Tag: Flânography

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William street, night, by Dean Kyte.
William street, night.  Shot on Kodak T-MAX 400 film.

As an emerging writer, you gain valuable experience by networking with other writers.  Their fresh ways of seeing the world open exciting new directions for your own writing.

As he demonstrates in this prose poem based on the ‘flânograph’ above, Dean Kyte doesn’t just see the world differently, he hears it differently too.  And the poetic way in which he describes his personal experiences is idiosyncratic to say the least.

For the Melbourne Flâneur, even moments of banality, loitering in Melbourne at night, waiting for the perfect shot, are freighted with epiphanic mystery…

If you want to take your writing to a new level of mastery, it pays to network with an editor rich in literary experience, one who shares your passion for le seul mot juste because he happens to be a fellow Melbourne author.

And if you’re a writer in French seeking to make yourself perfectly compris dans la langue de Shakespeare, Dean Kyte can provide editorial assistance bespoke to your needs with his Bespoke Document Tailoring service.

Enjoy the augmented experience of this ‘amplified flânograph’.  To connect with Dean and experience his bespoke approach to your editing needs, drop him a line via the Contact form.

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Street art, Hanna lane, South Melbourne, by Dean Kyte.
Street art, Hanna lane, South Melbourne.  Shot on Kodak T-MAX 400 film.

‘Melbourne style’ is the dogleg laneway off the main thoroughfare of high-street fashion.  It doesn’t think outside the box: it takes the boxes out of the National Gallery of Victoria just up St Kilda road, glues them to a mechanic’s wall, and reimagines them as many pixels adding up to a graffito’d digital daguerreotype.

You don’t have to wander far off the beaten track of the tramline to find Melbourne style.  If you’re heading to South Melbourne Beach, you can roll off the No. 1, turn down a cobbled laneway off Sturt street, and à deux pas, find yourself in this plein air gallery of salon-hung street art.

I stumbled on this cobbled coin one dreary winter afternoon.  It had just rained and the sky was the same colour as the asphalt.  A stiff wind blew me capriciously along a route I hadn’t taken before in my flâneries.

I had four shots left on the roll and didn’t expect to have my æsthetic antennæ tweaked anymore that day when I twigged to this vintage gent redux.

I love it when you turn a corner and Melbourne surprises you with an unexpected spectacle which colourfully interrupts the grey livery.

Melbourne style takes couture out of Chapel street and plunks it in the laneway.

You may be a designer in fashionable Port Phillip looking to publish an elegant portfolio showcasing your couture.  If you’re in fashion, you already know that ‘the Book’ is key to getting through the door.

You require a presentation on paper as bespoke as your own image.  And if you’re used to getting your hands dirty, you know why the artisanal approach matters.  There’s an indefinable yet palpable quality you can’t get but by the skilful application of hand and eye working in unison.

With my Artisanal Desktop Publishing service, I can work with you mano a mano to design and craft a portfolio bespoke to your needs.

If you crave the rare and exotic, treat yourself to the novel experience of working side-by-side with an artisan who brings to the craft of book design the bespoke æsthetic of a tailor.  Contact me today to arrange a discreet and private measure.

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Highlander lane, night, by Dean Kyte
Highlander lane, night. Shot on Kodak Tri-X 400 film.  Shutter speed: 30.  Aperture: f.2.82.  Focal range: infinity.

Melbourne transforms itself into a foreign wonderland at night.  Armed with my Pentax K1000, I venture forth after-hours to capture ‘a Brassaï moment’—the moment when Highlander lane, between Flinders street and Flinders lane, reminds me of the square Caulaincourt in Paris—the setting of my first book, Orpheid: L’Arrivée (2012).

As a writer, I move from obscurity to clarity.  For me, writing is a flânerie through the chiaroscuro of consciousness and unconsciousness.  I enjoy the frisson of venturing into dark places which are foreign to me—like alighting from a taxi in a cosmopolitan European locale late at night, not sure where you are, barely speaking the language, some menacing silhouettes in the milieu to greet you.

Before I was ever a Melbourne Flâneur, I was a flâneur in Paris, the Mecca of flânerie.  In L’Arrivée I wrote about my experience of feeling both fearful and fearless, arriving alone, late at night, in a small Parisian square in Montmartre.  Despite barely speaking the language, I had a strange sprezzatura, a strange confidence in myself—in my mission and message as an artist—going forward.

Do you speak the language of the land?  If you are a writer in French, Italian or Spanish, can you make the obscurity of your message clear to readers in English, combining the formal and the vernacular with the bravura of the native-speaker?

With my Bespoke Document Tailoring service, I can help you translate the complexity of your experience into words which allow you to feel heard and understood by your readers.

To explore how I can help you communicate your message with a bespoke approach which complements your literary voice in your native tongue perfectly, go to my Contact form to arrange a discreet and private measure with me.