Sydney-based photographer Tristan Still discusses the inspiration behind his raw and confronting images. ‘I started when I was sixteen; around the same time I started skateboarding. I loved how the camera could catch and freeze any moment in time’. What are you trying to achieve with each photo? ‘I’m almost always trying to engage the audience in some way, to draw them in and wonder about the who, why and where of the photo’. What is your ideal subject to shoot? ‘People. People in photographs fascinate me - we’re such bizarre creatures with weird little habits, and we’re all so infinitely different. When I see photographs of people, I can’t help but want to know all about this person, their life, what they do, who they are’. Finish this sentence: when I’m not busy photographing, I’m usually… ‘on my skateboard, travelling to skate spots around Australia and the world, playing with my band Hee Haw and teaching photography to enthusiastic students!’
Also by NATALIE LIECHTI
Current UK beat-boxing champ, Beardyman, recently kept impatient crowds entertained between sets at London’s Lovebox Weekender. We spoke to the Brighton resident about his offbeat style: ‘I’ve been doing it since I was a baby, but I never knew it was called beat-boxing. I thought it was just a habit, like biting your nails, and people were always telling me to stop. Being a good beat-boxer is a mixture between being a good DJ, a cheesy street magician and a vocal athlete’.
Sydney-based artist, James Jirat Patradoon on his career defining moment: ‘If I could trace my artistic inspiration back to one event, it would have to be the Neo Tokyo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in 2001. I had never seen art like that before; I didn’t know you could be so playful with it. I vividly remember the Yoshitomo Nara sculptures made out of bandages, and Kenji Yanobe’s atom suit and Godzilla/Astro Boy sculptures that blew bubbles. It was just so fun. I think because a lot of Japanese art contains references to pop culture, it’s more accessible for audiences. They aren’t so intimidated by it because it can be quite light-hearted but still have a serious undertone to it’.
A haven for all things creative,
YOU'RE SAYING (2)
fresh wordpress installation » Tristan Still said | 25 April, 2007
[...] the who, why and where of the photo.” There’s a full interview with him running on Lost At E Minor this [...]
HAVE YOUR SAY
I’m a big fan of Fernanda Cohen’s work. The Brooklyn-based illustrator — and sometime Lost At E Minor contributor — has just completed a new series called War of Words which has received two silver medals from the Society of Illustrators of NY and LA, and will be featured in HOW International Design in March. Read more
Recently formed hip-hop duo, Rootbeer (Pigeon John and Flynn Adam), have just dropped a super fresh piece of audio pie right in your kitchen. Influenced by artists such as MGMT, N.E.R.D and A Tribe Called Quest, Rootbeer offer up an edgy and unfeigned lyrical style. Turn up their debut release, The Pink Limousine EP, to eleven. You’ll find it impossible not to make shapes.
GeekStiff4U is offering some pretty nifty, hand-crafted, skull-shaped USB flash drives that can be worn as rings. The $156 price-tag may ward off non-geeks, but that’s the point. This item is only for people really committed to transferring data in style.
It’s a fact, people who don’t like clutter don’t collect plush and vinyl toys. The myriad of sizes, shapes, colours and textures in any collector’s display would put any minimal loving layman into a tizzy. Read more
Films involving characters faced with an impossible choice never make easy viewing, an example being the Nick Cave Australian gem, The Proposition. A nightclub manager, played with understated power by Joaquin Phoenix, is the victim here, and you actually feel truly uncomfortable as his predicament unfolds. Set in the 1980s, We Own The Night shows a real nostalgia for that period — particularly in the costumes. Read more
If you’ve seen some really clever poster mash-ups going on in the NYC subway system, chances are you have graffiti artist Poster Boy to thank. It’s baffling how he can create such elaborate pieces without getting caught. Read more
The people at Nixon have created a simple but funky watch for those carefree days. The Time Teller P features a basic design made up of durable materials, spiced up with some unconventional colours. Read more
WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST
Argentine illustrator Poly Bernatene miraculously creates many of his beautifully textured, painterly images in Photoshop. Despite his twenty-first century method, his illustrations achieve a sort of timelessness that is bound to mesmerize children for years to come. Read more
Japanese designers Keiichi Muramatsu and Noriko Seki founded the Tokyo-based fashion label, Everlasting Sprout, in 2005, based on their mutual interest in knit design. Each intricate creation in their Spring/Summer 2009 range took up to a week for them to construct. Read more
Produced by In The Yellow, this six and half inch tall vinyl toy by Luke Chueh is limited to just one hundred pieces and comes in clear colorway with silver eyes.
Frank Kozik’s Emperor of the Golden Throne
Limited to a set of just sixty-six pieces, each Frank Kozik Hand Painted Emperor Of The Golden Throne El Panda vinyl toy is signed by Kozik and comes bagged with a hand-numbered header card.
While I am as impressed as anyone with an artist’s ability to render accurate and lifelike human figures, I’m more often compelled aesthetically by looser and more stylized images such as Camilla Engman’s. The wide-set eyes, bulbous bodies, and skewed proportions of the people and animals in Engman’s paintings lend them a certain expressiveness and melancholy. Read more
Legendary pop culture artist and Agit Pop founder Ron English will be a guest compiler of an upcoming issue of our email newsletter, writing about his favorite cultural discoveries. To read Ron’s edition of Lost At E Minor, simply sign up to our weekly newsletter. It’s free, you win!
This beautiful archival pigment print by New York-based illustrator, Fernanda Cohen, is called Fashion Ruined My Life. And it speaks for itself. Just look at her face! We have it for sale for just $75 in the Lost At E Minor online store. Read more
DISCOVER MORE
SO...
SEARCH: Can't find what you're looking for? Do a search..
IS IT GOOD FOR YOU TOO?
We hope you're enjoying your time on Lost At E Minor, but it’s not over yet. Got something to share? Tell us about it and we'll look to publish it. If you want to have your work featured on the site, we'd love to hear from you. Or if you’d just like to talk amongst yourselves, that’s cool too. Pssst, we also have an online store stocking some of the goodies we feature on the site.
If you're a media agency and want to use this platform to connect with our readership, then drop us a line and tell us about it. Oh yeah, and we do digital consulting for cool brands that want to reach the sort of demographic that visits this site.












» Tristan Still Interview! said | 23 April, 2007
[...] from Sydney, Australia. Lost At E Minor has a nice little interview with him. You can view that here. Be sure to check out his site as well. He has some really great work up. (via Cool [...]