Working with creative people, particularly musicians, is always a pleasure. It often feels more like a collaboration of creative ideas, rather than a strict brief. I met up with Brisbane singer/songwriter Scott Spark, to discuss his new album and the imagery he wanted to back it. We talked about a few themes and locations that he felt would suit best. Eventually, we decided on two locations, both indoor and out. Here are some of my favourite shots from the shoot.
Scott’s album, “Fail Like You Mean It” is due for release in August. For a preview, you can check out his stuff here: http://scottspark.bandcamp.com and on iTunes.
Following a few busy months since my last BNE project shoot, I met up with John Davis a guitar repairer based up in Red Hill in Brisbane. For those unfamiliar with the project, every person selected for the BNE project is chosen by a previous BNE participant. John Davis was selected as the inspiration of one of my early BNE portraits, Dan from Dan and Dilmah.
I caught up with John a few days before the shoot at his store and spent a few hours chatting and observing, amongst a constant influx of passionate guitar lovers frequenting the store. One of the things I noticed about John is that when he was working, he was constantly in motion. Whether it was chatting to three customers at once or restringing a guitar, the man is always on the move! I came back a few days later and despite having scheduled the shoot after hours to avoid interruptions, John was still juggling customers and fixing guitars into the night. This passion for his work, people, and guitars is something I really wanted to capture with this shoot.
I recently did a shoot for Hailey Calvert, an incredibly talented Brisbane singer-songwriter. We set out to shoot a few different locations based on some of Hailey’s inspirations and tell the story of her and her music. You can check out some of Hailey’s music here: myspace.com/haileycalvert.
Here are a few of my favourite shots:
Brisbane’s creative community can feel like one big happy family at times, so shooting for Finders Keepers this weekend was lots of fun. An event originating in Sydney, the Finders Keepers markets supports local designers and artists through a two day independent market. I spent most of the day strolling around, listening to music and chatting to stall owners about their creations and the ideas behind them. It’s really left me feeling re-inspired to focus a bit more on my side projects like VonVintage, and the BNE project, to bring more to a photograph than just a print on a wall or an image online. Here are some of my favourite stalls and shots from the day. More images can be found in the Finders Keepers gallery.
In support of the Inspire Foundation and to help raise funds and awareness for the prevention of suicide and improvement of mental health and well being in men, the “Man Book” was launched today. Put together by the very inspiring Mark Pollard and Gavin Heaton, the book titled The Perfect Gift for a Man – 30 Stories about Reinventing Manhood, focuses on the stories of 30 contributors on topics such as respect, fragility and loss. Although I didn’t manage to write anything for the book, I was honoured to play a part through my contribution as a photographer. 2 images, destined to spend the rest of their lives on my hard drive, were given life and purpose again through use on the front cover and within the book! For more information on the book, head to theperfectgiftforaman.com.au or you can support the Inspire Foundation by buying an
Earlier in the year, as part of my BNE Project, I did a shoot with Joshua Levi (Brisbane photographer, gallery owner, entrepreneur), while he was working on the construction of a second new gallery. I had always intended on doing the second portrait for the series back in the same space once it had been finished, but also really wanted to somehow incorporate more of Josh as well as his trademark bathtub at his main gallery. Residing mainly at Joshua Levi Galleries in Woolloongabba, the vintage clawfoot tub had been used in helping to promote his past shows as well as in his latest combined photographic exhibition “Coke Can Spirituality” where it even found itself on the back of a ute in front of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s electoral office.
Like most of my shoots, we threw around a couple of ideas and tried out a few different approaches before deciding how we wanted in the shot to look and everything to work. After rehanging and rearranging all of Josh’s own “bathtub” photography a few times and having to refill the tub (and clean up) after a few explosive splashes, we finally ended up with what we wanted.
As I did with the previous shoot, I also shot a time lapse video:
The first portrait and timelapse of Josh from the BNE project series photo shoots:
Last month I had a photo shoot with Gold Coast band Hobo Obituaries. I was told they had a space where they did all their recording and spent most of their time hanging out, and although I hadn’t seen it until the day, was pretty sure it would make for some interesting photos. I approached the shoot with a few fairly loose ideas, but with the main intention of just capturing the brothers being themselves in their own environment. From Jack Russells to low rider bicycles we had a lot of fun incorporating as much of their lives into the shoot. It really reinforced my view of working with people to achieve something fun and real, rather than just directing them.
I love visiting Japan and I specifically love the city of Tokyo, where I spent a lot of my childhood. Although I’ll often spend a lot of time catching up with family, and this time, actually spent a lot of it catching up on work, I made some time to take some photos around town. I’m fascinated with documenting the lifestyle, and history of the country, all within such a rapidly evolving culture. I’ve chosen a few images to share, from ‘Old Japan’ to the faces of Shibuya, one of Tokyo’s famous shopping and entertainment districts.
Last night I attended the preview opening of ‘Underexposed’ an exhibition showcasing some amazing live band photography from Brisbane Photographers. With well over a dozen photographers, such as Dane Beesley, Kylie Keene and Elleni Toumpas showcasing their work, the walls were filled with hundreds of images over the last 20 years of music history. It was great to finally meet some photographers who’s work I have seen through various street press, online and social media. With local music from local bands and musicians the atmosphere couldn’t be more fitting. Underexposed opens tonight at Joshua Levi Galleries in Wooloongabba and will be featuring live music in the gallery every Friday and Saturday until the end of the show. More details and gig dates below.
Pecha Kucha Night – Volume 10 was held as part of the Brisbane Ideas Festival on the 27th of March. I had the opportunity to present at the event and speak about some of my work and projects.
Pecha Kucha is an event where any designer, artist, architect, interactive media or alike, are given the soapbox to present their designs, thoughts and ideas. Each presenter gets 20 seconds to showcase and talk about 20 slides of their work.
This is a video of my presentation. Lots of “umms”, I know, but with a packed crowd of 300 in the room, 200 on the 2nd floor balcony, and another few hundred on the ground floor watching the live feed, I was pretty nervous!
As part of the “second degree” of the BNE project, a photographic project looking at people’s inspirations, chosen by the subjects of the photos themselves, I did a shoot for Matt Rabbidge from 9 Lives. Matt was chosen as the inspiration of Nick Crocker, one of the first portraits of the series as his inspiration for the project. Trying to capture someone you don’t really know well in a portrait can be quite a challenge, but I suppose that’s what makes the project fun to shoot. One of the inspiring stories behind Matt is the collaborative effort with his friends to get the 9 lives gallery off the ground. With this in mind, we chose the gallery as the perfect location, and invited everyone along for the shoot. We started off with a few solo portraits at the front of the gallery and set up a second camera to record a time lapse of the shoot. I later found that my favourite shot was one off of the second camera. The shot that really captured Matt was one of him sitting, looking into the main room of the gallery, as I set up for the shoot. I couldn’t have hoped to capture a better moment without even holding the camera! Check out the resulting shots from he shoot as well as the time lapse video:
For the last few weeks I’ve been working on a number of photo shoots for my ongoing photographic project entitled BNE. As part of the project I take a look at the inspiring people that surround me and tell their story through two images. I recently photographed Josh Collings, from Joshua Levi Galleries, at his new space at the Bell Brother’s building in the Fortitude Valley, Brisbane. After seeing what Josh recently did with an old antique shop, transforming it into a unique space for artists and musicians, it seemed fitting that I shoot his portrait at his new gallery whilst still under construction. The second image of the series is scheduled to be shot after his opening in a few weeks time. As part of the project, I ask each of my inspirations to select the next inspiration in the series, playing on the idea of six degrees of separation. You can read more about the project here:
This Tuesday, over 175 cities around the world will be hosting ‘Twestivals’ in an effort to help raise money and awareness for charity: water, a non profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations. The event will bring together the world’s online Twitter “micro-blogging” communities for an evening of music, art and entertainment. Brisbane will be hosting their very own Twestival this Thursday the 12th February at 6.30pm at Metro Arts in the city. For those interested, be sure to check out the Brisbane Twestival Website, where you can donate and also buy tickets to the event. There will be live bands and entertainment as well as a live auction for which I have donated the two images below. Hope to see you there!
I was recently asked to do a shoot for local Brisbane hair stylist, Michelle Morrison, who wanted me to help showcase 6 solid looks for a hair stylist competition she was entering. Due to the variable nature of the styles, we needed to work out of the salon to ensure that full control of the hair and makeup was maintained. Equipped with a portable backdrop and studio lights, setting up a small ‘fashion studio’ for the shoot in the limited space proved to be quite an entertaining challenge! With a full team of make up artists and hair stylists on hand, we delivered some stunning looks with some of what I have been referring to as ‘Killer Fringes’!
I was recently interviewed and featured on a great website called Australian Edge – “Showcasing Australian Creativity”. You can have a read of the interview here.
I love sites like this and it features some great work, make sure you check them out!
Australian Edge is a collective helping promote Australian creativity in all forms. Australia has an exciting and vibrant creative scene. Australian designers, artists and industry professionals through their contributions have had a strong influence locally as well as globally in their related fields.
Artwork by Brisbane Artist Kylie Farrelly – The River City
In a month of events that celebrate the city of Brisbane and all it’s offerings…Brisbane Riverfestival, Brisbane City Romp, Bridge to Brisbaneand theValley Fiesta to name a few, Joshua Levi Galleries will be joining in the festivities with their next big showing of Brisbane themed work. Featuring the colourful works of Kylie Farrelly, appropriately titled The River City, the opening will be accompanied by the sounds of Brisbane band Dan and Dilmah. As part of the exhibition, I will be showing portraits of inspirational Brisbanites from my recent BNE project! Joshua Levi himself will also have a range of stunning Brisbane imagery on the walls and in addition, two more of Brisbane’s talented photographers, Darren Tuer and Dustin Osbourne will also be showing their city scapes. The River City and the photography of Brisbane will be showing at Joshua Levi Galleries from 4th – 30th September.
Some of you may remember Levi Kereama from Australian Idol, or perhaps the R&B group Lethbridge comprised of him and his brothers. Earlier this year I shot the promotional photography for their latest reincarnation, The Bridge. Starting out at Alhambra Lounge in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley, we worked the club and headed out to a familiar location where I did the photography for Brisbane Band Dan & Dilmah. With a perfect sky and beautiful clouds, I couldn’t have been happier with the results.
Last night, 12 of Brisbane’s hottest Designers battled it out at Designer Fight Club at the Zoo in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley. After checking out the student competition last month, I was intrigued to see what the “industry professionals” battle would hold. With a heckling MC, 30 minutes to come up with a design, and some challenging briefs, the night did not disappoint. My personal favourite of the night came from Corin Edwards, self proclaimed “rock’n’roll librarian”, who incorporated an 8 eyed dinosaur into his design (upon request)… and subsequently won his round! Congrats to Jess from JosephMark who took out first prize in the event! Some shots from the night:
Round 1 Contestants – Congrats to Jess (far right) for winning the event.
Last night I attended the opening of Joshua Levi Galleries to help welcome Brisbane’s freshest new gallery to the art community. The gallery space has undergone an amazing makeover. What was once an old antique shop, is now one of Brisbane’s most unique exhibiting spaces. In-house canvas printing and framing, studio space, limited edition prints, and original artworks are a just a few of the many things that makes Joshua Levi Galleries one of the most attractive exhibiting spaces for artitsts and photographers. The night showcased some amazing work from artists such as Nic Plowman and Emma Sheldrake… oh and MYSELF! I have some limited edition canvas prints on the walls in the gallery, so head in there and check them out!
Well, after a short tour around the suburbs of Brisbane, it finally came time to take down the images exhibited in the PhotosXFour exhibition at Brisbane Powerhouse. Thanks so much to all those involved, those that came to the opening night and those that took the time to see the exhibition. After several weeks of moving around town, the images from the series are going be retired for the time being, while I focus on getting my new works started. I will however, have some of my work for sale at the opening of Joshua Levi Galleries, so stay tuned! Special thanks to the other very talented photographers involved, Russell Fleming, Matt Leasegangand James Debenham! Thanks to Ian Henderson from Photo Resources for the quality and care put into the printing, mounting and framing of all the images. Many thanks to Guy for taking shots on the night and thank you so much to all those that generously agreed to be a part of the project, you are the best models ever! Some snaps from the night:
