art i don't know what to do with / dispatches from places I'd rather be, vol. 1
blissful memories of fobbin' off
I’ve been back at work for about two weeks now, after taking all of February off on long service leave. My girlfriend, Alexandria, named this wonderful period Fob Off Feb. Time off is a glorious gift from the gods. Having to work for an income is surely a curse on mankind inherited from some unspeakable sin from centuries past.
We decided on Fob Off Feb when Alex realised her contract would be up at the end of January. With prospects of new work in March, she decided to just take February to work on creative projects and to relax while the weather was still scorchin’ hot. I was wracked with unbelievable FOMO and immediately pitched the month off as a joint endeavour - we both work on our creative projects, solo but together, and lend a hand whenever we need it. And so we went, on a holiday at home.
What followed was one of the loveliest periods of my beautiful little life. Four pristine weeks of hot weather, cycling, working in cafes, sweet treats, 6am yoga, and road trips. Countless minutes of sweaty hands clasping one another, countless layers of sunscreen. Somewhere along the way we moved around all of our furniture, built a locker, bought dozens of DVDs and put on Seinfeld episodes while we tinkered on whatever we were tinkering on.
I managed to fang out some 20,000 words on a novel idea (with many, many notes-to-self to fix my own nonsense as I spun it out and left it behind), and Alex produced some videos for her YouTube channel - brilliantly recapping the early-2000s Australian kids(?) show, Jeopardy (which has significantly more aliens than the American quiz show by the same name).
We took an anniversary trip to Daylesford and stayed in a tiny house with an outdoor bath (bliss), we drove out to visit her folks in Gippsland and, on that little chapter of Fob Off Feb, she showed me a secret little swimming hole about 40 minutes out of town, at the end of a very long, very windy, very narrow road.
I took my Mamiya RB67 medium format film camera with me on this trip. The camera, all three-ish kilos of it, is relic from a life-changing trip to New York City in 2022 (shoutout to
/ / , three of the absolute best). I picked it up from Brooklyn Film Camera, miscalculating the exchange rate but committing to the bit when Cecilia Kegler, an extemely-talented photographer working at BFC, showed me how to use the colossal contraption. After a dicy trip home, wrapped in environmentally-devastating layers of bubble wrap, I’ve been working to make it my go-to camera, to the almost-certain devastation of my back in my later life.Anyway, we got to the campsite car park after a little drive, sun beating down, and wandered down the path until this hidden gem appeared before us. The river flowing through this area fanned out on a bend, creating a massive swimming hole with crystal-clear water, ringed with pebbles and disappearing into a hauntingly-deep middle section, where the water ran cool and the ground dropped away. I swam along the bottom, skimming across the rocks and looking around (you gotta open your eyes underwater!), and couldn’t bring myself to go deeper when the light started fading. Yikes. In the middle of this lake, a sandbar covered in pebbles. On the edge, a staircase up the hill to a rope swing, which started about two metres above the water, tied to a tree overhanging one of the deepest parts below.
In the distance, a huge rock that kids climbed up and jumped off, maybe six metres tall.
A few groups lined the shore of the river - two girls and their mum; a group of three young men; some friends with their dogs; a father and son; a dad, two kids and an inflatable boat they took up and down the miniature lake.
Alex and I swam around, racing each other (inconclusive - we were neck-and-neck), seeing who could swim underwater the longest (me), and working up the courage to use the rope swing. Our watches, which we’re relatively sure are waterproof, said we swam about a kilometre (I’ve been getting very into tracking every step and workout lately, which I’m still thinking is a good thing - documenting for documenting’s sake is nice?).
In between these moments, I stumbled, hot-footed over burning pebbles in 35 degree heat, and fired off a few shots on the Mamiya. I’ve taken what I’d like to call a vibes-based approach to light metering, which is a little test for how good I am framing up and exposing film without checking. I’d like to say I’m usually on the money, but on this day I did myself dirty:
The view from the far shore. The girl on the rock had just leapt off into the river below and climbed up. Though I swung from the rope above the water a bunch, I couldn’t bring myself to jump off a cliff.
The view from our spot. I’d like to believe the film is a little expired, but all I’ll say is, they can’t all be winners. Ya know?
These two had swung off the embankment above, holding onto each other and the rope at the same time. One of these two had been doing flips into the water for a while, waiting paitently above the water when the girls swimming below weren’t looking their way. It was really lovely to see playing out in the distance, and the nonchalant way the boys would suddenly leap into the air, flip into the water below and pretend they hadn’t spent several minutes standing and waiting for a glance their way. Go off, kings.
My love!! After a swim!! After this photo was taken, Alex took her turn on the rope swing (not pictured). I found out it might be possible to use a rope swing too much, based on how much my body ached the next day.
Fob Off Feb is done, sadly. But there’ll always be more Februaries, and more little adventures. Alex and I just booked in for a 600km cycle trip across Korea later this year. Neither one of us is a hardcore cyclist, so we’re now the proud owners of two exercise bikes to get started. Cathedrals everywhere for those with the eyes to see. The Mamiya probably can’t come on that trip, but I’m already figuring out how to document the trip while not endangering my body too much.
I got these film scans back yesterday and I love them, in all of their grainy-and-not-always-perfectly-framed ways. I have so many rolls of film sitting online, admired pretty much only by me and the subjects in them, and I’m not always sure where they should go (who visits websites anymore?).
So I decided that maybe I should pop some here, when I get a brief break in my work / a moment to tippity-tap out some words.
No proofreading, no second thoughts, just vibes and vibes-based light metering. I hope you like them.
-jgray
Love Fob Off Feb!