New stockist in the west!

Not that many shops are up to the task of stocking my clothes. Note to Self is a savage beast of a brand; actually, it's more of an untamed mare running loose upon the moors. It spends most of its days peacefully grazing on the thickets that pop up intermittently from the fog, rich with green, green berries that are delicious to it. Many passing minstrels will attempt to lure Note to Self with their lutes, but their songs will only give it fright - alas, it is prone to flight.
Very rarely, a shop will appear upon the moor, bearing branches laden with the green, green berries that Note to Self loves to graze on so much. They will approach slowly, holding out the branch and humming a sweet tune under their breath. Note to Self will turn and stare piercingly through the fog at the shop. The brand takes the shops measure in that moment - sometimes in less than a second. And if Note to Self makes well of the shop, it will approach politely, almost bashfully. They are now friends.

Something like this happened when Garth from Perth emailed me and told me about this new shop he was opening. It's called Lo-Fi and it looks great.

If you look carefully at this photo that Garth sent through, you will spot some fine looking jeans perched authoritatively atop the centre bench. Yep, that's Note to Self for you. I think.

If your eyes now stray to the fancy bookshelf, you'll spy amongst the Heavytime publications and Monster Childrens, a copy of Kosciuszko, the tale of my healthy-fated trip up Australia's highest peak.

I really like the look of this shop. Functional changerooms, a tasteful use of neon and fantastic things to buy. What more do you want, you guys? Hats? Art? A staircase? Guess what - Garth and his friends have it all in spades.

If you're in the west, do drop in to Lo-Fi and say hello. It's right up there with my other stockists - Doomsday in Melbourne and Twenty Fifty Two in good old Adelaide. Thanks for taming, I mean stocking Note to Self you guys!

Backyard skate

On Friday I was driving around aimlessly and found myself outside Duncan and Ryan's house. Not wanting to appear strange, I called Duncan and asked if he happened to feel like skating. When he answered in the affirmative, I told him I was parked outside. Ever the good sport, he wasn't weirded out in the slightest and invited me in for a skate of his ramp.

I've been wanting to skate this thing for months. It's two ramps joined together, complete with funny jutting out bits, strange transitions, rotisserie-style spinning coping in one section and a few 'scabs' patched up with stickers and duct tape. Wonderful stuff.

The ramp's star attraction is the 'danger zone' - a section of ramp with no platform. Many have perished trying tricks on this deceivingly simple affair. Here's Duncan performing a mermaid-like rock and roll, singing its enticing siren song to me.

It turns out Duncan had to pack to fly to Tasmania, so he disappeared inside. Ryan and I decided to try and take some photos using his fancy slave flashes. First up, a sequence of yours truly performing a trick I accidentally learned only moments beforehand, caused by the abrupt transitions, god bless 'em. I've never had a sequence shot of me, so I was extremely excited by this.

 

Next up, we tried fitting the fancy slave flashes to my funny Fuji camera. Here's Ryan fiddling with something.

And somehow it started working!

I tried doing justice to Ryan's trademark hurricane on the aforementioned danger zone, with mixed results. Skate photography is hard! Note the visible flash - amateur move.

Tess was loving it, chasing Ryan as he skated, trying to make him fall off or something. What is going on in her head?

Then it was my turn to dazzle again in front of the lens. Luckily, Scottie showed up and was able to crouch within the ramp, holding the flash (as well as Tess) as Ryan stood atop a rickety ladder and shot this masterpiece.

That was really fun. Then I drove Duncan to the airport in peak hour traffic, a tense race against the clock that resulted in a successful boarding. A lovely afternoon, all up.

Classic Max instalment 3

The third instalment of my very own column Classic Max is up on the Vice site now. This one is about my neighbour and his dog, though I changed their names to protect their identities. Ask me their real names when you see me if you're that interested.

Here's the link!

Real photos

Happy Friday to you! I got a few rolls of film developed last week, and here are some of the winners. Quite a few in there from our camping trip to the beach. Lovely stuff with my girls.



Here's me terrorising our dog Tess.



Me looking quite suave if I do say so myself. Happy as a clam.



The campsite was dominated by a big Alcoholics Anonymous group - which, as far as big groups of men go, is pretty nice really.



Yep.



Tess in the middle of her performance piece entitled Life. 



The films also held mysterious memories from long ago, like the time we went to the beach and Tess kept burying chips under the jetty. Hilarious!



And the time Charlie came over for a beer.



While Tess was getting up in Ben's face.



Rosie, Anna and Charlie having a laugh.



One of many times Max W has prepared some delicious meat in our kitchen. Hard to nail down which one this was. Perhaps we'll never know? The majesty of film.



Golden daytimes at Golden Plains with Beci the instigator.



Raph on a short break from the truck.



Alice and Ed



Here's another great one of me with my mate Riley. Again, the mysterious majesty of film shines through.



There you go. There are plenty more on my Flickr page, which you can click through to from any of these photos. Thanks to Hillvale Photos for developing the film so nicely, highly recommended.