iamkys

life in film

[iamkys]

“how about here?” shenae asks. we’ve been driving flat tack along a vast stretch of beach for about 10 minutes now and we haven’t seen conditions much different to when we started. “much of a muchness” i reply with my chin over the stearing wheel. “looks like its a get-wet sesh for us then” we reverse up to the bank of the sand dunes to allow for rising tides, and to easily roll out of park when we leave, give the boards a quick once over with the wax and head into the messy wash.

we’ve been doing our usual tour of the southwest in that patch between christmas and new years.

except this year; Shenae copped a surfboard from santa.

and we’ve traded out the 4x4 Syncro panel van, for our beloved troopy, Foster. Affectionately named after Foster Huntington ( arestlesstransplant.com ) who aided and abetted a love of Syncro’s, film, and the art of story telling and adventure.

we recently went down for 4 days, and shenaes been hesitant to go for a surf in perth. but setting aside time to get out in the water boosted her confidence and skill 10 fold.

its taken a while to be completely over all the touristy stuff and be able to head down south and be stuck doing nothing. When nothing else is pulling you one way or another, the only option you end up left with is just surfing for ages.

cool dude that i love

ocean beach all to ourselves

our new year camp operation at parrys

tossing the footy when your hands are freezing fucking cold, down at shelley beach

highly strung

[iamkys]

i message my mate Giff, and asking him if he’s around for me to pick up a couple kegs that we’d spent the summer brewing. ask him if he’s gonna be able to drop by. I get a 50-50 response, fair enough.

i had been messaging shenae through a slow day at work wondering whether i should put something together for my birthday. I dont care to be celebrated, but i do love putting together an event and the act of celebrating - thats joyous for me.

figured i’d left it all to the last minute. But two days before I hit crew up and managed to turn out 80-90 people. 

Its really wonderful when crew rock up for you. We put on a couple kegs of beer Giff and I had brewed, some pulled pork, and some solar powered beats.

I went for a swim and the water was beautifully still  and crystalline.

At sunset we marched everyone over to the drop off to watch the sunset. It was amazing and my little disposable camera without any settings falls so short of being able to try and capture it.  

The sunset felt like it went for hours and left the sky painted and lit for ages after the sun had dropped. 

it’s so wonderful to consistently have crew turn out for you.

lovely that people are there for you and want to be there for you and with you.

we’d thrown together a solar panel, a deep cycle battery and an inverter to power some lights and some big speakers. I’ve got a little transportable system for the beer and the food was kept brought to temp in the oven hours earlier and then allowed to continue to cook with the residual temp in an esky well insulated with towels.

mum, nato, probably yasmins pealy back.

the sun was remarkably hot and there was no shade for the first few hours. luckily we use this rugby field because the padlock is left dummy locked. we just manouvered the troopy around to give crew some shade

brooke post swim

saying g’day to my mate katie. people were constantly rocking up and it never feels like you get to spend solid time with people. so its important to give crew a big fucking gday

the pilgrimage to catch the sunset.

[iamkys]

theres been a bit of a change in the wind and people have been hanging out inside and putting plans on hold these last fews months. with that Shenae and I hesitated a heap but figured we could put our wedding savings towards maybe finding a farm going cheap when the housing market drops off. id made a zine with some of my photos to send out to wedding guests in the lead up to our wedding. it was to act as a taster of the vibe and what was to come. ive held it close for months and since we’ve postponed have decided to make it available anyway. here ya go friends

https://indd.adobe.com/view/f09e96eb-f3a1-4c1d-a636-8ea8fd9bf2f0

[iamkys]

When we got back from Europe in late august we knew living with our parents wasn’t going to last long. We were looking for a place as far south as South Freo and Beaconsfield, and as north as North Beach. What can we say, we’re coastal kids. After six or so weeks of despair and being disappointed because our application for a house we had fell in love with would fall through - we found the one. From what we can gather, its been a Perth Sharehouse Institution for the last 40 years. But I can confidently say no-one has put as much love into this house as we have. Confidently. We’ve been in for 3 months now, and this place feels so good to come back to. Each morning, the front and back doors are wide open and we’ll do a semi religious frolic in the back garden and check on everything and feed our chooks. 

[iamkys]

Love wins. Always.

One of my favourite places to visit in the world is Boranup Forrest. Its just a bit south of Margaret River along Caves Rd. And it is so special. Its my girlfriends favourite place in the world. She’s a wedding videographer and photographer. Sometimes we’ll see beautiful wedding parties dash out from their groovy cars and get a few snaps, in our most favourite place in the world. I’ve been going to the forrest a few times a year since I got my drivers license and first discovered the beautiful scene. I still remember it. We we’re playing “Blue Deep Eyes” by Petit Biscuit (something you should listen to right now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr83ZPeo8jA). We used to be really heavily involved with activism and advocacy of Asylum Seekers.

I took this photo in the first week of December 2014. We were at one of the pinnacles of the movement and we were exhausted. We had gone down to a holiday home owned by one of the members of our church to take some time. In this photo, We gathered around a laptop with shit connection and live streamed parliament and listened to Ricky Muir vote to pass a bill that was super controversial around Temporary protection visas (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/dec/04/ricky-muir-holds-the-key-as-senate-debates-asylum-seeker-bill). We were gutted. It was horrible. It meant legal limbo for some of the worlds most vulnerable people and it hurt. It was the government sounding like they were doing something, but they were making things terrible a few years down the road (and we’re starting to see this come to fruition three years later). We were distraught. We went to bed without saying anything. We cried, we prayed, there wasn’t much to be done.

Sometime in the following two days we resolved to go down to Boranup. It was so, beautiful. I can’t say its what we needed, but it was certainly a beautiful distraction from the mess and turmoil. And we allowed it to enchant us for a little while. I’d been meditating on the idea of love and nonviolence and how we were to respond. Thats where I go in my pain - I mobilise. I try and figure out what next. We went and spent a bit of time with God, in God’s creation. I hadn’t come up with much. But I couldn't get off the idea of The Kingdom. It’s heaven. But not the movie kind. No fat cherubs, white fluffy clouds, or all you can eat Sundae bar. Its more when love will be all in all. A day when truth and justice reign, and God’s love is everywhere. Pain, death, oppression have all been over come. Because we have chosen love.

I took the keys to my beat up Hilux and dug them into a tree that sits just at the side of the road, across from where the car was parked. “Love won”. Because indeed one day, it will.

I went back to the spot a few months ago. Its still there. The same etching in the same tree declaring that love will win, written by someone who had just felt defeated by the xenophobia and same oppression that seems so pervasive through society. Love will win. As the churchy in me would say - Indeed, love has already won. The victory just hasn’t been fully distributed yet. The Kingdom is coming.

I don't know what the future of the asylum seekers that we wept over that night will mean. Many of those we wept for were our friends. I’m still trying to figure out what the next response will be, how will we act.

But love will win. It’s coming. One day soon, I’ll visit Boranup again. I’ll wander through the Forrest, and have spent time thinking how to mobilise against something  thats crap going on in the world. I would have spent time with God, and emerged from the Forrest, and walk back past the tree declaring Love has won. I’ll jump back in my beat up ute.  And as I’m pulling out, a wedding party will drive down the hill. They’ll pull up where I was, and get out looking so beautiful. And they’ll cross the road with their photographer and take photos by the tree that declares that love wins. And the two brides, or two grooms, or bride and groom will look so lovely. Because it’ll be a day that Love truly has won. For everyone. Because when Love wins, everyone wins. 

             Right here ^ . Just there, next to the tree, with the forest behind. A couple will get their wedding photos. A man and a woman, or a same sex couple. They’ll take their wedding photos right there. And the couples love will be the same as every other couple. On that day. Love will have won. Because love will win. Love has won. Love wins when we say yes to it. And thats it. We just have to say Yes to love. 

[iamkys]

took a couple kayaks and a canoe up from Walcliffe house to the river mouth, and climbed up ‘the chook’ (dunes) to watch the sun go down. This was the first time I got to test my new dive camera

[iamkys]

We’re just lying in bed quietly trying to figure out if its time to sleep or get up. The wind through the field had been horrendous and our tent was missing a whole lot of poles, the damn thing had been tensioning back and forth in the wind like the sail on a yacht in a storm. Izzy all the while, sharing a small mattress with Shenae and I is none the wiser, girl sleeps like a brick. I get out to inspect the damage and see camps completely upturned and levelled, I get talking to an old cob. “bloody ruckus” the old cob keeps his eyes to the ground so to not get blasted by the sand “you reckon you had a rough night” he mumbles “everyones looking a bit worse for wear this morning”. Old cob drops the hand he was using to shield his face and looks to his side at me “at least they didn't have to sleep outside their campers”

[iamkys]

Perth is boring

[iamkys]

I saw Shenae’s eyes get really big. “fwoaaaah, thats a beautiful tree”. We cut the speed and did one of those awkward U-eys that you get on country roads where the road drops to ditch really quickly. We pull back up to the tree, jump out and we get a snap.  “Thats one beautiful tree alright”

[iamkys]

I’ve always loved carparks. Spaces that are only useful between 8am-8pm, Monday to Friday. We know car parks as spaces in concrete filled with our belongings that we’re dropping off  - all side by side. Similar to letterboxes in an apartment building. We’re often stressed and in a hurry and just want to find the closest spot, often nearest to the elevator or ground floor so we can get on with what we came to do. Carparks are never the destination, they’re merely a stop off. But outside of those hours, carparks are the most magical thing. The rooftops at night become times to go and see the spectacle of the city’s lights, but not from afar (how they appear on postcards) but amongst them. We can use more of their space because they’re not cluttered with cars, we can skate from the very top, and ride the elevator back up once we’ve hit the bottom. There are people who live in these spaces (often in stairwells); people who hide things in these places, or do art, swap meets, cinemas, or teach classes, play street hockey in (all these happen in my local carparks), and make waves out of tarp to surf on a surface of cement.  I’ll never advocate for more carparks - if anything, less cars. But I’m first in line to say that empty spaces, and groups of people are a wonderful formula for potential. I don't know what that potential is - as its owned by the individuals These places are bursting with a culture that people don't care about, because we just reckon they’re great places for our cars, and not for us.

[iamkys]

get wet sesh

[iamkys]

Save water, share baths

[iamkys]

Lady I Love (at Ningaloo Reef, WA)

[iamkys]

Over the new years, we got some mates together to road trip down from Perth, to Esperance and across to Denmark over a couple weeks. The Hendo’s family gave us a couple property’s to stay at - this one was the house they were building in Munglinup. That night a tradition was born. The ceremonial passing of the chair. Each new years we’ve added a tradition. First year was getting nude. Then it became listening to feel the love by The Rudimentals. This year we introduced the ceremonial passing of the chair. You grab a crap plakky lawn chair and run around passing it on yelling “Happy New Year!” (whilst nude and playing “Feel The Love”).  Taking suggestions for next year.

[iamkys]

Louis (Keith) saw I had an old polaroid camera a mate gave me and we were talking about how expensive film is. The dudes a bit of a constant blast from the past; he may as well have a box through which he can reach back anywhere from 25 to 60 years and pluck goods from an era. “I picked up some of these from an opshop in melbourne, its expired but give em a go”. He plops two packs of Metlink Transit polaroid film in my hand. I’m looking at this stuff like ‘what the fuck?’.

[iamkys]

Recently, Shenae & I wrote a list. Whenever I have a job - I feel like I can do anything, and the opportunities are every where. But when I don't, I get pretty dark on myself and stop being able to see how much potential and opportunity is sitting at my feet. The list has a few things written on it, like huge ideas, and huge awesome things that I’ve done in the past and could just restart. But then its got simpler things as well. “6. Move south, put up a Yurt on someones farm, raise a few sheep/chicks & garden, work as a chaplain” “7. Go WOOFing (working on organic farms) and read all your books over six months. Surf on weekends”

[iamkys]

one of those sundays you park up at your favourite snorkel spot, get in, get out, ride down the road to get banana bread and beers, and then your friend comes over and you’re just lounging in the sun, in your van by the beach. Yeah, just one of those days