Melbourne

Last year at the APPAs, luck was smiling on me. Each year the most excellent folks at Kayell and Canson run a contest for APPA entrants. The 2013 contest gave seven entrants an all-expenses paid trip to Melbourne and the Mornington Peninsula for a landscape masterclass with two of the absolute legends of Australian photography, Peter Eastway and Les Walkling. I don’t know what I did to have chance favour me, but I was very excited to find out I was one of the seven! So early in 2014, Wanda and I packed our bags and headed to Melbourne.

Day 0 (well, it’s the day before the workshop started…): I’d never been to Melbourne before. Pretty exciting. First impressions? This is a city that understands art. Brisbane has a few art installations here and there, and they look a bit like someone from council bought artwork piece #249A and installed it at grid location 41B. Melbourne art installations seem to belong right where they are, as though they are considered important. I quite like that. We stayed right in the city, within walking distance of lots of good stuff to see, and walk we did.

Day 1: Because I am a crazy person, I thought I’d get up before dawn to wander about, letting Wanda have a sleep in. Around the time of the morning where joggers contend for sidewalk space with the people that just got kicked out for closing time at the strip clubs. I made my way to Hosier Lane, which you have undoubtedly seen a million bazillion times in photos. Apparently it’s often jam packed with photographers. That said, because it was nice and early, in the 20 minutes or so that I was there, I saw one other person. I’ve been told that was quite a luxury.

These are a couple of my favourite images from Melbourne.

Day 1, continued: We made our way down to meet with the rest of the winners at Kayell, then off to the hotel that served as HQ for our trips out. Gotta say, it’s a little intimidating sitting around a table with the other winners, who are all very accomplished photographers. Look over there, that’s David Evans, Master of Photography, several times SA photographer of the year, and driving force behind the Epson International Pano Awards. And, oh, Mandarine Montgomery, none other than the current Australian Portrait Photographer of the Year. And on and on it goes. Then “Hi, I’m Kris, I’m new here, and, er, I like bacon.” OK, I might not have said that. But the idea that we’d get to hang out with these people was pretty intimidating.

In reality… Intimidating? Hardly. This set of people were very cool, very open, very nice, no ego, just stories and experimentation and boundary pushing. I can’t believe Wanda and I got to spend three days with them.

Disaster #1: tell me how I could possibly have forgotten to bring shorts? Jeans yes, trackies yes. Shorts no. And it was HOT. Fortunately Monsieur Evans had a spare pair, so I wasn’t completely stuffed.

Disaster #2: First afternoon out, and BLAMO! Wanda’s camera dies. She did manage three or four frames before it fully died. Later on it turned out to be a pretty serious internal fault, so nothing as silly as a loose connection or low battery or anything. But for the remainder of the trip, she got by just fine with her iPhone. Bummer dude. She wouldn’t take my camera from me either.

At this stage I should tell you – Landscapes are without doubt one of my weakest areas of photography. I’ve never developed the eye for it. I suspect part of it is that I don’t think I have the time to devote to doing it properly. Life is pretty full, and there are some things I love to do, some people I love to see, and some things I kinda just have to do, and that makes it difficult to carve out many hours for travelling and waiting for the right light. That made this trip all the more special – no kids, no responsibilities, Wanda with me, off we go.

Day 2 and Day 3 we had early starts to head down to Cape Schanck. We didn’t quite time it right the first time, but our second time was more successful. I would have to say that my captures on the first trip were 99% rubbish, and on the second trip they were only about 92% rubbish, which is a serious improvement!

This next one is probably my favourite image from our trips out. The sun was just coming up over the horizon, as we were heading back to the parking lot. It was a gorgeous, gorgeous day, a little mist out on the bay, sun lighting up the bushes and grasses on the hill. By this point we knew everyone else pretty well, and everyone was having lots of fun. The composition of this one isn’t going to win any awards or sell any prints. But it’s not for anyone else but us, so that’s ok.

Later in the day, Fiona Harrison took us back to Kayell, and gave us the local’s tour. That was seriously the nicest thing – she took us past the places she’s lived with her family, the places she and Andrew often go for wedding shoots, where their studio used to be… it’s amazing that these people you have only just met would take the time and be so generous. Thanks Fiona, driving back with you was absolutely the cherry on top.

I was pretty sad to be heading home at the end, and I’m pretty sure Wanda was similarly devastated. It’s true that we learned a thing or three. But by far the bestest best part of the weekend was getting to know each of the wonderful people. It completely reinforced the idea I have that photographers as a general rule are nice, supportive, friendly, driven, and definitely inclusive and welcoming. We’ve made some friends that I sure hope we get to see again someday. Australia’s a big country and we’re separated by some big distances… but the photography community is pretty tight-knit, so somehow I expect we’ll cross paths again.  Vanessa, Anna, David E, David M, Mandy, Fiona, Andrew, Peter, Les, Zach, and Rob – thank you so much for making this such an amazing experience for us.

(Thanks Mandy for the photo 😉 )