THE PHOTOBAT25 BOOK

I had grand ideas for a book to celebrate 25 years of this Photobat thing. At first the idea was small. Then it grew. Then it grew again. Then it became so big and complicated that I did what any sensible creative person does when overwhelmed. I stopped. I did nothing.

The thought of trying to pick my top 25 photos or find a neat theme or pretend there was some kind of tidy visual journey just felt impossible. Too big. Too hard. Too much pressure. So I put the whole idea in the mental drawer marked “later” and got on with life.

Then in November I ended up hanging out with Tim Minchin at his twentieth anniversary show. Since I was there at the start of his twenty years, I got to hear how he faced the same problem. He had to reduce two decades of work into twenty songs. His solution was simple. He went looking for the songs he was proud of.

So, in the last moments of the year, I stole his idea.

So i've picked 25 photos I am proud of. Is there a style? No. A genre? Not really. A theme that magically ties them all together? Nah. It's a bag of mixed lollies. A complete hodgepodge. Film. Digital. Polaroid. Weddings. Portraits of famous people. Portraits of not famous but still aweome people. Landscapes. People. Dogs. Local. Overseas. Everything.

The only thing they have in common is that I took them and they matter to me. (I mentioned to Tim I didn't have the ego to do this... and then thought fuck it, I can have an ego if I want!)

Some of the images were loved by other people. Some won awards. Some no one has ever seen. Some are ones that didn't get awards even though I thought they should.

But every single one is a photo I am proud of and has a part to play in the Photobat story and how I see the world.

These pictures represent, maybe not the very best parts of this silly, stressful, creative life I have been lucky enough to live for twenty five years... but they are still pretty cool.

They represent the communites I have found, people i've met, the strange situations I have ended up in, and the ridiculous adventures photography has dragged me into in furious pockets of the world.

Somehow, in all of that, I only smashed a couple of cameras and never settled on a style so i'm totally styleless! I'm good with that! How are you doing? Still reading? If so thanks! It means Photobat probably means something to you, and then you to me. So big thanks, and extra high five if you grab a book!