Linden Furnell wins the Rob Guest Endowment at the Lyric Theatre, Sydney

From a pool of over 300 applicants who auditioned, six performers were chosen to perform at the Rob Guest Endowment Gala this past Monday - and I was there once again as their official photographer to document the night.

Last year was my first time at the gala event, and I have to say I was impressed - the quality of performances from guest artists from shows currently playing in Sydney, and from the six finalists, were absolutely top notch. Considering there's very little opportunity to rehearse with the band before the event (much less have technical rehearsals, on the borrowed set of Dream Lover for the night), it's an incredibly smooth & slick production they put on.

So I knew, going back this year, that it'd be something to see once again; and it certainly didn't disappoint...

PhotographyRobert CattoNovember 18, 2016Lyric TheatrePhotography, Theatre, Musical, Rob Guest Endowment, Lyric Theatre, Sydney, New South Wales, AustraliaComment

Kage Collective October Issue: Surfaces

This month's issue at the Kage Collective is bigger than usual, as our collective is augmented with six 'temporary members' - participants in the very first Kage workshop held recently in Belgium with Patrick La Roque and Bert Stephani.

I've got an essay called Meetings & Collisions - part of our theme this month, Surfaces - and here's a bonus image that didn't wind up fitting in the essay quite the way I'd wanted it to.

Enjoy!

PhotographyRobert CattoOctober 19, 2016Kage Collective, Sydney, Australia, Sydney Opera HouseComment

September Kage Collective issue out now

Just a quick note that the latest series of essays from all of us at the Kage Collective are up now - and this month is a little different, in that we're relying entirely on the images. No words to our essays this time - apart from a quick introduction from Patrick LaRoque, we're all about silent contemplation this time.

PhotographyRobert CattoSeptember 15, 2016Photography, Fujifilm, Fuji X-Pro 1, Sydney, Australia, Surry Hills, Kage CollectiveComment

New Musica Viva & Belvoir 2017 seasons launched

It's been a week of pleasant surprises recently, with a number of arts organisations announcing their new seasons for 2017 - and a couple of them using my work to do so!

Musica Viva's season launched recently, and it was great to see a couple of my images in their Masterclasses section from the workshop with Maxim Vengerov late last year, at Sydney Conservatorium of Music...

Kage Collective August issue out today

The new edition of Kage Collective essays is out today, with new work from just about all of us. It's summer over in the Northern Hemisphere, so a lot of us have been on the move or on holiday recently - including myself - so our stories this month reflect that.

Here's a bonus image that didn't find its way into the story this month - I don't often do double exposures in-camera, but thought I'd take another look at it this month...

PhotographyRobert CattoAugust 16, 2016Kage Collective, Canada, Photography, Fuji X-Pro 1, X-Pro 1, Ontario, Northern Ontario, Pointe au Baril, CottageComment

Witches with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra

I was working with the good folks at the Sydney Symphony Orchestra again over the weekend, at the premiere of a new concert called Witches - featuring four Australian stars who've all played, well, witches, both here and overseas.

Helen Dallimore and Lucy Durack represented for Team Good Witch, having played Glinda in Wicked on the West End and in Australia respectively; and Jemma Rix and Amanda Harrison combined forces for evil, having both been Elphaba in Australia, New Zealand, and on tour through Asia as well.

The idea was to get them together, and put together an extravaganza of music based around that theme...

Kage Collective July edition out today

Our latest collection of essays is up at the Kage Collective site, including one from me called Proof Of Life, which takes a look at recent events here in Sydney where a woman was found to have died in her home, after being unnoticed for eight years...

PhotographyRobert CattoJuly 18, 2016Kage Collective, Fuji, X-Pro 1, Photography, EssayComment

Photographing the arts: what makes a great production image when the story is well known?

In a previous post, I talked about photographing a show that is unknown to its audience; my point was that the best publicity images are ones that leave an air of mystery - that pique the viewer's interest, and make them want to know more. But what about a show where the story is well known already - like a panto?

I was working recently with Bonnie Lythgoe Productions on their winter show, Cinderella, at the State Theatre in Sydney - and that's what made me really start looking at this question again.

Because really - the story is a given. So what you want to show in a still image is twofold - what's different about this production, and at the same time, what's familiar about it? How can you show off both the uniqueness of this version, and also capture the feeling of a story that's been told again and again, for over a hundred years?

Kage Collective June edition out now

It's the middle of the month, so once again the Kage Collective has put together a collection of essays from our various points on the globe, including a new essay from me, captured at Sydney's Vivid Festival of light recently.

This month we decided to limit ourselves as a group to a single lens - the equivalent of the old standard 50mm, so 35mm on our Fuji cameras - and only photograph at night, which turned out to be much easier here in winter than it was for some of my friends at the higher latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere summer...

PhotographyRobert CattoJune 15, 2016Sydney Opera HouseKage Collective, Photography, Sydney, Australia, Vivid, Fuji X-Pro 1, 35mm f/1.4Comment

David Bowie: Nothing Has Changed with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra

I've been working with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra a bit recently, and this weekend was their David Bowie: Nothing Has Changed tribute concert at the Sydney Opera House concert hall.

I'd been in a couple of weeks ago for rehearsals and to meet some of the production crew and performers, which was great - but they'd come a long way since that first day, including incorporating the orchestral musicians, which we didn't have there at the time!

New Kage Collective essays out now

The April issue at the Kage Collective came out recently, with a series of essays from around the world from members Patrick La Roque, Flemming Bo Jensen, Vincent Baldensperger, Bert Stephani, Derek Clark, Charlene Winfred, Kevin Mullins and myself - but I realise I've been slightly remiss in not mentioning this in February and March as well, when we had equally impressive collections of images from everyone!

PhotographyRobert CattoApril 18, 2016Kage Collective, Essay, Photography, Australia, Sydney, New South Wales, New Zealand, Ans WestraComment

‘Suddenly Wellington sort of grew up’ - 30 years of the New Zealand International Arts Festival

One of the longest & proudest associations I've had as a photographer - and as a person, really - is my work over fifteen years with the New Zealand International Arts Festival. I moved to Wellington in 1997, working as a box office manager at the time, in part lured by the fact that the venue I'd be working on was the primary ticketing agency for the Festival, and moreover that Wellington would be the last place ever to see Robert Lepage's Seven Streams Of The River Ota in 1998...

Sydney Symphony Orchestra Fellowship 2016

In early February, I spent the day with some great young classical musicians, making portraits of them individually and as a group for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra Fellowship programme. These are the best of the best, young Australian talent who have been chosen to spend a year in the company of the country's top orchestra, working together as a chamber group, attending masterclasses - and, of course, playing with the orchestra as well.

Defying Gravity: The Songs Of Stephen Schwartz at the Theatre Royal, Sydney

Musical theatre fans in Australia got a bit of a treat over the weekend - some would probably say it was the equivalent of a visit from the Pope, or the Queen; or possibly both at the same time.

Composer Stephen Schwartz was in town for Defying Gravity, a concert tribute to his career, featuring stars from around the globe - all here specially for the event.

We had double Tony winner Sutton Foster, film and stage star Aaron Tveit, global performer Joanna Ampil, and top Australian artists David Harris and Helen Dallimore - but the biggest coup had to be the amazing Betty Buckley, 'The Voice Of Broadway', whose work with Schwartz goes back as far as Pippin in the early Seventies.

Photographing the arts: working with (or against) light and space

I was working on a new production of Thomas Murray and the Upside Down River at Griffin Theatre here in Sydney recently, and chatting with the lighting designer before the dress rehearsal, he told me a couple of useful things. Having been there not long ago for The Dapto Chaser, I knew the stage was...let's call it unique. It's a wedge, between two seating blocks - not quite traverse, but certainly not a proscenium, either!

On that show, I'd found myself photographing much of it from the point of the triangle, rather than from the seating blocks; not least because you can see the other seating block in the back of the photos, if you're looking across the stage. But this was a different show, and of course, different designers.

"I've mostly lit the show from either end of the stage," he said, "so you might not want to photograph it from there."