I recently worked on a fun little promo for a great fundraising event in support of those recently affected by the flooding in Queensland. If you live in Australia, or perhaps even if you don’t, you’d probably know about the devastating flooding that has just swept through much of the states of Queensland and Victoria.

It all came and left so suddenly, but a full recovery is looking like it will take months. Since the waters receded, we’ve seen amazing community efforts, from thousands of volunteers, to donations and services in all professional fields. In response to the floods, friends from Josephmark, Map Magazine and Big Fish are doing their part and have teamed up to organise a “Flood Party to end all Flood Parties”, a fundraiser to support the Premier’s Disaster Relief Appeal, for those most affected by the floods. I love these guys and the work that they do, so it was a real honour to be asked to shoot their event promo image:

So if you’re keen for a good night out, and want to help out, come along to Rise, which will be held at Laruche. Entry is free but you’ll need to register your attendance on Facebook at RISE – The flood party to end all flood parties or by emailing: rise@bigfish.com All proceeds from orders from the “Flood” menu will go directly to the Premier’s Disaster Relief Appeal.

If you can’t make it to the event, but still want to help out, you can make a donation directly: here. I live on one of the roads where the flooding occurred here in Brisbane, and was lucky enough to not have been severely affected like many of my neighbours.

Here are a few photos I took of my local shops and the water as they started to recede. My photos only tell a small, perhaps more lighthearted part of what happened and the real stories came from the following days of cleanup, drenched in contaminated mud, helping to rip out entire residences and businesses, to which I didn’t feel right bringing my camera along to.

Group Photo by Toby Scott and Lynda Evans

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.

Photo by Sarah Heironymus

Photo by Sarah Heironymus

Photo by Sarah Heironymus

Photo by Johnny Worthington

Photo by Sean Kelly

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.

Dan Busta

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!

www.phootcamp.com/marklobo

Simon Biswas

Lauren Randolph

Mark Trammell

Paul Octavious

Jen Giese

Matt Corbitt

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:

I’ve always been a fan of the photography in Frankie and clients will sometimes refer to the work they see in the magazine as a reference to photography they like.  So it’s an honour that Scott Spark chose this photo I took to be in his writeup in the mag. You can read and see more photos from my shoot with Scott here.

Scott’s album, “Fail Like You Mean It”, was just released and you can listen/buy it on iTunes or get it at Avid Reader (Brisbane) and JB Hi-Fi.

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!

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.

Late last year I was the photographer for Brisbane City Council’s bi-annual Homeless Connect, which provides a much needed range of services to the homeless population of Brisbane. Included in the services are medical and legal services as well as covering the most basic of needs through accommodation referrals, clothing and food. Last November, I covered the event in a mostly candid and documentary style, but soon realised that combining it with some ideas from another event we organised last year, Help Portrait, would allow us to give much more to the guests on the day and in a more direct way.

This year, I teamed up with the amazing Lynda Evans and Toby Scott, to shoot, print, laminate and even burn images to disc. We hit the ground running and had no chance to break until it was all over, with people eventually starting to congregate around the booth, checking out their photos and waiting for their turn to have their portrait taken. We shot portraits for about 170 people and gave the equipment, kindly supplied to us by Epson, quite a workout! We met some amazing people and heard some moving stories of how people were going to use their photos, and who they were going to give them to. It seemed like everyone wanted to have their photo taken to share with another friend or loved one that wasn’t there. We heard about people wanting the photos to give to their mothers for Mothers Day, family overseas and a mate on the “inside”, some just wanted portraits of their children or with friends. There was a couple wanting pregnancy portraits and even some people who wanted to have “before and after” haircut shots! When I first thought about bringing a portrait space to Homeless connect I really wasn’t sure whether it would work or be something that was needed, but after seeing the joy that something as simple as getting a nice portrait taken can bring, it really re-enforces my belief in the power of “photography for good” and the impact it has on people.

Many thanks to Toby, Lynda, Epson Australia, Brisbane City Council, Volunteering Queensland, all volunteers and service providers for making this kind of event possible. I’ve shot a few “Help Portrait” inspired events since our first one last year but am hoping to make it a much more frequent and sustainable way to give portraits.  If you know anyone keen to support, through printing supplies or in any other way possible, please let me know!  For more information on Homeless Connect and how to get involved as a volunteer or service provider in the next event in November, please visit:

Brisbane City Council via Homeless Connect
or
Volunteering Queensland

Here are some behind the scenes shots of our portrait space on the day:

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of doing 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! I’ve included some of the shots below:

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.