Shutter.Stutter

Wow, what an eventful day! My eyes (the right one even more swollen) are drifting shut as I type, but I must get this all down when it’s still fresh in my mind.

The lovely Adriana will be my host for three nights. She is a fulltime working mum of two teenage boys. I arrived at her apartment in the Belgrano district yesterday afternoon, just in time to catch a beautiful orange sunset over Buenos Aires from her balcony. We then hiked over to the swanky Ricoletta district for a traditional Argentine BBQ.

This morning we went to visit Adriana’s mother in the suburbs of Gran Buenos Aires. Esther is 77. Her parents built their family home, Villa de Mayo (May Villa) when she was two, so she has lived in the same house for 75 years. It’s an incredible place, every nook has been lovingly decorated over the years.

Esther is a great cook. She managed to fit two huge meals into us over just a few hours. Most of what we ate she made from scratch, including the pasta and a delicious cake with the flesh of the higo fruit grown in her backyard.

Esther’s sister, Cristina, and their aunt, Regina, also came by for a visit. When Adriana mentioned that she was planning to take me to a tango lesson Cristina enthusiastically dug out her a selection of her shoes for me, so I wouldn’t have to dance in my flip flops.

Everyone was so enthusiastic about my photos, with the exception of Ivan (Adriana’s 15 year old son), they all loved to have their photo taken. The older ladies would crowd around my little LCD with their reading glasses in hand and cluck in approval. They gave my camera free reign, and trusted me. This doesn’t happen often, so it’s something I treasure. Eventually the ladies man-handled Ivan into having his photo taken too.

I feel so privileged to meet and photograph this loving family. I have been welcomed with an incredible amount of warmth and laughter - they had gone above and beyond what is expected of hosts. I’m deeply deeply touched, and today is not a day I will forget for a long time to come.

I’m heading off to Argentina and Antarctica tomorrow, and thinking this is as good a time to revive my blog as any.

Armed with my handy-dandy iPhone, the idea is to write short posts and upload phone snaps. They won’t be works of art, mainly just for the benefit of family and friends. I’ll be posting up ‘proper’ shots when I return

I’m a proud Sydney Westy, and it’s events like the Haldon St Festival in Lakemba and makes me love my area even more.

The one-day event is a spectacle of food, amusement, music and dance performances. It draws a neat crowd, which means lots on interesting subjects for me!

ShutterStutter was originally conceived as an online community for photographers, where pictures and information could be shared, and where networking takes place.

That never got off the ground as it was a much larger project that I was capable of, and goddamit I’m still having trouble saving up the last thousand to buy a new camera.

Around the same time, I started this blog. Which needed a name. And I’m not savvy enough to come up with two good names in a week, so, voila!

Now, ShutterStutter (the network) has come back to life! It even has a website.

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ShutterStutter is a casual monthly meet-up for professional and emerging photographers, aimed at providing a space in which to present your work and receive constructive criticism.

The idea is to build a community that encourages development through feedback, share information and discuss all things photography related - whether it be running a business or new technologies.

Tentative Guidelines
10 photograph limit per photographer per session
All presented images should be printed

Date and Time
1pm, first Saturday of every month.

Inaugural Meeting
1pm, Saturday 1st August 2009
Royal Exhibition Hotel, Beer Garden
Cnr Chalmers and Devonshire St, Surry Hills

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After a lot of um-ing and uh-ing, I decided to show my meager Flemington series, which I’m hoping to do a bit more work on.

I took a road trip with some other photo nuts three weeks ago to Mt Gibraltar in the Southern Highlands.The lookout wasn’t much, but the sunrise was perfect.

We started driving at 5am and got there about 10 minutes before first rays peeked over the mountains. It was all cool gold and deep indigo shadows, beautiful. I swear my fingers nearly froze though.

These photos are a little late in coming, as I was finishing off left-over film. I had about 12 shots for the day (yes, I’m cheap), which forced me to really look for something good. I like 9 out of 12, which ain’t bad.

This is Hoi, who was wearing a fuzzy hood. I love back-lit fuzzy hoods.

I did a bit of funky grading on this one, does it looks scary? It’s supposed to look scary.

I like this rock. It’s got nice shape and nice colour.

No, this wasn’t a focusing error. I was experimenting. I like the dappled effect of the trees, and the perfect semicircle of the lens flare.

Another funky grade, to make a lookout bench scary.

These last ones were taken with my DSLR.

This is Hoi again, she is hilarious. This is when we took to shooting from the car because it was so cold outside.

Yippee! I’m a finalist for the 2009 Olive Cotton Photographic Award.

Now I just have to rake out the cash to print large, mount and frame. Sigh.

This is last year’s winner of the $10,000 jackpot.

The Stone by Emily Portman

I did my first fashion shoot the last weekend. It was much much tougher than I anticipated.

I’ve never been interested in fashion photography, so I’ve never taken much notice of styles and lighting. Before the shoot I did a cram research session and I thought I had a good idea in mind. Boy was I wrong.

Several things went wrong.

1. Weather. It was shitting down as we were shooting. Bad for clothing and bad for gear. We had to relocate to a covered location, which I hadn’t scouted. It was a test to find appropriate angles

2. Timing. There’s only so much one can do with a reflector and a little fill flash - especially when it’s dusk on a stormy day and the light’s dead flat. Shoot should have been either scheduled earlier, or on another day.

3. Creative control. The day of the shoot was the first day I’d met the stylist and the model. Big no no. Sure, the shoot is a collaborative process, but the photographer should be in charge of all aspects, especially creatively. I should have worked out the outfits with the stylist pre-shoot.

Alas, it was a steep learning curve. I’m eager to do another now, under much more tightly controlled conditions.

Here are some shots from the day. Rest will be published in the inaugural issue of Oxfam Australia’s Three Things Magazine.

Photographed Boom Crash Opera this week, for Moshtix. Never heard of them, but was pleasantly surprised. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I didn’t start my day at 6:30am…

More at Moshpix.

Last week Oxfam Three Things made a bit of a splash at The Finders Keepers. Three Things is a youth program run by Oxfam Australia, aimed a promoting awareness amongst the Gen Y lot. The Finders Keepers is a bi-annual art / craft / design market run by and for Sydney’s young talent.

Our ‘topic’ at the market was ethical fashion. To get people thinking, we asked them to write down ‘three things my wardrobe says about me’ on little clothing hangers, which were then displayed. Very cute - and effective!

Here are the rest of the photos.

We were giving away beach balls and hessian bags.

Funky music at a funky event.

We even managed to attract people outside our target marker…

And here are some funny comments from our hangers…

More photos here.

Am I being plagiarised? Should I sue or be flattered? Can I sue? Someone more knowing than me, please answer.

This is a climate change initiative from North Sydney council that I found today.

This is my “I Will Project” which was shown at the MCA in March.