Shaving the Monkey

It is always a challenge shooting alongside the filming of a TVC. Where normally the photographer controls the shoot, on TV filmset the photog has to conform to the schedule and hierarchy of the TV shoot, grabbing the smallest opportunity (as in seconds to minutes) to get the shots the brief calls for. Add to this the historical animosity of the filmcrew as they get their jobs done, and the overburdened talent who would rather take a break than get a lens in their face for the three hundredth time that day, and the chance of getting a bonus shot from a TVC day is slim.

However when I was shooting a print brief alongside the filming of the current ING TVC,  AD Ben Pearce and I saw this cool barbershop near the the location and thought "that might be a nice shot". When a ten minute window between filming presented itself, a quick negotiation with said barber and some very fast lighting and ten frames of shooting resulted in an image that the agency could present as a bonus to the client.

Client loved the image and decided to run it.

Doesn't happen often...

Annie Leibovitz

So the good thing about Annie Leibovitz having a financial wobble is that it led to a travelling retrospective exhibition that swung by the MCA for a while, and it was of course, my professional responsibility to swing by and have a gander.

So while I was studying photography in the early 90's, she was hot shit and one of the masters of the time. Hell, being the go-to shooter for Rolling Stone can be a career maker in itself, but she did do some pioneering work that will forever speak about that time in photography

And that is just the thing. The digital age has produced a high standard of imagery that we take for granted now, but it also has yielded a glut of mediocre over-treated slap-dash work that has drowned the market and cheapened the medium. So I had to  recalibrate my mind to the fact that the are prints mostly unretouched, technically perfect, and breathtakingly beautiful in some cases, and confronting for the time.

The very personal snapshots in B/W were a nice touch, and a testament that a true photographer is constantly shooting personal shots, sometimes despite great pain

I guess thats what makes real Masters of Photography.

White Rabbit

I must admit I had never really thought about contemporary Chinese art, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that. I think most people could not even contrive a mental picture, but instead a default image of some ancient Chinese artifact might spring to mind.

When I was commissioned to do a portrait of Judith Neilson, the powerhouse founder of White Rabbit Gallery, I did a bit of Google snooping on what exactly encompasses Chinese modern art. Well, quite a lot it seems.

In my limited understanding, since the fall of Communism/ rise of Consumerism and exposure to Western influences- good and bad- free thinking artists from the Worlds biggest economic powerhouse,  unconstrained by purism or tradition and with space and materials, are free to create some seriously whack stuff that defies belief

I particularly enjoyed the latest hanging, with pieces like a full scale Beijing jeep made from tiny triangles of twisted wire, or a full scale alley scene made of embroidery- yes- embroidery. Lets not mention two traditional Chinese garments knitted from a Chinese/English dictionary, so that the alphabetic characters are still visible in the "wool"

Many of the works are so excruciatingly complex in their craft and construction that the appreciation of art itself is diluted by the appreciation of its execution.

Housed in a gorgeous renovated building in Chippendale, with free entry, its a must see and a MF of note.