Some photo shoots are pure gold! Not the yellow metal stuff (I’ll leave that to the pros), but photographic gold, the stuff that excites me. The colours and characters and textures of the WA Goldfields and the cast of Aussie Gold Hunters are…priceless!
I have used Mark’s wooden kitchen utensils for some years now. So have various wineries, restaurants and myriad clients. I wanted to photograph Mark’s products so they would convey the feeling they give when using them—that of silky smooth ease, warmth and of being solid, yet light and comfortable in the hand.
The Awesome Festival started, for me, with awesome fun dressing up with these candidates for El Presidente Minusculo (The Tiny Dictator) and getting them to channel their inner dictators. This festival act is the brainchild of Sam Longley.
I often assume I’m missing the ‘art gene’. I want to understand art. I try hard but am mostly left devoid of feeling or understanding. So the impact of this piece caught me off guard and knocked me sideways.
Artist, Liliana Stafford, asked me to come and have a look at some new pieces of her work so we could discuss how to photograph them. She pointed to this piece and told me it’s name: The Refugee Rug. The beauty of the small rug—knitted in golden thread with a soft red band in the middle and the grey edging bands, so reminiscent of warm, comfortable rugs—was the first thing I noticed. Then the barbed wire hangar tightened my chest and the beautiful, yet weight-laden stones pulling down on the rug brought a lump to my throat and my eyes welled up in tears. I looked at this thing, this piece of art that communicated to me so clearly the desperate need people have, yet the barbs we stick out to them to keep them at bay.
Even now, having spent time with this piece in my studio, photographing it, getting to know it, trying to tame it, the tears still well up. The salvation for me is knowing I don’t have a missing gene—I just needed the right artist, the right piece of art to speak to me. As for the refugees for whom this piece speaks…god help you, because our governments will not!
Photographing an in-house convention for Lendlease last month made me kinda want to change jobs (only kind-a. Changing skills at my time of life is….challenging). I found myself transported to another place where they spoke of cities of the future and of their task as one transcending their own personal journey—one where creating a space that would last well into the next century was a more noble legacy. Wow. I felt quite quite humbled. I hope they keep doing what they do. Anyhow, it didn’t take much to capture the day as the full gamut of passion, cogitation, laughter and thought provocation was in abundance.
As a photographer it is always a joy to work with professional hair and makeup artists on a shoot. So no finer place could I find myself in than Bow Hair and Makeup. Natalie Miller brings incredible professionalism and attention to detail, delivered through a guise of casual comfort.
There is always a lot to learn about any business I work with. In this case I’m chuffed to discover that orthotics come in gorgeous rainbow colours! As an orthotic frequent flyer (walker??), I want some! I know, I know, nobody but me will likely see them. But that little splash of colour at 5:30am as I pull on my runners, exciting the dog, will be worth it.
I have never had a bucket list. But I just started writing one after taking some photos of the newly refurbished Kimberley Pearl. She is heading up to Broome for her maiden commercial voyage visiting some of the beautiful Kimberley coast.
WC Fields said ‘never work with animals or children’. I cannot vouch for the animals, but in the case of children he should have added ‘except when Nature Based Play have built their playground’. Is it any wonder that the reactions of delight, laughter and doing what kids do best with huge logs and massive rope swings is easy to capture because it comes….naturally.
These are the extraordinary wrap around simulators operating in the virtual high seas of down-town Fremantle. One minute you can stand on the bridge with the Captain of a huge cargo tanker as he navigates into Port Hedland. Then you can pop next door to watch from the perspective of the assisting tug boat Captain. And just a few meters away you can nip onto the bridge of another tug boat chugging up the Thames!!
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