#31 - A Few Good Months — CHRIS DA CANHA

Yo! I wanted to put down a little of what I’ve been up to lately. I work hard at keeping busy, but I know it’d do me well to reflect a bit on what I’ve been busy with.

I spent the last two weeks in Australia shooting photographs of Jacqui on her first international tour. We started off at SXSW in Sydney, then dipped into Brisbane and Melbourne for a few more shows. I’ve loved live music since my days in the Durban punk scene, and getting to travel overseas to shoot and watch shows felt pretty cool. This job, at its best, is a lot like play.

Just before leaving for Australia I completed work on my first DIY zine, DIRTY WORK. I’ll write more about this in my next post, but just to mention it here, this took me a long time, and I’m kinda proud of myself for seeing it through. It wasn’t easy, but so worth the attention and effort. I’ve had some lovely feedback about it, which is very edifying, and it’s lit a fire under me for making more work in this format. If you’re pumped for a copy, you can grab one here.

Now that the zine is done, it’s left me with a little more time to focus on other projects. I’ve filmed my next YouTube video, and I’ll be editing it this week. I went on another road trip, this time to a lake surrounded by mountains. Here are a few images that’ll be in the vid:

35mm film photo of a camping van near the mountains

I’ve been chipping away at my two longer-term projects, printing 4x6s so I can get a sense of where I stand with the images. One of the projects is a series of zines pairing images that I believe resonate with each other. I have some ideas about sound and patterns and the number 12 that’ll underlie the project. The working title is Serial Music, and I’ll be writing more about it in posts to come.

35mm film photo diptych from South Korea

The second project, which doesn’t yet have a name, is one that feels more personal to me then a lot of the work I’ve done before. I’ve been photographing the places where people have lived for a long time. Having lived in Korea for over 10 years, I’ve begun to see something of myself in these places. I wrote a little bit about it in post #26, when I was first becoming aware that this is an idea I would be focusing on. I’ve done a lot more shooting and thinking since that post and I’ve a lot I want to say about it, to explain it to you and to myself.

35mm film photograph of a suburban neighborhood in South Korea

I tend to put a little too much on my plate, but until it’s clean you’ll find me at the table.