How quickly things change – in the space of 12 hours, Kevin Rudd has been deposed and Julia Gillard has been chosen (by her party, not yet by the people) as the first female Prime Minister in Australia’s history. I’ve met Julia a couple of times on photo shoots and she’s always impressed me as being very much in touch with real people and not egotistical like so many other politicians. Thought I’d mark the start of her term with a few photos of her that I had lying about.
The first is a tongue-in-cheek look at her new ministers, everyone seems to be getting in on the female, red hair politician thing…
This second one I like as she seems to have a look on her face which I think is appropriate for how she might feel today:
With all the grand hubbub about Jessica Watson sailing around the world, I thought I’d drop in a little sailing timelapse piece I put together last week. Shot at Albert Park lake, featuring a group of juniors sailing boats appropriately called Optimists. Nothing fancy just a little fun!! And congratulations to Jessica Watson, an amazing feat of adventure and attitude! http://www.jessicawatson.com.au/
Also worth a mention when we talk about adventures and adventurers is Beau Miles who in 2007, attempted to paddle a kayak from one side of Africa to the other. Hand in hand as filmmaking and expedition project, a state-of-the-art, HD camera was mounted to the bow of his 15 foot kayak. The journey would follow the coastline for over 4000 kilometers, through 3 diverse, often volatile countries. Mostly solo and unsupported, Beau had allowed five months. That was the plan. The documentary of this epic trip, AFRICA BY KAYAK was screened on Saturday night in Melbourne and is a great story. If you’re in Sydney or Brisbane, the screening is heading your way as part of the East Coast Tour so check out Beau and the dates at his website – http://www.beaumilesfilm.com
The huge Cannes film festival is about to kick off so I thought I’d put up a post today to congratulate the young Aussie filmaking trio behind the 2010 Cannes Critics Week nominated short film Deeper than Yesterday shot on an old rusting sub down at Hastings on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria. I’ve seen it and it really is good strong tension filled drama – well shot, edited, everything and certainly worthy of selection! You can watch the trailer here: http://www.deeperthanyesterday.com/
The fabulously talented trio behind the film are Director, Writer, Cinematographer and Compulsive Liar Ariel Kleiman, the equally talented writer, producer, production designer and stylist Sarah Cyngler and the strangely attractive producer Ben Gilovitz (or Golovitz or Golivitz as he is brilliantly referred to in this piece by the Australian – so much for sub-editing). Collectively they work as Stool Pigeon www.stoolpigeon.com.au/, based out of Melbourne but mostly travelling from film festival to film festival… Sundance, Cannes, Sydney, Dungog.
So why am I featuring these guys on my blog – well firstly to ensure I get taken long for the ride as their careers kick on into hyperspace. You see Ben Gilovitz/Golovotz/Golivitz is my cousin and of course, helping out cousins is a good thing.
Ben Gilovitz Golovizt Golivitz
So when in the past Ben has asked me to help out with still photography for the early films the Stool Pigeon team were making, I was there to help out (sometimes). Not the cruisy submarine jobs mind you. No, call in the cousin for the shoot at a supremely smelly pig farm – nothing like arriving at your girlfriends house smelling like pigsty to get you in the mood… A couple of shots of Ari (top) and Ben (bottom) from that shoot below.
Director Ariel Kleiman at work
Producer Ben Gilovitz on set
Anyway, I’ll be scanning www.gettyimages.com for the next few days, looking to see whether those sponsored tuxedo’s are getting a workout on the red carpet and wishing them all well as they pursue their cinematic dreams. A shout out too to Edward Housden whose film Muscles is also in the running at Cannes (Ari did the cinematography on this one…).
Who doesn’t like airborne animals, especially when they weigh 500kg or more and can perform handstands as well.
Intrigued, click on the image below to launch the slideshow and see more…..
A few colleagues and friends are having exhibitions at the moment. You should check them out and post your thoughts in the comments below…
SYDNEY TONIGHT
Subculture slidenight @ ACP – looks great..
7—9pm Thursday 8 April 2010 http://www.acp.org.au/events
“Squatters, bogans and stoned teenagers; dressed in rubber, bo-peep dresses or chainmail; at warehouse parties, piercing parties and LAN parties! Experience the world of subculture as photographers document the dress codes, attitudes and what it means to belong. They present a selection of their images and discuss the complexities of gaining access to and trust from the communities they photograph.
subcultures slide night @ acp - April 8th
Melbourne
‘Close to Home’ by Julie Millowick www.newnorth.com.au
Opening April 8th 2010
Julie is an inspiration and support to so many photographers at various stages of their careers. Her work is personal, intimate and exceptional – go see it!!
Melbourne
Joyce Evans ‘Imaging the Spiritual’ 1980-2010 Opening April 18th www.obscuragallery.com
One of the legends of Australian photography, Joyce Evans is the real deal.
Joyce Evans Imaging the Spiritual
Melbourne
Susan Gordon-Brown ‘40 Days’ Monash Gallery of Art
16 – 23 April 2010
Any show at the MGA is worth seeing and this will be no exception. 40 Days explores some of the cultural and religious practices of contemporary Australian society through a common thread that links them together – the number 40.
Went out to photograph iconic Melbourne restaurant Lentil as Anything at the Abbotsford Convent for Melbourne newspaper The Age on a lovely sunny Sunday afternoon – the article and photo appeared today.
Shanaka Fernando and head chef Errol Schwallie at Lentil as Anything yesterday. Photo: Joseph Feil
It’s interesting story about the restaurant not being provided with an option to renew their lease at their Abbotsford site. Lentil as Anything were one of the early tenants at the site when it was first redeveloped. I was living nearby when they opened their first restaurant in St Kilda many years ago and I’m still a fan of their food and philosophy, pay what you think it’s worth.
Having a chat with owner Shanaka on the weekend, they do appear to be providing a strong social service to immigrants, homeless and the unemployed. Lentil has a strong support network, it will be interesting to see how they respond.
A final interesting aside is that their executive chef, Errol was head chef to Saudi Arabian Prince Faad and his brother King Khalid, back in the heady 70’s. He was also head of the kitchen at the Presidential Palace in his native Sri Lanka for many years.
Is this offensive? – who knows and who cares – each to their own… If you’re not up to speed on the issue, it’s about a new drink driving initiative that’s targetted at the young and stupid (i.e those who drive their cars at 160kmh and then wrap them around trees). The chosen means of getting through to these kids is a “viral” campaign featuring the very un-highbrow slogan “Don’t be a dickhead”. The Age has more coverage here.
The image above is my humble contribution to the dickhead debate, photographed yesterday at the announcement of the TAC’s new “viral” campaign. Interesting how these viral campaigns rely heavily on mainstream media to spread their message – 3AW in the morning, news bulletins all day, news conference to announce it around lunch, major news bulletins broadcasting it in the evening, and so on….. Anyway, I found this photo amusing – it didn’t get a run in today’s paper but worked for me anyway.
An amusing aside was watching the media pack at the launch spend the entire time trying to get the stoic Tim Pallas to repeat the word dickhead so they’d have footage for their evening news. In fact this was news itself as reported here in The Age. Looking forward to seeing how “viral” these ads become.
You can see the ads here and links to their youtube versions on adfreak (nice site…).
A very interesting look at how photographers work in extreme and troubled situations such as the recent Haiti disaster. Pete Brook of the blog, Prison Photography has a 12 part (post) piece and interviews with most of the photographers who covered the shooting of 15 year old Fabienne Cherisma, by police in Port-au-Prince Haiti, during looting following the earthquakes. The last post is where all 12 are listed at the bottom so you can look at them in succession. It provides an insight into both the minds of the photographers and also the people involved, both of which are at times surprising.
Just back from a brief trip to the USA for both pleasure and work. Photographed a bunch of (mostly) renewable energy images of solar, wind, natural gas, biomass, and also nuclear and oil.
An interesting aspect to renewables in California is that whilst externally the seem to market California as a world leader in legislating for change, in reality they seem to be well behind many parts of the world and have very little awareness of personal responsibilities such as recycling trash.
A few images below or you can check out the expanded gallery on the main page.
Have had the pleasure of photographing a couple of well known chef’s recently, Josh Emett who works for Gordon Ramsay, and Frank Camorra the creator of the fabulous Movida who is a bit of a Melbourne food icon.
Whilst I imagine photographing Gordon Ramsay would be a stressful, expletive laden frenzy of a shoot, photographing one of his proteges Josh Emett was lovely. Josh has returned to Australia to head up Gordon Ramsay’s first Australian retaurants – maze and maze grill, at the brand new Crown Metropol in Melbourne. I really liked the graphical nature if this image of Josh, photographed for The Age newspaper during construction of the new restaurant.
Josh Emett, maze, Melbourne
Frank was photographed as part of a promotional piece for the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival and was extremely gracious as we worked our way through to a final image. Frank has a lovely quiet dignity which I enjoyed working with. Having been a Movida fan since first tasting that wonderful anchovy with smoked tomato sorbet I recently visited Frank’s newest venue, Movida Aqui, a larger funky bistro styled operation that has the great advantage of doing paella. I can report back that not only was the paella fabulous but the anchoa are better than I remember! A couple of combo pics that I liked from the shoot.
