Taking photos of Snoop Dogg
'Are you able to take photos and video of Snoop Dogg tomorrow?' As a public servant, this is a question I get asked a lot.
For context, some students at Warringa Park (a school for students with a disability) had recorded a song at their studio and invited Snoop Dogg to come to the studio and record a verse. In a move that I don't think anyone expected, Snoop agreed and asked that the event not have any media, so that it could just be for the students and teachers. So, as the in-house creative team for the Department of Education, my team was asked to document the event.
This was right up there with a request in 2011 to drive to Kerang to take photos of actual royalty, in the form of Prince William who was there to survey the flood damage.
Now admittedly, these requests are few and far between. But requests to 'quickly grab a few shots at the launch' or 'get a photo of *insert senior person in organisation* at *insert event where person will be standing at lectern in front of very bright Powerpoint presentation*' or the dreaded 'Just grab a few photos for socials' are everywhere now that we all have cameras that can also make phone calls in our pockets.
So I thought it might be worth passing on some tips and tricks for taking photos at events like this...and yes, what to do if you get called up to take a photo of a legit superstar.
Clean that lens
I genuinely want to run a workshop called 'How to take better photos with your phone' and just say 'Give the lens a quick wipe before you take a photo.' Then thank everyone for their time and wish them well.
It seems so simple, but if you're ever wondering why your photos look 'flat' or 'muddy', have a quick look at the glass on the lens and see if there are any finger prints/sunscreen/sweat on them. If you're anything like me, there will be...but they can be gone with a 2 second wipe.
On the bikepacking trip I did earlier this year I made a conscious effort to wipe the lens each time I went to take a photo, and the results were glorious.
Tell a story
I know that this is tricky, especially if there isn’t a story that’s immediately apparent. But so many photos I see from events seem to say ‘A thing happened. Here’s proof’. This is great if your sole objective is ‘have proof we did something’. But if you’re looking to engage with an audience who has an entire social media feed of super interesting content. You’re going to have to work a little harder.
If you’re taking photos at an annual event, you want something that makes people think 'I have to go next year'. If it’s a one-off event, you want people to think ‘Wow, I wish I had been there!’, if it’s just to document something that happened (a visit by someone important/ a workshop/ a conference), then you want people to think ‘I wonder what it was like to be there’.
It's also worth remembering that 99% of your audience are people who would be attending your event, not presenting at it, so make sure you get photos of people enjoying/engaging with the event (no one at the events I've taken photos at has signed a consent form saying 'it's OK for Chris to use this on his own personal blog', so I don't have any examples to show...but rest assured, I take them at every event).
In short, you want people to engage with the pictures and create a story in their minds.
People love stories, and our brains love finding connections, so try to take a few photos that tell a story and that allow people to make connections between.
In this picture you can see; Snoop Dogg is there, he’s at a school, and the kids are excited he’s there. Also, the number of people who made reference to what’s written on the board when they saw the photo was staggering. Why did they like it? Because they were able to make the connection between ‘teachers writing a message for students on a white board’ and that message including ‘fo shizzle’ which is something that Snoop would say. You let their mind make the connection, and they got a little dopamine hit for doing it. Everyone wins!!
Three’s a crowd
We’re all susceptible to a bit of FOMO. So when you’re taking a photo of something you want to make people say ‘Oh, I wish I was there!’, then frame the photo between people who are there. On a purely liminal level, it puts the viewer into a situation as if they were actually there (unless you’re right at the front in the VIP seats, you’re probably going to have people in front of you) and it makes for a more interesting shot. On a subliminal level it says ‘there were so many people at this thing, the photographer had to take the shot through a crowd of people. Why weren’t you there?!’
Best of all, if there aren't heaps of people at the event, you only need 2 people to make it look like there were!
Unfortunately I don’t have consent forms to cover me using the photos I take at work events, so can’t show you an actual example…but it works just as well at music gigs.
Get to the part about Snoop Dogg!!
Ok, I’ve buried the lede long enough. What do you do if the stars align, the Gods smile upon you, and you’re suddenly called upon to take photos of someone BIG?
Have a plan
I am genuinely amazed at the number of times people assume that because you have a camera in your hands you know what should be happening. And believe me, if you say something like ‘I don’t know…just…you know…act natural’, you are in for a selection of the most awkward photos you’ve ever taken.
So with Snoop, I had a series of questions I was ready to ask if the students got too nervous to talk, or if Snoop was looking like he needed some direction. I also had five shots in mind that I wanted to get, so I knew I could ask people to do those if there were any awkward lulls. For the record, both he and the students were so good, I needn't have worried.
Take a LOT of photos
We are not shooting on film, with just 12 exposures…and you have the rest of your life to delete the photos you don’t want. So take a lot of photos. I know professional photographers will sneer and call this a ‘spray and pray’ approach. But at the Prince William event I mentioned at the start of this blog, I missed a photo of one of our key staff shaking hands with the Prince. It still haunts me, and I would have happily deleted photos for hours rather than have to send him the email admitting I’d missed the shot.
At the Snoop shoot, I took over 500 photos in under an hour. I reckon there will be about 20 that I’m really happy with, and probably 3 that I’m stoked with. But every person there got a photo with Snoop where they both look good, and that’s worth its weight in gold.
Be confident…or at least fake it convincingly
If you look like you know what you’re doing and you’re happy to be there, you will get great responses from the people you’re taking photos of. If you look stressed or overwhelmed, people will ‘tighten up’ in front of the camera. Now this truly sucks, because internally you ARE going to be freaking out, and your mind will be running at 1,000 thoughts per second, and it would be GREAT if people knew that and all said ‘Oh you poor thing, this must be so stressful for you.’ But you know what doesn’t make a great photo…people looking at you with an ‘Oh you poor thing’ expression on their face. So take a deep breath, put on a big smile and get used to saying ‘That looks awesome! OK, just one more, looking here. Perfect!’
At the Snoop shoot I think I was a picture of positivity, but at the end I helpfully got a message from my watch saying ‘This has been a stressful period, make sure you balance this with some relaxation or meditation’.
Not now, watch…not now.
But stress aside, this was a genuinely amazing experience. There was an amazing sense of joy and excitement in the room, and I like to think I captured some of that. So if you're not afraid to take a photo, then put your hand up to take some photos for your work events...and if the opportunity to work with Snoop Dogg presents itself, then I highly recommend you take it!
Bike-packing the Tassie Trail
I didn't set a whole lot of KPI's when I started my parenting journey, but I think it's fair to say that if you'd told me back then that in the same year I turned 50, my 19yo son would want to go on a 7 day bike-packing trip across Tassie, and that what's more, I'd still be physically capable of doing it, I reckon I would have been pretty happy.
So I'm very happy to report that I have smashed those non-existent KPIs by riding the 480km Tasmanian Trail from Devonport to Dover.
I'm probably more happy that I'm not still doing the ride, as it was genuinely one of the toughest things I've done, and instead of providing a travelogue of the journey, I think I'll focus on what I learnt while I was doing it.
Plans are awesome, as you watch them fly out the window
I had never gone bikepacking before. So I had no idea how much of a difference carrying sleeping bags, a tent, clothes, a camping stove, etc. would make to how fast we would ride.
I also failed to realize how steep some of the climbs were going to be, or that some of them would be up rocky hills that were impossible to ride up.
So as we planned the trip, I was thinking, 'Well, I can normally average 30 kph, so if we assume with all the gear we're carrying we can only average 20 kph, we should be able to comfortably do 80 kms per day. So if we get on the road by 8 am, we can be at our next stop by just after lunch... then we can swan around whatever town we're in, and I can take photos. What an amazing and relaxing way to see Tasmania!'
Cut to a scene where Josh and I are riding in the cold and dark on day one, with only one decent front light, hoping to make it to our accommodation before their kitchen closes for the night.
If I take a few steps back, we had started later than 8 am because our flight didn't land until 10 am.
By the time we had taken the bikes out of their boxes and assembled them (or more accurately, Josh assembled them and I found places to put the packing materials), it was 11:30 am, then it was a 10 km ride from the airport to the start of the trail.
So by the time we'd had something to eat, it was already 1 PM. But using the patented 'Chris Riordan travel estimator,' we would still be arriving around 6 PM, which was fine. In fact, everything was so fine that we found time to stop and take photos. This was exactly how I had hoped this trip would be: lunch in little country towns, pleasant riding through beautiful countryside, stopping for photos... what a time to be alive!
But then the country roads and pleasant paths gave way to gravel roads and stony trails, the midday sun turned to early dusk, and we were taking off our shoes in order to push our bikes across a river.
By the time we got to our second river crossing, the light had almost gone, and so we had to push on through windy single-track trails with only a few meters in front of us illuminated by our lights.
Then we came to a serious climb. It was so serious I had to get off and walk for some of it. By the time I got to the top, we were still at least 10 km from Deloraine, it was cold, it was dark, we were hungry, and suddenly this did not feel like such a great time.
Thankfully we had mobile reception, and so we were able to use Maps to plot a course that kept us off the highway as much as possible, and cut a few km off our trip. But seeing as I had the brightest light, I had to sit in front of Josh for the rest of the trip...which is a bit like putting a Clydesdale in front of a racehorse.
We pulled into our Deloraine accommodation just before 8:30 pm...our '4 hr ride' had taken over 8 hours, we were cooked...and it was only day 1.
Plans are great!
Serendipity
As I came to discover, one of the cool things about the Tassie Trail is that you will encounter climbs where you wonder, 'Should I have bought a smaller chainring at the front... or just some rock-climbing gear?'
Our second day had two of these climbs. The first one was non-negotiable, but the second one could be avoided if you took a longer route through a town called Poatina. The trail guidebook said that the steeper climb 'was not advised for horses or bikers', but Josh was very keen for the adventure, and I just figured that if I had to walk the bike up some of the climb, then so be it.
We stopped just before the start of the climb to have a banana and some lollies to fuel up for the push up the hill and then onwards to a campsite about 20 km after the top the climb. You access the climb via the driveway on someone's property, and as we were standing there, a lady drove out of the driveway. We got chatting, and she explained that her parents owned the property, and that while it would be really difficult to ride up the trail, it was really great...and that also, there was a cave about 2/3 of the way up that we could camp in if we wanted. We thanked her for the info, but knew that we were aiming to camp on the other side of the climb...things would have to be going pretty badly for us to be camping 2/3 of the way up this climb.
We started the climb, and after about 200m things started to go pretty badly. It was really steep, but more importantly, it was pretty much just rocks, and so some pretty impressive mountain bike skills were required just to ride over them...skills I did not possess. So I had to start walking pretty much straight away. Of course, it's not just walking; it's walking while pushing a 30kg bike, and sometimes that meant pushing the bike in front of you, locking the brakes to hold it in place, then taking a few steps, then pushing the bike in front of you, locking the brakes, taking a few steps, then repeating this for half an hour.
Once again, the light was starting to fade, and we weren't even halfway up. There was no way we were going to make it to the top, then ride for another 2 hours to get to our campsite. But we could make it to the cave. I was able to text Josh to wait for me at the cave, and by the time I got there, we had just enough time to set up the tent and get a fire going before darkness descended like a weight.
It was incredible. Just the two of us, in the middle of nowhere, two-thirds of the way up a mountain and completely protected from the elements. It was exactly the sort of adventure I had hoped we would find on this ride, and it would never have happened if we hadn't bumped into that lady at the base of the climb. One of the beauties of being willing to take on a challenge like this is that serendipity tends to follow you.
Highway from the comfort zone
I am a great believer that true growth comes when you're out of your comfort zone, and this trip really showed me that while I may believe this, I'm not so great at putting it into action. That's not to say that I don't do a lot of things that I tell myself are putting myself out of my comfort zone. For example, every Sunday I have my long run. Up until this trip, I would have said 'I'm pushing myself for 1.5-2 hrs, so I'm really getting out of my comfort zone!' But, at best, I'm pushing myself a little out of my physical comfort zone. Mentally, I'm super comfortable. I know how far I'm running, I know where I'm going, I know when the hard bits are, and if everything goes to hell in a handbasket, I can call someone to give me a lift home.
In fact, I think my comfort zone probably is where I can maintain an impression of discomfort while maintaining complete control.
This trip pushed me to my mental limits, often for hours at a time. I haven't had to push my bike up a hill since I was about 16...but I was having to do this on a daily basis. I HATED not knowing how hard the next climb was going to be. I was furious every time we climbed up a hill for an hour, only to find there was a short descent before the next hour-long climb. I took it very personally every time a descent was so technical that I couldn't enjoy it, and probably had to expend more mental energy on the way down than up. I. HATED. NOT. HAVING. CONTROL.
But you can't control everything, and acknowledging that but still continuing was the comfort zone I had to get myself out of.
On day 6 we had our last big day, 80kms from New Norfolk to Geeveston. The day started with 4 hours of climbing, and much like descending into the '9 circles of hell', this climb presented multiple levels of torture. Really rocky paths gave way to a 4wd track that was full of enormous puddles and tyre-width wide ridges between them that you were meant to somehow balance your fully laden bike across without losing momentum... then the ridges disappeared and you just had to work out how to get your bike across 6ft puddles of indeterminate depth... then the path just became large rocks and boulders you had to push/carry your bike over.
It's fair to say I got a little bit 'sweary' at this point, not the least because I knew that if the descent was the same as the climb, I was going to have to walk that as well, and it was going to be a loooooong day.
For better or worse, the descent was not as bad. It was still full of decently sized rocks or slippery clay or some winning combo of both...but with enough patience and forearm strength (as you pumped the brakes to try and keep yourself from flying down the hill) it was doable. My whole rationale was 'If I just fly down the hill, I may save myself 10 minutes, but if I come off, I will ruin the whole trip. So just grip those brakes and play it safe.'
But then we came to a section (you can see it looks like a vertical drop on the profile) that was insanely steep. It was so steep that I had to stop because my forearms were getting exhausted from holding the brakes so tight. It was so steep that when I started again, I almost went over the handlebars trying to clip my feet into the pedals. It was so steep (and the trail was just tennis ball-sized rocks) that I realized that even with my brakes on full lock, I was still hurtling down the hill; it's just that with the brakes on full lock, I was much more likely to wipe out on a section of deeper rocks. I could see the end of the section, and I could see Josh waiting for me, and so I just let go of the brakes. It's three weeks later and I can still remember the feeling. I was flying. I was bouncing over the rocks. If I came off, it was hospital for sure. There was no sound, just the bike bucking wildly underneath me, just trying desperately to keep it upright, and knowing that I was completely out of control, it was down to luck and my reflexes, and I had never been so far from my comfort zone.
Then it was done, and I was slowing down on a slight ascent; then I was chatting to Josh about how much he had loved it. The memory is so visceral that I know my mind has had to do a lot to process it, and hopefully, it's grown because of it—new pathways, new possibilities. But if you asked me to do it again...I'd probably say 'no'...there's no way I could get that lucky twice.
Capitulation or perserverance
I have always enjoyed sports, but never excelled. From about my 30s onwards, I discovered that while I could never win a race, I could always grind out a decent finish. Capitulation was never an option.
On one of the days when I was walking the bike up a muddy cliff-face somewhere, I had to come to two knee-high boulders that I had to squeeze the bike through. The only way to do it was to put the bike on its back wheel and push it through vertically. It worked, and to celebrate my logistical prowess, I promptly walked my knee straight into one of the rocks. It hurt at the time, but over the next few days it got worse and worse.
On day 5, we were riding 80kms from Ouse to New Norfolk. We had decided to stop in the town of Ellendale to get an early lunch, but when we arrived there, the one shop in town was closed. It had been a tough day already, and my knee was really hurting, to the point where I was basically free-wheeling any slight downhill (and I think I was driving Josh insane with how slow we were going). So to arrive at what we had hoped would be our lunch spot, where we could get something warm to eat and ideally a coffee... and instead be eating the cold packet of beans and rice we had intended to have for dinner that night, and to know that we were about to embark on some hefty climbs on very rough tracks. Well, it was rough, and my mindset was not good. I had a look at Maps on my phone and realized that there was a roadhouse about 12kms away that served food; I also realized that the trail took a 20km detour through the hills before arriving at the same roadhouse. So I decided that I would just ride along the road for this section and meet Josh at the roadhouse after he had enjoyed the highs and lows of the trail.
I had expected to feel guilt and regret as I rode along by myself. But suddenly, being able to ride at my own pace, I found my mindset getting better. After a short climb, I found myself on a long sweeping descent. The sort of descent where you can just stop pedaling and enjoy the ride, the sort of descent I'd been praying for after each climb over the last few days. I knew that at the bottom I would need to start climbing again... but instead, like some wonderful apparition, at the bottom of the hill was a raspberry farm that had a coffee machine and homemade ice cream. While in Melbourne it can be hard to walk for more than 5 minutes in any direction without tripping over a barista... it's fair to say that if you spend 90% of your time riding on fire trails and weird horse-tracks through the hills, you very rarely stumble across anyone offering a decent coffee. So I asked if they could make an affogato, and they happily poured a shot of coffee over a scoop of homemade ice cream... I think I may have been the happiest I had been in days. So happy, I took a photo of it to show Josh later.
Then I pushed on to the roadhouse, ordered myself some food and was about to text the photo to Josh, but decided to just see how far away he was first. His response came back that he had noticed a puncture about 5 mins after we separated (this was our only puncture for the whole trip!), and while trying to fix that, his pump had broken, and when it had broken, it had cut his hand. So he was still out in the middle of nowhere, on a tire that wasn't properly inflated and with a cut hand.
I decided that now was not the time to send the photo of the affogato.
With some judicious use of Panadol, my knee was fine for the rest of the ride. I have no idea what would have happened if I'd just decided to be a 'completist' and stuck to the trail... but I think that the simple act of kindness I had offered myself to take the easier option got me across the line. If nothing else, it gave me the first 'non-sachet' coffee I'd had in days!
The end of the trail
When talking about the US Space program, JFK famously said, 'We do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.' Unfortunately, I lack both JFK's brevity and work ethic, because I think mine is more along the lines of 'I do these things not because they're easy, but because I thought they would be easy, but then they proved to be a lot harder than expected. At the same time, I'd already committed a lot of time and effort to them, and so I guess I may as well finish them.'
So on day 7, we rode triumphantly into Dover. In a true metaphor for the ride as a whole, we rode up a really long and punishing hill before descending on some sketchy trails that became shingly paths that became a dirt road, before finally becoming a paved road that descended all the way down to the beach. As we rolled down the hill, we had our arms out wide, soaking up the feeling of accomplishment and feeling like we were flying. Then at the bottom of the hill, we realized that it wasn't the actual end of the ride, and that we had to turn left and ride up one last super steep hill on a double-lined road with an impatient truck behind us.
So we did.
Will I ever go bikepacking again? Absolutely.
Will I travel with Josh again? If he'll have me, without a doubt. He was the perfect travel companion.
Are there things I would do differently? Most definitely, but that’s for another blog.
Is one of those things not carrying a camera in a backpack the entire way? Nah... 'cause it let me get this photo... and you can see all of the other photos from the trip here
First 3 months with an EV
It's been 3 months since we moved from an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) to an EV, so I thought I'd step out the good, the bad, and the ugly of the experience so far, in case you're thinking about making the change too.
Road trips
We're a family of five, who tends to drive to most of our holidays. So clearly one of the biggest fears I had was the dreaded 'range anxiety'. Would we be able to load the family into the EV and still head out for a trip down the coast without having to stop to charge?
The short answer is a resounding 'yes'. We did multiple trips to Sandy Point (150kms), with varying numbers of people, and with and without a cargo pod on the roof without a problem (in fact just over 50% battery left on some trips). We also did from Warnambool to Melbourne (about 230kms) with 5 people and the pod on the roof and had over 50kms of range left. Portland is about another 80kms, so it will be very interesting to see if we can get there with one charge if the car is in 'eco' mode, rather than 'sport'.
The boot capacity of the Ioniq 5 is on par with other EV's, but I was surprised at how little it held compared to the Skoda Superb. To be fair, I was always amazed at how much the Skoda could hold, so this is more a case of our older car being 'great' rather than the new car being 'bad'. But the luggage pod on the roof has been sensational.
Additional costs
If you've ever decided to reduce the amount meat in your family meals, or you've gone gluten free, or you've decided to make more salads from the Yotam Ottolenghi book you were given for Christmas, then you'll know that feeling of 'Oh for crying out loud, now I have to buy a whole lot of new things that I've never needed before, and learn how to cook them'...I call it 'the chickpea conundrum'. Of course you've always had to buy pasta, or eggs or plain flour...it just somehow feels unfair that now you have to buy new things.
Similarly, we bought a home charger (so that we could charge it any time...particularly when the solar panels were working), and got a roof-rack fitted, and bought a luggage pod to go on the roof-rack. So that is about $2,800 for the charger, $500 for the roof rack, and $1,500 for the luggage pod.
It could be argued that this is a pretty poor exchange for not having to go to a service station and fill up with petrol for 3 months...but in the long-term...I think it will make an for an amazing Cauliflower, pomegranate and pistachio salad.
The driving experience
Forced induction is a very interesting way of delivering more power, regardless of the number of cylinders...Ok...I think we've lost all of the people who don't have an interest in cars or driving...hopefully they've just skipped down to the 'technology' section.
The experience of driving an EV is pretty different to driving an ICE car. The power is immediate and linear (which can be great when you need to overtake...but can also feel like you're driving a dodgem car). Our car is wider and heavier than any other car I've driven, and it has a longer wheel-base (so a wider turning circle). So I would never describe the car as 'fun' to drive. In fact, every time I hop in our eldest child's 2001 Subaru Liberty wagon, with its manual transmission and no form of Apple Play, I'm reminded of how much 'fun' it can be when you really have to listen to the car and work with it.
But with more and more driving being little more than a series of 200m bursts between one lot of traffic and the next, the 'joy of driving' and 'fun' may be things of the past, and so a comfortable, quiet, sturdy car that can make Punt Rd a pleasant catch-up with your 'podcast friends' may not be such a bad thing.
Technology
Now I realise that a lot of this technology is available in any new car, so this is not necessarily EV specific...but it has been pretty awesome for the first three months, so I'm going to talk about it.
On stinking hot Australian days, I can press a button on my phone 10m minutes before we leave and it will start cooling down the car, so that when everyone piles into the car, it's not a sauna. I am WELL aware of how gauche and unnecessary this sounds...but there have been enough moments in the last three months when this has been an absolute God-send, that I will not be listening to anyone bad-mouthing this feature.
As someone who regularly parks the car, then 5 minutes later thinks 'Wait...did I lock the car?!' the fact that I can now lock the car from my phone any time and anywhere, will hopefully mean a lot fewer grey hairs for me...and a lot less of everyone else having to hear 'You just keep walking, I'm just going to race back to the car and check something'.
There is also wireless phone connection, multiple USB-C chargers for phones, a display on the windscreen of how fast I'm going, and a parking camera that shows me an overhead view of the car, which is great for showing how straight I haven't parked the car.
But also...the technology
In my lifetime, car manufacturers have gone from 'Here's a V8 with no ABS...good luck!' to 'here's a car with so many alerts and noises, that it feel less like driving a car and more like living in an Aphex Twin track'.
If you're in a driveway with any plants, the car will throw more 'beeps' at you than the 'radio safe' version of an NWA song in the 90s.
If you're travelling towards an intersection with a speed camera, it will turn down your music to let you know about it. If you disable this feature, it will still turn down your music...it just won't tell you anything.
If you travel more than 2kms over the speed limit it will beep at you...which on the face of it is a good thing...but it also believes that every school zone is perpetually 40kms/h (even at 10pm at night) and so freaks out at your speed, even though it's perfectly legal. As you drive past the tram depot on St George's Rd, it's convinced that you should be travelling at the 10km/h speed of the tram depot rather than the 70km/h speedl limit of the road you're on...and is not backward in coming forward to tell you about it.
If you're driving somewhere there are roadworks, the lane-assist will quite happily steer you to where it thinks the lane should be, rather than where it temporarily is.
I realise that car companies now have to design their safety features assuming that drivers are on their phone and angry...but for those of us who are neither, it feels pretty patronising.
Overall thoughts
I definitely feel that we've had to pay more money to get a car that pollutes less...and that sucks. I also haven't filled up my tyres at a service station, as I'm suddenly not sure if that's 'OK' with an EV. And I really don't know how well the car will hold its value with how quickly new technology is being developed.
But I love this car, and our next car will be an EV as well.
Anthropomorphisation
I love the word 'anthropomorphisation'. It's big enough to sound impressive, but easy enough to break into smaller parts to make sense of it. Like a Scottish accent, it's something I can do in my head, but struggle when I have to actually say it out loud. But most of all, the fact that it exists is like someone calmly saying 'Hey, you know that weird thing you do where you give human characteristics to non-human things? Well, it's actually so common that we felt the need to create a word for it!'
Like so many things we do in our own heads, it's nice to know that you're not the only one doing it.
I'm an anthropomorphisationator from way back. In my school years cricket bats and skateboards were spoken to like they were people, successes and failures were shared between us. Every bike I've owned has had its own personality that I have worked with and around, and I have a vivid memory of thanking my Cannondale 6 for all its help as I finished the bike leg of the Ironman. After all, it was the bike's dedication through long training rides, early starts and endless hours on the cycling trainer that got us through...I was, in every sense, just a passenger. That bike is still in our bike shed because I feel like I would be letting the bike down by selling it...but I feel equally guilty about letting it fall into disrepair. It really deserves better.
When the Crepe Myrtle tree that we bought when Josh was born started to look like it was going to die a few years ago, I had many conversations with it. As if what it somehow needed was a Tony Robbins style inspirational speech and some reassurance....as opposed to more water, and less shade from those gum trees.
I still have the red 'Have a Coke and smile' t-shirt I was wearing the first time I kissed Katie, and take it out of the drawer occasionally to use its talismanic powers to reconnect with the 21 yo who wore it as he embarked on the best part of his life.
But my guiltiest secret is how much I talk to the cars I've owned, as if they were supportive friends. I have quite literally sat in every car and thanked it for all that it's done to help me when it's come time to sell or trade in. Which is, of course, completely insane. The car is not choosing to work or not work, it's not choosing to take me on adventures, it doesn't see us a team, and it certainly isn't going to be sad that we're breaking up. It quite literally can't give a shit.
But I can...and do.
All of this is top of mind, because in the next day or so I will be saying goodbye to our Skoda Superb. I will say to anyone listening, that this is the best car I've ever owned. It's not living and breathing, but it's been the conduit to so many moments that make living and breathing so great! It's taken us on roadtrips through Tasmania and NSW. It's been up in the snow, and down at the beach in the heat of summer. On cold dark nights out taking photos, it's been the warmth and comfort to return to. On family trips to Sandy Point it's been the TARDIS that can fit more stuff in the boot than should be possible. It's taken us to birthdays, weddings and funerals. It's taught Josh how to drive, and at the end of every mid-winter bike ride, or trail run it has started on cue, played the tunes I wanted to listen to, and its seat warmers have gently warmed our frozen butts.
The only reason we're selling it, is so that we can get an EV, and when the EV arrived, after 6 years of never missing a mechanical beat, the Skoda suddenly needed new front suspension...then yesterday, it just wouldn't start and needed a new battery. It's very hard not to see the Skoda as a spurned lover, looking at the car who replaced it and screaming 'HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?!!'
But on the bright side, I've sold the car to my Dad, because the best thing you can do when you break up with someone, is manufacture a situation where you continue to see them at every family function!
As advances in AI blur the line further between animate and inanimate objects, perhaps anthropomorphism will become a thing of the past. But in the next few days I'll be taking the time to have a chat with the Skoda and thank it for everything it's done for me...and I'll be secretly glad that it can't talk back.
To EV or not to EV
Is it time to buy an EV
There were quite a few times in my early 20s when I left a dance party while I was still having a really good time, just to head off the risk of it getting a bit shit, and that being my final memory of it. So I definitely have a personality that errs on the side of 'bad things are probably coming, so let's get out while the going is good'.
Which brings me to our current car, a 2018 Skoda Superb wagon. It is without a doubt the best car I have ever owned. We've had it for 6 years and it has not missed a beat. It has taken us on roadtrips to Tassie, NSW and Nhill. In the summer months it's transported the family, plus surfboards, plus dog to many a beach destination, and it has been the haven of warmth at the end of winter trail runs and taboganning trips to Mt Donna Buang.
And yet...and yet, I fear that the longer we keep it, the greater the risk of it having an issue that costs a fair amount of cash to fix.
As someone who would like to play a part in not destroying the planet, I also like the idea of taking any opportunity to move towards having a smaller carbon footprint, and so maybe now is the perfect time to get an EV?
*cut to montage of Chris falling down rabbit-hole of EV car reviews and way, way, waaaay too much information*
I won't lie, if there is a perfect time to get an EV for a family, it certainly isn't now unless you are someone who has a lot of cash, and a deep, abiding love of SUVs. I'm not sure if EV manufacturers heard Scott Morrison say as PM that 'converting to EV's would mean the end of the Aussie weekend and we would no longer be able to spend our weekends driving SUVs' and said 'No worries, we'll only make cars in sedan or SUV variants...best of luck station-wagon lovers!!', but I can tell you, brands like VW are actively not releasing the station wagon/estate/tourer versions of their EV cars here in Australia. So, as someone who views SUV's as one of the 4 horsemen of the modern apocalypse (the other three are; screen addiction, polarised political opinion, and NFTs), I am having to do a LOT of mental and moral gymnastics convincing myself that this is a good idea.
Also, I'm someone who has always had an interest in cars...but that means very little in this brave new world of terms and features to get used to, not to mention new brands like Tesla, Polestar and Cupra...throw in Kia and you're suddenly one of those people who finishes every sentence on an upward inflection.
Plus, whereas in the past if you bought a car and the new version came out the next year, it was probably going to have slightly different coloured side view mirrors or better cup holders...now a new version may come up with a 100kms of additional battery range, or brand-new 'everything' inside, or now it doubles as an aeroplane.
The tech in the cars is evolving faster than the tech in my cameras, and it makes it VERY hard to commit to something!!
The other problem is that there just isn't the range of cars that exists in the petrol/diesel world. In petrol/diesel world, you have a price range, and then a range of cars in the price range. In EV world, everything starts more expensive, and there limited options in each price band. The EV equivalent of our Skoda Superb (albeit not in station-wagon form) probably costs about $85K, which is *checks down the back of the couch, and in pockets of jeans he wore last summer* a fair bit more than I have to spend.
So...problem solved! Don't buy an EV! After all, it would be insane to sell a perfectly good petrol car in order to buy an EV that I can't afford. I can just show the world that I'm a great person by talking about how much I would like to buy and EV...without actually having to commit any money to it, because I can't afford it. Virtue signalled...cost of living crisis adhered to.
Except...except, novated leasing.
Now I realise that if I haven't lost you with discussions of 'preferred body shapes for cars', then I almost certainly will with 'discussions of tax-based financing of car purchases'. But here goes anyway...maybe you should imagine Margot Robbie explaining this in a bath.
A novated lease is basically where you lease a car through your work, and the repayments for it come out of your pay. The cool thing is that a portion of this comes out of your income before tax, so you pay less tax because your taxable income is less. If this feels like the sort of thing that really benefits rich people...then yes it is.
After all, if you go and buy a $200K car and can then claim the repayments as a tax deduction, that's a pretty sweet deal that is only available to people who can afford a $200K car. So one way around this for the tax department, is to charge a 'Luxury car tax' for cars worth over about $80K.
Cool story so far, I know.
But the Govt is keen for you to buy and EV, and so they have made it so if you buy an EV then the full amount of the repayment comes out before tax (remember earlier how I said that part of the payment usually comes out before tax...well for EV's it is now ALL of the repayment, which saves even more on tax), AND the luxury car tax doesn't kick in on EV's until just over $91K.
In short this means that you can get a $10K nicer EV car, and you're going to pay less in tax. Plus, the repayment amount includes things like rego, servicing, tyres, insurance etc, so instead of those things hitting like a kick in the proverbials each year...they're spread over the full year, like a firm massage. It is a pretty good deal, provided you and your employer are keen to continue your current practice of you giving them the majority of your waking hours...and them wanting to continue to pay you for it.
We're currently on a holiday in the Northern Rivers region of NSW, where it has rained so much, we've actually had the time to sit down as a family and discuss the options. It was such a relief after having all of this info bouncing around in my head for a few months, to be able to explain that I really didn't want to sell the Skoda, but if we did, our best options were the Polestar 4, and the Kia ev6. So let's make a choice.
After about an hour of discussion, and debate we finally made a decision...we really don't want to sell the Skoda, but if we do, our best options are the Polestar 4, the Kia ev6, and the Hyundai Ioniq 5.
So...yeah...somehow I'm now actually further away from a decision than I was when we started.
But we have hired a Polestar 2 for our holiday, and it has been great!
It took us everywhere we wanted to go, it handled like it was on rails, and there is something quite awesome about not having pay for petrol on a holiday!
So who knows, having already said good-bye to a manual gearbox on my last two cars...maybe it's time to fully embrace middle-aged comfort, and get an EV.
Reclaimed focus
If you can hold a new year's resolution until March then I reckon you can say you've stuck the landing, and you're now the proud owner of a new behaviour. Over the Christmas/New Year's break I read 'Stolen Focus' by Johann Hari. The overarching theme of the book is that modern life has taken away our ability to focus and think deeply on things. As if to prove this, when I say 'I read', I should actually say 'I listened to the audiobook...at 1.5 speed...while I did a variety of other things', but that just feels too sad to put in writing.
Now clearly you only really read/listen to a self-help book if you're actually struggling with the problem yourself, the audiobooks for 'My pecs are too big' and 'What do I do with all this spare money?' have remained undownloaded by my Audible app. But in truth, I hadn't realised just how little 'deep thinking' I was doing. I did have a sense of ending each day pretty much at exactly the point I had started it, but at the same time, I had ticked off my 'to-do' list and got lots of little things done. The simple truth is that 'I got a whole lot of small things done today that kept people happy' is a LOT more popular in the workplace and at home than 'I didn't get around to doing that thing you asked me to do...but boy did I have a deep think about an issue!'
But I kept thinking back to train trips as a teenager when I had nothing to do but let my mind wander as the stations on the Hurstbridge line flashed by. I could distinctly remember weird tangents that opened up new thoughts...weird tangents that no longer happen, because I have a purpose built tangent-killer in the form of a phone within arms length every waking minute of the day.
So I made a new year's resolution to try two things to improve my focus, one for my home life and one for my work-life and I thought I'd take you through how it's been going with the two of them.
Chris and his podcasts
I think it's fair to say I was an early adopter of podcasts. Where you can now mention podcasts and have people tell you their own personal favourites, I was into them when if you said 'Podcast' people would stare at you and say 'What's a podcast?'...and when you tried to explain that it was like a radio show without the music...or a movie without the pictures, somehow YOU looked like the crazy one.
Anyway, pretty soon I was listening to audio books as well as podcasts on long runs, and then I was listening to them at 1.5 speed because listening to them at normal speed took too long, and then every time I was doing any sort of boring housework, or going for a walk, the headphones would go in...and then over the COVID lockdowns I listened to my headphones so much that I developed Tinnitus.
This did not make me think I should listen to them less...I should just turn the sound down.
Putting my headphones in any time something boring presented itself became second-nature. At the same time our youngest was having an issue with automatically watching a screen any time he was bored. So I decided that instead of just saying 'don't do that', I would committ to giving up my habit as well. So I decided to stop listening to my headphones on my walks.
The results
Ability to stick to it: 95%
Challenge: On longer walks with the dog it was easier, as I think I knew that 30 - 40 minutes of letting my mind work through things was going to be a benefit. But on short trips (from our house to the supermarket/market, or from the office to get a coffee) it was a lot harder to convince myself that there was going to be any benefit.
Has it made a difference?: Most definitely. It has been amazing to see how much more my mind can come up with ideas and solutions once I give it the space, especially after about 15-20 minutes thinking about the same problem, suddenly alternative ideas would present themselves, or links I hadn't seen before would become apparent. In particular I had one issue at work that I was able to see from another perspective and find a solution...with my photography, I was able to think ideas through from 'idea' to 'how to actually make it work'.
Even on the shorter walks, while I certainly didn't have any moments of clarity, I did feel as though I was a lot more aware of the world around me.
Getting 'on the balcony' at work
I was lucky enough to do a 3-day course with Leadership Victoria last month, and one of the key takeaways was the importance of getting 'on the balcony' so that you can see the whole picture, rather than getting caught up in the hustle and bustle below. The idea is clear, once you're in management your role is not just the 'on the tools' work, but also the higher level, more strategic work.
Of course at the same time we now have more ways than ever for people to contact us. On any given day I will receive work requests via email, text message, phone call, Microsoft Teams and Monday.com. If I'm in the office then people will drop past for a chat, and if I'm working from home the Teams chat will be a constant series of notifications. Worst of all are the people who wait for the split second your availability 'turns green' to call you. These people know that the most important thing is to make their problem, your problem and will happily spend 20 minutes waiting like a predatory spider for your current meeting or call to finish so that they can unburden themselves.
The other problem with all of these small requests is that they're usually 15-20 minute jobs, so there is a sense of satisfaction that comes with getting them done and ticking them off. So much so that if given the choice between a 15 minute quick fix Teams request, and a trickier 40 minute piece of HR paperwork...I will invariably go with the Teams request with the red exclamation mark over the email with 'URGENT' in the subject.
We also have Teams chats with my fellow Managers, my team, the video team within my team, that ebb and flow over the course of the day...but never fall silent. Quite often these chats present the opportunity to post the perfect GIF of Will Ferrell saying 'That escalated quickly' or John Oliver saying 'Cool', or pretty much any line from 'Schitt's Creek'...and I'll be damned if I miss that opportunity!
So at the start of this year I turned off my notifications on Teams, and told my team that for the first 45 minutes of every hour I wouldn't respond to Teams messages, and would reply where necessary for that last 15 minutes. If I'm honest, I rarely focus my attention on one thing for more than 45 minutes at a time, so that 15 minutes of quickfire responses at the end of the hour is the reward for the sustained and focussed thinking I've done for the remainder.
The Results
Ability to stick to it: About 50%
Challenge: Whereas the challenge to not take headphones on a walk put all of the pressure on me to stick to it...this one is a bit different, as there are plenty of people outside of my team who don't know my 'you have to wait until the last part of the hour for me to reply to you' approach. So there are still always requests and conversations coming through...and some of them you can't ignore. Also, the allure of the quick job that will make someone happy straight away, over the boring work that may yeild a result in 6 months...is still too hard for me to resist.
Has it made a difference?: If the measurement of success is the amount of high level thinking and planning I've done since January, then it has made absolutely no difference. If the measurement of success is an awareness of how little high level thinking and planning I'm doing...then it has been painfully successful.
A big reason I love my job is that I still get to do the 'hands-on' work, and I think that having someone who genuinely loves creativity is still a rarity in a bureaucracy...so perhaps keeping my hands in the creative work, rather than the policies and procedures that guide the work is actually the harder and more beneficial option. Or perhaps that's exactly what a creative person says when faced with the pressure to just sit down and do some damned spreadsheets and Standard Operating Procedures.
Either way, I'm going to stick with it. If nothing else, just to show my team the importance I place on bringing your whole self to a task and thinking deeply, rather than spreading yourself over a whole lot of smaller tasks, chasing that 'quick win'....and that real change takes time, effort and the occasional failure.
Confessions of a middle-aged Swiftie
'I just don't get the whole Taylor Swift thing' is a sentiment I've heard a bit in the lead-up to her concerts at the MCG. Which is totally understandable, after all, there are plenty of things I just don't get, Eurovision for example. I love that so many love it, and get so passionate about it...but it's just never done it for me. Horror movies are another thing that has passed me by...and quadratic equations have 100% been beyond my ken since forever.
So I would never say that anyone is wrong for not 'getting the whole Taylor Swift thing', but after spending an evening with 96,000 people sharing a communal experience of art and positivity, I do think they're missing out.
So from someone who came to Taylor Swift in the Folklore/Evermore era, and after at least 35 years of going to gigs thinks they may have seen one of their best gigs ever, here is what I love about Taylor Swift.
The music
Back in 2014 when I was training for the Ironman (for those of you playing the 'When will Chris mention that he has done an Ironman' drinking game...please drink now) I was watching a YouTube series about a non-athlete training for the Kona Ironman. On the morning of the race she was talking about how she couldn't sleep and so had just blasted 'Shake it off' in her headphones for an hour to get herself ready for the race. I was genuinely dumbfounded. How could someone who was about to attempt something so massive, be listening to something so disposable?! I had never listened to the song in its entirety, but it very much fell into the 'teeny bopper' music category in my mind. It was basically 'musical cordial' in that it was sickly sweet, and designed for kids.
But out of interest, I gave the song a listen. As I suspected, it was pop-crap. But I gave it another listen...out of fairness. Ok, that horn sound is pretty cool...and I did kinda sing along to a bit of it...but it was still crap. To prove this I listened to it again...then watched a behind the scenes video about making the video clip...then listened to it again. I decided that maybe even pop songs can be ok at times, but that true musical genius came in the form of little known Belgian guitar bands, or people with 'Chemical' or 'Shadow' in their band names. So I went back to what I knew.
But then in 2020 what I knew (The National) intersected with Taylor Swift. Aaron Dessner from The National had worked with Taylor on the 'Folkore' album...and I was genuinely baffled. This was like Jamie Oliver saying he had taken a job at McDonalds. But the world was locked down with COVID, so I gave the album a listen. I was about 1/3 of the way through the opening track 'The one' when she said the line 'In my defence, I have none', and I suddenly thought 'Oh man...that's GOOD!' It's such a little line, but it really landed with me...then two songs later she hit me with 'I knew you'd linger like a tattoo kiss, I knew you'd haunt all of my what-ifs'...and I was hooked.
That night while making dinner I played it on the speaker and asked Holly what she thought, and asked Katie if she could believe this was Taylor Swift? We played the whole album through...then again...pretty soon it was on regular rotation. Then Evermore came out, and it was all over. I was well and truly sold...and Holly went into a level of fandom that exposed me to all of Taylor's previous work.
As a middle-aged white guy, the less autobiographical lyrics of Folklore and Evermore are my faves...but I can see how the lyrics in her other songs connect with Holly and Katie and have to realise that I'm really not the target audience, but no matter what era you're listening to, her ability to write an evocative and catchy melody is phenomenal.
The vibe
Normally when a man has as much charisma as Taylor Swift, within a few years they're insisting they have a direct line to God, and that he's saying everyone should be wearing orange tunics and marrying him...before eventually everything ends in a hail of gunfire, or poisoned drinks, or massive embezzlement.
Instead of this, I sat in an audience of 96,000 people with a focus of pure positivity. In a world that has us increasingly divided into online factions, where differences are what define us, over three nights Taylor Swift was bringing nearly 300,000 people together to show what it's like when we unite behind something that makes us feel good.
That was all off-stage. But onstage I couldn't help but notice that every one of the dancers and musicians on stage looked to be having the time of their life. Now I realise that they're being paid to look happy, but I do think that you can tell the difference between a stage smile, and genuine happiness (it's usually in the eyes), and every person on stage at the show I saw looked genuinely happy. That can only happen when the person at the top puts genuine effort into making sure her whole team feels comfortable and confident to be who they are. I find it hard doing that managing a team of 7 people, so how she does it with a team of hundreds (and a personal worth in the billions) is amazing. I wonder how many Tesla employees feel the same level of support from Elon.
The show
There was a part of me that thought that the songs I particularly liked were probably the ones that were the least appropriate to a big stadium show, so I was just excited to experience 'the show'.
But nothing could have prepared me for 'the show'. The lights, the visuals on the screen, the use of effects on the live cameras, the motion graphics on the the stage floor, the choreography of a 3.5 hour show, the sheer energy that's required to sing and dance for that long, and the ability to feed and ride the energy of the crowd. It was all brilliant. I looked over at Xavier at one point and thought 'How is he ever going to enjoy a live show again?'
The moments
Sometimes there are just people or places that are a catalyst to greater things. Like watching a train to the MCG slowly fill up with more and more people wearing smiles and sequins. Or young people going to craft shops so that they can make friendship bracelets. Or hundreds of thousands of women and girls getting to see someone who not onlys says that they can be whatever they want...but also shows that they can be. Or a city that prides itself on being a city of arts, treating an artist with the same level of respect it usually reserves for footy, cricket or a horse race.
There are a lot of things we're going to have to come together as a planet to fix. We're going to have to see what we can do as a large collective, rather than a whole lot of individuals. The 'whole Taylor Swift thing', leaves me thinking that we're still capable of doing it.
Best photos for 2023
It's that time of the year when I'm on leave and archiving off all of my photos from last year onto external hard-drives, so it's time to dive into my favourite 23 photos from last year.
These are in no particular order, as I'm far too lazy to rank them.
The smiling assassin
I was out for an early evening stroll at Wilson's Prom when I rounded a corner to see this handsome devil on the path ahead.
Instead of heading towards them (and potentially scaring them off), I took a punt on where they were heading next and got myself set up. Lo and behold, they headed in my direction, and came up so close that they briefly looked like they were going to take a chomp out of my lens.
Did I ask for the shy smile? No. Am I taking full credit for it? Yes...yes I am.
Right leg kick-through
There is nothing better than discovering a subculture. Last year I started doing 'Animal Flow', which is basically a series of moves based on different animals. If you imagine a group of gymnasts, and a group of Cross-fit types meeting at a zoo and trying to torture each other...then you're not far off.
On this day, Alisha Smith was down in Melbourne to test some instructors and run some classes. Given the choice between doing the class...and taking photos of people doing the class, I chose taking photos.
One of the upsides to having done some of the classes was knowing when the best moments were going to be to take a shot...and then having someone with such perfect technique to make it look easy.
Cycling in Vietnam
In what I think will be a bit of theme in this year's photos...we went to Vietnam! As part of it we rode for 4 days through rice paddies and rocky outcrops. We also rode through about 3.98 days of rain, so I love that this photo captures both the beautiful vistas we were travelling through, as well as the constant spray of mud up the back our jackets!
Shooting on a GoPro while riding does involve a degree of taking a photo and hoping for the best...and with the lens so wide, you really need to be pedalling hard to keep the person in front of you as the focus, but this sort of scenery can make up for a what you've missed in the foreground.
The Bridal Waltz
Going to a wedding of your friends in your 20's can be a slightly tense experience. There is a LOT of pressure to not screw anything up (this is the BEST day of their lives after all), and so people are often too nervous to actually be themselves.
But weddings of people in their 40's are usually a lot more relaxed. It's often a second go at a wedding for those involved...and so they're there to have fun. This may mean that what looked liked a speech, devolves into the bridal party swarming onto the dancefloor to recreate the zombie dance sequence from 'Thriller', and then whisking the bride away.
A good photographer will be able to capture that moment (and may even be brave enough to drag the shutter to capture the movement as well). A bad photographer won't know what's happening as the Bridal party swarms towards them and very nearly gets in the way of a choreographed dance sequence.
I will do both.
On the buses
We were on a bus in Vietnam driving over a mountain range. The fog outside was so heavy that we could hardly see more the 5 metres in front of us...but it did make for some amzing diffused light. Just as I was taking a photo of the bus, Xav turned around in front of me, and I snapped this pic.
I know that if I had tried to pose this, it would never have worked, but sometimes the photography gods smile on you.
The farmer is strong in him
Every year we head to my Uncle Pat's farm for an early Christmas get together. We've been there in drought and in windy heat, but this year everything was green and growing. On the traditional post-lunch walk I snapped this pic of one of my cousin's sons. His dad is a farmer...and the stance, and look of wary concern is clearly genetic.
Hanoi streets
I know what you're thinking...'Chris, it's been an entire photo since you've shown-off about being in Vietnam!' Well fear not...we're back.
I think I really like this photo because it shows me that I'm learning. This street corner in Hanoi was definitely photogenic. But I chose to wait until some people walked into the shot (to give it an extra element of interest), I got down low to change the perspective, and when I did that I remembered not cut off that light in the top left of the image (that's the sort of thing I would have missed in the past, and been furious with myself later).
On the way to Fairy Cove
While I may have had my nice Fuji for the photo of the wombat...I definitely wasn't lugging it along for this hike to Fairy Cove. Which I thought I was going to regret, as the early morning light revealed this vista of the Derby River.
Thankfully, the iPhone is a pretty impressive beast, and this was the result.
Post race
Many moons ago there was a photographer taking super-shallow, close up portraits of cyclists after the big 1-day races in Europe. I really liked them as there was invariably one happy person...and a LOT of very broken and exhausted people.
This photo was taken after a loooong morning of riding in a combination of the rain and the Vietnamese countryside. We had just arrived at the spot where a bus was picking us up to drive to the next location...and the bus driver was making it clear that our filth was not a great addition to his clean bus. So while negotiations raged between him and our tour guide, I snapped this photo of Josh.
As a complete aside, our guide had told us the night before our first day of riding that he was preparing some special 'lamb juice' for us. He insisted that this was always very popular with cycling tours, and had a lot of salt and other minerals added to it.
It's fair to say that up until that point I had not seen a single sheep in Vietnam...and was certainly not sure how 'lamb juice' was going to help our cycling. But maybe it was some form of 'bone broth'? Either way, it's a testament to Aussie politeness, that at our first drink stop when he showed us a water cooler full of 'lamb juice', quite a few of us were willing to give it a shot.
It turned out to be 'lime juice'...and was indeed delicious.
Street portrait
As the negotiations between the tour guide and the bus driver continued loudly in a tiny town on the way to Ninh Binh, this guy arrived on his scooter. The sight of a group of mud-spattered Australians standing around a bus was clearly the best thing he'd seen all day. I did my best to ask if I could take his photo in Vietnamese, but his laughter implied that I had not done this. Through a lot of laughs he said 3-4 words in English, and I think one of them was 'lunch'...so I realised that charades was going to be the winner again. I pointed at my camera and then pointed at him with my face doing it's best to convey that this was a question. He laughed again and nodded, and so I snapped a few shots. The colours, especially with the flag in the background, were great, but the black and white was my fave.
I won't lie, my first instict was to just snap off a few surreptitious shots without him noticing. But I think a really important part of taking photos is connecting with people, and you won't do that snapping off photos of people when they're unaware. Plus, watching each other destroy the other person's language was a great bonding experience for the two of us.
Early evening swim
As a family we have always had a pretty clear beach schedule; the mornings hold an optional walk or surf (if the waves are good), then lunch, then an early arvo beach session, then a cup of tea, then dinner, then the News and eventually bed. At no stage was a post-dinner dip in the ocean an option.
Then my wildcard wife Katie threw it in as an option, and it is now a family favourite. Now clearly, after hours swimming means you're there without any lifeguards, so there is a presumption that you only swim when it's safe to do so. But the rewards are pretty epic. The wind has normally died down, so the waves are clean. Any warmth from the day is still in the water, and the setting sun looks amazing through the cresting waves. All you need now is a GoPro to capture a few shots!
Vietnamese landscapes
I imagine that if I had grown up in Vietnam and I saw someone get off their bike (and therefore consign themselves to at least 20 minutes of furious pedalling to catch back up to the group) to take a photo of the landscape, I may well have said 'What on earth are you doing? It's just a misty mountain range, with some rice paddies in the mid-ground and a yellow road winding towards them in the foreground!! Why are you wasting your time, when you've grown up with the majesty of Bell Street in your life? How can this even compare?!'
But that's just the joy of being a tourist, everything is new and interesting. Either way, I'm really glad I did jump off the bike to take this photo. Interestingly I took this photo and then thought 'I bet the composition would be even better if the road was in the centre leading away from the viewer'...it was not.
Fiddler in the spotlight
My daughter had a role in a local theatre production of Fiddler on the Roof. As part of the show, Tevye was walking through the audience behind the fiddler with just a single spotlight on them. I would love to say I planned this composition, and the downcast look from Tevye, but I really just got lucky.
Ha Long Bay
As part of our trip in Vietnam we spent a night on a ship in Ha Long Bay and did some activities out there. For some reason, I thought this activity was going to involve us going somewhere in kayaks, so I just packed the GoPro. But it turns out we were going for a hike through some incredible caves, and then emerging to this stunning view of the bay. 'Oh excellent!' I thought 'I'm absolutely delighted that I've brought the camera that is pretty much designed to be strapped to the chest of someone hurtling down a mountain on a bike, or skiis, or Grizzly Bear. Instead of...say...the camera back on the boat with all of the lenses.'
But sometimes you just have to play the hand you've dealt yourself, and so I took this photo on the GoPro, and it's actually a LOT wider than I would have taken normally, but works really well.
Black and white and prog-rock all over
I really love photography, and I really love live music, and I really love teaching people about photography. So last year I did a photo workshop where I talked about the fundamentals of live music photography, and then headed to a gig where Psi-Phi were playing to put the theory into practice.
This is one shot that I took that I was super happy with. I love the glow being cast by the overhead lights, and the way it looks like it's those lights that are illuminating Ryan's face.
Pretty sure that's a can of Heaps Normal in the centre of the frame...so I'm also very happy for this to be used in some form of advertising campaign.
I'm on the nightrain.
In a beautiful homage to 1980's era Guns n Roses, we caught the nightrain from Hanoi to Da Nang. This photo was taken on the morning we were arriving at Da Nang. We were snaking our way through green forests, with sea visible down below. I was trying to replicate photos I've seen where outside is a blur while inside is a still-life. But you had to hold the windows down as they were springloaded to close, so trying to co-ordinate a long exposure while also holding down the window, while also making sure you didn't fall victim to some sort of errant pole or sign or tunnel as you stuck your elbow out of the train and looked in the opposite direction, was tricky.
So I got Xav to hold down the window and act as my 'here comes a tunnel' warning system, and snapped this shot.
On an unrelated note, every now and then a cascade of water would come off the roof of the train and down into the open windows. It wasn't raining...and we were close to the toilets...I really hope the dots I joined were incorrect.
Let there be Rock!
I think I can pretty much divide my selections for this year into two categories; Vietnam, and Live Music...and to be honest, I'm pretty comfortable with that.
This shot was taken at Doggerell's album launch at Shotkickers in Thornbury. Now live music photography can be tricky, but if you've got someone with the stage presence of Keir (on the Dobro here) and the lighting of Rosie at Shotkickers, then you're job is pretty much just waiting for the moment to happen and then capturing it.
As part of my 'Yeah, but how did photographers with just 12 shots on a roll of film ever actually survive' series, I can assure you that the 5 photos before this, and the 6 after were magnificent examples of me 'not capturing it'...but it doesn't matter, because I got this one!
Self portrait...of someone else.
In our last night in Hoi An, Josh and I went out to take some photos. Outside where we were staying there was a bus-stop style illuminated ad that was throwing out a lot of light. So Josh and I took turns standing in front of it and using it to illuminate ourselves, without losing the lights of the town behind.
I love the colours in this, and look of metal on the camera...I also love that it looks like some modern version of a Vivian Maier self-portrait in a mirror or shop window.
He's not terrifying, he's my son.
We were spending a family weekend at Point Lonsdale, and I dragged our youngest out to take some photos of the lighthouse there. Lighthouses (or 'Lightheese', as I believe is the correct way to say the plural), can look bloody amazing...or they can look 'kinda fine...I guess', and this photoshoot was falling very much into the second category, so we headed down onto a nearby pier. While we were there, there was another photographer taking photos looking out to sea. I looked out there, but couldn't for the life of me see what he was taking photos of. Then he said 'Have you seen the Aurora?' and showed me the screen on his camera. Lo and behold, there it was, the Aurora Australis! It wasn't visible to the naked eye, but with a few seconds of exposure it suddenly appeared.
I took a number of photos, and they were all pretty good...then I took this photo of Xavier looking like something that was going to haunt my dreams...and I preferred it to all of the photos of the Aurora. Photography is a funny game sometimes.
Beer goggles
I've had the pleasure of taking photos of Danny Ross on numerous occasions. One of the many upsides to this is that I'm now pretty comfortable trying new things when I take photos of him performing.
This shot was taken with an empty beer glass being held in front of the lens to distort the image. I know that this could have just as easily been done in Photoshop, and I could probably have done it in AI and never even left my house...but I got to see a great gig, drink a beer, and then take this photo. So I reckon I won this one.
Quintessence
Any time you take a portrait of a person, you ultimately want to capture an image that conveys the essence of that person. When you give them posing suggestions, it can usually go one of two ways; you make them do something that is so disengenous that you lose any chance of getting a natural shot, or the very act of trying something different unlocks a moment where they forget they're being photographed.
I love this shot, because it's how I see Holly; happy, confident and enigmatic.
Give the drummer some more
There have been numerous occasions where I've had to explain to a drummer after a gig, that while I got some great shots of the singer and guitarist, my photos of them pretty much suck. This isn't entirely my fault. Drummers invariably hang out at the back of the stage where the lighting is crap, and they surround themselves with things that make it super tricky to get a clean shot.
So when I got the chance to take photos for ZOJ at their Melbourne Recital Centre gig, I was super pumped to take photos during their rehearsal, where I had free-rein to get as close to Brian (the drummer) as I wanted, without becoming a distraction to him or the audience.
It's worth noting that I don't even know what he's using as a drumstick in his right hand, but his left hand is playing some bells on a string. In another shot he has a singing bowl in one hand and is moving a marble inside to get a resonating ring...and he's only half the band!
The Prom
I won't lie. When I decided to do 23 photos for this post...I kinda forgot that I was going to have write about each one. So this has taken a LOT LONGER than I was anticipating.
With that in mind, I chose this one because I think that if someone else had shown it to me I would have said 'I wish I'd taken that shot, it's really atmospheric'.
But I did take it, so now we can all stop reading and writing and get back to whatever it was that we were meant to be doing before I embarked on a 23 photojournalism saga.
See you again for 2024!
The nightwatchman
For those of you not living somewhere the English colonised, or without an interest in Cricket...it's pretty important for you to know what a 'nightwatchman' is in Cricket.
So brace yourself for a paragraph of Cricket talk...but I promise it will get interesting after that.
In Test Cricket, the 4 or 5 day version of the game (sadly yes...there is a sport that goes for 5 days. And yes, even more sadly, it can sometimes end in a draw after 5 days), if a batting team loses a wicket with not much time left in the day's play, they will often send in a 'nightwatchman'. This is someone who is further down the list in terms of batting skills than the person who was meant to be coming in to bat. The logic is, it's better to save the person with the good batting skills for the next day when they can start fresh, than run the risk of exposing them to a few overs at the end of the day.
So the role of the nightwatchman is basically to not lose their wicket. If they want to score some runs, great! But ultimately, they will be seen to be doing their job, if they just occupy the crease until the end of the day.
So why am I giving you a fascinating insight into the nomenclature of a Cricketing term? Becuase there is a workplace equivalent...and it happens over the Christmas/New Year's period, when senior people in an organisation take a holiday and someone needs to fill their position while they're gone.
Now clearly 'backfilling a role' is something that happens through-out the year, so why is the Christmas/New Year's break different? Well, becuase it's a rare time of the year when a lot of people go on holiday, so the usual demands and stresses are alleviated...and the talent pool available to act in roles is greatly diminished. Or as I like to see it, 'Chris's time to shine!'
For as long as I've worked in the public service, I've tried to help out by backfilling these roles, and being a nightwatchman...so I thought I'd talk about some of the reasons why.
Altruism
Speaking as someone who usually exhausts their annual leave balance by the end of the year, and who took long-service leave as soon I could, I think it's fair to say that I think that time away from work is a really good thing. You're not an 'employee' you're a 'person', and time away from work helps you remember that. Best of all, a good holiday will usually see you return to work invigorated and with a new perspective you can bring to projects.
Sadly, quite often, the further up the 'org chart' your job resides, the harder it is to take a proper break. Meaning that people who really need invigoration and new perspectives, often find excuses as to why they 'just can't take a holiday right now...not with *insert name of project that seems important right now to a few people, but really isn't that important in the grand scheme of things...and will most likely still be there when you get back from any holiday you take* so close to rolling out'.
But the two weeks after Christmas are a time when everyone expects people to go on leave...all your boss, or boss's boss, needs is a safe pair of hands to hold the fort while they're away.
They don't need someone to make ground-breaking decisions, or try to do their job better than them...they just need someone to be there if needed. And I'm very happy to be that person.
Purely selfish
If you like people starting emails with 'Thanks for getting back to me', then you're going to love the way people treat any form of email that you send when you've updated your email signature to 'A/Important Person'.
You will also get to work and talk with people who have decision making power within your organisation, and that can be great for future prospects.
You will also most likely be paid more while you're acting in the role.
You can update your LinkedIn profile with the new job title, and that will trigger notifications being sent to your network suggesting people congratulate you on the new job. Although, rest assured, if you're filling in that role for anything less than 6 months and updating your job title on LinkedIn...I am judging you.
Perspective
If you're the ambitious type, who is always looking at the next step on the career ladder, then acting in your boss's role can you give you an insight into what's required if you want to move into the role when the opportunity presents itself.
Alternatively, if like me, you've come to realise that each step up the career ladder leads to a reduction in hands-on creativity, and more importantly, less time in your day to do things you actually want to do (spend time with your family, exercise, not spend time in meetings that clearly could have been emails, etc). Then acting in a role above you for a few weeks, can be a wonderful reminder of exactly why you don't want to take the next step up the org chart.
Challenge
You only grow by challenging yourself...but you also don't want to bite off more than you can chew. So taking on a new job can be like signing up for a half-marathon, whereas acting in a role over Christmas/New Years is more like doing a Parkrun, it's a challenge, but you're never more than 5km away from the finish.
The downside
Of course, there are times when the proverbial hits the fan...and suddenly you're in the hot-seat (or at least a seat closer to the heat than you would normally be). While acting in other roles I've had to deal with everything from bushfires, floods, & COVID restrictions, to Premiers wanting to send an email to all staff on New Year's Eve (I'd booked a table at a restuarant for the whole family at 7pm and was still desperately trying to co-ordinate things from my mobile as the food arrived) and a change of name for our Department that required every document, template and webpage to be updated with the new logo (good times...good times).
You will also have to make the choice between heading in to the office and facing the appalling coffee offerings available when the baristas of the world are on holiday, or staying at home and being the sad person sitting on their computer all day while the rest of the household is on holiday.
So if you're up for a bit of a challenge, or if you want to help your boss out, or even if you want to see if you can survive on Nescafe Blend 43 for a few weeks. Then I highly recommend taking up the option of acting in a role over the Christmas/New Year's period...I'd go into more detail, but I'm on holiday now while the rest of you suckers are back at work, which is of course the other massive upside to working over Christmas / New Years!
Getting out of the introverse
There was a great cartoon I saw during the many COVID lockdowns that had a first panel where an introvert was saying 'I just need some time alone to recharge my batteries' and the second panel showed them after the lockdowns and they were glowing with energy.
It's fair to say I felt 'seen'.
Oh sure, COVID did bring with it; learning from home, existential dread, increased stress on families, financial hardship, an increase in people falling down social media rabbit holes without daily interactions from people who would normally tell them to ignore that stuff, and a regrettable increase in the number of people saying 'Nice to eMeet you'.
But it did pretty much reduce to zero the number of times people were forced to attend social events where they had to listen to people talk about what school they're sending their child to, or what their renovation plans are. In fact, you could just not attend any social events, and you were considered a good person for doing that. If the doorbell rang, you were under no obligation to enter into small talk with someone, because that person was just delivering a package...not there to interrupt your solitude.
For some introverts, this trade-off seemed almost worth it.
Not me of course...I love attending your events...and couldn't be happier when you come to my door.
By late 2022 the glory times for introverts were over. While there was an initial stage of extroverts saying 'Oh my God, I think I've forgotten to be social! We had a few friends around and I was exhausted!' Unfortunately this empathy didn't extend to '...and this is how some people must feel every time they have to be social...we should limit our get-togethers to once a month!'
Nope. Gatherings and meandering small talk were back baby!
Similarly, workplaces started spruiking how great it is to be back in the office so that you can have 'meetings in person' and 'water cooler chats'...which to an introvert sounds like someone saying 'It's so great to be at this beach where we can enjoy seaweed and sunburn!'
This may have been more a case of Senior Executives (extroverts by and large) thinking 'How can my employees survive without seeing my glorious self in person?! And besides, what's the point of having an Assistant, if I still have to do my own printing and get my own coffees?! No, we really need to get back into the office!'
If 2023 was the year we 'got back to normal', it was also the year I realised that I have drifted a fair way from 'normal'.
I would say my pre-COVID life was as an introvert who had developed skills and tricks to pass as an extrovert.
I can happily talk in front of a crowd (the trick here is not to see the audience as a number of different people...but as a single 'crowd' entity. That way, much like when I'm comfortably talking to one person, I'm now just talking with this single crowd).
I can make people laugh...and it's amazing how many social faux pas people will overlook ("Boy, his hug felt it was in hostage video, and he just disappeared from the party without saying goodbye...but that joke about the current political situation and how it relates to Dachshunds...that was pretty funny!")
Most importantly, I'm happy ask questions that allow other people to talk. Introverts are often happy to talk about something that interests them...and extroverts are often happy to talk. So people rarely think you're introvert if they've been talking to for 45 minutes...even if they've been the one doing all the talking.
But during the lockdowns I didn't have to do any of this any more, and the mental muscles that I needed to do them grew weak. So when we all swung back into the habit of socialising, I was like an athlete coming back from the off-season. Or worse still, I was like an ageing athlete about to start pre-season, and wondering if they were really willing to do this all over again.
There's a great line in a Something for Kate song 'Pinstripe' where Paul Dempsey sings:
'We thought we knew it so well,
We could do it with arms tide behind our backs
And our eyes shut tight.
I thought I knew it so well, that I stopped
Now I can't start again'
I had definitely stopped, and I was really wondering if I needed to start again.
I mean, in a world where we're increasingly becoming aware of the different ways people's brains work, and looking for ways to accomodate that difference...why should I have to do the heavy lifting, just to fit in? Why do I have to go against what I do naturally?
Of course the answer is pretty simple...it's an extrovert's world. Oh sure, in 1966 James Brown sang that 'It's a man's world'...but I'm quietly confident, that if it hadn't been such a syllabic nightmare, he would have sung 'It's an extroverts world'. Extroverts are the heroes of our stories. They are the influencers whose lives we covet. They are the voice that says 'I'm saying this pretty loudly, so I'm most likely right' that cuts through to our overwhelmed brains.
They are of course, also incredibly necessary. I should know, I'm married to one. Extroverts are the ones who inspire people to follow them. Extroverts are the people who will doorknock the entire street asking complete strangers if they would support blocking off the street so that we could have a street party. Extroverts believe that people actually want to hang out with other people, and that any time this doesn't happen it's a 'tragic missed opportunity' (as opposed to the 'exact outcome' that many introverts were hoping for).
As much as it may be extroverts who feel absolutely fine about jumping on social media and saying whatever comes into their heads that encourages division...it's also extroverts who are going to organise the event where a group of people meet in real life and realise how much they have in common.
For me there is also the very real issue of the example I'm setting for my kids. While I have found great entertainment in cueing up the line from the National:
'Goodbyes always take us half an hour,
Can't we just go home?'
..to play in the car as we depart a family function where the goodbyes have taken forever. I have also found myself on multiple occasions sitting in a quiet room with one or two of my kids as a parties goes on in the house around us. Withdrawing to solitude may be the easiest and most comfortable option...but it's also going to preclude them from incredible opportunities with friends, and moments of connection with strangers.
So 2024 will be the year when I make a concerted effort to embrace more social occasions. To try and re-train my brain to embrace the outlook of the extrovert. And to show that introverts can actually be fun at parties.
But rest assured, no matter how much fun it may look like I'm having...I would probably prefer to be out on a run listening to a podcast.
This little piggy went...snap.
There is no impressive way to break your toe. It's invariably a result of stubbing it on some furniture as you wander shoe-less around your house, or of clumsily dropping something on it. I know this because I'm now 9 weeks into my broken toe journey, and every time someone has asked how I broke my toe, I would just say 'Heroically' and then hobble away, hoping their temporary bafflement would allow me to escape. Now I know that saying I broke my toe, but not explaining how I did it, really is the 'Chekhov's Gun' of toe injury related blog writing...so to avoid any distraction, I broke my toe while doing a fitness class bare-foot. We had to do a move where we kicked our leg out parallel to the ground while in a semi-squat position, and my toe caught on the ground and snapped. Proving that while not all heroes wear capes, they should perhaps at least wear shoes.
So seeing as I haven't written a blog in
*checks notes*
8 MONTHS?!! It's probably time to make sure I can still do this, so I'm no expert, but here's what I've learnt from 9 weeks with a broken toe.
Our medical system is a bit like my toe
When I was getting the x-ray done for my toe, the radiologist was saying it's unlikely that I'd broken it, it was probably just badly bruised...then he saw the x-ray and said 'Ah shit! Nah, that's broken!' Now look...was I perhaps hoping for both better news, and perhaps a less candid way of telling me? Yes. But I'm also feeling that our public health system may be in a similar way.
Now don't get me wrong. Much like me with a broken toe, most of the health system is still fine...but there were a few niggles, and really what better place to vent my petty grievances than on a blog predominately read by my wife, parents and a selection of Yr 12 Coburg students?!
I know how over-run our Emergency Departments are, so I was keen to just go to my local GP. But in reality there were no bookings there for a few days, so I went to nearby clinic where you can just wait to see a doctor. As someone who has spent most of their life getting bulk-billed, it was sobering to see how few GPs can offer it now, and how much it can cost. Especially when you need to see a doctor to confirm you need an X-ray, then go and get the X-Ray, and then go back to the doctor in order for them to tell you that your toe is broken.
It also kinda sucked having the first Doctor tell me that it would take 4-6 weeks to heal, and that I would have to wear a moonboot for this time. No cycling either...but I could swim, so long as I didn't push off from the end of the pool.
Then when I went back at 5 weeks to get another x-ray, a different doctor told me that it was healing well, but that of course it takes 8-12 weeks for a toe to heal and that I shouldn't be doing any walking, running or cycling.
Now I totally realise that no Doctor is going to say 'Yeah, you can probably get back into some light running if doesn't hurt' as then it's their problem if I further injure it. But at the same time, I reckon my Achilles would have atrophied if I'd worn a moonboot for as long as they recommended.
Plus the blank stares that came back each time I said that exercise was really important to my mental health...was frustrating to say the least. I genuinely felt as though they were thinking 'We're giving you an excuse not to exercise for 4-12 weeks...what more do you want from us?!'
For the record, I did make sure I wore shoes at all times around the house to ensure I didn't stub my toe...and I didn't run until week 6. But Chris did not wear a moon-boot...and he was well and truly back to riding to work within a week.
At week 9 I've done a few 10km runs and played 5 minutes of basketball at an end of season presentation night for the basketball team I coach.
Putting your toe in other people's shoes
Do you know what really sucks?
When you can see that a set of pedestrian lights is about to go green, but you can't run to get them.
Or when you crouch down to take a photo and suddenly realise that if you stand up in your normal way, you will put a whole lot of pressure on your broken toe and so have to do an elaborate manoeuvre that looks a LOT like an baby giraffe trying to stand up.
Or when, having spent the last 5 years with your weight fluctuating 'wildly' between 71kg and 72kg, you suddenly look down to see that you weigh 74kg.
And especially when you have a problem that no one else can see, but is making your life a freaking misery.
Do you know what's really great?
Knowing that there is finite time that all of these things will be affecting you.
So just a massive note of support to everyone out there who is fighting these things without any end date. Whether you're fighting poor mental health, or a chronic injury, or just getting old...you're a champion!
Take the reset
If two and a bit years of COVID have taught us anything, it's that sometimes you have to take the opportunity to reset. Going back to square one is never fun, but it might be an opportunity to do things differently, or bring people along for the ride.
So here's to more runs and bike rides with friends and family!
Best photos of 2022
I'm on holidays, so it's time to compile my favourite photos from last year. It's a wonderful time for me to reflect on the year that's just past, reminisce about good times...and in the wake of COVID, say 'Wait...was that last year? I thought that was two years ago...or 6 months in the future!'
As per usual these aren't in any particular order other than 'let's not have all of the beach/band/black and white photos next to each other'. But if there's a theme to this year's selection it's probably 'trying something new'. Quite a few of these leapt out at me as I was going through my '4&5 star' rated photos in Lightroom, because I remembered trying something new to achieve them.
So if you're on holiday, sit back and have a read...and if you're back at work, pretend you're doing research, either way, enjoy!
GoPro through sunglasses
On the beach at Warrnambool on a stinking hot day I was noticing how much better everything looked through my sunglasses. So I thought I'd put the GoPro behind my sunglasses lens and see how it looked. 'Chaotic' is probably the answer. The colours are all over the place, the light is baffling, and I have NO IDEA why there is that weird shadowing around the the arms. BUT, if I had achieved this result on purpose, I would have been super proud of myself, so the next best thing is to claim a mistake as a success...then hope that no-one asks me to replicate it!
Spontaneous surf selfie
If there are two things I usually avoid, it's selfies and spontaneity. So the fact that this is one of my favourite photos from last year, really does speak volumes. We were down at Sandy Point in late January and after dinner, made an impromptu decision to go for a surf. The sun was sitting low on the horizon, the light was incredible, the surf was great, and for one quick second we were all in the same place at the same time and I took this shot.
If you've ever taken a photo of someone, you know how hard it can be to get a genuine smile...and if you've ever worked as a photographer, you'll know how hard it is to get a photo where everyone looks happy at the same time. So as a photographer, this is a great keepsake...and as a parent, it's everything!
When in Rone
I do genuinely think that this is an objectively good photo. It's someone in a great outfit, striking a great pose, in a great setting.
But for it to happen, visual artist RONE had to have created this incredible installation above Flinders Street Station, and I had to have taken the unusual step of booking Katie and I in for a social event (a trip into the city to see RONE's work), and while we waited in the queue to be let in, Katie had to have started up a chat with Helen and her son and said that I would take a photo of her inside, and I would have to have a GFX100S in my hands because Fuji had loaned it to me for another project, and while we were walking the around the installation I would have to see Helen and compose this shot, and then with such a great subject, in such an aesthetically engaging environment and with a very expensive camera, I would have to not stuff up the photo. If any one of these elements hadn't coalesced, this photo would never have happened.
But they did...and I love it!
Trainspotting meets Bladerunner
From memory it was raining for most of November, and repeated trips past Coburg station in various forms of precipitation had left me with the thought that there were some good photo opportunities there.
All it would require was; me leaving the comfort of the house on a rainy night, me taking the time to actually set up a good photo, and of course me being willing to be 'that creepy guy taking photos of a train station at night'.
Needless to say, the chances of this actually happening were very slim. So I was very proud of myself for actually heading out and taking the photos, and really happy with how they came out.
But the real joy was posting it online and hearing from people who had worked on the redevelopment of the station, or had designed the lighting for the station, or were just proud Coburgers/Coburgians/Coburinians?
You just never know what is going to connect with people...so get out there and take those shots!
Rock and/or Roll
One of my big photographic focuses for 2022 was to shoot more live gigs, with a view to getting proper accreditation to do it 'for realz'. So when I saw that Body Type were playing at The Brunswick Ballroom, I pulled what strings I could (aka got in contact with Cecil the drummer, who I used to work with) and got myself on the door to take photos.
Having shot photos of John Flanagan a few weeks earlier in the same venue, I was confident I could get a few good shots. And when Cecil told me 'This could get pretty loose tonight!', I knew I was in for a great night.
Body Type are a freaking amazing live band, and there was a LOT of energy in the room.
This photo is the one I keep coming back to. It's definitely not one that jumps straight out at you, but I just love the pose. I had set myself up so I was shooting between to people (that's why there is so much black around her...that's actually the people right in front of me blocking out the rest of the picture), and I certainly didn't plan for the lights to turn red just as she did this pose...but I'm very glad they did!
Black, white and live
If I could spend the rest of my days taking photos like this, I would be incredibly happy. Obviously I love black and white shots, and I love taking photos of musicians...but in this case, I had also worked with the band in rehearsals and developed a rapport. Because of this I was able to be on stage to take the photo them as they performed...and so suddenly it wasn't all just 'up the nose of the lead singer' shots, and I was able to bide my time and wait for the shot.
John is a contemplative performer...and his decision to book the Brunswick Ballroom for the gig (and play with a 6 piece band!) was a big swing after two years of no live gigs as a result of COVID restrictions. So to not only see him in his element, in front of an appreciative crowd, but to also be able to capture it, was a real privilege.
Silhouettes and sunsets
One of my favourite jobs for the year was shooting some portraits of the wonderful Sue Johnson. Now clearly the vast majority of the photos were ones where you could actually see Sue...but this one, where we had headed to the slightly flooded grasslands of Coburg, was the one that as soon as I set up the shot, I knew was going to be a keeper!
The late afternoon Winter sun just peeking through, the blue sky and the movement of her hand *chef's kiss*!
Comfort zone
It's probably a testament to my lack of skill as a videographer, that the whole time I was setting up for this video interview, my main thought was 'This would make a great photo!'
I love taking photos of people in their homes (and to clarify, I love doing this when I am in their homes with them for the purpose of taking photos...not just lurking outside with a long lens!) I get to see the place with a fresh eye and see the things you miss when you've lived in a place for more than 3 months...and they get to sit in a space where they're in control.
I think there's a fair bit of relief that the video interview was over in his face...and bemusement that a complete stranger was asking him to stare out a window. If there was a thought bubble it would say 'If I just do this...then he will leave'.
He was of course wrong...I overstayed my welcome by at least another 3 hours!
Maps and chats
This one was taken as part of the same project as the photo of Phil, where I was trying to capture the essence of Carol's relationship with her parents. One of Lyn's favourite memories was a trip she and Carol took to Italy, so I looked to capture that idea of both planning for, and reminiscing about, that trip.
I love the way the maps and travel books tell a story, and I'm so glad I used the vase with the Irises to frame Carol...but it's the way the smiles look so relaxed, comfortable, and authentic that makes me the happiest.
Can I get a light check?
I had a very specific idea for a portrait I wanted to shoot, and had borrowed a friend's light to shoot it. So I spent an hour or so doing a practice run, and roped my daughter and niece into posing for me.
I cannot begin to describe how much this was exactly the light I was going for...and how far away I was when I took the actual shot with the actual people. So I'm keeping this photo as a reminder that I can get the light that I want...just not necessarily when I want it.
Also, if this isn't the album cover for their debut EP, I will be furious.
Splashdown
On this day Josh had ridden just over 200kms from Preston to Sandy Point...and this was him getting into the surf for a cool-down. On a metaphorical level, this was a teenager who loves exercise and the outdoors who had just come up for air after 2 years of lockdowns.
To me this is a perfect portrait of relief and renewal.
Flinder's Street Station
I've lived in Melbourne all of my 47 years... but I reckon I've been in to the city to take photos 3 times in my life. If I'm staying in any other city I will religiously take my camera and get some photos. But for some reason I have a blind spot with my home city...probably because it's always there, so there's never any urgency to make a trip in.
In December I was due to return the GFX I'd borrowed from Fuji, and so I thought it was probably high time I headed in to the CBD and get some photos.
After about two hours of taking a series of photos that were very nearly good...but were just lacking something. I decided to just embrace my inner tourist and take a photo of the iconic Flinder's Street Station.
As soon as turned the corner of Swanston St I saw this incredible purple dusk sky. I rested the camera on a the edge of a bench so that I could drag the shutter a little and then waited for a tram to trundle through and give me a snapshot of Melbourne...this city loves me so much, it gave me two!
Thanks for indulging this trip down memory land. Now it's time to relax, and make some plans for 2023!
Self portr-AI-t
Why I'm dabbling in AI
One of the hardest parts of working in the creative arts is being able to make the jump when technology changes. Sometimes it's a change of software; Final Cut to Premiere or Quark to InDesign. Sometimes it's hardware; from film to digital, or from big cameras to DSLR's to phones. Sometimes it's a change in what audiences want; from website videos to Tik Tok.
The challenge of course is that you never know what is going to be the next leap forward, and what is going to be a jump into obsolesence. Have you learnt to how to make great vertical videos...or are you now the proud owner of a $10K steadicam rig that lies dormant while other people use a $300 gimbal.
These choices are amplified as you get older, as you normally have a number of existing responsibilities, and so following one of these new ideas isn't so much 'a chance to learn for the sake of learning' as it is something that you're going to have to make sacrifices in another area of life in order to accomodate this new interest.
Listening to Chris Marquardt on his 'Tips From The Top Floor' photography podcast got me thinking about Artificial Intelligence (AI) in photography...and wondering if this could be the next big leap.
So what is AI photography?
Ever wondered what an angry avacodo on a skateboard in Paris would look like? Well AI can create multiple versions of that. And if you also want to see what that would look like if Rembrandt had painted it...or if it was in a White Stripes video clip, or if H R Giger had created it while using Ketamine and drinking Pink Rabbits...AI can create that as well.
It basically takes a massive number of images and uses machine learning to create artwork based on whatever prompts you put it.
Clearly the success of this is based on:
a) the images the machine learning has access to,
b) the ability of the user to create prompts that the machine learning understands, and,
c) the processing power and intelligence of the machine learning to create something that is actually what the user is after.
Parts a) and c) are clearly the domain of the AI tool that you're using...but the ability to write prompts that it can use, is a skill you can learn...and so that's what I set about doing.
Using Astria.ai
The platform I went with was Astria.ai as it was one of the more user friendly options for those of us who can't code.
I uploaded about 15 photos of me from my phone, from a variety of angles and in a variety of environments, and then let the tool use some of its default prompts to create some images of me.
I think it's fair to say my expectations were pretty low, most of the examples I had seen to this point were on social media, and were very much of the 'Ermagerd! What is even happening with this?!' variety. So I was genuinely surprised when at least three of the images made me think 'I wish I'd taken that photo!'
Now, was this because they made me look about 15 years younger and with cheekbones you could juice an orange on? Yes...that certainly didn't hurt.
But ultimately, I actually really liked the way they looked, and I have to stress, this wasn't a case of just taking one of my images and putting it in a different context...none of these images of my face existed before, let alone the feathers and accouterments that accompanied them!
But what does this mean for photography?
Once I got past the 'Machine learning does the darnedest things!' stage, I started to think about what it meant for one part of photography that I love - portraiture.
At its most base form, when I take a portrait of someone, I bring together a range of elements (the person, the environment, the lighting), capture them with a machine (a digital camera), and then use software to bring that photo to life (adjust the contrast, make it black and white, add a vignette, etc).
Is that really so different from what this AI tool had just done?
What would happen if I entered one of these photos in a portrait competition?
What it the line between 'digitally enhanced' and 'artificially created'?
I didn't actually know...but it did give me a great idea for a portrait!!
The portrait
Any time I look at the work of great portrait photographer (Simon Schluter...I'm looking at you!) I'm always really impressed by the way they can build an image from the ground up in order to tell a story.
I'm very comfortable just capturing an image of someone and hoping it tells a story, but actually setting out from the get go to tell a specific story with a photo, and building everything around it...that's really not a strength I have.
But I suddenly had a vision of an image where I was surrounded by the AI portraits of me, as a reflection of what I was wondering about what the future held as a photographer. When I came up with the idea of the title 'Self portrAIt'...I knew I had to make this happen.
The first step was to get a selection of the AI portraits printed in a way that I could use for a photo. I went with canvas prints with a wooden frame so that I could stand them up, or hang them from something.
Next step was to work out a background. In my dreams it was a big, austere room with the photos suspended around me...given the complete absence of large austere rooms available with a budget of $0, I settled for a white sheet suspended behind me in our backyard, with the photos suspended from the monkey bars the kids used to play on.
Artistically, I was going to shoot with my trusty softbox so that I could make it look dramatic by just picking me and the photos up with the flash, while everything else fell off to black/grey.
Technically, I was going to shoot it on the GFX 100S I had on loan from Fuji for another project...and the GF32-64mmF4 lens (equivalent to a wide angle lens on a full frame camera).
Cool plan...so how did it go?
As you would expect...badly. First of all, screwing little hooks through canvas into wooden frames is about as much fun as it sounds...but perhaps more importantly, securing these frames to monkey-bars via fishing line is a freaking nightmare, and the fishing line just cuts through masking tape, and was slipping through the electrical tape we had. It is only through the patience of Josh (my eldest son) and the wonders of gaffer tape that were were able to suspend them where we wanted them.
The next weird problem was that the wide-angled lens that I had thought would be perfect...was actually too wide, and was showing a lot more of the monkey bars and sheet than I had hoped. Fortunately I also had the GF80mm F1.7 lens to work with...and it was a freaking revelation!
Last but not least, having waited for the sun to go down sufficiently so that the white sheet background didn't have any bright spots on it, and my flash wasn't having to work overtime trying to knock out too much ambient light. My flash decided now would be the perfect time to ignore my wireless triggers, and not fire when I pressed the shutter.
* Insert gif from Brooklyn 99 of Peralta saying 'Cool...cool, cool, cool' *
So we reset the camera to work with the natural light, and Josh diligently took multiple photos while tried a variety of poses and facial expressions.
It's a testament to my inability to self-direct facial expressions, and the frankly dazzling file sizes on the GFX100S that we managed to fill a 128GB card with photos that were roughly 5% different from each other!
The result
After going through hundreds of photos that felt like they were exactly the same photo...I came down to these as my faves.
Huge props go to Katie for getting me to actually interact with the pictures in that first one. Where most of my photoshop attempts look like bad photos...thanks to the fishing line, this photo was suddenly looking a bad photoshop. But actually getting my hands on them, showed that there weren't just digitally inserted.
So now the million dollar question -Which is your favourite and why?
Backstage pass - Part 3: The gig
So I'd had my idea, and I'd done my rehearsal...but now it was time to bring it all together for the gig.
So on a chilly Melbourne evening I headed along to the Brunswick Ballroom as John and his band were getting ready.
There were so many questions running through my head:
Was having access to the band going to make for better photos?
Were they still going to talk to me after seeing the photos I took?
What's it like to stay up past 10.30pm on a weeknight?
There was only one way to answer these questions - with a blog!...written about 2 months after the gig...because life got really busy...and The National STILL haven't called!
The gear
I was very selective with the gear that I took...in that I selected every bit of gear that I had, and took it.
So this meant I carried:
- X-T1 body
- X-T4 body
- 16mm f1.4
- 10-24mm f4
- 35mm f1.4
- 50-140mm f2.8
- 56mm f1.2
I did 'um' and 'ah' about taking the 10-24mm and the 50-140mm ...but my decision to take them was 100% vindicated by the 0 photos I took with the 10-24mm and the 2 photos I took with the 50-140mm. On the bright side, my shoulders were stoked with carrying the extra weight all night for no apparent reason.
My big lesson from the night was that I should have just taken my prime lenses and shot on those. I would almost have said that I could have gone with just the 16mm and the 56mm...but three of my favourite shots from the night were taken on the 35mm.
As Zack Arias says 'There's just a bit of magic in that lens!'
The support
Now admittedly we all have busy schedules, and after 2 years of lockdowns, some of us are still trying to limit the amount of time we spend in crowds. But it is 100% worth your while to get there early enough to take photos of the support act. It's a great trial run to see what is going to work when the main act comes on stage, and no up-and-coming muso is ever going to say 'Nah, I'm good for photos' if you send them the shots you took. In fact you may be the person they contact as their career starts to take off!
Of course, John didn't have an 'up-and-comer' as his support...he had the incredibly talented Maggie Rigby. So I was always going to have someone who was giving an incredible performance. But I'm still really happy with the shots I got...especially as some of them worked incredibly well with a single perfomer, but failed dismally when John and his band were on stage.
Shoot early, shoot often
I think a lot of people taking photos of gigs dream of taking iconic photos like the ones of Iggy, or Kurt, or Patti that they had seen growing up. And yes, these were all probably taken by someone who had two rolls of film that allowed them to take 24 photos for the night. And yes, 'you should never spray and pray', 'you should always take the time to compose the shot and shoot it once', and 'it's no good just filling up hard-drives with useless shots'.
But if I need to shoot a whole lot of shots to get the one I'm after...then so be it. It's not like I'm demanding that people look through all of my shots.
No.
I'm just taking multiple photos of a very similar shot, then cursing myself when I get home to find that I've taken over 550 photos...and no one even got married! Then I'm spending an inordinate time switching between two versions of the shot and saying 'I really like the singer's hair in this one...but the bass player's eyes are open in this one...I think I'll just keep them both!'
BUT, so much of what I'm trying to achieve with my photos is to capture a moment that encapsulates the energy of the performance...and sometimes, that moment is there and gone before you can even take the shot.
This is one of my favourite shots from the gig, as it really captures John's energy and committment. But I can tell you that the photos taken 1 second before and after, just don't have the same energy. So if I have to delete 50 photos out of Lightroom just to get this one...then no amount of 'photographer snobbery' is going to stop me!
Hiring gear
My wide lens is the 10-24mm f4. For non-photographers, this means the lens goes from 10mm (which is very wide and great for photos of urban landscapes or sports like BMX and skating where you're trying to get a lot into a shot) to 24mm (great for landscape shots and group photos), and at f4, it's great in full-light, but starts to struggle in low-light.
Most live venues are 'low light', and so if you're trying to capture a moment with minimal blur you're probably shooting about 1/125...and really ramping up the ISO. As a result, I only use this lens if I'm trying to capture the whole band on stage, and very rarely for action shots.
I knew I had permission to get as close to the band as I liked, and I really wanted to get some up-close action shots...and so I fell down a rabbit-hole of YouTube videos on the 16mm f1.4 lens.
In the end I decided that this lens was exactly what I needed. But at about $1,000, it would be insane to buy it just to take band photos. The smart and pragmatic thing to do would be to hire the lens for $50 every time I needed it. That way, I could do 20 gigs before I had incurred the same cost as buying it outright! It's this kind of considered and emotionally constrained thinking that makes me such a great businessman.
So I hired the lens for the night, loved it so much that I went out and bought one the next week.
Take that pragmatism!!!
*sigh*
Tell a story
John had given me access to the band before the gig, I'd spent time with them so they knew who I was, I could get as close to the band on stage as I wanted. So, how could I use all of this to not just take photos of the show...but tell the story of the night? The short answer was, 'take the photos of the little moments'. In a social media landscape that rewards the big and flashy moment...it can be hard to take the time to capture the little moments, that make up the big story.
Post-script
Thankfully every photo that I take is perfect and needs absolutely no work in Lightroom...but if I were the sort of person who spends a LOT of time deciding on which black and white preset to use, then I would say I lent very heavily on Chris Orwig's presets for these shots.
His 'BW strong v1' and 'Add snap' presets are usually my 'go-tos'...but for this show, some of his film simulations 'Film Classic Warm Plus' and 'Film Cross processed' really made the shots pop, and gave them an almost 70's Rock vibe.
So was it worth it?
I honestly don't think I could be happier with how it all went.
I got to work with some incredible local musicians, and take a peek behind the curtain to see how it all works.
I got to challenge myself creatively, and learn a hell of a lot that I would never have known if I hadn't taken the risk.
I captured some great photos on the night (click on the image below for the full shotlist): 
and I got other gigs after shooting this one (again, click the image to see the gallery: 
AND I now have a portfolio of shots to use for future photo accreditation: https://www.twodegrees.com.au/live-music
But best of all, I got to see an artist at the top of his game, breathing musical life back into the city I love!
Backstage pass - Part 2: The rehearsal
On a recent project for work I was interviewing teachers who had been working for 40, 50 and 55 years. One of the things that really stuck with me was a teacher saying that they got to the end of each year thinking they were getting the hang of it...but that they spent their entire careers with that feeling because they 'Didn't know what they didn't know'. So at the end of each year they knew that they knew more...but that had shown them what they didn't know and needed to learn.
Shooting this rehearsal was VERY much the same thing for me!
So having told you about the idea behind this project, let me take you through the rehearsal.
What I knew I knew
Shooting in low light environments is never fun. Admittedly, most venues where you shoot live music are low light environments...but they make up for this by at least having lights on the performers. Rehearsal studios on the other hand give exactly zero shits about the insane ISO levels you're going to have to use to get your photos.
BRACE YOURSELF FOR A PARAGRAPH OF RANDOM COMBINATIONS OF NUMBERS, LETTERS AND PHOTO JARGON!
My wide angle is a 10-24mm f4 lens. I normally find that to make sure every shot of a moving musician isn't blurry, my minumum frame rate is 1/125...but with f4, I was having to go to 1/30 and hope the IBIS did its job.
I shot on all my lenses (50-140mm f2.8, 35mm f1.4 and 56mm f1.2), and when I went back through the photos, it was the 35mm and the 56mm that did the best work. But even then the ISO was often around 2,000 which saw me going to black and white quite a bit to hide the noise.
For the non-photographers reading this, a lens with a lower f number, means it lets in more light. In my case, the 56mm F1.2 lens, which is considered a 'portait lens', was the lens that let in the most light.
I can't say this often enough, the 56mm is amazing for low-light photography!
Politeness vs photography - If you're one of those people who can walk up to a complete stranger in the street and just take a photo of them, then this next para isn't for you.
But if you're someone with even a little humanity, it can be really hard to find that balance between getting the shot you want, and not encroaching on the space of the person you're photographing. After all, if John had to choose between me getting a good shot, and one of his band members nailing their part...I'm quietly confident my artistic aspirations were going to come a distant second.
So I spent the first hour or so just getting wider shots or shooting on my zoom lens. Then as it got less weird to have someone in the room taking photos, I moved in closer and took some portraits.
Musicians are great to photograph - I have no confidence in my ability to get people to pose for a photo...but I do trust myself to capture a moment if they give me one, and musicians always give me one...no...wait...that came out wrong!
Look, all I'm trying to say is that musicians give you shots like this:
What I didn't know I didn't know
Trombonists are hard to photograph - If you're tight enough to get their face, then you're going to lose the slide...but if you get all of the slide, then it's a really wide shot.
Plus if you get it on the wrong angle the bell covers their face.
I guess I should just be happy that I'm not taking photos of the 76 trombones in the big parade.
It's the notes that aren't played that make good photos - I got into the habit of putting down the camera each time the band would stop playing. But that meant I missed a lot of the collaboration and discussion between the band members. At the end of the day, photos of people dressed casually, playing their instruments in a room with terrible lighting...are going to be, at best, poor versions of the photos I was hoping to get at the live show.
So I had to make sure I got some of the shots that showed the process of the rehearsal as a document of the day.
The end result
I was super happy with the photos I got. I probably could have got up closer to the musicians and really taken advantage of the opportunity of being in the room with them...but at the same time, I was there to take photos at their rehearsal. They weren't there to play instruments in my photoshoot.
I also wish there wasn't so much ISO noise in the photos, but outside of setting off a flash at regular intervals or bringing in a light, I don't think I was going to avoid this.
You can see the full gallery here:
https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjzS4tB
Best of all, John was really happy with them...and the rest of the band all still spoke to me at the gig! Which gig? Well that's what I'll be talking about in the next post.
Backstage pass - Part 1: The idea
I think it's fair to say that I've always been a vicarious musician. The harsh truth of not having any musical ability has not stopped me from occupying as many music adjacent roles as possible.
I've done radio, driven DJ's to gigs, managed perfomers, made video clips...I've even done a University degree in Music Industry. If the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame was to open a 'Person who has done the most music related things without ever playing a note' category, I would be in with a STRONG chance of being inducted.
So why do I love working with musicians? Is it partially because I hope that some of their talent will rub off on me, and suddenly I'll be playing to sold-out arenas? Yes, of course. But also, they act as a constant reminder that there is an alternative to the 9-5 world I inhabit. A world where you start work when other people are going to bed, a world where writing passionately about things that piss you off is seen as genius and not a potential HR issue, and of course a world where each time you finish part of your job, people are obliged to applaud.
But of course, it's also a world where your livelihood is reliant on cramming as many people as possible into a confined space and getting them to yell and scream. Which is not ideal during a pandemic of an airborne virus.
The sad reality is that musicians have been doing it incredibly tough over the last two years. Live gigs have only just started again in earnest, the 2c per track they get from streaming services isn't really the same as selling a $10 CD at show, and Bo Burnham's 'Inside' on Netflix showed that whether you're a musician, videographer or stand-up comedian...he's better at it than you.
Plus the government made it PRETTY clear, that when it comes to showing support for people doing it tough, artists can pretty much get stuffed...they chose this lifestyle anyway!!
So I was keen to come up with a way to support local musicians. A quick review of my finances revealed that I could not bankroll a series of concerts...but I could take some photos of musicians, that they could then use to promote their shows.
When I saw that local singer/songwriter John Flanagan was putting on a show where he was hiring the Brunswick Ballroom and putting together a 7-piece band, I knew that this was exactly the sort of endeavour I wanted to support.
Altruism?
Wow Chris! You sure are generous! Looking to help musicians, without getting anything for yourself!! Children should be studying you in school!!!
Um, yeah...about that. This was definitely not pure altruism. Having been invited to shoot a few gigs for friends, I had to tried to get a photo pass to shoot the HoldSteady at the Croxton Hotel...and couldn't even get a response from the promoter. In short, without a magazine or website saying 'He's shooting for us!' I couldn't even shoot the show for free! And without a decent portfolio of shots, I couldn't really expect The National to call and say 'Chris! These shots you took on your phone from the crowd have convinced us that YOU are the one we want documenting our next tour!!'
So when I reached out to John to see if I could shoot his show, one of the first things I asked was whether I could have backstage access to get some shots before the show, and could I get some shots from on the stage?
Basically, I wanted the chance to get shots that the audience couldn't. I wanted to be able to tell the story of the show, and that meant shooting from both the audience's perspective and from the band's perspective...and did I dream of getting a shot of the band, with the lights flooding onto them and crowd mesmerised by the performance? Yes...yes I did.
Reaching out
I really should take a step back, because 'when I reached out to John' really does make it seem like this was easy. But rest assured that sending a DM via Instagram to someone you've never actually met and saying 'can I come and take photos of you?' is NOT easy.
But I had a few things working in my favour;
- while I had never met John...Katie (my wife) knew him, so I wasn't going in totally cold.
- one of my regular dog walks actually went right past his house, so if he said 'no', I could train our dog to crap on his lawn.
- he's a folk musician, and these really are the Canadians of the music world...so he would be too polite to say 'no'.
- I genuinely felt that this was mutually beneficial. I've done jobs where I've felt that I had got the better side of the deal...and I've done jobs where I felt like I had been exploited. This one felt like a happy medium where we were both going to benefit.
Thankfully John agreed. Not only did John agree to me shooting the gig, he also invited me along to a rehearsal the band were doing...and that will be the focus of the next blog.
Passing the baton
If there's been a non-selfish reason for trying to stay fit in my 40's, it's been to be able to train with my kids if they ever set their sights on some sort of foolish physical endeavour. I mean, what sort of teenager doesn't want to push the limits of their physical endurance, while also listening to their Dad bang on about past glories?
Basically I would be part Yoda and part Mr. Miyagi (from Karate Kid), passing on sage advice, and talking in a way that becomes less cute and endearing the more I speak.
In this fantasy, I was the one providing the slipstream on the bike when they were tired, or pacing them through a long run...or looking more appetising to sharks on an open water swim. There may come a time when I realised that I had done such a good job that they were actually better than me...but this would be years down the track, and would of course be a moment of celebration and magnanime.
So about a year ago Josh started getting passionate about cycling. Pretty soon he was doing rides of over 100kms, then he had a better bike than me...then he RODE TO SANDY POINT! (which is a ride I had always written off as being too tough). So I felt that it was time for the wise sensei to step in and arrange for us to do our first organised ride together.
The Giro Della Donna
The ride I chose was the Giro Della Donna, which is a 125km ride that features a climb up Mt Donna Buang. I chose this ride because:
a) I'd done it before, so could pass on some information (or keep it to myself if I was feeling petty)
b) The people who do the ride are a great group of people, so Josh would feel supported as he tried desperately to stay on my wheel as we did the final mountain climb
c) The ride is primarily uphill...and while I don't have a 'strength' in cycling, going uphill is certainly my 'least weakness'
So we signed up and I set about finding reasons why I couldn't train (moving out of home while our kitchen was being renovated was a brilliant first step). After all, my one abiding memory of the first time I did this ride was thinking 'the next time I do this, I'm not going to come in underdone', and I have no intention of learning from my mistakes.
Training
The first proper training ride we did was an 80km ride from Mount Martha to Ivanhoe. Pretty much straight out of the gate I realised that not only was Josh much stronger on the flat sections, but he also had my measure on the climbs, and was fearless on the descents. Instead of me taking the lead and him sitting on my wheel, I found myself tucked in behind him for large sections of the ride.
But I still had an ace up my sleeve. Years of riding long distances had taught me how to conserve energy, and so when we came to the final hill, I knew I would be able to jump out of the saddle and show that this old dog still had a bit left in him.
We hit the final hill and Josh effortlessly left me for dead on the climb, in a way that could only have been more devastating if I had actually gone backwards down the hill as he accelerated away.
I was starting to wonder if there was a scene I had missed in Karate Kid where Daniel beat the living crap out of Mr Miyagi.
We then did a training ride up to Kinglake. Perhaps a long sustained climb would be where my Cadel Evans diesel engine would show up his Tadej Pogacar youthful enthusiasm.
No.
Instead Josh headed off up the climb and offered to circle back when he passed me on the descent to do the rest of the climb with me.
Fortunately, I wasn't so far behind him that this was necessary. But I was starting to re-evaluate just how much 'support' I was going to be for Josh for the big ride.
On our final training ride I ended up breaking a spoke and limping home on a very wobbly back wheel that needed to be replaced. In terms of metaphorical portents...the wheels quite literally falling off...seemed a little on the nose.
But at the same time, Josh and I had enjoyed some great rides together, we had seen early morning hot-air balloons sailing over the Eastern Freeway, and I had finally gone for some rides that weren't just me sitting on the trainer watching episodes of 'F1 - Drive to survive' on the iPad.
The ride itself
By the time the ride came around, I knew that I simply didn't have the legs to keep up with Josh. So I was left with three choices:
a) asking Josh to ride with me for the first 90kms and then let him do the gravel section and climb up Mount Donna Buang by himself
b) try desperately to stay with Josh for as long as possible and then just hope I still had the stamina to finish the ride when he disappeared into the distance.
c) let Josh do his own ride, and pass the baton to the new generation.
I initially went with option 'a', as when I did the ride last time there was a photo booth at the top of the climb and I really wanted to get a shot of us together...but didn't want him to freeze to death waiting for me...and I figured at best he would be 20mins ahead of me by the end of the gravel and climb. So this would be a good compromise of riding together, and him getting to challenge himself.
But, if you're hoping for one of those inspirational stories where the wiley old fox actually has an amazing day and rides with the young pup the whole way...this is not one of those stories.
Just 10kms into the ride, Josh very politely told me that it 'might be hard for us to stick together'. I agreed and looked for a metaphorical baton to pass on to him...but when I looked back, he was already about 200m ahead of me...and by the time I reached the climb up Donna Buang about 4 hours later, he was just about at the finish line.
So what does it mean?
Well, the fragile middle-aged man in me wants to say 'He beat me by nearly 2 hours!' But that's a pretty shitty perspective. The truth of the matter is, we've found a passion that we share. As a result of that, we got to head out on bikes and spend hours exploring Victoria together. And when it came to the actual ride, I was humble enough to realise that he was fitter and stronger than me...and he was polite enough to wait for me at the finish and cheer me on!
The COVID-19 lockdowns may have robbed me of the few months when I was going to be stronger than Josh on the bike, but they also brought us a lot closer together as people.
I don't know if it's irony or serendipity, but the part of the ride that I had resigned myself to be riding alone for (the gravel section along the Acheron Way and the climb up Donna Buang), were actually the best parts of the ride for me! I got to meet Simon Gerrans. I rode the entire gravel section with two other guys, and we chatted the whole time...and then I got chatting to someone else on the climb up Mt Donna Buang. None of us were never going to light-up the leaderboard, or be smashing out massive watts that we could gloat over on Strava. We were just gentlemen of a certain age, riding bikes and enjoying each other's company.
'Winning KOMs, and pulling heroic turns on the front of the group...is a young man's game.
Trying to relive past glories is a recipe for disaster.
Riding a bike should be fun.'
- Chris Riordan, 2022
So whatever cycling baton I have, I pass to Josh and his generation.
Cycling is a lot like life; you get out of it what you put in...and I can see how much effort he's putting in.
I'm just glad to be along for the ride!
Live music photography tips
Now I know that at the moment the idea of talking about photography at a live venue with a group of people all crammed in together in a non-ventilated space where they can yell and scream...may seem a tad far-fetched. Who knows, by the end of this year all pubs and band rooms may just have wisened old hipsters looking into the middle-distance and saying 'Live music? We ain't see no live music since...well shoot...not since Omicron!'
But I'm an optimist...and I think I'm also now at the stage where I have shot enough gigs to have learnt from my mistakes, but I'm still sufficiently new at the game to remember all of the things I wanted to know when I started.
So I think it's the perfect time to give some tips on shooting photos at live gigs.
Get out there
A remarkably important part of taking photos at live gigs...is actually being at those live gigs to take photos. So while I have waited remarkably patiently for The National to call and say 'Chris, we want YOU to follow us around the world and take photos at our shows', I have also hustled to find performers to take photos of.
Now, admittedly, having the drummer from The Cat Empire as my brother-in-law has opened quite a few doors. But if you haven't made the strategic decision to marry into the Hull-Browns...then that's on you.
But in all seriousness, I'm yet to come across a musician who has said 'Nah, I'm all good for free photos that I could use on my numerous social channels, and I certainly don't need a new shot that I can send to potential venues, and the venues I am playing at really hate it it when I bring along an extra person who buys a few drinks.'
This is a win-win for you and the artists, so see if you can find a friend/cousin/friend of your kid/local parent/open mic night participant who is doing a gig and get photographing!
Spot focus
Ok...this is going to get a bit technical, but I promise the payoff is worth it! If you've ever been at a gig, or a kids concert, or anywhere where the person on stage is in the spotlight and taken a photo of it on your phone...you've probably ended up with a photo where that person is very bright, and the background behind them is kinda murky. This is because your phone (and you camera will do the same), has taken in all of the light from what is in the photo and found a place where on average everything has the right amount of light. So the person in the very bright spotlight and the background which is very dark...have been evened out. The dark bits are a bit lighter and the bright bits are a bit darker. In a normal daylight shot, this is great...and you will say 'Thanks phone/camera for doing all of that thinking for me!' But in a darkened room with with a performer in the spotlight you will be saying 'Stuping phone/camera! That looks like balls!!'
Fortunately the answer is pretty straight forward. You can tell your camera to just focus on one part of the photo and get that bit exposed correctly...and then base everything else off of that. So in the case of someone in a spotlight, you set your 'metering mode' to 'spot' and that will make sure that the very bright person is exposed correctly and everything else will become dark. There are other modes you can choose that will vary from camera to camera...but basically the options will be for your camera to see the whole image and balance out the exposure, or take a section of the image (usally the middle of the image) and balance the rest of the picture based on that, or take a specific part of the picture and balance the rest of the image based on that.
A really good example is this shot I took of Danny Ross at the Wesley Anne. It was early evening the and the setting sun was coming through a gap in the curtains and hitting the stage. It was so bright, it was even brighter than the lights in the venue, which made taking photos REALLY tricky.
But then also gave some opportunities that I could never hope to replicate without a LOT of time.
Get wide, get tight, get outside!
This is my advice for pretty much every photography job...but it's particularly true for live music, DON'T SETTLE FOR MULTIPLE VERSIONS OF THE SAME SHOT!
Absolutely get the standard photos from as close as you can, and if there are multiple people in the band, make sure you have a good standard shot of each of them. But then...get creative!
Go in as tight as you can
Get as wide as you dare
Take photos of their shoes
Shoot from the back of the room
Shoot from outside the venue
I can safely say that they will not all be good shots...but I can also guarantee that one of these shots will be your favourite shot from the gig, because you made it happen!
Signage
I once presented at a conference and there was a screen outside the room with my name on it...I took a photo of it. Why? Because in one image it showed that I had been at conference, and I had presented...and no-one had escorted me off the premises saying 'Sir, you have no place being here'.
I think most performers want the same validation.
It's time to move away from 'auto'
The 'auto' settings on your camera are a far better photographer than I will ever be. They can do calculations that will result in the best combination of f-stop, shutter speed and ISO in milliseconds. BUT they are not set-up to provide the best shot in a darkened room, with a subject who keeps on moving and who has something sitting just in front of their face.
In fact, leaving your settings to auto will almost certainly lead to a slightly blurry photo of the performer (as they were moving when you took the shot), but that doesn't matter, because the autofocus will have focused on the microphone instead of the singer
So you're going to have to get comfortable manually setting some of your parameters.
Shutter speed - If you have a guitarist/singer then you're probably looking at a minimum of 1/125. If they're just sitting on a stool and singing you could probably go lower, if you're trying to capture the drummer, you will have to go higher...and if you're capturing a punk band, I wish you the best of luck.
f-stop - If your shutter is only staying open for 1/125 of second, then you're going to have to let your aperture do a LOT of the heavy lifting in terms of letting light in. So go the lowest you can go. I have a beautiful 56mm f1.2 portrait lens that is hands down my favourite lens at a live gig as it just lets so much light in. Whereas my wide angle is only f4 and that needs a steady-hand, or a LOT of noise-reduction in post.
ISO - Modern cameras are remarkably good at taking great photos at ISO levels that would have been considered laughable in the past. So don't be afraid to let it get as high as 5,000. There's a reason a lot of my live music photos are black and white, and that's becuase it's easier to hide noise reduction (a setting in Lightroom that 'smoothes out' the crunchiness of a shot with high ISO).
If you're in a venue with a lot of different lights, then I would leave the ISO on auto, because if a bright light suddenly comes on just before you take the shot, the camera will adjust before you've even pressed the button...you probably wont.
Focus - If you have your camera on autofocus, then it will focus on the thing closest to the camera in the auto-focus zone. So if the performer has a microphone in front of their face, and you're focussing on their face...then it's going to focus on the microphone. So be brave and try a bit of manual focus!
Drummers are people too
Look, I get it. When your choice is between the charasmatic lead singer, striking a rock-star pose, with the lights shining on them at the front of the stage...and the person at the back of the stage, moving frenetically, with no lighting and a car-crash of cymbals and drums surrounding them. You're going to take the photo of the lead-singer everytime!
Just try to get a least one decent shot of the drummer...and the bass player (they'll be hiding next to a speaker somewhere).
Something in the way
Part of the joy of any live gig is the people around you. You very rarely get an unencumbered view of a performance, so don't be afraid to capture this with your photos.
Get down a bit lower and shoot between people's heads.
Or 'dirty up' a clean picture by shooting through something (in this case it was an ornate hand rail that was about 3cms in front of the lens...but with the focal length set for the stage, actually created some nice shadows and deliniation between the performers)
Next level stupidity
Looking for something a bit different? Then why not hold your phone under your lens to create a mirror effect?
Or take a photo through another lens?
Or zoom your lens while taking your photo
If they work, then you're a creative genius...and if they don't...the internet never has to see your mistakes (unless you publish them in a blog...as above!)
No flash photography
The standard rules for taking photos at a gig if you're actually there on business is 'First three songs, and no flash'. I will never understand why you can only take photos for the first three songs, as I think it's like the venue selling a recording of the gig, but only including all of the between song banter and tuning of guitars...you know, all of the stuff that happens BEFORE the band actually hits its straps?!
But the 'no flash' thing makes perfect sense. No one wants to see their favourite singer stagger off stage having been blinded by some muppet unleashing a flash in their face...and no unseasoned performer wants a constant visual reminder that someone is capturing everything that they're doing.
Also, if you're shooting on your phone, just remember that the flash is designed for people about a meter away...so if you're 15 rows back pinging of shots of a band...you're really just taking stunning portraits of the backs of the heads of the few rows in front of of you.
Share the love
If you're taking photos at a gig and you see another photographer...just remember, they're not the enemy or the competition!
Realistically they are the only other person in the room who is facing the same challenges as you, and most likely the only other person you can learn anything from. So don't be afraid to strike up a conversation, and like their photos on Instagram the next day. If you're feeling really generous, why not grab a quick photo of them in action and send it through to them. Just as chef's are less likely to be invited around for dinner (as people feel increased pressure to make an amazing meal), I can pretty much guaranteed that most photographers have very few photos of them in action (in fact I think the only photo I have of me in action, is me giving a photographer friend the finger while taking photos at a wedding!)
At the Corner Hotel gig I got chatting to one of the other photographers (the remarkably awesome Samantha Meuleman ) and during the next music shot grabbed this shot of her.
Is it the greatest photo? No. Was 'here's a photo I took of you while you were at work!' an awkward conversation starter? Yes. But do I have any regrets? No!
So there you go...some of the lessons I've learned on my journey so far. If you've got any tips you'd like to throw my way, I'm always keen to hear them.
Best photos of 2021
It's perhaps a good indication of the sort of year that 2021 was, that when I looked at some photos from January, I genuinely didn't believe they had been in the last year.
'A photo of Uncle Jack Charles?! Wasn't that 2 years ago!?'
'A family camping trip to Wilson's Prom? Didn't we got to Narnia this year?'
Time and reality were at best 'fluid' for 2021, and at worst...well...2021. A LOT of time within 5kms of the house, and VERY little time feeling relaxed and inspired enough to get creative.
But there were still photos to be had and moments to be captured, so without further ado and in no particular order, here are my top 10 photos of 2021!
Uncle Jack Charles
Admittedly it's statistically impossible to take a bad photo of Uncle Jack...it's still awesome when you do. If nothing else, it means you've had the chance for him to tell you a story about how being able to read and write offered him protection in Pentridge...or his first ever play at the Pram Factory...or about being a cat burglar.
He's a genuine source of light, enthusiasm and warmth, and I think this shot captured that.
The Prom
The focus for this trip to Wilson's Prom was our first ever overnight hike...and so I decided to leave my camera gear at home and live or die by the iPhone.
This meant that on one day I was returning from a walk, when Katie and the kids were heading off in the kayaks. The sun was setting over the hills in the background, the kids were my mid-ground...and Katie was the foreground. The moment was only going last a few seconds, but that's all it takes to take your phone out and take the shot!
Shantilly clad
If you're a 'proper' photographer taking photos at a gig, you're normally only allowed to take shots for the first three songs (don't ask my why...I don't make up the rules). Which usually means you're frantically trying to get as many shots as you can for those three songs. But if you're taking photos at a venue like the Wesley Anne, you can actually take the time to experiment and get something different!
In this case it was the old 'hold a lens in front of your camera and take a shot through it' trick.
Also this is a band called 'Shantilly Clad' who sing sea shanties...I had to make sure they made the top 10, purely for their name.
Preston fog
We have the level crossing removal work going on in Preston at the moment (for people outside of Melbourne, we have things called 'level crossings' that basically stop traffic to allow trains to go through...and we're getting rid of them by elevating the train lines so that the trains can travel unimpeded...and cars can be stuck in traffic caused by other cars, rather than by trains). On one night had some really heavy fog, and I had borrowed a friends 12mm Samyang lens...and so I thought I'd put on my 'street photographer' hat and get some shots.
I was having some issues working out how to get the lens to focus when about 10 metres in front of me, this guy walked out of his front gate in a long coat and golf-cap. With his collar turned up and the thick fog, he looked like something from a le Carre spy novel and I tried desperately to get a shot. But by the time I'd sorted the focus, he was already too far away and so I took this shot as I walked after him.
I knew the shot I wanted to get, and this wasn't it...but when I looked back at the photo a few days later...I really liked it.
Seagulls on the Portland pier
With the exponential improvements in camera technology, the ability to take a great photo has never been easier. So a lot of the challenge is now being there to take the photo...and having the patience to wait for the moment to play out.
I had originally been trying some long exposure shots, until I realised that the whole pier actually moved with the waves, and so getting a non-blurry long exposure was going to be impossible. I saw a few seagulls at the end of the pier under the light, and so I sauntered over to compose my shot, then waited for more to arrive. When enough had arrived I thought I had my shot...but then a few took off and I realised that was the shot I wanted. So I waited a bit longer until this moment.
It's something that I've learnt from years of doing video work, sometimes you have to set up a shot, and then wait for someone or something to populate it. If this means you have to sit on a cold pier for an extra 10 minutes while local teens chuckle at the guy on all fours looking at seagulls...then this is the sacrifice you have to make for your art!
Strike a pose
After years of taking photos, I would say I am very confident in my ability to capture a candid moment. An unscripted, spontaneous moment. But ask me to create that moment...and my confidence evaporates.
Getting people to pose in a way that makes them look good, is really hard!
So I watched an instructional video from Lindsay Adle and dragged Holly out in front of the camera...and this was one of the shots that I got.
There were a number of shots that didn't work, and it was really interesting to see how a comfortable pose can make for an unflattering photo, while poses that felt terribly contrived looked great in the final product.
Sunset over sea
It's fair to say that the wind blows strong at Sandy Point...and usually onshore. So any day where the wind is down and the swell is up has to be taken advantage of. On this day we had arrived just after lunch and spent the arvo in the surf. After dinner I went down to the beach to take some photos and the surf looked so good, I ran back to the house, put the still damp boardshorts back on and charged back to the surf with Josh.
It was magic! The waves were being held up by a slight offshore breeze and the sun was setting through them just before they broke. It was a constant battle between catching the waves and capturing them.
This shot was taken on the GoPro as the last light from sun set over a softening sea.
Lisa Mitchell at the Corner Hotel
As someone who has attended quite a few gigs at the Corner Hotel in Richmond, it was pretty exciting to get to take some photos there. I demonstrated just how excited I was by taking about 15,000 photos.
I really love this shot because it shows some of the things I've learnt over the last 5 years.
- When an opportunity presents itself...take it! Up until about 10 minutes before this gig I was still trying to sort out a problem for a job the next day, and nothing would have been easier than saying 'no' to travelling to Richmond on Thursday night to take some unpaid photos.
- Try not to take the same photo again and again. Get low, get wide, get tight, look for reflections or interesting framing. I know I missed a few shots changing to get onto the wide-angle lens...but it was worth it!
- Compostion counts - I was in 'the pit' (the fenced off section between the stage and the crowd) with two other photographers, and I had to work to get this position right in front of Lisa and then frame her between the foldback speakers
Danny Ross
I've been lucky enough to have Danny Ross ask me to take photos of a few of his gigs. In a year when live music has taken such a pounding, getting to see Danny play live was a constant reminder of just how important live music is.
Up until this gig, I'd never taken shots of Danny with a proper lighting rig..and the way so much of this shot is blown out and faded but Danny's face is still exposed properly...lets me know that I made the most of the opportunity.
After the storm
One of my COVID-19 habits has been to walk almost every day past 'The Tannery' skate park in Preston. It's basically an abandoned lot that some local skaters have converted into a skate park.
I was on one of these walks just after a storm had passed the through and decided to duck in and see if there were any photo opportunities. The setting sunlight was diffused by all of the moisture in the air and the in the calm after the storm there was water on the ground and no wind in the air, making for the perfect conditions for a 'reflection' shot.
It was then just a question of getting down low and getting the framing right, setting the iPhone to RAW, convincing the dog to stop walking through shot...and then taking the photo.
So there you go. 2021 in 10 photos. Three photos of live music, two photos on the phone, one on the GoPro, one on a $10K camera I borrowed from Fuji, and one on a lens borrowed from a friend. Pretty reflective of a year where it was hard to plan for anything, you had to take your opportunities where you found them, and where family and music were the most important things!
Days like these with The Cat Empire
Back in the early 2000s I was working as a Producer for a video production company called Tribal. Our boss (the inimitable Sharon Maloney) was looking to build a stable of young directors and so we were doing quite a few video clips. Back in those days there was no real way to make money off a video clip (the world of monetised YouTube channels was but a twinkle in some tech entrepreneurs eyes), but everyone needed a video clip to play on Rage or Video Hits. So most record companies viewed them as a necessary evil, but not one that they were willing to throw a lot of money at. It was therefore fertile ground for new Directors to try their creative wares, on a very limited budget.
Thanks to the drummer of the The Cat Empire being my brother-in-law Will, I knew that the band were pitching for a production company to do the video clip for their latest single 'Days like these'. Our Director Mike Metzner pitched a treatment with a 'City of God' feel, and the band loved it, and so suddenly we were on our way to make a video with The Cat Empire!
Location, location, location.
Unsurprisingly, the budget didn't stretch to us flying to Brazil to capture that 'City of God' ambience...but Mike had found an amazing location near the wheat silos in Collingwood. Nowadays these are the location for multimillion dollar apartments, but back then it was a derelict wasteland full of loose concrete and tall grass. As is tradition on high-budget film projects, the Director, Producer and Art Department spent a day in full-Summer heat moving blocks of concrete, whipper-snippering long grass and desperately pretending that this was exactly how they thought their career in the arts was going to play out. But by the end of the day we had a space that was never going to pass an occupational health and safety review, but could definitely pass as a South American slum. Best of all, we had managed to track down the owner of the land and got permission to film there.
Shooting on film
My kids delight in referring to any story I tell as being 'from the olden days'. But the more I think about this part of the Cat Empire clip, the more I start to think they may be right, because we actually shot this on film!
I can still remember the first DOP who shot an entire video on Digital and thinking he was some sort of sorceror (shout out to Ben Allan!) Because up until then, we shot pretty much everything that had to look nice on film. If we were shooting a TV commercial (TVC) we would estimate how many rolls of film we would need (each roll of film was 400ft and would give you about 11 minutes of footage...and in typing this, I'm suddenly wondering if that's where the term 'footage' comes from!) Then you would order if from the Kodak factory in Coburg, and pick it up the night before the shoot. Sometimes when you were filming the TVC you might have used 300ft of film, but know that the next take might need more than the remaining 100ft, so the 300ft of used film would be marked up and set aside to be taken to a place in Elsternwick that would convert the film to a digital file, and then that digital file would be used for editing and colour grading.
BUT, it also meant that we had 100ft of film that we got to take back to the office and store in a fridge. We had shot about 6 TVC's that year and so from memory, we shot all of this video on what was in the fridge!
We also shot on Super-8 and then also worked in some Mini-DV footage shot by the band.
The final touch were some acetate stains that were created by two finished artists (Dom and Rich, who became known as 'the stains department') that were filmed and added in as a layer in post.
Highlights of the day
Cameos - At some stage the idea of everyone playing football (soccer) was changed to playing football (AFL) and so we got to see my father-in-law James rock up in full whites as the Umpire, and Melbourne jazz luminary Steve Sedegreen as 'guy appalled by umpire's decision'.
Location joys - While cleaning up the location on the days leading up to the shoot we had found the name of the person who was securing the site, and from him had found the owner...who after some cajoling and $200 cash heading his way, had agreed to let us shoot there.
Then about half-way through the day, a car pulled into the site and asked what was going on. I explained that we were shooting a video clip, and that we had permission from the owner, so it was all above board. He looked at me and said 'That's odd...because I'm the owner, and this is the first I've heard about it!' Seeing that there was suddenly every chance that the entire clip was going to be over before it really began, I frantically began explaining that they were a great local up and coming band, and that we wouldn't do any damage, and that 'Gosh, isn't this a funny situation for two wonderful men to find themselves in'. I think he saw the panic in my eyes and took pity and gave us permission to keep on filming.
Surreptitious - At one stage while we were resetting for the next shot I walked past Andy Baldwin's panel van, and found most of the band having a few cheeky beers in the back. I have no idea what I was worried about, but with all of the impotent power of a pool-lifegaurd asking teenagers not to sit on the lane ropes, I said 'C'mon guys, you can drink after we've finished...and if you are going to drink, can you at least be a bit more surreptitious about it?!' To my complete surprise they all stopped drinking and looked at me, and I thought 'My God! I actually got a group of musicians to stop drinking and see my point of view! I clearly command a lot more authority than I had realised!' Then I heard one of them say 'Surreptitious. That's a good word!'. Then they all laughed and continued drinking their beers.
Pizza - We had arrived early in the morning to get set-up, then worked through a stinking hot day in the full sun, and finally wrapped in the early evening. One of my final duties was to order and collect about 20 pizzas from a place on Brunswick St. When I returned the crew were packing away the last of the gear, there were band-members and breakdancers and friends and family all sitting in the rubble of an abandoned lot as the shadows grew longer across the scene. The footy was still being kicked, we had managed to get everything shot, and I sat down to eat some pizza and left-over watermelon...it was one of the best days I've had on set.
Best of all, thanks to the insane talents of everyone involved, the clip itself came together incredibly well.
All good things come to an end
One of the downsides to working with a song you like on a video project is that you get to hear it again, and again and again. In fact, if the person editing it doesn't have headphones, you will get to hear two seconds of the song continually repeated as they try to make an edit work...it's the best!
But one thing I will never tire of, is seeing The Cat Empire perform live. I've been lucky enough to have followed them from their beginnings as the Jazz Cat, through to self-financing their first album, through to international fame. I will still happily put one of their shows at The Forum as one of the top 5 live gigs I've ever seen (the other four are; Gil Scott Heron, Morphine, Beck, and Rage Against the Machine...never let it be said I am anything but a middle-aged white man). So it's a little sad to hear that the band will be playing the final shows as the current line-up at the end of the year.
At the same time, to have survived and thrived in the music industry for over 20 years is a genuinely amazing feat, and to be able to retire on their own terms reflects the integrity that's kept them together this whole time.
So thanks to The Cat Empire for letting me be a small part of your journey, but most of all, thanks for providing such an incredible reminder of just how important live music is!
