The Birth of Lucy Lumen - Issue 01
A brief word on how it all came to be...
Sometimes you plan for things and sometimes they just happen…
I didn’t really plan to have a child right in the middle of a pandemic, nor did I ever plan to be making videos of myself walking around taking photos and publishing them on YouTube. It all just sort of happened, and now here we are.
This photo above was taken on one of the first nights out alone after having our son Luca. We felt tired, awkward, anxious and realized now what everyone had been saying to us… “things will never be the same again.” Sipping Asahi Black and eating sashimi doused in soy sauce and wasabi, staring at each other smiling I felt I couldn’t enjoy this the same as when Luca was just curled up in my belly. Minus the alcohol of course. He was earth side now and everything was different.
This image was taken on what would later become my signature camera, the Nikon L35AF. I am sleep deprived, puffy from pregnancy and recovering from being cut open to meet this person I had been growing for over 9 months. This photo looks like just a photo, but to me it’s a representation and a reminder of what it was like in that black hole of post partum paralysis.
Funnily enough the thing that pulled me out of that black hole was not just photography, but turning the act of taking photos into videos and sharing them online. I have always found photography to be a soothing and enjoyable hobby, however, I was jealous of others who had hobbies that would continue or be these works in progress. Picking up an instrument and just playing, painting a picture, doing some pottery or other acts that yielded a song, an object or a piece to hang up on the wall. Yes, I could have done that with my photography but I didn’t feel it was worthy of that treatment.
I walked, took the shots, got them back, looked at them, liked some, hated some, and then that was the end of the cycle. I was always fairly cagey about it too and never really created much dialogue around my photography with anyone.
Through later stages of pregnancy in the Australian summer heat, we spent many nights watching endless film photography content on YouTube. I would sit on a gym ball, bouncing up and down trying to achieve some level of comfort whilst exploring the worlds of all these different creators and thinking “wow this is really cool, I wish I could do this.” I have always been defeatist in my attitude towards creativity when it came to myself and for some reason felt endeavors of the artistic kind were reserved for the accomplished, talented and well connected. Most likely this was coming from a crippling fear of failure and personal issues I had yet to address.
The difference this time wasn’t that I had changed, but more that I had gotten so low I really needed something. That, and my amazing partner who complimented me perfectly in his skill set and ruled out any excuses I could come up with to not start a YouTube channel, and believe me there were plenty.
The days and nights of feeding, changing, crying, (Luca and me) went by quickly but at the same time dragged on like an eternity in parental isolation. Finding ourselves with some spare time on our hands in the afternoon we decided to make this the moment of the first attempt at a video. This attempt made it all the way to YouTube and was the first upload on the Lucy Lumen’s Analog Adventures channel that you see today!
Sometimes I think about what life would look like if I had of continued to find excuses and not embarked on this YouTube journey? Would I be taking photos at all or would something else have taken it’s place? I wouldn’t have connected with thousands of people in the comments section or through voice messages on Instagram. I wouldn’t have the skill set I have now and learnt everything I know about content creation. Lux wouldn’t be sharing his music with you all in the photo walks and I wouldn’t be taking my, once sporadic hobby, so seriously. And most importantly you wouldn’t be reading this newsletter right now!
I hope this comes as a friendly reminder to not defer your dreams and be sure to make room for creativity in your life no matter what it’s throwing at you.
This newsletter is a way for me to connect with you each week about what’s on my mind, but more importantly share things I’m loving and that are making me feel excited, inspired and wanting to create. This will include albums or songs, photobooks, magazines or novels, photography that speaks to me, interviews, podcast episodes, cinema and TV. Everything in my week that has fueled me and nourished my creativity. This will be in your inbox every Friday, ready for the weekend so you can dive in and check out some of my recommendations.
So let’s get into what Lucy Loves this week!
A borrowed Olympus Pen FT
Courtesy of my film BFF Matt Murray I have been snapping my life away with the beautiful half frame camera the Olympus Pen FT. I have had countless people tell me how much I would love half frame and finally got around to shooting with one. Safe to say I’m on Ebay looking them up and getting very close to pulling the trigger or shall we say shutter…
My 30th is coming up and I think one of these could be a great way to mark such an occasion, don’t you? Keep an eye out for the shots as I will be sending the roll off to the lab tomorrow! I can’t wait to see how they turned out. I opted for Kodak Ektar and shot in mostly quite bright conditions so I’m expecting some Ektary goodness.
The Contact Sheet Podcast is Back!
Don’t you just love Kyle McDougall and his podcast!? I binged all the previous episodes a few months ago and was eagerly awaiting more, but turned out Kyle got very busy and was on a hiatus from the pod. No hard feelings though Kyle, cause boy did you come back with an epic return in your latest episode interviewing the AMAZING photographer and curator Wesley Verhoeve.
So much good chat here about taking action, making things happen for yourself and creating the work you want to be hired/known for before someone gives you the permission. Wesley also talks about the process of his fine art photo book NOTICE which really gave me an insight into the world of printing at that level. It’s a must listen, just like the rest of Kyle’s interviews and his solo episodes as well!
PROCESS - a really great newsletter
So I am a firm believer that everything, well most things, happen for a reason and often the world gives you these little clues or nudges towards what you should do next. The interview above that I have recommended alerted me to Wesley’s work, and story. He mentioned multiple times his newsletter, referring to it as “PROCESS” and I reminded myself to check it out. I to have been wanting to do my own newsletter for a while and the idea has been marinating and I’ve kind of been waiting for a push to just do it!
Jumping on to Wesley Verhoeve’s Instagram I was lead to his newsletter which is FREE and majorly valuable. With 68 issues of PROCESS to go back through you will not be short of things to learn, love and enjoy. Wesley is sharing his experiences and advice which are all extremally valuable considering the immense success he has had in the industry. You can find things like how to build your brand all the way to hand printing in the darkroom. Endless amazing content all for free and with weekly giveaways that are pretty awesome for any film shooting fanatic! So go subscribe already, you won’t regret it. Oh and thanks for the inspo Wesley :)
I am listening to…
I Used To Spend So Much Time Alone by Washington band Chasity Belt. I came across this record through Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett (not personally of course although I have been in the same bar as Courtney a few times being Australian) the duo were doing a “whats in my bag?” video for the Amoeba Records YouTube channel and this was Kurt’s choice.
The girls of Chasity Belt have both a sense of humor and also a heartfelt and extremely relatable way of writing lyrics. This whole album screams discontentment and a yearn for meaning and purpose, all things I feel I now have, but for a solid twenty something years certainly did not. So tracks like ‘Caught in a lie” and “Complain” really stood out to me when I first bought this record and despite me feeling like a more grown up version of the 2017 me, I still find myself putting this on and feeling both comforted and a little sad, but in a nice way. Like the kind of sadness that sometimes comes with nostalgia if you know what I mean…I could literally write a whole newsletter on nostalgia.
I highly recommend giving this album a go, or if you are more of a visual person watch this KEXP live session of the gals rocking out in front of that super cool lit up wall. Or do both, fall in love with Chasity Belt and buy all their records like I did.
That’s it for this week guys, I hope you enjoyed this and be sure to get in touch and let me know what you thought. I love hearing from you all. I’ll see you next Friday for Issue 02.
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