Jessie Casson

Our second little boy, Otis Lionel arrived 5th June and we are still in the midst of the first six weeks of happy chaos.  I am taking a couple of months off shooting to adjust.  I did however make the opening of the Champions: New Zealand Winners Exhibition at Lopdell House Gallery, Titirangi when Otis was just 6 days olds. Due to sleep deprivation my ability to string sentences together was slightly dubious so I kept my speech to about 3 minutes.  The show runs in conjunction with the Auckland photography festival until 1st August 2010.

We spent last weekend in Hawkes Bay as Champions: New Zealand Winners opened at the Hastings Art Gallery. We were made to feel very welcome and Maree, the gallery curator, even lend us her soft top to ponce around in while the sun shone. The exhibition will remain in Hawkes Bay until the end of November.  Work has been busy recently, including a shoot with the very lovely Jaquie Brown.

Campbell Live, TV3, profiled our trip and some work from the book last Tuesday. They were able to include video footage, shot by me during the 3 months away, plus photographs plus their own interviews. We were really pleased with the results, see the TV3 clip

Three weeks have flown by since we pulled back into Pt Chev. I said to matt the other night, “The three months away seems like a distant dream now” and he replied, “I know”. As I write this Matt is cleaning the car and when Dylan wakes we are going shopping for a posh frock for me. We have slipped, rather seamlessly, back into city life and the weekends are now filled with lattes, brunches and walks to the playground. I wonder if everyone who had a childhood running free in fields, climbing trees and stone hopping in streams feels the same strained confinement of living in suburbia. But right now I am happy, the book is taking shape and I love lying out the small contact prints in a line and standing back and admiring the work. It’s my project; my book and I feel proud.