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I’ve been spending time in the studio working on a new series, Echo Chamber. Playing with literal “smoke and mirrors” and exploring the illusory echo chambers people find themselves in, in an online world of information overload. Let me know if you can spot the skull. An ominous, but fitting, happy accident!

I managed to shoot a few fun self portraits within the setup as a test to see how I can further incorporate portraits into the series. They love the way they turned out and can’t wait to further develop and refine the results in upcoming shoots!

I felt extremely honoured to have an old friend Lars Wannop ask me to photograph him at the studio earlier this year. As an art director with a genuine curiosity for all things creative and beyond, he was such a pleasure to collaborate with in creating a portrait that would represent him best. He had sent me a reference of an image from my “Echo Chamber” series (on Instagram) and wanted to incorporate a “light playfulness”, with the idea incorporate subtle details to further prompt a curiosity about who he is. We actually ended up including some of the same flowers and some smoke as a throwback to the original reference.

I recently converted one of my old backup cameras into a “Full Spectrum” DSLR.  The process allows me to use the camera to filter out specific ranges of light using filters.  I was specifically interested in photographing in the infrared spectrum of light and brought my camera along to a weekend away with a few talented photographers in Mt. Beauty, a few hours drive from Melbourne.  This is one of my favourites from the weekend. Im thrilled with the results! I’ll update the “Projects” section of my website soon with a few more, once I get around to sitting down in front of it all!

I recently joined a few Instagrammers out on Phillip Island, just under two hours out of Melbourne, for a tour of the beautiful coastline out at Cape Woolamai. There wasn’t much of a sunset like we had hoped for, but it made for the most peaceful night, shooting long exposures of the waves and seeing the silhouettes of thousands of Short-tailed Shearwaters flying above. It was so refreshing to get excited about photography outside of my professional style of work and just have some fun.  This is what I saw:

Since 2010, I’ve ended each year by wrapping up with some of my favourite moments through the photographs I’ve taken. It’s been a great year for pushing myself to experiment in new areas and styles of photography, both commercially and personally. I found myself heading in a few new directions with the primary focus being on creating new personal work, selling my work as prints and to continue to grow my portfolio photography business, “Foliolio”. Looking back on my photography from the year, it’s interesting to see how well these three things seemed to fit together and helped one another grow. This is my top 15 from 2015.

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. This year I made a conscious effort to do just that and as a result, saw some incredible things. One of them being the beautiful deer of Nara.

I teamed up with One Fine Print who helped me get my personal work onto people’s walls, something I’ve been striving to do well for years. Not only did they do an exceptional job at that, they also got one of my prints on the air and into the penthouse of Shay and Dean, the winners of “The Block” a reality TV show about renovations with a strong focus on interior design and styling. If you’re in Melbourne, be sure to check them out on the walls of the Pop Up shop before it closes!

I continued to work on my playful food photography series, “Graze“. It’s an experimental food photography series in which I give myself some studio time and some “ingredients” to see what kind of playful food creations I can come up with. This was the result, I call it “Frankenfruit”.

Foliolio, my side-photography business which focusses on working with designers who want their work photographed well, quickly gained momentum and I worked with some incredibly talented designers. This was one of my favourites from a colourful shoot with Wild Hen on the design work they did for Fonda Mexican.

With the growth of Foliolio, I found the perfect studio to work out of. This small decision resulted in the ability to create some great work and I’m so glad I decided to find a dedicated space to work out of. It even has a space for my hammock, what more can I say!

In between shoots, things got pretty messy in the studio thanks to a new photo series “spill”, but now everything smells great (ie. like coffee)!

…and I continued to play with my food.

My main photo series of the year was “Handy“, which features creative people and what they do with their hands. One of my favourites was this one with Magdalena Ksiezak who makes adorable paper crafted creations.

Abandoning the seriousness of photography and with this new fascination with hands, I adopted a more playful approach, with a light-hearted spin-off series called, “Stuff you can’t do with Novelty Sized Hands“.

The series fed other ideas, which led to some experiments, including the idea to create an “ice sculpture” using the novelty sized hands as the mould.

I worked with friend and graphic artist, Spencer Harrison AKA Spenceroni on some promotional imagery for Hello Play, his exhibition at No Vacancy Gallery in Melbourne’s CBD. We created a series of playful photographs, showcasing Spencer’s work, all the while “playing” and experimenting as we did.

I was featured on the front cover of PDN Magazine’s January issue. It was an issue on innovation, featuring the work I created with Nate Bolt and the long exposure of his drone over the Californian desert.

A 7 hour drive from Melbourne, Do Lectures Australia once again took place in the beautiful Victorian high country in Glen Valley atPayne’s Hut.  It’s a land without phone reception or internet access, and a sky with seemingly more stars than negative space.  I couldn’t have been happier being back in the thick it all to photograph for another 6 days of incredible people, great conversation and a good community.

A photo posted by Mark Lobo | Melbourne (@marklobo) on Dec 6, 2015 at 1:37pm PST

I started to get a bit more involved with Melbourne’s photography and Instagram community. I met some great folks and got to be a tourist on Phillip Island, shooting late into the night and witnessing thousands of Short-tailed Shearwaters flying overhead. I have to say, it feels like things are coming full circle and am feeling inspired by landscapes once again. I’m looking forward to where this all heads in the new year! Playful, experimental, handy landscapes for people’s walls?

And Lucky last, this ridiculous selfie I took with Phil Ferguson aka @ChiliPhilli when we did our Handy Series shoot.

Have a great holiday season everyone and all the best for 2016!!!

Just 6 months after attending Do Lectures USA and less than a year since my first Do Lectures Australia, I think it’s safe to say that I’m totally hooked on what a fellow Do’er simply referred to as “TEDx, but bush”.   A 7 hour drive from Melbourne, Do Lectures Australia once again took place in the beautiful Victorian high country in Glen Valley at Payne’s Hut.  It’s a land without phone reception or internet access, and a sky with seemingly more stars than negative space.  I couldn’t have been happier being back in the thick it all to photograph for another 6 days of incredible people, great conversation and a good community.  This is what I saw.

I was recently interviewed by Jonathan Cherry from Mull It Over. I thought I’d share it here, along with some of the images that I sent through to be featured.  If you haven’t checked it out, head over to Mull It Over for some good photographic inspiration.

JONATHAN CHERRY: What did you want to be growing up?

MARK LOBO: I grew up wanting to be a police man, baseball player or comedian. All things that I would have been terrible at!

JC: Who or what is inspiring you at the moment?

ML: Passionate people. It’s a bit broad, but meeting new people who love and believe in what they do really inspires me to create great work and love the process.

JC: What are you up to right now?

ML: I just got back from visiting family in Tokyo, so at the moment I’m consciously taking things a bit slow while I still can. I’m using the time to plan and gather everything I need for a self-portrait application idea for Phoot Camp 2014 (you know, neck brace, dumbbells, rubber duckies, etc. etc.)

JC: Have you had mentors along the way?

ML: I haven’t had anyone that I would officially call a mentor, but I have a group of friends who hold me accountable and help me with the support I need when it comes to making things happen. They are from different backgrounds and live in different cities around the world which I find gives me a fresh perspective and guidance with the obstacles I face and ideas I have.

JC: Where are you based right now and how is it shaping you?

ML: Melbourne, Australia. It’s cold (by Australian standards), it’s beautiful and the people here get it when it comes to people following their passions. There’s a lot of support and it leaves me constantly inspired and feeling comfortable to create. At the same time, there are so many talented people here that it really drives me to create the best work I can.

JC: One piece of advice to photography graduates?

ML: There are a few things I’ll often share with new photographers. I usually send them this link. The most important thing would be to know what you want, which I think works on many levels. Knowing what you want to capture and how you want an image to look before even looking through the viewfinder is pretty important. And in the long term, knowing where you want to be 20 years time helps us make sure we stay on track and brings value to the things we do on a daily basis.

JC: If all else fails – what is your plan B?

ML: I think a plan B would only really happen if I couldn’t physically shoot anymore. I have a tech background and like building things, so I’d most likely be working towards building a web based, photography related business.

JC: Is it important to you to be a part of a creative community?

ML: Community is so important. Trust, support and good passionate people are what I look for in a community, which has transpired through a group of big-hearted photographers I met through a photographic retreat called Phoot Camp. When you meet someone for the first time, and feel like you’ve known them forever, that’s when you know you’ve found your community. It’s validating and inspiring to meet other people like yourself.

@mullitovercc

Magdalena Wosinska

Semi Permanent in Melbourne had me on my feet for two crazy big days, photographing the event and also shooting some video. A constant highlight was no doubt hearing inspiring, creative speakers like Jessica Hische, Glendyn Ivin and Seb Lester, to name a few, but also to be able to photograph them back stage. It was an inspiring weekend.

Here are a few of my favourite portraits.

Glendyn Ivin

Moffitt.Moffitt.

Ant Keogh

Miso

I have been following the work of Melbourne based magazine, Dumbo Feather for quite a while and have always dreamed of shooting for them. Their stories always feature the most inspiring of minds and their photography and layout is gorgeous. Earlier in the year, I reached out to them by sending through a mocked up Dumbo Feather magazine which used my own photos for the cover, contents page and also images from a story I had shot in Melbourne a few years earlier. They liked what they saw and got a chance to head in to their beautiful office space in St. Kilda for a meeting.

A few months later, an opportunity came up to photograph a story for them in Sydney. The subject was Jaron Lanier, a multi talented man with an amazing story, and the creator of virtual reality. I photographed Jaron at his Sydney hotel, right before he was to leave for a flight back to San Francisco under a pretty tight schedule (like, really really tight). It wasn’t quite the style I had initially intended on shooting for the magazine, but I couldn’t be happier with the images I captured and how they were used.

Here are a few shots of both my mocked up magazine and the final printed version of the story:

And here was my initial Dumbo Feather mock up cover and contents page:

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.

I’ve shared a few of these images before, but with the new site design and a proper project section in the works I’ve finally got a place to put them together as a set! These are a few portraits from a fun personal project I’ve been working on and am hoping to start up again here in Melbourne. The series looks at the comically tragic stories behind a number of teachers from around the world. See the full series (to date) and their back stories, here (or click through on their photo).

I’ve been a big fan of Creative Mornings talks since seeing the inspiring Laura Miner, founder of Phoot Camp, speak on the topic of “Why We Work“.  Last week I was asked to capture the Melbourne event, featuring Beci Orpin, who spoke about happiness and running her own race. Here are a few of my favourite moments from the event. You can check out the full set on flickr, here.

I just got back from a short trip to Melbourne and surrounds where I’ll soon be making my new home. I’ve put together a few images from the trip, in chronological order. Taken on both my DSLR and iPhone, this is what I saw.

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:

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.

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

ps. there’s an iphone app too…

I spent my high school years on the Sunshine Coast, living in the coastal town of Noosa before moving inland to the quiet town of Eumundi, most well known for it’s weekly markets. So it was with great pleasure that I worked on my latest assignment with Tiger Airways’ inflight magazine, which was also my third cover for them. The photography for the piece focused on the Sunshine Coast art trail and was to feature the work of local artists, particularly Katz, a local body painter.  Carrying a light weight portable lighting kit, we braved the wet weather and mosquitoes off the trail to shoot the works. This is one of my favourite shots from the shoot as well as the image selected for the cover!

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 other people’s photos! 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:

Earlier in the year, I worked on an editorial piece for Tiger Airways’ in flight magazine, Tiger Tales. I was asked to capture a different side of Brisbane, focusing more on the local culture rather than it’s “touristy” surrounds. The story was structured around 9 streets in Brisbane and the unique offerings of each of them. As a local photographer, I was in my element when it came to capturing some of the city’s attractions. In addition, I was to capture some young Brisbanites for the cover (above). It was a really enjoyable shoot and gave me the excuse to visit some of my favourite cafes.

If you’re traveling on Tiger Airways before the end of April, be sure to pick up a copy. This was my second cover for Tiger Tales, with one more cover on the way. My first shoot with them had me standing on the back of a moving Harley, trying to get the cover shot! You can read more about it here.