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“Be the official Groupie photographer and take photos like never before.

Olympus and Groupie are giving you the chance to win a job as the Groupie photographer for a month, trialing the brand new Olympus PEN Camera.

You’ll get two tickets to shoot for Groupie at up to eight gigs, including acts such as Art vs Science, The Cassette Kids, Children Collide, Yves Klein Blue and Wolfmother!

We’ll also give you a one-on-one session with professional photographer Chris Samuel, to give you some hints and tips on how to take the perfect gig photograph.

With your Olympus PEN Camera and your Official Groupie Photographer pass, you’ll be able to get amongst it and take photos like you’ve never taken before.”

Sounds pretty good hey? The only catch is that you would have to use the pen camera. I think I would be pretty frustrated at these gigs with an AAA pass in one hand and a teeny camera in the other.

Oh the upside, I read a few reviews on the Olympus Pen and it’s not as point-and-shoot as I thought. It certainly looks good.

Quick specs:
Model: Olympus EP-1
12.3MP Live MOS Sensor
Built-in Image Stabilisation
3in LCD
Micro Four Thirds Mount
100-6400 ISO
1/4000-2sec shutter
HD Video 720p
Lenses: Pancake 2.8 17mm (or standard 35mm) and 3.5-4.5 14-42mm (roughly 28-80mm)

Here’s a more detailed review.

Yippee! I’m seeing Michael Nyman at the Sydney Opera House on the 26th. Can’t wait. I’m going to be cheeky and and sneak in my camera (probably not so good to blog about it before hand).

Sorry to all my readers, this blog has been sorely neglected this month. It’s been hectic for me on both photography and design fronts - which is awesome! You’ll be seeing some new work pop up here soon - when it gets released by my clients.

On a happier note, I have a whole backlog of things to blog about, so will be churning them out now (famous last words). And I’m averaging 200 unique visitors per day here - who would have thought?! I hope they’re not all search bots…

Here’s my favourite piece by Nyman, theme from The Piano, which won the 1993 Palme d’Or at Cannes.

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.

Today, I’ve finally graduated. Scary feeling, to not have uni as an excuse for being at the bottom of the corporate ladder and being dirt poor. It’s official, up up and away into the big bad world.

And these are the geeks I did it with - six bloody years! We started together, separated for a year to study overseas (Italy, Mexico, France and China), and now we’re graduating together.

My parents are such (cute) dorks…

On a funny note, they lost one of my certificates! I have a double bachelors in Arts and Design. My Arts one had to be hunted down after the ceremony.

Did EPMD at Manning Bar last Saturday (and drove my new car without incident - yippee!). Seemed liked all of Sydney’s hip hop enthusiasts showed up, which was interesting as I’ve never seen so many baggy t-shirts in one place. Isn’t hip hop usually accompanied by skanky girls though? Don’t think I saw a single one.

I tried wheedling a backstage photo pass but couldn’t get my grubby hands on one. Never fear, when the show started I climbed on anyway - though I felt bad and climbed back down after a few shots. Hmm, seems my skin isn’t as thick as I thought - need to work on that :). More at Moshpix

This is my favourite shot of the night by far. That’s what you get for wearing too-heavy bling!

Aaaand close up!

Okay okay, serious photos now.

It was a wet dreary night last thursday, and I almost opted out for The Kills gig at the Forum - but I’m glad I didn’t! They were riveting on stage, Alison Mosshart is my new girl crush - she rocks the leopard print like none other.

As usual, these are the shots that didn’t make the Moshtix cut. Support act was Louis XIIV.

Was doing a bit of YouTubing and found this video of Placebo’s Meds feat Alison Mosshart. There’s something about men who can pull of shaved heads and eyeliner, and Brian Molko does it so well…must be the bisexuality.

Interesting interview by Nylon with The Kills, who smoke like chimneys, surprise surprise.

Last weekend I photographed my first wedding! It was quite nerve wracking, as I really wanted to get some good shots for my portfolio. I’m not yet promoting myself as a wedding photographer, but I’m starting to see that weddings may be a good source of bread ‘n butter work for a struggling photographer :).

I did a bit of research before the shoot, naturally, and was disappointed to find how many BAD wedding photographers are out here. Truly shocking how they managed to charge people for such bland photograph. That gave me a little boost of confidence.

I did find one photographer whose style I really loved. Jose Villa specializes in artistic wedding photography (whatever that means), with a soft intimate style. His images aren’t grand in scale, but aims to capture the little moments that matter. I tried to emulate him, but lighting and setting didn’t really allow for it.

The wedding I photographed was for a good friend’s mother, a lovely lady in a terrific unconventional blue wedding dress. Below are a small selection, but here is the rest, if you’re interested.

It’s been a busy busy month, and looking to be an equally busy one ahead. While I’m thankful that freelancing is turning out to be a full time job, I am lamenting the loss of a couple of weekdays a week to work on my personal projects. I’m trying to squeeze these in on weeknights and around errands on weekends, and incidently, my blog is suffering as well. Sorry!

Last weekend was the Oxfam Australia curated Footprints exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, and I’m very happy to report that the opening went off without a hitch. I had an interactive piece, and I got some hilarious responses.

Thanks muchly to Will from Deep Surface, who was a sponsor for this project and who also took these photos.

For the complete collection of polaroids, visit www.iwillproject.org

The exhibition space was dotted with these newspaper tulips - watch your eco-footprint, geddit geddit? I thought it was very smart.

My prints…

Viewers were encouraged to write their ‘I will…’ on paper, take a polaroid of themselves, and pin it up on the cork board. Here is Chapel, also from Deep Surface, putting on his game face.

Ta-da!

I had to get the action started…

And here are a few of my favourite polaroid responses from the day. To browse all of them, click over to www.iwillproject.org.

I photographed another gig last week for Moshtix at the good ole Basement. It was the lovely Abby Dobson, who sounded and looked amazing onstage. She was made to sing and smile.

These are the shots that didn’t make the Moshpix gallery.