The Menec Alignments

We arrived in Carnac just as the sun began to set. We dumped our luggage at the hotel and rushed out to see the Menec Alignments, about 1km up the road from where we are staying. I took two cameras, but decided against taking the tripod as I knew I would return the next day - this was to be a quick visit, just to cap off the day, and I knew the first encounter would not be conducive to quiet meditation. Better to go in like a tourist the first time.

This being the first megalithic site I have ever visited, the effect of suddenly being confronted with thousands of menhirs was almost overwhelming. I had to stop myself from running across the road to get to them.

I pulled out the camera and started snapping away, attempting to understand and assimilate the formations photographically. I could make little sense of it all visually, however. It was after 5pm, so we were unable to access the Western end of the site and could only view the stones over the fence. A little further up, we came across a couple of stones which were close enough to the fence for me to reach and and touch. Further up again, near what I assume is Menec village where the alignments are cut in half by the road, we found that the gate to the Eastern section had been removed and access to the site was possible.

After the long journey here - all the way from Australia - and following a miserable day in Paris, I wandered among the stones in a daze. I took about 200 photos, most of which were absolute rubbish. My hands were shaking the whole time and I could barely operate the camera.

It may not be as spectacular or as precise as other sites - the stones do seem to be arranged haphazardly at times - the heroic scale of the undertaking and the ant-like obsessiveness with which stone after stone after stone was moved into place are awe-inspiring. I felt envious at the intense religiosity which must've motivated the enterprise - to believe in something that much; to live with such certainty...

Soon it would be night, so we turned around and walked back toward the West. The last rays of the sun disappeared over the horizon, leaving the stones silhouetted against a sky which faded from pink to mauve to indigo as the mist began to creep in. The effect was eerie and the sight was one of the most beautiful I have ever seen. I felt drunk as we stumbled back to the hotel.

Welcome to Carnac.

Tunnel Vision

A few of my pictures will be exhibited in Belgrave tomorrow at this thing:

I haven't posted about this until now partly because I've been extremely disorganized busy but also because frankly, if the good people at Three One Six Oh! need my help marketing their event then they're in serious trouble. I mean really, is anyone even reading this?

Since I'm a lazy busy man, I'll let them explain:

Three One Six Oh! is an annual one-day outdoor film fest held on the last weekend of Summer, presenting an assortment of local film & video content from Melbourne & its surrounds. But mostly it’s a good excuse to head out to the hills for the day. Bring a picnic (we’re BYO), lounge in the grass, watch bands, and for the first time, check out Tunnel Vision, an underground gallery beneath the cinema.

Please do, because somewhere in the underground gallery you might stumble across these:

Epson Ultrachrome K3 inks on museum grade Canson Baryta paper, hastily stuffed into shitty Ikea frames

And if that's not to your taste there will be a bunch of other photographs and moving picture works by a variety of artists including my friend John-Paul Aziz. It sounds like there are also bands and films and probably some other stuff as well.

More details here.

The pictures I am exhibiting were shot recently in Sherbrooke Forest which, by happy coincidence, is just up the road from Belgrave so it feels nice to put them up locally. They are a part of an ongoing series which has developed from my initial experiments on New Year's Eve.

And here they are:

Prints coming soon.