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.
Earlier in the year, I worked with the inspiring team at Spur Projects to shoot a video for their latest campaign, “Better If You’re Around“. The video takes a look at the life choices of a young man with the hope to encourage young people to take the first step in talking about depression. It was an honour to work with such a solid and motivated team, shooting over just two days in locations all over Brisbane. I’m so pleased to see that the video has making the rounds online and was even played on Channel 10 News last night. I’m humbled to have been able to be a part of it. Please take the time to watch and share this video as well as support the campaign through Pozible. For more information on taking the first steps towards starting that “tough conversation” visit: www.softenthefckup.com
Crew:
Producer – Lee Crockford
Director – Leah Sanderson
Assistant Director – Chrissie Nowland
Cinematographer – Mark Lobo
Lighting – Hamish Clift
Hair and Makeup – Gemma Elaine
Cast:
Rick Mitchell
Alex Valentine
James Gauci
Finn Foulds-Cook
Mia Carey
Music:
When Will – The Trouble with Templeton
Special Thanks – Damon Klotz, Ehon Chan, Sabrina, Angela and Michael Foulds-Cook, Melinda Carey, & the pensioners whose names we never learnt…
If you’re in New York City, come and check out some of the work that myself and a group of 35 incredible photographers from Phoot Camp have put together. The show is a part of “Photoville” and will include over 30 shipping containers, housing work from around the world. Head over to Pier 3 at Brooklyn Bridge Park in Dumbo to see the amazing work that came out of this weekend of 35 photographers taking over a summer camp, but stay for the rest of Photoville: a beer garden, dog run, shipping container-sized camera obscura, and exhibits from our heroes like The New York Times and Magnum.
Try to make it on the 22nd when most of us will be there, but if not, stop by anytime before July 1st to see the show.
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:
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 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
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:
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:
Perhaps it’s a few days late, but here are some images from my top 10 shoots of 2010! It was an incredible year.
In no particular order…
Japan – Momiji
I head back to Tokyo once or twice a year and most often in the winter time. At this time of the year, the Momiji leaves (Japanese maple) dominate the treeline and cover the ground in parks. I really love the way these leaves look against a nice bokeh.
Phoot Camp – Dan Busta
I traveled to New York, Boston and Los Angeles earlier in the year where I met some of the most inspiring and creative people and took part in Phoot Camp, where I shot this portrait.
Michael Hill Jeweller – Jewellery Photography
To be able to shoot for Michael Hill‘s catalog was a great experience. Working against an impressive existing collection, I learnt a few new tricks of the trade when it comes to this type of product photography. It’s probably some of the best product work I’ve done to date.
TEDxBrisbane – Event Photography
Modeled after the US based annual TED conferences, TEDxBrisbane was an Independently organised TED event. The day included talks from a diverse range of prolific thinkers and doers. I shot all the TEDx events held in Brisbane in 2010 and have been truly inspired by them all.
Green Heart – Campaign and Editorial Photography
I worked on an image library for Green Heart, an environmental sustainability program in Brisbane, with the focus on creating carbon-neutral city by 2026. It was great to work with and meet so many inspiring people dedicated to building a better and greener city to live in.
Philippines – Bohol Island
It was a busy time for me in January. I had just come back from a freezing winter in Tokyo, returning to spend a few hot days in a Brisbane summer. Before I had a chance to settle back in, I was off to shoot a wedding in an uncomfortably humid Philippines. With all the travel, changes in climate, and stress of working in a new environment, just watching the warm rain roll in took me to my happy place. With good music playing on my headphones, a big wedding shoot behind me, and big drops of warm rain splashing off my feet, it was the perfect way to unwind and enjoy the rest of my stay.
Tiger Airways – Cover shot and Editorial Photography
I had the pleasure of working on an exhilarating and colourful editorial shoot for Tiger Airways, which had me following biker Mac Swift around the Tweed Valley in Northern New South Wales. I was asked to capture the journey along some of the Valley’s beautiful rain-forests and beaches, which eventually led me to dangerously balancing on the back of a moving Harley, trying to get the cover shot! Definitely one of the most thrilling shoots of the year.
Von Vintage – Film Photography Project
2010 was a big year for film and creative work for me. With a new Hasselblad, I continued work on my film project, Von Vintage. The site is soon to be relaunched and will also be selling prints! Keep an eye out!
Lomography Spinner 360 – 35mm film toy camera
I’d have to say that my most used camera (other than my SLR) has to be the 360 spinner from Lomography. It’s a camera that literally spins 360 degrees (or more) in your hand, exposing a long strip of 35mm film, including the sprocket holes! I was in Melbourne, shooting the Finders Keepers Markets when I found this puddle. You can also see some other shots of mine on the PHOTOJOJO website!
Fadez – Promo Photography
I worked with former Reds rugby player, Charlie Fetoai and the team at Fadez Men’s Barbershops for a pitch they were putting together for MTV. This isn’t one of the images used, but I found the antics and outtakes to be some of the funnest.
And an extra one of myself from a series I’m working on…
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
It was a busy busy year, and there were quite a few other shoots that I wish I could have included in this list! Coming in close, but not making it into my top 10 were : My shoot with Scott Spark, Help Portrait, the BNE project shoot with John Davis and working on the One Punch Can Kill Campaign!
For the last few months, working towards making Help Portrait happen again in Brisbane has probably been my biggest focus. It was actually also my last shoot of the year for which I’m thankful for as it was probably the most rewarding. Help Portrait is a day where photographers, makeup artists, editors, printers and assistants come together to use their skills to brighten the day of those in need. It’s an event in it’s second year that is currently held in over 300 locations around the world. The idea is so simple and can be replicated across many industries, the greatest example of that being Homeless Connect, held biannually here in Brisbane. The Help Portrait movement and many others like it, brings the realisation that there is always a new way to help others directly using the skills you have, it’s often just a matter of finding the best way to do it. For photographers, I think Help Portrait is one of these ways.
Thanks to the help of the team from last year as well as quite a few more keen and very generous professional and budding photographers, volunteers, printers, editors and makeup artist, we once again had a great day shooting portraits for people from three local charities. We worked with Lifeline – Disability Services, Red Cross and Wesley Mission this year and despite not everyone we invited able to make it due to the rain, still managed to give people something great to smile about. I’d like to thank the team, everyone who donated towards the cause to make it happen as well as Santa who showed up towards the end of the day! Please get in touch if you are keen to get involved in any shape or form next year. Here are a few behind the scenes shots.
After the success of a small event held in Brisbane last year, giving portraits to the children and families of the Starlight Children’s Foundation, Help Portrait Brisbane have been busy planning an event on a much larger scale.
On December 5th a group of local Brisbane photographers, assistants, editors, makeup artists, printers and volunteers will be participating in Help Portrait, a global movement of people who are using their time, equipment and expertise to give back to those in need this holiday season. In a collaboration with Lifeline – Disability Services, Red Cross and Wesley Mission, the team will be giving free portraits and prints to the people of these charities. Since the event last year, I’ve been inspired to organise a number of different “Help Portrait” styled events, providing portraits to people with disability, terminal illness and the homeless. The power of something as simple as having a portrait taken always seems to bring a bit of happiness to their days, particularly to those that don’t have the opportunity to do so.
But we need your help. Through donations collected by the public we hope to also provide professional printing on site to give to the guests on the day. We’re hoping to cover a few inevitable costs that go into such events, such as printing paper, ink, snacks for guests and venue expenses. If you can spare a few dollars, it would go a long way in giving someone a beautiful portrait and making sure events like this can continue to run in the future.
How can you help?
Click “ChipIn!” below, or follow this link to help us fund the cause! Any donation large or small is appreciated!
MORE ON HELP PORTRAIT:
Initiated in 2009 by a call-out by American photographer, Jeremy Cowart, Brisbane’s collective of Help Portrait photographers hope to establish an ongoing community of hobbyist to professional photographers interested in not just the act of ‘taking’ but also in ‘giving photos’.
For more information on the global Help Portrait movement visit www.help-portrait.com.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had the incredible opportunity to be a part of Phoot Camp 2010 this year. Phoot Camp, hosted by one of my favourite websites Pictory, and sponsored by Virb, was an elaborate and crazy weekend of fun, based out of a mansion in Agoura Hills in LA. As a newcomer to the camp, held previously in the wilderness of Northern California, I spent a lot of time getting to know the amazing, creative minds that made up the camp and shooting portraits. I came back from the camp nothing short of inspired by the great people and their work.
The official Phoot Camp site has just launched and will be showcasing the work of fellow Phoot Campers over the next few weeks. I had the honour of being the first to be featured. Be sure to bookmark the site which is going to be getting some great daily updates from all the photographers, so check it out!
And finally, here are a few videos that fellow Phoot Campers Simon Biswas and Paul Octavious put together, the first being the Phoot Camp trailer and the second, a series of video portraits followed by a few time lapse videos:
Well, I’m off to go camping in another country with a bunch of strangers from the internet! Ok, it’s not really as creepy as it sounds. It all started with a self portrait application, submitted to Pictory, to be a part of the second year of Phoot Camp. It was an amazing opportunity to hang out, collaborate and meet with inspiring creatives and photographers. So I’m in Los Angeles right now, in a few hours I’ll head out to stay at a mansion with 27 photographers for a weekend of fun. That’s pretty much all I really know for now, I’ll update in a few days!
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.
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:
I recently started a new project called VonVintage. Put simply, it stands for Vintage on Vintage, which is exactly how I intend to shoot it: Vintage content, shot on a Vintage camera. Through it’s use in preservation and storytelling, photography can be a powerful tool. Coupled with an artistic approach, I hope the project can help bring back some value to beautiful vintage design and the keepsakes of the past.
Thanks to the generosity of friends and strangers, I now have 7 vintage cameras which I’m running film through. If you know anyone that collects film cameras, or would like me to put a roll of film through an old camera you have, please get in touch!
You can see my “scrapbook” of related imagery on the VonVintage website here: http://www.vonvintage.com/scrapbook/,
follow the feed of images on tumblr
or if you are interested in the progress of the project, be sure to follow @VonVintage on Twitter.
Here are some shots from my last roll. Shot on an old Nikomat FT2.
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.
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:
