Hannah, Brendon, Matt and Kurt -ISSUE 03
Four extremely talented people in one newsletter, together for the first time...
Housekeeping
Welcome to another issue of Love Lucy! I am really enjoying writing these and appreciate you all for reading along. I have a new article out on FStoppers if you are wanting a little more reading material. The content I write over there is a little different to this but I actually love that I get to switch it up so much!
If you happened to miss out on the latest episode of my new talk show, The Analog Hour, you can now listen via Matt Loves Cameras podcast. We hope this chat makes your drive to work, your morning walk or any mundane task more enjoyable, and you get a laugh out of our back and forth banter. Don’t forget to enter Matt’s Xpro comp that has been extended till the 18th of September. Now let’s get into what I’m loving this week…
Hannah Griffiths - Mundane But Beautiful
So, I know we all hate Instagram right now but I have honestly found some really amazing photographs on the platform and feel I have a nice little circle of people whose photos, reels and work really inspire me! Now I have this newsletter, which I am so glad you are reading btw, I wanted to take the opportunity to showcase the work of the very talented photographer Hannah Griffiths.
I am a self-taught analogue photographer based in Naarm (Melbourne). Largely inspired by the world around me, I am drawn to vibrant colour and contrast found within the mundane - Hannah Griffiths.
Hannah was kind enough to share some images with us, some I have chosen that I absolutely love, others have been picked by Hannah herself. I am purposely leaving out the mention of what camera she uses, the film stock or any other techs and specs as I believe that stuff is very secondary to the actual work. Especially when we are just simply looking at, and enjoying the image another person has created. The absence of this information allows your mind to be drawn to the composition, the thoughts of why this artist chose this moment, this scene, this angle and really get lost in the mood and feel of the photograph, rather than connecting what you see simply with the gear used. If you are curious however, I am sure Hannah will be up for a little chat about that side of her work if you wish to connect with her here.
Hannah has recently released a collection of work in an A4 printed book and has a little zine that I am a proud owner of. She also has an absolutely gorgeous framed print for sale via her website.
Heart Shaped Box
After lot’s of research for an upcoming video on Cross Processing film I stumbled upon this really interesting interview with Danish photographer Anton Corbijn. Having photographed some of the most iconic musicians of all time I was eager to read this interview focusing on, arguably the best Nirvana music video of all time, Heart Shaped Box, which Corbijn directed but attributes most of the idea and vision to Cobain.
If you watch my YouTube channel or listen to my podcast you will know that I am a lover of not only music but the visuals that come along with them. Whether that is in the form of video clips, album art work or photographs of the bands themselves, I just love the way those things bring the music together to create this complete sensory experience.
When I met Lux he said that when he hears certain music, sounds or tones he sees colors. I related to this but only in the way that Smashing Pumpkins always evokes a purpley, orangey type of feel for me due to the album covers of Gish and Siamese Dream. Lux’s is likely a more deep connection to music and how in tune he is with it. However you do or don’t interpret the relationship to sound and color that will likely not effect the way this music video grabs your attention and has you questioning the content, highly stylized look and technicolor palette that has been created by visionary genius and photography legend Anton Corbijn.
This interview peels back the layers of what went into this video clip, most notably the many long hours spent hand tinting each single frame that was first shot on color film and then transferred to black and white. This process allowed for the extremely bright colors that this video is known for, emulating the now defunct system of Technicolor that was used to give us the first color moving pictures.
I hadn’t really thought about it before but this was in fact the last Nirvana music video ever made. When things are the first, and the last it always carries more weight, and this is no exception. I felt great sadness when Corbjin described Cobain’s yearn to work with him again on a video for the track Pennyroyal Tea. It made me wonder how many other plans and desires he might have had, and what would exist in the world had he not passed a mere 6 months after Heart Shaped Box gracing us with it’s original and colorful presence. Corbijn explains in this interview how he turned down the opportunity to collaborate again, for fear of not being able to live up to the success of Heart Shaped Box…
It is a good reminder perhaps to always seize the moment, and in Corbijn’s case not let a success scare you out of creating again. As artists we always fear failure, but then we also fear the other side of the coin, the success, and what or will not follow. Success is something I think Kurt Cobain struggled with immensely, just like others we have seen fall from grace.
RANGO TANGO ZINE
Before there were aesthetically pleasing self printed photo zines, there were slapped together, black and white, D.I.Y punk/underground music zines, or fanzines, made by people in that community. The latter was my first experience with the word “zine”, obviously derived from the full word magazine, when I was about 15 years old. I had always grown up in a musical household with a heavy focus on British 70’s punk and post punk from my parents, as well as brit pop and grunge blaring through the walls of my brothers room regularly. I thought I was pretty edgy and very knowledgeable, until I met a young man named Brendon Annesley who was behind the greatest fanzine of all time: The Negative Guest List.
Written in Brisbane’s sweaty suburb of Tingalpa, Brendon was one of those people that only comes along every so often. He was like the weirdest person I had ever met but also the coolest. I bought his zine religiously from a record store in Brisbane that I would travel an hour to on the weekends and I devoured every single word of those sometimes crookedly printed pages. Had I not read this zine I’m not sure I would even be who I am today and like what I like. My world exploded after reading NGL, it was like the volume of everything had been turned up and anything I thought was cool or important just fell short of the things Brendon was writing and talking about. It sadly came to an end when Brendon passed away, a great loss to the Australian underground music scene.
Last year on my birthday I revisited the record store I used to buy this zine at and as I walked out, after spending the entirety of my gifted dollars on records, I noticed this zine sitting on the shelf in the back corner. NGL? It looked exactly the same as Brendon’s zine, and at first I was angry, like who would just copy something so obviously like that? Despite my confusion I bought all the copies that were there and riffled through the pages trying to figure out what the deal was here??
Long story short it turned out to be a guy named Matthew Fresta who I had met once or twice almost 13 years ago now and was a friend of Brendon's. I got in touch with him via email and we exchanged memories and stories. Matt explained how he was re-printing the entire catalogue of Brendon’s zine and making them available for purchase, so NGL could still be discoverable. He had now branched out and made his own version of it under a new name, “RANGO TANGO”
So there you go folks, a little story from the Lucy Lumen archives one that is pretty close to my heart. People who make these kind of things are so important to keeping sub cultures and niche interests alive. Writing something, printing it, stapling it together and posting it out to other lovers of music, film, and art is something only a certain percentage of us will ever do and continue to do as things become more and more online. The handmade zine is like a roll of film being developed at home, it’s a process, a tangible thing, an important thing that I hope never dies out or goes away.
So I know we are busy keeping film alive here, but maybe this week we can keep zines alive? If you love any kind of outsider culture, punk, post punk, underground music, skateboarding, interviews with Aussie bands, reviews of weird movies and shows then RANGO TANGO is for you! It’s dirt cheap and ships internationally so go check it out. There is even two movie reviews from yours truly in ISSUE FOUR.
So that wraps up this ISSUE! I can’t wait to write to you again next week…
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Love Lucy xx
"Danish" photographer Anton Corbijn ?? Anton Corbijn was born in the Netherlands, so he's a Dutch photographer ... just FYI ;-)