The Patient

by AwardsBTSIllustrativePortraits

Here’s the second of the 2015 APPA prints – The Patient.

Story

We have a friend that is going through some medical issues at the moment, involving many trips to the hospital for tests and procedures, and quite a lot of uncertainty. I have never once seen them complain about what life is throwing at them. Quite the opposite – talking to them and reading their posts on social media, they’re staying completely positive and taking everything that life is throwing at them, with one eye on the fight and the other on the future. I approached our friend to see if I could photograph them and tell their story with an image.

After geography turned out to be a bit of an impediment, we decided to tell the story with a different model, and the concept continued to evolve. Friend of the family Isla stepped in as our model, and suddenly having a young girl as the subject changed the story even more.

One thing before I start. When you look at an image like this, it might take a little while for you to unpack it in your head, and decide what it means. Whatever interpretation you come up with is completely correct! Sometimes people will tell me what they think it’s about, then say “OK what does it really mean”, then wonder if they’ve offended me because they interpreted it differently. From my point of view, if I’ve left enough ambiguity in the image, your interpretation will feed itself, and it’s just as right as another. So no matter what your interpretation is, I hope you enjoy it!

To me, this image is about a girl that is in hospital and is quite unwell. She doesn’t get to leave, so she’s built an imaginary place for herself to live. Little bits of reality poke through in to her fantasy world though – her drip, her hospital gown… and a portal to the outside world, with all of these people going about their business. And she’s looking at them and wanting to be out there… somewhere normal, somewhere we might not appreciate, but she longs to be there.

Production

First up – location. We traipsed all over the place, driving for hours and hours, to find the perfect location. Along the way we got lost and probably picked up 5 ticks between us. In the end we found a perfect spot about three minutes’ walk from home. Go figure.

For most images I’m pretty keen to do some kind of test to make sure the geometry and composition works. Usually it’s a sketch. I don’t mind adapting when the shoot is on, but I’d much rather work out the kinks ahead of time so everything is easy peasy when we come to do the shoot. For this one, I took our daughter to the location where we would shoot the final image, and shot a few test frames with our gigantic gridded octobox. It was a really quick shoot, and she did a super job… considering she was being eaten alive by a bazillion mozzies. I am a bad, bad parent. 🙁 

Meanwhile, Wanda took a dress we picked up at a Queensland Opera costume sale, and altered it to suit the brief – organic and flowing, with hints of a hospital gown peeking through. We also organised props – a drip pole, an IV bag (thanks Natalie!), and the hospital bracelet from when Wanda had one of the kids in hospital.

On the day, armed with bucketloads of bug spray, we headed down to our location. The shoot didn’t take too long, Isla was a pro, and we got what we needed. And more!

Most of the work with this image was the composite work to add the floating window, as well as butterflies (most of which we shot in India last year) and flowers to convey that this forest is a good place.

The second iteration of the image embedded the window in a wall (courtesy of the Brisbane Powerhouse) and changed the perspective a little bit, as well as adding people from outside.

Here’s a detail shot that shows some of the bits that I care about – Wanda’s hospital ID band, the hospital stamp on the dress/robe, the little happy blue flowers, and the recessed bit of wall for the window.

Awards

The earlier version of this print (with the floating window) received a Silver with Distinction at the 2015 QPPA awards. One of the best thing about showing your prints at the state awards is getting feedback during or afterwards – imagine having access to a whole bunch of really accomplished and articulate judges for feedback! Here’s a little glimpse of the edits to go from QPPA to APPA:

 

After some refinements, the version with the wall received a Silver at the 2015 APPA awards. Why did the score go down, you might ask? Is it not as good now? The standard at the national level is pretty high, and I think they are (correctly) holding prints to a very high standard when judging. There are a ton of variables that might influence the score – that’s part and parcel of entering a print competition, and I’m totally cool with that. I saw a great many prints go by at the APPAs that were very high quality but just missed out on a Silver award, so I know the judges are working hard to ensure the best of the best get awards. I’m ok with that, and it makes me doubly proud that this image got over the line.

 

 

The Fighter

by AwardsBTSIllustrativePortraits

The four prints from APPA 2015 have become pretty dear to me – I feel like I’ve been thinking about them and working them for a really long time. Usually I give a little bit of a story behind them; this year I’m going to try something different, and take you through each image from start to finish. Here’s the first one 🙂

Lauren is a close and dear friend of ours. She’s a bit of a superwoman – singer, musician, fighter… singing teacher, combat teacher, and primary teacher. Not to mention she is mum to our daughter’s best friend! She’s one of the hardest workers I know, and moves heaven and earth to keep everything for her family trucking along. We’d been talking for ages about doing a muai thai shoot together, probably with her wrapping her wrists, in the ring, preparing for a fight. Then our friend Matt Palmer posts this well executed image on his Art of Action facebook page, and suddenly the bar is raised and we have some more work to do!

Rather than just a straight athletic portrait, we started putting together the idea that Lauren would be preparing for a fight, but the battleground is the heart of her house and her family – her kitchen. The kitchen is the ring, and her opponents are many and varied – all of the things that Lauren has to do, all of the obstacles that get in her way, or her daughter’s way.

Of course, as the session progressed, we talked more, and I got to know Lauren even better. Much of that won’t make it to this story (is there such a thing as photographer-subject privilege?), but suffice it to say, Lauren likes to be independent. She suits up for the fight that is coming, and while she’s doing that, she’s thinking about the next one after that, and the one after that. There will always be another storm.

Right at the end of the session, Lauren struck a super strong pose. “Square your shoulders to me. Plant your feet. Now put that wrap on, and take your time.” Or something like that. For three minutes, Lauren’s breathing was different, her stance even more resolute. As soon as that set was finished, I stepped away from the camera – shoot over. Sometimes you know you have the shot.

To create the finished product, I layered in some Brisbane Arts Theatre lights from some production photos of ImproMafia’s 2014 season of Agatha Holmes, along a little smoke (from my handy dandy smoke machine) and some dust (from my handy dandy wife Wanda spraying water with a spray bottle), and we’re good to go!

The image went through a number of evolutions, refining the lights at the back (to be more boxing-ring-like and less jazz-hands-theatre-like), the smoke and dust, and some of the details on the fridge and the counters.

Final result – a Silver award at the 2015 APPAs! I’m really pleased for Lauren that her image scored Silver at both the state and national level. This makes it two years running for her; in 2014, she featured in our Dawn at Dawn print, which also won Silver at the state and national level! Will you see her in 2016? Stay tuned, sportsfans…

 

2015 AIPP Queensland Epson Professional Illustrative Photographer of the Year

by Awards

This week I was honoured to be named the 2015 AIPP Queensland Epson Professional Illustrative Photographer of the Year. I can’t tell you what a massive thing this is for me. To be named a finalist with the likes of Charmaine Heyer (four time winner of the Australian Illustrative Photographer of the Year) and the brilliant Foroogh Yavari is pretty exciting in itself, and more than enough for me.

One of the things that makes this so special to me is standing shoulder to shoulder in that group of amazing artists. These are masters of their craft; most of them have received similar awards before. I’ve pored over their images in the past, gone to a few of them for advice and coaching, and listened to them speak at events. Very cool to be in a line with them.

Thank You’s

First, a big thank you to the people that let me tell their stories and interpret them in an image. Thank you for trusting me.

Every one of these images was a team effort, and I really appreciate the talent and enthusiasm of everyone involved. That includes the subjects, the people that generously loaned locations, and the people that used their experienced eye to help me tune the images prior to the awards. Big thanks to Tristam Evison of EV Photo for his expertise with printing and papers. Tristam took time and cared for each image, and helped them to be the best they could be.

Thank You to Foto Frenzy for sponsoring the Illustrative category!

Biggest thank you is to the love of my life, my beautiful Wanda. She’s very understanding when I disappear in to an edit for a long time, but she’s way way more than that. She helps with propping, set dressing, wardrobe, logistics… she knows just what music to play at the right moment to get the right reaction out of a subject… she helps to focus ideas and get the best out of them. We collaborate a lot on normal client stuff, shooting and editing together, and it’s very cool to share all of these experiences with her. So thank you sweetie, there’s no one else I’d rather be on this ride with.

Images

Normally, people aren’t very keen on sharing the images they’ve entered in state awards. Once the state bit is done, you take them, apply feedback based on what you learned, and the next version of the image emerges at the national level. They haven’t been shared on social media etc, so images are a pleasant surprise for the judges. But… as a category winner, my images went up on the AIPP blog the next day, so the cat is out of the bag. So… here they are! These are my four illustrative images, along with my two portrait images and two landscape images. Some of these will change between now and the APPAs in October, where I’ll be entering hopefully what they find to be four strong images. There are a few firsts here for me: First gold, first portfolio with every image judged as award standard, and of course first win of a major category.

See all the winning images – online or in person!

If you’d like to see all of the winner’s images, visit the AIPP Queensland page, there’s some brilliant stuff there. Even better, if you’d like to see the images up-close and in person, Foto Frenzy is holding an exhibition of category winners. In an Australian first, the gallery will be showing the actual prints that were judged – no reprinting! Opening night is Thursday 9 April, and the exhibition runs until Friday April 24. Details at the Eventzilla page. Entry is free!

Random weird things:

  • I haven’t seen my first name mistakenly spelled with a ‘C’ for days. That’s weird.
  • It is totally worth tracking down a judge after judging if you want to know more about what they saw (or didn’t see) in your print.
  • If you want to video a speech, it’s best to push the record button at the start of the speech, rather than the end. 😉
  • One of the prints has resonated with nearly everyone that sees it. It inspires a really strong reaction in most people. Wow, that feels good.

 

Thank you to Stephen Jones and Ralph Brown for the images from the QPPA dinner!