I’ve recently been diving deeper into the captivating realm of wine and other bottle photography, focusing particularly on showcasing the incredible work of designers at Foliolio both in Melbourne and interstate. I wanted to share a few of my recent favourites from these designers, who worked on the branding and label design. Click through to delve deeper into the designer’s portfolio and show them some well-deserved support. More of my wine and bottle photography can also be seen here. Cheers! 🥂
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!
After wrapping up a shoot early last week, I decided to dump literally everything I had in my bag out and arrange it into a tidy flat-lay. Â I think this could be the start of yet another series…
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.
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!!!
If you’re a fan of the TV show The Block, you may have seen one of my leaf prints on the walls of Dean and Shay’s apartment last night!  I had known that a photographic print of mine had been used to decorate the foyer of their penthouse apartment, but didn’t really know whether or not we’d get much love from the judges. But my jaw hit the floor when judges Neale Whitaker and Darren Palmer pointed out the work and commented on how beautiful it was, likening the space to an art gallery.  I couldn’t have asked for a better debut of one of my prints to the Blocktagon!
If you’ve been interested in the print for the walls of your own home, it can be found here on the One Fine Print Website:
I’m pretty excited to announce that I’ve been working on a few new prints for One Fine Print’s latest pop-up store.  After an amazing response to it’s first pop-up on Smith Street in Fitzroy, it’s just re-opened it’s doors in Brunswick, in Melbourne’s North.  So if you’ve been wanting some large, printed photographic work of your own, come and have a look. It’s a great time to go see them big and on real walls! I’m in good company, sharing the space with Danish Furniture from Retropia, and some incredibly talented professional photographers.  I’ve got a few new prints up in there now and am finally working on some more colourful still lifes too!  I’ve included a few of my favourite prints available through the store, both physically and online below.
The store is open until the end of December @ 70 Lygon Street, Brunswick East, next to “Gelobar”. Keep an eye out for “the bananas” in the window! Hope you can check it out 🙂
I’ve been focussing a lot more on shooting still-life photography recently, mostly due to the Melbourne weather being so damn unpredictable and cold, making cozy studio time much more appealing than being rained out on a location shoot. It’s set off a chain of experimental personal projects which are all currently in progress, but a few of which you can preview on my Instagram account, here.
What started out as a fun, light hearted series called “Stuff you can’t do with novelty sized hands”, ended up sparking the idea to create an “ice sculpture” using the novelty sized hands as the mould.
I didn’t let myself think through the details too much, allowing it to be more of a creative excercise. I got started on making the ice hand and figured I’d photograph it and work it all out through experimentation, when I next had a break in my schedule. So I cleared some space in the freezer and had this creepy thing in there for 2 months… (please excuse the next few terrible photos off my phone).
Over 2 days, I experimented with a few different lighting set ups and figured that lighting it from below with some gels was the best approach in capturing the translucency of ice. I used some Profoto B1 flashes which were the perfect height to place between two low tables with a plate of glass over the top.  Not to mention, completely wireless and could stand on their own. Look mom, no stands!
I rolled out some seamless backdrops and cut a hole through it to let some light through. Â I went with a darker grey, lit with blue gels.
Then came the hardest part. Actually getting the ice out of the mould without breaking it. I melted the hand to loosen it away from the glove, but carelessly broke off some fingers in an attempt to free it.  It turns out there is a fine art to evenly melting an ice hand out of a novelty sized hand.
I made two more smaller hands and patiently waited to cut them free the following day. Unfortunately, I had the same problem and ended up losing some fingers, but was successful in getting the second one out in-tact.  I pumped up the air con, mid-winter and was good to go!
I worked with graphic artist, Spencer Harrison AKA Spenceroni on some promotional imagery for Hello Play, his upcoming exhibition at No Vacancy Gallery in Melbourne’s CBD.
“Celebrating all things play, Hello Play is an invitation to put aside being serious for a moment and reconnect with your sense of curiosity and adventure. From paintings, patterns, and prints, to sculptures and more. Â Hello Play is experimental, colourful, and a little bit whimsical, but most of all fun.”
With this in mind, we created a series of playful photographs, showcasing Spencer’s work, all the while “playing” and experimenting as we did. The resulting images were designed for use in both square format for Spencer’s Instagram account, but also for larger dimensions for his press release and other social media.  Here are a few of my favourite’s from the shoot:
We also made this fun animation which Spencer turn into a gif and video:
This year brought a number of exiting new experiences, both professionally and personally. I walked 100km, photographed under the stars of the Californian desert and surpassed my record for the most number of shoots in a year! It felt so fast though, and I’m still struggling to understand how I managed to pack it all into a year.  Here is my top 14 from 2014 in photographs:
Graze – There were a few new additions to my playful food photography series, including some hot potatoes.
Shotkit – I was asked to photograph and talk about some of the gear I use, organised neatly, so I put together a little timelapse video of the process:
360 – Melbourne Hip Hop artist 360, was the subject of an “Ink not Mink” campaign which I photographed for PETA.
Do Lectures Australia and USA – I photographed Do Lectures Australia and also made my way to Do Lectures USA where I met some great minds.  I came back inspired and ready to make some big changes.
Oxfam Trailwalker – A painful and exhausting experience, but a truly rewarding and memorable one was training with a group of friends to walk 100km in 34 hours, to raise money for Oxfam Australia, and we did it! Registrations for Trailwalker 2015 is closing soon, get in quick!
Scott Spark – Scott Spark released his new album, muscle memory, which I had photographed the album artwork and promotional photography for. I had taken some playful photographs on a Nishika 3D lenticular film camera during our shoot, which I scanned and turned into this gif:
Peter Berner – I worked with Australian comedian and TV personality Peter Berner, on some new promotional imagery and finally got to use the yellow backdrop that I had been wanting to use for months!
…And I got in! I photographed this night portrait of William Wilkinson, late at night in the desert at Phoot Camp.
PDN Cover – One of the most incredible things that came out of the Phoot Camp experience was this collaboration with Nate Bolt, who flew his drone across the desert as we captured it’s light painting. Â We ended up getting the cover of the January 2015 issue of PDN!
Travel things – I tacked on a few extra things to my US trip, which included attending Do Lectures USA, a Creative Mornings summit in New York, catching up with colleagues, friends and family and going to Sleep No More (if you’re ever in NYC, it’s a MUST). This is a summary of the experience in one photo:
Squam Lake – Between events, I spent a day out at Squam Lake, New Hampshire. Â Exactly what I needed to see me off on the last leg of my journey to New York. I also put a photo essay up on Exposure, which you can see here.
Handy Series – Although still in it’s early days, what started out as a series on gang signs, soon turned into a series on creatives and the work they do with their hands. I’ve got a bunch of people lined up to take part in this project so stay tuned for an update!
And for a special bonus 15th, I wanted to share my favourite gif with a bunch of new friends from different Creative Mornings chapters, getting down and attempting to moonwalk at the Summit After party (photo by smilebooth):
Have a great holiday season everyone and all the best for 2015!!!
I worked with the singing, songwriting genius that is Scott Spark again on the artwork and promotional photography for his new album Muscle Memory, which was just been released.  Scott has a real knack for not only knowing, but also being able articulate what he wants to see in the photography that goes along side his music and at the same time was able to give me the trust and confidence for me do what I do best.  It’s something I love about working with creative people and I think it shows in the photography and the fun gifs we created with my Nishika 3D lenticular camera.
Wow. I’m amazed at how fast this year has gone by. Â I moved to the beautiful, vibrant and creative city of Melbourne, made new friends, watched a billion comedy shows and worked with some incredible new clients. Â Here is my annual wrap up of my top 13 from 2013.
Michael Doneman – One of my favourite portraits of the year was of Michael, a friend and former business coach.
Bay of Fires – I worked on some editorial photography for a story on “Walks of Australia” One of the most beautiful walks we did was the Bay of Fires, in Tasmania. Â It was stunning.
Banana shoot – My new business cards will have “Fruit Balancing Expert” written on them. Â I worked on a few playful food photography images for a personal project.
Chrissie Swan – I worked with the beautiful Chrissie Swan for some imagery to promote her new book.  I also worked with her on a different shoot, but more on that in the new year! 🙂
A New Von Vintage Print – A few old negatives were unboxed, scanned and I finally released another print for my film photography project, Von Vintage.
Semi Permanent Melbourne – Semi Permanent in Melbourne had me on my feet for two crazy big days, photographing the event and also shooting video. I saw some great speakers and came away totally inspired. This is a portrait of fellow photographer and speaker, Magdalena Wosinska.
Dare Iced coffee – On a caffeine high, I photographed some product and lifestyle shots of Dare Iced Coffee’s new cold pressed coffee range at St. Ali in South Melbourne.
Dicko – I had the honour of photographing Dicko, in creating a set of imagery to be used for Watercooler Talent and Media, a company which he co-founded.
iPhone Photography Awards – In the cold of winter, I received a few honourable mentions for some of my Instagram photos submitted into the iPhone Photography Awards. Â This was taken during a Melbourne heatwave, and had me wishing all year for that warm weather to come back around again. Still waiting, Melbourne!
Otway Harvest – Travelling with a group of international journalists, I worked on capturing the food culture of Melbourne and surrounds.  The highlight was shooting at Otway Harvest, the beautiful ocean side truffle farm of chef, Steve Earl.  I’ll put together photo essay of this trip once the story is published in the new year!
The White House – I photographed a fewbusinesses at their amazing shared work space known as “The White House” for Est Magazine, home to extraordinary ethical businesses like Small Giants, Dumbo Feather and Tom Organic.  It was such a beautiful space to shoot in, I want to live there.
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 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“. Â 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.
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. Â The final product was an incredible large framed print on metallic paper. Â 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 Â 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! Â 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.
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’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.
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.
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:
