Anniversary Weekend, part ii - Blackwood and Daylesford Cemeteries.

Note: posting this and the previous post a "bit" late ;) I'm lazy -

It was such a beautiful day and I took so many photos that it was hard to cut them down to one post.

On our way to and from St Erth we visited two little cemeteries, the cemeteries of Blackwood and Daylesford. I felt that they deserved their own post.



Blackwood













Daylesford

There's always something so beautiful and peaceful in the surroundings of the grave yard. Kriss and I will always stop and explore when we get the chance.

Anniversary Weekend, part i - Gardens of St Erth.

On a Friday the 13th in August 6 years ago I married my amazingly beautiful wife. We celebrated our wedding anniversary by going on an adventure to garden of St Erth.

St Erth is hidden away in the dense bushland of Wombat State Forest in the town of Blackwood. The gardens are a mixture of european cottage styles and australian natives.















We were lucky to have such a perfect overcast day with grey clouds providing the backdrop for the colours of fresh greens of grass, foliage and hedges, moss covered bare branches and flowers of winter. I prefer my photos in black and white, but in on this occasion I'm going to break with that rule.


Vampire lovers (photo stolen from Kriss’ blog)

Kriss has a great post of the day on her blog (which she posted on time too), I’ve only posted this a month late… I'm so slack :P

Melbourne Goth Shops - An eulogy

An eulogy.

With the word that Peril Underground is closing its doors it's a sad day for Melbourne’s alternate subculture as we edge closer to a city that's soul is vanilla. When I was a “baby bat” used for a lack of a better term, you could head into Melbourne for a day of shopping and be inspired. Now in a world of high rental/shopfront lease prices slowly killing smaller shops, only the chains will survive. Anything individual or boutique will be left by the wayside, no wonder it feels rare to see someone alternative shopping in the CBD.

Let's have a minutes silence to those departed.

Mortisha's
Gown Of Thorns
Culture Shock
Visage ‘n’ Vice
Deviate Shop
Downtown Revolution
Charley Weaver

Cemetery Walks - Ballaarat Old Cemetery

Kriss and I walk a lot, we love to get out in the fresh air and explore… Ballarat in winter is perfect, yesterday it snowed! A once a winter event, and I missed it…

We have a few favourite places to walk, but cemeteries have always been a favourite and we’re lucky to have a beautiful one just a few minutes from home.

I’ve been wanting to post these photo’s for a while, they’ve been sitting on my camera’s SD Card since Autumn waiting my blog to be up and running, but since we were there today I felt it was fitting to post them.

Kryal Castle

With the mist rolling over the hills we headed out to visit Kryal Castle. A kitsch replica castle on the outskirts of Ballarat. As we had a friend visiting and we were playing tour guide. It was a fun day out walking around the grounds, navigating the maze, visiting the torture museum, watching some ‘jousting’ and just catching up.



As I’m writing this my gorgeous wife Kriss will be putting her Kryal Castle post is up which has a lot more detail and you get to see her beautiful photos.


Navigating the maze






I'm much better at taking photos of skulls than of my own face...

Long weekend/Dita Von Teese

I love long weekends, especially when you're able to extend them by a couple of days. Kriss and I cram a lot into normal weekends, but getting an extra few days together make all the more brilliant.

To start the long weekend off on Friday with a strip strip hooray, DITA VON TEESE! She was amazing, she shipped out her costumes and sets so we didn't miss out on the full Dita experience.

It was a pity we didn't get to take any photos (there were signs everywhere) but at the same time it was fantastic to enjoy a show without a sea of phones in front of your face.

A photo of Dita Von Teese, or me all dressed up. (Your choice as we couldn't take photos, and I forgot to take a photo all dressed up)

The rest of the weekend was a much more laid back affair. We headed back again to Melbourne on the Saturday for shopping and dinner. With Koko Black and Mrs Parma's being two of the day's stops.



While Sunday/Monday were spent relaxing around home and heading out for some long walks around the lake and gardens.

Check out my wife's blog, she's my blogging inspiration. Her Long Weekend post is up which has a lot more detail and you get to see her beautiful photos.

Midnight Mass

I’ve done a couple logo projects lately, both of which I’m just waiting to lift the lid on. One for a black metal band in New Zealand and the other a logo for my wife Kriss.

So while I’ve been thinking about things I want to post here, and wishing that these logos could reveal themselves, I started thinking of the work I created for Midnight Mass. A club/live music event that was run by my wife and I, an event that I created the branding for and rushed each month to push out a poster for.

Midnight Mass along with it’s Facebook/Social Media is deleted and long gone, leaving the artwork rotting on a external drive. I felt it needed to see some light again.

The event posters where all a collection of found photos, band artwork and typography. It was an interesting process watching month by month how each poster evolved. All up we ran Midnight Mass for 13? events, featuring Dj's (myself included) and the bands Internal Harvest, Terra Australis, Obsidieth, Blackwater, Adamus Exul, Perseverance, Sanguinary Misanthropia.