The Batblog by Photobat | Portrait and Wedding

Judging

So I went judging at the Victorian pro photography awards, I was an invited judge, so they reimbursed me for my airfare and accommodation. This is nice for what is ultimately a learning experience.

Judging is hard, especially when you think the images of the guy who ultimately wins it all are ok but not brilliant, and because you scored it the lowest, you have to explain why people should change their scored down.

I had to hand over the judging for a few friends prints to other judges, I thought I would be able to be subjective, but when it came down to it, I didn’t want to judge them.

I did learn a lot from judging and it will definitely be helping me in the future, also it will help my friends who email me photos, so I can now giver them a lot more feed back. Problem is trying to be critical with my own work.

I also learnt that having 12 people in your room at 1.30am is not a great thing. OK I did invite them and I did have wine (but no opener). There are going to be some photos floating about somewhere… I also lost my brown shirt (the next day you dirty minded people). My new brown stripy shirt with a great stiff collar. I must have left it in the room, and when I rang to enquire about it, it was not there. I hope it has a good life.

Oh well… we will see what happens at the Nationals.

The end of the festival…
with selected highlights from the middle of the fest.

I’m sitting on a beach.. well, close enough to it, nice an sunny and good coffee. I’m in Point Lonsdale, and hour and a half south west of Melbourne, staying at my uncle and cousins place for a couple of night.

Ok… what happened.

This festival started out bad, then got better and then petered out into a kinda not too bad but not all that great end of the festival. I managed to do 21 shoots and over half of them were done in the last week.

The Special Feature went together ok, about 70 people turned up and everything went as well as could be expected. I would have liked the projectors resolution set differently so the top and bottom were not cut off, I would have liked it to be a bit brighter too. I also need to learn how to record sound a bit better as the funniest presentation was also the worst audio quality. The assistant festival director loved it, which is a good thing and Andy Muirhead did an amazing job of MCing the whole thing.

This is good coffee.

The “May contain traces of nuts” exhibition finished up well, with a bit swell of people turning up on the last weekend. I might try to get the opening video up on the net at some stage… once I figure out how to get the video onto the computer.

I will also transpose some of the comments left in the guest book onto the blog with some photos of the exhibition for all to see (especially for those people who had the opportunity to see it and didn’t… not naming names… as there are too many to mention)

In total I sold 6 prints at the exhibition, which covered the amount I had left to pay for the gallery hire and also most of the framing… well… I was going to use it for that but it has found a more pressing use.

I kinda dropped the camera, at first it was all ok, still shooting well all functions go. Then the batteries went flat and the battery tray wouldn’t come out. So I had to take it in for repairs. The nice people at fuji (or the nice Graham Carter to be precise) lent me a new S3 to play with while my camera is being repaired. I’m interested to see how it goes, it will probably be the next camera I buy.

Might sell my old Nikon F2, fully manual camera. I havn’t used it since uni, and that’s now 5 years ago. I will have to look about and see what else I can off load on ebay.

Back to the festival…

I think I saw about 20 – 25 shows,

My favouries were David Callan in I Spied, Dave Callan and Sam Simmons in The Sunshine Factory, Lawrence Leung and Andy McClelland in Smewhat Secret Secret Society Show, Tim Minchin for Darkside was amazing and will also be coming to play in Edinburgh with me as he got an award to take him over.

Mt trip to the Uk to have a look and see how I will work my way into the industry over there has turned about a bit. I have been offered an exhibition space at the Guilded Balloon, which is one of the main venues of the Edinburgh festival. And the best part is that they are going to be paying for the mounting and framing of the exhibition. So, I’m excited now, I have an exhibition a year before I planned to and it’s going to be mostly funded by the venue. Can’t get a lot better than that!

In recent acquisitions… DVD syco (originally B/W Hitchcock version) and Shaun Of The Dead (original best film of the year for 2004). On Cd, I have managed to aquire the Vasco Era Ep (with a T-shirt)(***next one will be even better), Architecture in Helsinki’s Before We Die (****) and New Order’s Get Ready (****) and Before the Siren’s Call (***and rising).

I saw The Vasco Era at their EP launch at the Espy a couple of weeks ago, Fleety had told them he wanted to launch the EP for them, I reminded him of this an hour before it was due to happen when he was still in the bar at the comedy festival. I then drove him to The Espy where we arrived about 2 minutes too late. The place was packed, they are on the rise, I can hardly turn on Triple J with out hearing their songs of mention of them. They gave me the EP and t-shirt at the end of the gig. I even played the EP to comedian Stewart Lee who also writes CD reviews for a major mag in the UK, he saw potential, bit shouty and really liked the last and slowest song on the CD.

Back to the festival

The last show I saw was Barry Castanola, it was the last night of the festival and his audience wasn’t the biggest, well, only 3. He bought us all a drink at the start and then got into the show in a much more casual way then he normally would. I can see how this show is great and would be so much better in front of a real audience, he had sold out shows earlier in the season so it wasn’t really a flop I probably should not have fallen asleep during the show( I has seen, or almost seen sunrise the last 2 mornings), I thought he didn’t notice, but he reminded me about it in the bar afterwards. I have a photo on my camera of Barry and his final audience. I’ll get it online when I figure out how.

I spent a whole day with my friend Tom Putt doing business type stuff, shareing of information and research. There was a lot of file swapping going on and spreadsheets on the go. It’s good to actually not do anything photographic and focus on the business side of things… of course, we did end up showing each other things on photoshop.

I ended this day by visiting a couple who’s wedding I shot in March. Had a bit of a massage (gotta love happy brides qualified in massage and willing to give!) and a bit of a meal too (gotta worry about happy grooms who go a bit overboard on the spices!) Again, another good reason why I do wedding, the people I meet can be really cool.

2nd Coffee…. Not as good as the first.

Well, that’s all I can think of at the moment… maybe I’ll think of more and add some details later. Stay tuned for my experiences as a guest judge at the Victorian Photographer Of The Year Awards

OK, another quick update

Exhibition opening (photo to come) went very very well, we had 160 through on the day (140 for the opening).

Great cheese too. Matt Boden, a friend from Tas played some dam fine piano, Benne poured some dam fine wine, Andy Muirhead did a great job of MCing, Tom did a grat job of taking photo, and everyone was quite nice… apart from the old guy who said “your prices are an insult, it’s bad for the industry if you don’t charge $2000 for each photo).. I ran away from him twice.

It was great to catch up with some people I hadn’t seen for a while, including some wedding clients. I really liked the opening, I normally just hate talking to people whoa sk the same questions… but I guess I was distracted by the cheese (8 kinds inc 3 goats cheeses)

Greg Fleet didn’t turn up, which is normal, luckily I managed to make a video of him for the opening. It worked out well and everyone laughed in the right places. Much easier having a video, took all the worry out of him being late/not turning up.

Have sold 3 so far, which is 3 more than I planned for.

So far I’ve done 4 portraits, Sam Simmons (check portrait of the week), Danny Bhoy, Bill Bailey and Tim Minchen. I have another 4 booked in, plus a drive to Glenrowan with a Uk comedian. Should be surreal.

Special Feature is coming along, did my shoot with Charlie. Very good one too. And different, it is turning out to be a few different styles. It should be good.

OK, must dash now, 2 portraits to shoot this arvo and a meeting with some UK produces.

Also, 6 Silver awards and 1 Silver Distinction in the Tasmanian Photography Awards, 3 silver and the silver distinction in the General Section and 3 silver in the wedding.

Take 2

OK, I’ve breathed in, I’m calmed down and it’s time to restart everything.

So a week into the comedy festival I have started it again, all the bad stuff is now behind me and it will be all good from now on.

I have to get my head around what I’m going to be charging for shoots. I’m being asked a lot and don’t have any idea. I might put a shoot fee on for taking the images and getting them a proof CD. Then charge per image after that.

Looks like I may be doing some band shots too. I’ve met a manager who looks after a heap of musical comedians and also a couple of bands. I’m going with him to see one of his bands on Saturday night to get a feel for them. He is probably the best contact I’ve made so far.

I’m off to a floor talk tonight by Robin Sellik, who is an Australian celebrity photographer. His exhibibiton is on at the moment so I’ll head down early and check it out before then meet up with Tom and see the talk. Should be interesting, I’m keeping an open mind about it, I’ve heard un favorable things from one of his subjects. I might bring that up… it may make me unpopular.

Hm… I’m in a pizza place, in Fitzroy waiting for food. There are music types next to me, they are discussing cd’s they are involved in. One of the bands is Architecture in Helsinki, who I really like. To join their conversation or not… they may be no one, or they could be very important. I know nothing.

I shot my first Special Feature segment today, Mikey and Justin Heazlewood. If I was going for a G rating, I doubt I’ll get it. First shot involved a naked butt.