I'm working on something real big. Hold tight and I'll let you all know soon.

Thanks for your messages, I've been quiet here for a long time. I am alive, I am around, I am happy and healthy. I am making art. I'm just not sharing it. I will.

In the mean time, big gratitude to all the deviants... you are so beautiful to me.

C

I'm delighted to announce that I have 100 watchers now (thanks alreadytorn, the subscription is my shout) and with that I'm going to begin using my journal and leaving a bit more information about me lying around on dA.

I want to use this as a bit of a discussion space, often for specific artistic topics, legal/ ethical issues in being creative, and what we should value in art.

But often it's just going to be my from-an-art-perspective blog, and that's the case today.

When I switched to digital late last year and started projecting things with my beautifully ugly epidiascope, I was rapt to find that my total photography bill was $0.

Today I spent a stack of cash on high performance lamps and printing the new projection material I've made over the last few days out of public domain text and images. So much for the end of ongoing costs.

My main projector is a relic of the 80's and it uses bulbs that ultimately didn't take off in popularity. They're 120V 300W ultra high performance halogens and they last about 50 hours each. If you're lucky.

So it's a good thing I'm lucky. They cost $50 each at trade prices. Plus tax. And the projector takes four of the buggers.

You probably don't know this because I've never introduced it properly:

I'm a hobby photographer from Auckland, New Zealand. I'm 22 years old and I've lived in Auckland all my life. Exquire is the evolution of djpowerfreak, a name I made when I was 18 and "Exquire" was a secret identity. That's a story for another day.

I'm a full time student and part time worker, usually 20-30 hours per week paid. I'm studying a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Social Sciences and minoring in multimedia and advertising at AUT. This is my last semester, and after it I plan to give education a break for a while. Maybe travel.

As well as photography I'm into larping, rare music, design/building (from web to speakers). I drink a lot of soda water and I'm vegetarian. I live in a central Auckland ex-office-building flat, but the place is for sale and its future is unknown. I shoot with a Canon 350D and its kit lens. I love the kit lens.

I painted a wall upstairs white for projecting a mini-festival of NZ short films onto. It's the same wall I use for most of the shots you see here. That white wall and some black plastic over the windows is the extent of my studio.

To my utter delectation, the Treehouse Gallery have asked me to produce some works for an upcoming exhibition. And they have to be for sale. I'm taking part with my most ambitious project yet. The results will be uploaded here too. I'm also talking to the folks at MN8 in Victoria Park who are keen to get some pieces up. That sounds really funny because I simply don't have any pieces to just "put up".. I'll have to print them specially for them.

I'd never sold anything before (nothing's been for sale) until today, when someone bought Lisa has Dragon Skin. I've made sure Lisa gets about half the profit on that. Funny enough, when I went in to Frog Prints (where once peachysticks printed me some terrific digital paintings for my room), the guy knew about (raved about!) some work they printed once that used my technique. It turned out to have been me. But I haven't printed anything in six months.

I choose my favourites very carefully so I'd be stoked if you checked them out. Here's a few that get me every time.

Mature Content

    

Mature Content

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Apparantly I like unusual pictures of girls.

My name is Craig Neilson and you can contact me any time there's sunshine in New Zealand on 021 136 8000 or any other time on exquire@gmail.com