Check out some of my recent work, and my essays on Photographing The Arts!
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!
Read MoreOne 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...
Read MoreIn 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.
Read MoreMusical 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.
Read MoreI 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."
Read MoreI mentioned in my last post that there was something new coming from the Kage Collective I'm a member of - and today's the day!
But it's especially exciting this month, because not only do we have a range of stories & images from my friends in the group, but no less than five of us have been testing Fuji's hot new camera, the X-Pro 2, which is being unveiled in Tokyo as I post this.
Read MoreI mentioned recently that the photography group I'm part of, the Kage Collective, were giving away our latest e-book publication. (Yes, free!)
Hundreds of people from all around the globe have grabbed a copy already - and, hopefully, enjoyed it - which made me think I should also mention our Flipboard magazine, which is where we post articles & images we've been reading lately, as much for our own interest amongst the group as to share with other photographers and interested folks...
Read MoreJust wanted to wish all my friends & clients a happy new year, and all the best for 2016 - hope it's a great one!
Read MoreI've been part of the Kage Collective since the beginning, and we've always wanted to find ways to work together on something, in spite of our being so far apart physically. Well, this is our first collaborative project - Under A Vagrant Sun, an e-book of our work on the past two solstices, released today on the most recent one...
Read MoreI was really pleased to see that the announcement of the Sydney Theatre Awards this afternoon included The Dapto Chaser no less than three times - Best Independent Production, Glyn Nicholas for Best Direction, and Daryl Wallis for Best Score / Sound Design...
Read MoreI was working recently with actor Andre de Vanny on a promotional image for a show he's working on, Swansong, which opens tonight at the Old Fitz Theatre here in Sydney - and it got me thinking about something that isn't talked about so much in photography, the use of white balance as a creative tool, to control or alter colour in an image.
Sure, there are a number of settings on pretty much any camera bigger than your phone (and even some apps) that let you choose the 'correct' colour that best matches your situation, from daylight to tungsten or fluorescent balance. But of course, lots of times there are many sources in an image - so how do you know which is the the one true white balance for your image?
Read MoreI've been working with the good folks at Leading Hand Design on a few things recently, and here's one that has come out just recently - the NIDA Summer Courses campaign, for Australia's leading drama school, based here in Sydney.
Because the school runs courses for just about all ages over the summer holidays, we had a range of current students to work with on the day - and I have to say, if the shoot was anything to go by, the courses must be pretty good...!
Read MoreOnce, early in my career, someone gave me wise advice about photographing events: 'remember, there are two sides to every story. There's what's happening on stage, and then there's the audience's reaction to it.'
Naturally, not every event I work on has an audience in attendance - often, I'm at a dress rehearsal, with only the director & crew - but also, most of the time, the audience (deliberately) isn't lit! So the opportunity to make use of this suggestion isn't always there; but once in a while, the chance comes along, and it's great to be able to take it...
Read MoreI've never been entirely happy about referring to what I do as 'a photo shoot'. There's something over-simplistic about it, as if photography is merely a matter of being in the right place, and pointing something (a weapon?) in the right direction, and the results are whatever comes out of the camera when it goes off. So when I saw Eleanor Catton's tweet about military metaphors a little while ago, I understood what she meant right away.
Obviously there's a lot more to photography than just pointing and shooting, but nobody's come up with a better term for it; or at least, not one that has caught on. (Eleanor suggested photographers could 'flatter', 'immortalise' or 'seduce' the subject instead of 'shooting' them, but I haven't started using those - yet!)
I've talked before about how much happens after the shoot (for lack of a better term); but of course, there's what happens after the images are delivered to the client, as well. Who ultimately owns them?
Read MoreWhen I was studying drama at university, I went for an interview to spend the summer at the Banff Centre For The Arts. I'd been focussing on the technical side of theatre at that point, including a bit of stage management, and thought this might be an interesting way to spend a few months between school terms.
The question was asked: did I read music? And frankly, it had never occurred to me that this might be a useful skill - our university programme was pure theatre, not even musicals, much less opera or dance; so it had never come up, and of course I didn't. So, I didn't go to Banff, and I didn't become a stage manager...
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