25 vol. 1 no. 3

Jon Frank

26 kurungabaa

I was passing a church in Tahiti on a Sunday morning and having nowhere else to be I stopped and sat outside for a couple of

hours. The most rewarding part of travel for me is to just sit around for a while someplace where locals are going about their

lives and watch and listen and breathe. If you spend enough time quietly doing nothing you get a feel for the people who live

there and can learn from them.

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I took a trip in late 1999 starting in Calcutta, and then on to Jerusalem, Moscow, Lagos, Bogotá and NY. I flew home on 1

January 2000 tired and confused. The 132 rolls of black and white film I had carefully exposed to the world during those last

six weeks of the century have been sitting at the bottom of my old metal filing cabinet ever since. Beneath the sickly weeping

orange light of my old darkroom, I have made prints from a handful of these negatives in the intervening years, but it has only

been during the last few months have I felt ready to discover what quiet truths were to be found inside that secreted away

cardboard box. I have uncovered several pictures recently that I had no idea existed. They are beautiful to me and pretty accurately

surmise how I feel about life. I intend to publish a book of these photographs when they are ready, and I can tell you one thing.

It won’t be ‘Printed in China’.

28 kurungabaa

Ted Grambeau was behind the wheel. We were driving back to the hotel after a day spent surf checking in northern Norway. I

have been fortunate enough to do hard time with Ted on many occasions and have always admired his strength of character. I

remember a quote from a movie I saw once: ‘Just because you are a character does not mean you have character’. There are

some basic choices we make early on, even before we become adults that have profound effects on the quality of our lives. I

think if you believe someone to have a ‘lucky’ life then what you are really acknowledging is that major philosophical decisions

have been made, which enables them to experience the joys and mystery of the world (seemingly with little effort). There are

costs involved with any decision that directs you away from traditional paths, but when the bullshit is removed, how many of us

lead inspiring lives? Ted Grambeau does, and he has had to fight bourgeois expectation every step of the way to do it.

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