about
My name is Ryan, I’m a 23 24 year old aspiring photographer/artist from Melbourne, Australia. I’m about to embarking on a journey across North America, upon the back of a 1100cc road touring “Hell” bike called “Mad Mavis”. With a budget half the size of a 12yr olds life savings, this is tipped to be one shoestring-road-touring-adventure. I’m flying to I landed in the US in early May 2009 and will be making made my way down to the coast of Texas, about 2hrs south-east of Houston, where I will picked up the bike. From there, the road will take me anywhere and everywhere, traveling in a north-west direction to, to the city of Anchorage, Alaska. This bike will be is the biggest I have ever ridden as my previous riding experience is limited to 250cc dirt bikes (or smaller) and Honda CB250’s at H.A.R.T’s rider training facility in Melbourne where I recently obtained my motorbike license. ***UPDATE:*** The trip will be extended and plan to ride from Texas, USA back to Melbourne, Australia via Alaska and Asia. I will ship the bike to the other side after earning enough money for freight costs and to sustain the adventure all the way back to Malbourne. This will take some time and plan to be stationed in the USA indefinitely until such goals are achieved. I’ve committed to the trip this much so far, so why stop at Alaska. The idea was hatched whilst hanging out with my brother, Nick on his sailing boat as I awaited my flight to Texas to pick up the bike. There is no time frame within which to complete the trip at this stage.
I have a rather large soft spot for film after coming full-circle, shooting exclusively digital for over 2.5yrs from 2005. My intention is to document this trip using a medium format Pentax 6×7 and a Pentax K1000 shooting mostly on Velvia 100 slide and Agfa Neopan 400 or 800, culminating with my first solo show of works from the trip at a yet to be announced Melbourne gallery.
Two new additions to the camera bag. I have purchased two Canon AE-1 Program cameras both with 50mm 1.4f lens. I’ve created a mounting bracket to attach them to the bike and intend to capture 3D stereoscopic images while I ride. I’m still in the testing stages right now and need to get a few more UV filters before I trial both cameras whilst riding.
Another aspect of this trip is to document it in written form and publish to this site. For this purpose, I will be taking a Brother EP-20 electric typewriter (circa 1982) and employing the power of a “Fax-to-Email” service which will allow me to fax pages from anywhere in the US to a fax number, which will then convert the fax to a .JPG and send to me via email, then autonomously update to this site.
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