Mark Lobo Photography – Professional Brisbane Photographers : News

Photographically, it’s been a great year for me, both personally and professionally.  I worked with some amazing people, visited some incredible places and photographed some beautiful things. In no particular order, here are 11 images from my 2011.

I was invited back to attend Phoot Camp 2011 which saw 30 photographers road tripping from all around the United States towards Marfa, Texas.  This was from a stop at the beautiful White Sands, New Mexico.  Neil Berrett puts his body on the line for the sake of photography. Thanks Neil!

I photographed (and devoured) some of the most delicious dishes from Marriott Brisbane’s new restaurant, Motion bar and Grill. Delicious.

The saying “The best camera is the one that’s with you.” was put to the test, leaving my “big camera” at home and challenging myself with just my iPhone. As a result, I fell in love with Instagram.

This was one of the coolest projects I got to work on this year for Made In The Now.  Not only did I get to design and shoot the image for the shirt, but I was also lucky enough to be involved in it’s earlier stages with the t-shirt and model photography.

A huge mile stone for me was launching Von Vintage and it’s online store.  It was a side passion project that had me shooting on film again and intentionally slowing down my photographic process.  I had some great fun exhibiting this work.

I got involved with photographing a poster for Rise, a fundraiser for the Brisbane flood recovery efforts. I love the way it turned out and was happy to hear that the event raised over $10,000 for The Premier’s Disaster Relief Appeal.

One of my favourite shots that came from my visit to Japan was from Yamanakako, an area near Mt. Fuji where we used to visit every summer.  The crisp air greeted me with a flood of incredible memories from my childhood.

I was invited to climb Brisbane’s Story Bridge and bring my camera gear with me, giving me a refreshing and almost calming perspective of the city.

I felt the immense positivity that surrounded the “Together Brisbane” Campaign and was thrilled to see images that I shot for the campaign on billboards, bus shelters and even on the ground.

I shot some of my favourite photos at White Sands, this is the last photograph I shot there. It was a great afternoon. Cody had just captured a lightning strike on his instax, Nate Bolt started a really fun series and Neil did some epic dune jumping. It was no doubt one of the most beautiful highlights of the road trip.

And lucky last is a 3D image of Daniel Seung Lee, from a project I started called “Ghetto Stereo“. Using two disposable cameras side by side, I created a “Ghetto” stereoscopic 3D camera. I’m currently working on a new series using a “quadra lens” system.

Have a safe silly season everyone, and I hope to hear from you in the New Year!

Over two years ago, I found an old Brownie box camera which sparked the idea to create an ongoing series of work.  I decided that I wanted to preserve inspiring vintage design and aesthetics by shooting a timeless series, all shot on vintage film cameras.  Since then, I’ve spent hours keeping an eye out for beautiful, once loved keepsakes to capture forever.  A countless number of rolls of film ran through cameras that barely worked, and film got fogged in X-ray machines, but I eventually landed with my true vintage camera love, the Hasselblad, which I used to shoot this series.  Finally, this weekend I’m putting the Von Vintage series up on the walls of Urban Grind, a great coffee shop that also hosted my previous BNE project series.  The coffee is the best, and so is the company so head in there and check out the prints!  I’ll be heading in there a few times throughout the next few weeks so if you are keen for a coffee and a chat, just email me and we’ll tee it up!

The Details:

Urban Grind, 121 Latrobe Terrace, Paddington
November 27th until December 23rd 2011
v@vonvintage.com

Von the web:

www.vonvintage.com
Facebook
Twitter
Tumblr

Instagram is an iPhone app that seems to have divided a lot of photographers. It’s a social application, that allows users to instantly share their images across different digital platforms, as well as within the vast community of Instagram users itself. Some love it for it’s faux vintage filters, and others hate it for exactly that same reason.

I personally love that it encourages me to look deeper into the aesthetics of the everyday things that surround me, an invaluable exercise for photographers.  I also love that using the photo’s geolocation data, I can see what others have previously photographed, and experience someone else’s perspective of the same location that I stand.

As a professional photographer, somewhat addicted to this form of “iPhoneography” I was recently interviewed in the weekend paper about my view on this style of photography. You can find me on Instagram under the name “@MarkLobo” and “@VonVintage“.

For those interested in iPhonography, be sure to check out 1197.is this weekend. It’s the first ever mobile and iPhone photography conference and can be streamed online.

Fulfilling a brief within 4 hours of receiving it is rarely something I have to do, but that’s exactly what a new designer goes through every day on Made In The Now. This morning, I was that designer…well photographer. The idea behind Made In The Now, is to challenge a new designer with a brief based on a news article written that day, voted in by the public. With that article in mind, the designer creates a limited edition T-shirt, which is only available for 24 hours. As a photographer, I wanted to shoot something specific and not have to rely on a back catalog. Luckily, the article voted in didn’t have me struggling as much as it would for some of it’s candidates! I was to photograph and design a shirt based on an article about animals and their relationship with increasing brain activity. This is what I came up with. The shirt is only available for 24 hours, so if you want it, get in quick!  http://www.madeinthenow.com/shirt/51.html:

I was actually also the photographer for these t-shirt models too…so meta.

In a year where Brisbane has faced some of it’s most challenging of times, working on a positive campaign promoting the city and encouraging people to make it a better place was a great experience.  I shot a range of images from all around Brisbane for the Together Brisbane project, which can now be seen around the city on Billboards, buses, bus stops and the Together Brisbane website among other places. Now, with the Brisbane Festival coming up, user submitted images are being rolled out throughout the city. I can’t be more excited about the use of photography to tell the stories of the people of Brisbane, something I’ve been focused on through my own project, The BNE Project. Many thanks to the great team from Big Fish who I worked with on the campaign and to David Byrne who photographed the above image.

Here are a few images of the work I’ve shot for the campaign:

Please excuse quality of the iphone shots… “The best camera is the one on you.” right?

And the accompanying TVC in which I was working along side on the project:

Earlier in the month, I worked with Made In The Now, a JM-Labs venture that looks to turn current events into awesome T-shirt designs. With a new designer and relevant creation every 24 hours, it’s an exciting and fresh approach to limited edition shirts.   Check out the site (and my photos) at madeinthenow.com

ps. there’s an iphone app too…

I spent my high school years on the Sunshine Coast, living in the coastal town of Noosa before moving inland to the quiet town of Eumundi, most well known for it’s weekly markets. So it was with great pleasure that I worked on my latest assignment with Tiger Airways’ inflight magazine, which was also my third cover for them. The photography for the piece focused on the Sunshine Coast art trail and was to feature the work of local artists, particularly Katz, a local body painter.  Carrying a light weight portable lighting kit, we braved the wet weather and mosquitoes off the trail to shoot the works. This is one of my favourite shots from the shoot as well as the image selected for the cover!

I was recently invited up to climb the story bridge by fellow photography lover and Story Bridge Climb CEO, Paul Lewin. I gladly accepted and was keen to experiment a bit and see what would go in to shooting a portrait at the top of the bridge. There were quite a few restrictions on what gear I could take up there, but was still able to manage a few lenses, speedlights as well as a small customised diffuser for the flashes.
I chose to shoot at sunset but found the harsh silhouetting of the sun stetting behind Brisbane city was a bit too much for a portrait and low powered lighting. i can’t wait to see what it’s like up there at sunrise! Here are a few snaps from the afternoon. Many thanks to Brisbane Photographer, Toby Scott who came and helped out with the shoot!

One of the biggest highlights of last year was no doubt the opportunity to head over to Los Angeles to meet and hang out with some inspiring, creative minds at Phootcamp. This year, I’m doing it all again in Marfa, Texas!  As part of the application process, we had to shoot a self portrait (see last year’s here).  The portrait was inspired by everything I learned at last year’s camp and included a few recurring themes from other people’s photos! The shirt I’m wearing is inspired by this “Nate Bolt!” shirt by Steph Goralnick. The portrait has also been featured along with the many other talented Phoot Camp attendees here on Pictory, an always beautiful and inspiring website created by Phootcamp founder, Laura Miner.  I can’t wait to meet all the new faces and really dig deep into getting creative with such an awesome bunch of people!

Here’s a timelapse video of the creation of the shot!  It was all shot with speedlights, for a higher sync speed and water resistance! Thanks to Elleni, Toby and Michael for all their help!

Here are a few of my shots from Phoot Camp last year:

I recently worked with branding agency, Underbrand on a photo shoot for Jam Jar, a new restaurant/bar in West End, Brisbane. With it’s lane way inspired, stencil and street art covered walls and Queenslander inspired seating, it was an inspiring space to work out of. Their menu looked pretty delicious, I don’t think I’ve salivated more on a shoot than I did when working on their food photography. With the owners being a mother-son duo, it was a fun portrait shoot, capturing the intimate energy and genuine moments that emerged as the two played off of one another. One of the best things about working with Jam Jar was the commissioned artwork that they asked me to work on. Covering a 5 meter wide space behind the bar, it definitely was a first for me see my photography turned into a wallpaper on such a large scale. So go check out my one photo exhibition on the wall of Jam Jar and have a tasty meal or drink while you’re at it!