff about squeegee pressures and angles, cure shirts and about a million other things. It is really interesting learning about all of the different ways that things like ink density, pressure factor into the way that you make a print. So yeah, it is really fascinating and interesting to listen to discussions over things like whether it is better to coat the outside of the screen twice, the inside once or to coat both sides twice and then to coat the outside for a third time after the first coat has dried, or something like that! It is also interesting learning about ink-trappings and how to properly separate a graphic, for the screenprinting process. It is a little bit more complicated than simply splitting the colours into layers.

Takura pulling the black onto the Wesley Van Eeden posters.

This week we are printing mostly tee-shirts, as well as one or two other surprises. Barnard has gone to Namibia, so it is just Takura and I, manning the fort. Tobie pops in every now and then, but is mostly just us two. I am writing this now, as we are waiting for NSDS to deliver some more white ink and clear base.

Here is a little clip, from the Verb website, of Takura and I printing (well, me drying) Kronk's poster for the exhibition.

Cool! Mike

Royalty

2010-04-02T00:43:00.000-07:00

Tracks: 2

2010-03-22T01:22:00.000-07:00

It's good to have you home

2010-03-21T09:12:00.000-07:00

Year of the Monkey-Cat

2010-02-16T23:52:00.000-08:00

Holiday Forever

2010-01-26T23:23:00.000-08:00

Critical Mass 01 for 2010

2010-01-25T02:37:00.000-08:00

Can't Wait

2010-01-05T02:13:00.000-08:00

This afternoon I'm swimming to my favourite island

Sundays

2009-12-09T06:34:00.000-08:00

Best one I have had in awhile, read & see more here

New! But quite old!

2009-11-21T07:40:00.000-08:00

Foreshore

2009-11-02T12:09:00.000-08:00

Das Fahrrad: Kaput

2009-11-02T11:51:00.000-08:00

Gears

jealous asians

2009-10-22T14:14:00.000-07:00

the full story is on flickr

even more in-tents

2009-10-20T03:53:00.001-07:00

in-tents

2009-10-20T03:49:00.000-07:00

Day Sleepers

2009-10-02T03:56:00.000-07:00

One night I was driving home from recording, quite light, and I stopped at the traffic lights at the foreshore, as you are coming into town, off of the N1 and I looked up and saw this under the bridge

Observations

2009-09-29T01:24:00.000-07:00

My struggle with Robert Volker

paul

2009-09-28T01:32:00.000-07:00

http://www.senyol.blogspot.com/

Wintery

2009-09-27T14:01:00.000-07:00

czarno-biały

2009-09-27T13:38:00.000-07:00

Cosmic

2009-09-21T05:23:00.000-07:00

click

2009-09-15T12:35:00.000-07:00

been scanning alot. here are some cross-processed pictures from earlier this year.
i prefer the scanned colours to orms' printed colours.

Brother Darkness!

2009-09-15T02:33:00.000-07:00

finally

2009-09-15T01:21:00.000-07:00

hello scanner

Kingwood Days

2009-09-02T04:21:00.001-07:00

From some trips to the recording studio, deep in Brackenfell

Müller-Brockmann, you old dog you

2009-09-01T01:31:00.000-07:00

schützt das Kind!

Yes Please

2009-08-25T07:18:00.001-07:00

I need more braais, more beers and sunsets and rooftops and friends
and times like these

5 More Minutes

2009-08-25T06:59:00.001-07:00

I had a realisation today:
I don't take nice pictures at the moment because I don't go anywhere anymore..
Flat-Bike/Car-College-Flat-Spar-Flat-Bed-Sleep-Dishes-Flat-Home-Flat (repeat).

B/W 35mm

4th of September

2009-08-20T03:54:00.000-07:00

We are playing a show at The Deerpark Cafe in my native Vredehoek, on the 4th of September with Wresterlish, and they are not a metal band and it is not in Observatory, from Pretoria. Should be really nice and we might even play a new song or something.

Go read a book or something

2009-08-19T07:23:00.001-07:00

Shoebox under the bed

2009-08-19T05:28:00.000-07:00

some older bits and pieces of 120

Seepunt

2009-08-07T10:11:00.001-07:00

Thomas and a choppy scan

Older

2009-08-07T03:37:00.001-07:00

sore backs

jimmy

2009-08-02T11:33:00.001-07:00

in poettmes

2009-08-02T11:31:00.001-07:00

Volker

2009-08-01T03:01:00.000-07:00

Laat Middag

2009-08-01T03:00:00.000-07:00

i want to only shoot black and white now

2009-08-01T02:59:00.000-07:00

Crystal Road

2009-08-01T02:57:00.000-07:00

Too Long

2009-08-01T02:49:00.000-07:00

firewalls at college = no pictures and words

winter part 3

2009-07-17T13:09:00.000-07:00

green gray sea

pretty girl

car and scenery

winter part 2

2009-07-17T12:56:00.001-07:00

a misty sunday morning up the road

winter part 1

2009-07-17T12:50:00.000-07:00

johan, sometime in may or june

there was this cat that was looking at me through the window of my room one day

holiday forever

2009-07-13T09:41:00.000-07:00

friday

2009-07-09T14:50:00.000-07:00

kusjes

merchants

2009-07-02T09:56:00.000-07:00

too much walking today

Thursdays

2009-07-01T03:48:00.000-07:00

took this less than a week ago

Bruces

2009-07-01T03:46:00.000-07:00

From the first Word of Art drawing night, two thursdays ago

Beaches

2009-07-01T03:31:00.000-07:00

the photolab messed up my processing real bad yesterday. here is one of the photos.
took this picture a week ago, looks like 40 years ago with processing done by apes

million young

2009-06-30T16:44:00.000-07:00

100

2009-06-21T03:43:00.000-07:00

there is a quiet that i found today that i have been missing alot

Atlas

2009-06-20T15:08:00.000-07:00

Gingerly

2009-06-15T05:24:00.000-07:00

Here is Pedro again. He has featured a few times in my pictures. A beautiful, snobby, stuck up yet naive cat who ran around our flat. Kate took this on a saturday morning from my bedroom while i was hanging out, with him on the stoep. A week or two later he got hit by a car. Then i got the film developed and a week later my camera fell off of a shelf and is broken

that's me, in the distance, twinkling,

2009-06-11T04:14:00.001-07:00

im in a different department, to anyone you think i'm in thomas took a picture of me, i couldn't even remember this day, until now
naff innit

Sundays

2009-06-10T02:49:00.000-07:00

Hello friends
Hit a bit of a frustrating time a few weeks ago.
Got very irritatable and swore alot.
So i went walking in the mountains behind town

Walked down this freezing, wet path

Climbed up onto a trainHung around in these huts that littered the placeTook some photographs
And saw some twisted metal laying around

I bought some proper film yesterday. Im sick of wierd, untrustworthy Superia.
Hello Mr Porta 160 NC

Voigtländer Bessa III

2009-06-08T05:02:00.000-07:00

Via Voigtländer.
Oh man, i want.....

The BESSA III is a high portable, folding bellows camera that allows extremely high-quality images to be taken using a high-performance lens unit. The camera is equipped with an unique mechanism for switching between to film formats.

Do you get a free drink with that?

2009-06-02T15:19:00.000-07:00

Gettin older is getting easier my friend
Happy Birthday to the whitest girl alive
Somewhere in Woodstock at some dodgy gatsby shop
Olympus Trip 35 / Superia 400 / f 2.8 at 40s / no flash

Fietstry!

2009-05-26T04:47:00.000-07:00

Critical Mass on Friday morning.
Really want to screenprint this poster on some nice heavy, off-white paper.

To the bones

2009-05-17T06:05:00.000-07:00

Took some photos with the band yesterday morning.

It was freezing. I guess if you are taking pictures at the same time as two fairly large cold fronts roll in from the Atlantic overhead, you are going to get cold and a little wet.

Two photographer friends helped out with the shots.

Despite some hangovers and in-correct attire (flip-flops, shorts and a tee-shirt in 13 degrees ?!) Brett and Matt did a great job. Had a little trouble with the card-reader, so the photos' will be ready later in the week. I had my Yashica along and took some pictures aswell.

Anyway, while the rest get sorted out, here is a test shot that Brett took