The main challenge was illustrating the various aspects of their business, which resulted in one very cold pre-dawn shoot and a lot of driving around their quarry, workshops and construction sites. 

Shooting this blast was a bit of fun. I had three cameras set up at various vantage points around the quarry. We were supposed to get a 10 second countdown, but for some reason that didn’t happen, luckilly I had my shutter finger ready to fire and snapped off a nice sequence.

I was commissioned by Tourism Tasmania to shoot the festival:

The whole thing culminates with a bonfire and concert at Salamanca. Not quite sure of the significance of scary men in robes with fire sticks, but it makes for some interesting photos.

This year the festival forms part of Lumina, a four month program “celebrating arts, food and wine, culture and sport.”

Lumina has been promoted nationally through a beautiful advertising campaign featuring some cool photography by Melbourne photographer Stuart Crossett (scroll through his portfolio to see the Lumina images).

While there’s no arguing that Stuart’s work is quite remarkable, Tourism Tasmania are generally very supportive of Tassie photographers, and it would have been nice to see their ad agency choosing a local for the job. Alex Wise, perhaps?

A peek behind the scenes:

I exposed for the sky and pumped a fair bit of light into the frame - in the room on the left I had a Bowens head with a wide angle reflector shooting into the ceiling. This worked to light the room and cast a small highlight down the left side of the model. The main light for the model was a softbox in the room on the left. The foreground was lit using a silver reflector.

Even though there’s a lot of introduced light, my aim was to make it look as natural as possible.

Cat had the great idea of enlisting some Hobart creative types and dressing them up like the toys. Or was it the other way around?

Tim from New Saxons

Graphic designer / Masterchef guru Jo

Illustrator extraordinaire Beth

There’s a few other shots but they’re staying under wraps till the launch of Cat’s new website.

The other models were Tom from Floating World, Meg from Apply Creative, and Jess from Futago.

Go and buy a Cat Rabbit original before it’s too late!

As usual I had my trusty Trip 35 in tow. This shot was taken as a storm rolled over Cam An beach, near Hoi An. I’ve posted a couple of other shots over at Trip35.net

If you’ve been considering visiting Vietnam, do it now - the amount of construction happening on the coast is scary. Get there before the casinos are built!

Luckily my pics have been taken along for the ride. 

Check out the Vice article here and listen to the band here.

A few shots of a cool warehouse conversion by terrior appeared in new eco-design magazine Green.

And I was also commissioned by Architectural Review to shoot a portrait of the fellas from Room 11. I’m a big fan of their work.

An alternative from the shoot - we we’re hoping they’d print this one.

I’m very busy at the moment with a couple of interesting contracts and projects. Looking forward to posting the results when I can.

I wouldn’t normally post product shots here but this one was a bit of fun. The combination of two of my great loves - beer and photography.

Will from Van Dieman Brewing asked me to shoot his new range and I was more than happy to oblige - the stuff tastes amazing and the ace labels were designed by the always-awesome Southsouthwest.

10 years later and one of my shots has made the cover. Self-congratulations all round!

The pic was taken in the minutes before a leaders debate during the Tasmanian election campaign and shows a nervous encounter between my old mate David Bartlett and Liberal leader Will Hodgman.

Not the most amazing shot ever taken but a nice surprise nonetheless.

Sadly the article is not available online yet, but see the tearsheets here: page 1, page 2

They published two photos:

All Fires the Fire

The Native Cats

In related news, it was also cool to see my pic of Paint Your Golden Face used to promote their new album.

This pic is also the cover of the album. Woot

It’s on this Saturday. If you’re in Hobart, come along and check it out at the Long Gallery, Salamanca. 

I’m gonna have some Olympus Trip 35 cameras and prints for sale

Come and have a poke around!

Late last year I was contacted by Sydney super-agency BMF to do a shoot for Pura milk.

It was a slightly controversial topic at the time but it was hard to say no to the opportunity to work for such a great agency (I love their La^mb stuff).

Here’s how it appeared in print:

I did another shoot for BMF a couple of weeks ago, so I’ll post that when I can.

It’s been a busy two weeks! Closing night is tomorrow featuring Dirty Three, John Cale and Bridezilla

Still two weeks to go!

Step 1: Expose the room at just below ambient and take a photo.
Step 2: Get your “assistant” to stand in the middle of the room and aim a flash (with snoot) at various points of interest. Take a range of photos.
Step 3: Insert the highlights into the ambient image.

The final image.

The opposite of the final image.

Is it cheating?

Check out Ivy St recording some new songs.

I took a few shots with my ever-present Trip35. See some over at trip35.net

More blog posts to come this week

In the booklet, on the website and on a big shipping container / billboard.

The graphic design for the Taste is the work of the cool dudes at Futago.

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The lineup for next month’s MONA FOMA has just been announced (Grandmaster Flash, The Dirty Three, John Cale (!) and heaps more) and a few of my images from the inaugural event earlier this year are being used.

The bottom pic is from a slick new booklet promoting the very exciting MONA complex which is currently being built in Hobart.

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Also noticed this billboard in the city this morning with my shots from another campaign I just shot with Clemenger for The Mercury.

We shot three different scenarios and I guess the others will be going up soon.

The brief was to take a series of dark, atmospheric portraits of the Chef de Cuisine.

Behind the scenes: Heaps of light coming in from the right, plus two snooted strobes at the back for separation on the chef and a for a small highlight on the table in the background. I also had my big reflector clamped to a stand at the left to stop any light bouncing back onto the dark side of his face.

How it appeared in press ads