I don’t consider myself to be much of a gear head. As long as the gear I use is designed to last and does what a certain job or project needs it to do, I’m not worried. The reality is every job needs different tools, so I have a basic kit that I can rely on, and hire everything else. If I start to use that gear regularly enough, then I’ll stop hiring it and buy it. I was asked by shotkit to showcase what’s in my bag and this is what I photographed. You can see all the details on what everything is here: shotkit.com/mark-lobo
There is no shortage of creative inspiration when it comes to working with people here in Melbourne. Over the years I’ve found that apart from the photography itself, it’s the people that I work with that really make the job that I do, something I love. With so many designers and creative people making up my network of colleagues and friends, I’ve decided to reach out to people that surround me with a new idea, which I’m excited to share. It’s called Foliolio.
Foliolio is a basically a photographic service that will help give designers and creatives the representation they deserve when it comes to showcasing their hard work in their portfolios. There is a strong focus on great photography and creating something that stands out from the crowd.
I worked with my friends at Pennant to photograph their business cards as my first Foliolio client. Here are a few of the shots, as well as a behind the scenes video.
I collaborated with “Maker” Adam Head to create an artwork for Seven With Another. The exhibition brings together 14 artists, who are paired up into 7 unlikely teams to produce an artwork around a theme. Our theme was the number 6, hence the six sided cube.
In developing this piece, we sought to explore and express our shared aesthetic interests—ranging from vintage design to the creative application of optical illusion techniques.
Inspired by 3D lenticular prints (in which morphing effects are created by displaying different images as the print is viewed from different angles), this sculpture uses movement, light and reflection to offer a constantly changing visual experience that transitions though moments of clarity and chaos.
A further responsive element was introduced to lift the viewer’s experience from passive observer to an active participant in this process of change. Photographing the sculpture with a flash would trigger a flash from inside the cube, resulting in an explosive burst of light in the resulting photograph.
The next edition of Seven With Another opens Thursday 11 July 7pm at Brisbane Powerhouse.
Here are a few images from the exhibition and behind the scenes. You can also see the video in HD, here.
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 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…
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:
Early this month, Brisbane hosted it’s very own community run TED event or “TEDx“. It was one of the most inspiring local events I’ve had the pleasure of being a part of. Modeled after the Long beach based annual TED conferences, the day included talks from a diverse range of prolific thinkers and doers. Co-hosted and organised by Paul Fairweather and Carl Lindgren, with the help of a number of sponsors and volunteers, the day was buzzing with inspired conversation and the ‘spirit’ of TED. As a photographic sponsor, I had the honour of shooting some inspiring speakers and captured some great moments in the lead up to the event. A massive thanks and congrats to the organisers and everyone involved. Here are some of my favourite shots from TEDxBrisbane. More images can be found on the TEDxBrisbane flickr page .
And finally, I’d like to share the first TED talk that introduced me to these “ideas worth spreading”, soon after they started releasing the TED talks online. It was Jeff Han’s presentation on multi-touch technology. From touch pads on laptops to the Apple iPad, it’s crazy how within 5 years of this talk, it has become so common place. As Jeff says, this technology will “Change the way we interact with machines from this point on”, and it has.
Escaping the Australian summer, I was back in Tokyo at the end of 2009. I spent my days shooting, eating, wandering and embracing the Japanese winter weather. Thought I’d share a few shots and videos from the trip.
Over 8,000 photographers and volunteers in 42 countries held Help Portrait events on the 12th of December this year. Among those 715 locations which held the photo shoots, 2 were organised for Brisbane. I worked with a group of amazing Brisbane photographers along with the Starlight foundation to provide sick children and their families with beautifully printed and framed portraits.
The day was eye opening, challenging and exceptional, with just 5 photographers and 3 starlight volunteers, we set up in 2 spaces at the hospital and also visited those unable to come to us. There were a few issues with printing, but we still achieved our main goal, which was to give the kids and their families beautiful portraits and a fun experience through photography. The children were thrilled to be a part of a photo shoot and the grateful looks on the faces of their parents told a story in itself.
I’d like to thank the photographers, family, friends, and everyone who helped and showed support, whether it was through donations or just spreading the word through twitter, you made the day amazing for some very needy children and their families. With our fund raising efforts, we ended up raising over $900 to cover costs and the remainder was donated directly to the Starlight Foundation.
I’d also like to mention the great efforts of another group of fine photographers who made another Help Portrait happen for Vital Connection. With all the interest shown through the Brisbane Help Portrait page and emails received, I have no doubt Help Portrait in Brisbane will only be getting bigger and more frequent. We’d be interested in getting the ball rolling on the next help portrait, so if you have any ideas for future events, as well as potential suppliers, please let me know. I’d really like to see a lot of small groups of photographers getting out there, giving portraits, and doing their thing!
Thanks again!
Time lapse video from one of the Help Portrait locations:
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.
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:
I recently did a photo shoot for freelance writer Rebecca Leigh. Shot in Maleny, in beautiful Sunshine Coast Hinterland, I was inspired to take a short time lapse video of the shoot. This is the first of many time lapse movies I hope to make in 2009.
