Although I spent much of my childhood in Japan, and still head back over to Tokyo at least once a year, I’ve never really had a chance to play tourist and actually explore some of the most beautiful and interesting places that Japan has to offer. I just returned from a few weeks of doing exactly that, with a camera by my side and have a few images to share. While staying in Osaka, I took a day trip out to Nara which is home to several historically significant artworks and temples, and also to several hundred wild (but relatively tame) deer. With deer casually roaming around old sites, dating back to the 8th century, it made for quite a surreal experience. This is what I saw.
It’s been such an incredible year, with fun new projects, exhibitions, new friends, travel and amazing new clients. I’ve put together a wrap up of my top 12 from 2012. And of course, I had to post it on 12.12.12 at 12:12.
Matt Tucker – I helped Matt Tucker document his beautiful tattoos by renowned Japanese tattoo artist, Horiyasu. The final product was an incredible large framed print on metallic paper. It was truly rewarding to work on this passion project with Matt and produce something that he truly loved.
New Zealand – My birthday weekend was spent in Auckland, New Zealand, taking photos and playing tourist in such an incredibly photogenic country.
Phoot Camp 2012 – I caught up with old friends and made many new ones at Phoot Camp 2012 followed by an exhibition in New York. It was truly one of the highlights of the year, with a trip to San Francisco, Chicago and Boston thrown in! The trip also inspired a new personal series of mine, titled “In their shoes“.
Darren Lockyer – Rugby league legend Darren Lockyer sat for his portrait for an editorial piece I photographed for WISH magazine. It was inspiring to work with someone so accomplished, yet so humble and authentic in character.
Finders Keepers Melbourne – I’ve started to focus on working out of both Melbourne and Brisbane. The Finders Keepers Markets, which I also shot in Melbourne a few years back was impressive in scale, as was the beautiful light that hit everything inside the venue.
IPPA award – My obsession with capturing moments on my phone actually paid off (well, slightly), with two of my Instagram photos getting two honourable mentions in the 6th annual iPhone photography awards.
Mark Visser – Sand filled my camera gear as I spent a morning on the beach photographing big wave surfer Mark Visser, most notably known for his death cheating big wave ride at night, which earned him the nick name “Night Rider”.
Von Vintage – I took my Von Vintage work on a road trip to exhibit at analogue gallery, Strip of a Lifetime, in Newcastle. This is a video from opening night.
Go Health – Billboards around the city started to fill up with my work with Go Health Gyms and Big Fish. Seeing work appearing larger than life always invokes an odd, giddy feeling of excitement in me that never gets old.
Foot Locker – I worked on a few Footlocker campaigns in Melbourne and Brisbane with the Famous Group. I ws thrilled to see this Summer campaign finally hit the stores and I can’t wait to see the results from the other shoots.
Sofitel – I worked with Sofitel and Underbrand to create imagery for their new magazine, Enchanté. I shot some delicious looking food photography and got some great city views.
Seven with Another – I teamed up with talented “Maker”, Adam Head, to collaborate on a project for art exhibition, Seven With Another. We created a large spinning cube that would fill the room with light when triggered by the flash of a camera. I’m working on a side project with this piece, which I’ll share soon.
Stay safe and have a great holiday season everyone! I’m looking forward to an even better 2013!
I had the honor of photographing Mark Visser for an editorial piece for United Airlines’ inflight magazine, Hemispheres. Mark is an Australian big wave Surfer, most notably known for successfully riding at the infamous ‘Jaws’ break in Maui… at night. It was truly inspiring to meet and work with such a highly motivated athlete. The assignment was to capture a range of images documenting Mark’s intense training regimen, which I could barely keep up with, with a camera! This was then followed by a range of portraits both in the water and on the beach to cover a good range of options to use in the editorial. Here are a few of the images from the shoot as well as some of the magazine itself.
Here is some footage of Mark Visser riding a big wave at night:
Many thanks to Cody Austin, who generously sent me copies of the mag, all the way from Texas. Thanks so much! 🙂
I’ve been photographing the Finders Keepers Markets since they first came to Brisbane in 2009. It’s always fun to spend a day walking around checking out what people have been creating and saying “hi” to a lot of familiar faces. Earlier this month, I flew down to Melbourne to photograph their Spring markets in the very impressive Royal Exhibition Building. Here are a few of my favourite shots from the weekend.
It’s been a busy, but fun few months with a lot of travel, exhibiting and exciting new jobs. One of my recent highlights was working with The Famous Group to shoot this summer campaign for Foot Locker. The shots are now up in-store promoting Foot Locker’s latest summer collection.
A good friend of mine, Lani recently came across a beautiful vintage hire shop and analog art gallery in Newcastle called, “Strip of a Lifetime“. She instantly thought of my Von Vintage project and urged me to get in touch. I checked them out and fell in love. The shop is home to an original coin operated 1960’s photo-booth and their tagline is, “Dedicated to the preservation of the Vintage Photography Experience”, one of the driving forces behind the Von Vintage project.
The space itself is supported by Renew Newcastle which aims to provide unused spaces to artists, cultural projects and community groups. I couldn’t think of a more like minded endeavor to get Von Vintage involved with. So after exchanging a few emails with owner, Paula Birch, I’ll be road tripping down to Newcastle to exhibit my work on the 27th of September! Opening night will be a part of the Renew Newcastle’s Spring City Walk, which I am very excited to be a part of. And I couldn’t have asked for a better time to be in Newcastle, the exhibition also coincides with the This Is Not Art festival!
Please help spread the word, or drop in if you are in, or able to get to Newcastle! Hope to see you there!
The details:
When: Thursday, 27 September 2012, 4- 7pm
Where: Strip of a Lifetime – Analog Art Gallery
Shop 20, Food Court Level, Market Square, 119 Hunter Street Mall, Newcastle, Australia
I was truly thrilled to be welcomed back to Phoot Camp 2012, a photographic retreat held in a new location every year and sponsored by the always awesome VIRB. I met some incredible new faces and was reunited with a fun group of creative photographers, all of whom I have come to call dear friends. This year, Phoot Camp was held in upstate New York at Ashokan, and was followed by an exhibition in New York City as a part of Photoville.
I started out with few very loose ideas to shoot, but I consciously decided not to solidify them until I got there. I really wanted to take on a different personal approach to finding the inspiration for my normal style of portrait work. It wasn’t until the last day of camp that I realised that I wanted to shoot a series of portraits of “In-Between” moments. Moments of distraction that get captured before, during and after the “main” photographs have been taken. I called this series “In Their Shoes” and hope to continue to work on it, in the years to come. Here are a few of my favourite shots from both the series and camp itself:
While I didn’t manage to do quite as much photo documentation as I had hoped, I was given a Lomokino camera from Lomography to play with, which I feel really captured the “Summer Camp” atmosphere pretty well. This was shot over 5 rolls of 35mm film during some pretty fun times at Phoot Camp:
And another fun video of the camp from Garrett Cornelison:
And finally, I’d like to thank the most incredible Laura and Brad, our camp councellors, who made this year’s camp such an incredible one.
I’m excited to say that I’ll be heading back to Phoot Camp 2012, a photographic creative retreat held in a different location every year. This time it’s being held in upstate New York! The image above was shot for my self portrait application. Here are all the beautiful faces of the other photographers that I’ll be joining:
Last year, I was lucky enough to be invited back to join 30 incredibly talented photographers at Phoot Camp. Taking place in Marfa, Texas, the road trip there was an amazing part of the journey and spending time with an RV full of keen photographers was definitely a highlight. Check out the story of Phoot Camp 2011 here:
I recently photographed Australian Rugby League legend, Darren Lockyer on a shoot for Wish Magazine, a publication available through “The Australian” newspaper focusing on “The best of Everything”. The story looks at Darren in his new role as HEAT Architecture Ambassador and was photographed in the lobby of Santos place, designed by Brisbane Architecture firm, Donovan Hill. It was a big shoot for me and really wanted to come out with a few solid images that the publication could use. I even ended up scouting the location twice, just to make sure I could fill the space with the right light and had access to everything I needed on the day! I was thrilled to see that the hard work payed off and that the selected image was used as a full page spread!
Here are a few images from the shoot and the publication:
I worked with hair dresser, Jules Tognini of AKA Togninis, on a series of looks for Hair Expo Australia in June last year. Here are some of the final images from the shoot. Editing by the awesomely talented Lynda Evans of Designedly.
I worked with the great team at Big Fish once again to produce a series of images for their client, Go Health. It was a fun shoot which involved a lot of moving of excercise equipment, taking over the spin room on location. I’m really happy with the final artwork and the use of colour is delicious. Here are a few of the images from the shoot:
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 attendPhoot 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 shootthe 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 the last few months, I’ve been working with Brand Development Agency, Underbrand on the photography for the new restaurant, Motion Bar and Grill at The Marriott, Brisbane. I had previously worked with Underbrand on projects such as the photography for Jam Jar and as always, was a pleasure to work with a team of highly motivated visual perfectionists!
Here are a few of the final images and artwork that resulted from the shoot. As a lover of nice wood grain, I’m thrilled that we were able to tie all the shots together with such a nice brown tone and texture. You can see more of my shots on the Motion Bar and Grill website.
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
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
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 otherpeople’sphotos! 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: