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Blog Archive

Check out some of my recent work, and my essays on Photographing The Arts!

Lost & Found #8: Diwali Festival of Lights, Wellington New Zealand 2003

Happy Diwali, everyone! This image wasn't entirely lost in my archives, in fairness - much to my surprise, it appeared on the cover of a book some years after I'd taken it, which took a little sorting out with the publisher.  But unless you own a copy of that publication (or got it from the library), you probably haven't seen this!

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Lost & Found #7: Mt Victoria Forest, Wellington New Zealand 2005

More gear testing!  A little different this time, today's Lost & Found was actually taken with my first Fuji camera - the pocketable little F11, that came out in 2005.  This forest is near where some of Lord Of The Rings was filmed, on Mt Victoria - fans of the film will no doubt recognise the landscape where the Hobbits had their first encounter with a Black Rider...

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Vale Willem Wassenaar, Dutch - Kiwi director

There's a lot of sadness in the New Zealand theatre community at the moment, as news goes around of Willem Wassenaar's passing in Holland on the weekend.  I met him a few times around town and at the New Zealand International Arts Festival, and photographed him at least once - leading a SchoolsFest workshop with a group of actors from The Walworth Farce in 2010.

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In Praise of Variety at the Kage Collective Chronicle blog

Just wanted to mention I've posted a new essay at the Kage Collective blog, Chronicle; I elaborate a little on a post I did here a couple of years back about the Hasselblad X-Pan (still one of my favourite cameras!), and the potential I could see in the Fuji X-Pro series expanding to include a super-wide panorama camera - this time though, I'm looking at a few different shapes & formats I've used over the years, and the benefits of trying different frames!  Have a read - hope you enjoy it!

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Lost & Found #5: Oriental Rongotai player in Miramar New Zealand, 2006

Today's Lost & Found is another Canon 85L f/1.2 test with the 1Ds Mark II - I happened to walk through Miramar one afternoon when there was a rugby game on, and got to the corner of the field - just as they finished. I'm not sure now if they won or lost, but he looks happy enough with the result!

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Lost & Found #4: Civic Square, Wellington New Zealand 2004

Today's Lost & Found is another testing outing - this time with the Sigma 12-14mm lens, which was relatively new in 2004.  Of course, this is on a slightly cropped camera body, the 1D Mark II, so it's effectively more like 16mm - I shot a few on film (remember FILM?!) that day too, just to see what the difference was like. 12mm is quite wide, it turns out!

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Lost & Found #3: Dancing Dog, Waikanae New Zealand 2006

Funny how many of my lost & found images are from trying out gear - often I'll get something new, go a bit mad with it testing things, and then move on to using it for work without ever really giving much attention to the test shots.  But some of them I really like, now that I do look!

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The Bombay Royale at Sydney Town Hall (with Fuji X-Pro 1 & 56mm f/1.2, 18mm f/2)

The Skipper. The Mysterious Lady. The Tiger. A...unicorn?  A concert by Melbourne band The Bombay Royale is always an interesting event, so when I heard they were going to open for Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings recently, of course I booked right away!

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Vale Eoin Young, a great New Zealand motorsport icon

I was sad to hear of motorsport writer Eoin Young's passing this morning; I can't claim to have known him long, in terms of his illustrious career, but I first met him twelve years ago when he brought the recently-retired voice of Formula One, Murray Walker, on a book tour of New Zealand. They were a great pair on stage, prompting each others' memory as needed (with a bit of assistance from his great friend Michael Clark), and made for a very enjoyable event.

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March In August rally at Hyde Park, Sydney (with Fuji X-Pro 1 & 56mm f/1.2, 18mm f/2)

This weekend saw thousands of Australians take to the streets of cities across the country to protest the Tony Abbott / Liberal coalition government's cuts to Federal spending in areas like education, health, the public sector, science and the environment, as well as their stance on immigration.  Sydney was no exception - and the march, starting and finishing at Hyde Park, featured a brief concert by local band The Jezabels at the conclusion of the event...

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Congratulations to Helpmann Award nominees, Robyn Nevin & Angels In America!

Just wanted to say congratulations to Belvoir Theatre for their nominations in this year's Helpmann Awards for their production of Angels In America, which I photographed for them last year - well, I did Part 1: Millennium Approaches, anyway! I really loved this production a lot; oddly enough, I wound up seeing Angels two and a half times last year, having booked tickets for the full show at Belvoir before finding out I'd be photographing Part 1 as well, and when I found out it was on in Toronto a month later, I went to see that as well.  I know, I got carried away - but honestly, I enjoyed everything about Belvoir's version better: cast, costumes, set, sound design, lighting, the lot.  So, I'm glad to see it make the list this week.

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