Last night I shot the 2012 Big Day Out sideshow of Foster the People at The Tivoli in Brisbane for both Rave magazine and Everguide. 

Local band Last Dinosaurs supported on the night.

Before the paint set up we shot some other options and this appears along with their interview inside.

Last Friday night Busby Marou played a sold out show at the Old Museum for their Biding My Time tour. Quickly becoming a favoured venue for musicians, the beautiful Old Museum was transformed even further with a lighting treatment of bare globes and rich colour washes. A pleasure to shoot and even more of a pleasure to watch. One thing that I found peculiar though was the quite eclectic crowd that had come along tonight. I could not help make comparisons with some of the female adoring fans and the type that would frequent some of those city pubs that most music goers would tend to avoid. I am not too sure what this says about the band, but everyone seemed to enjoy their night, so I am hoping it is nothing but positives.

A full gallery of the set can be found below.

A week ago I worked with talented local musician Bec Plath on her EP Cover and press shots. I am still making the final touches on her cover but for now her press shots have been released to the world. Check them out.

Bec was an ABSOLUTE pleasure to work with. A musician who trusted my concept, using locations that had been on my ‘wishlist’ to shoot at for a while, and a truly easy and beautiful subject to shoot.

I am really excited by the EP Cover too. I will put it up here when it is all released.

Props to Bec who even posed for this last shot amongst the rotten, overgrown stairs, even with her fear of spiders. Bec was either going to love this shot or never work with me again for making her face her fears. I hope its the former

Earlier this month I was asked to shoot press shots for Fatty Gets A Stylist, a new music project between Kate Miller Heidke and her husband Kier Nuttall.

This shoot was kind of difficult as the brief and reference shots for their concept meant that I needed to use available light during nightfall. Not only was this difficult for me as it was quite different to how I usually worked with bands shots, but also I had to shoot most of these at high apertures and low ISOs (to even out the shadows and highlights in the available light) thus resulting in quite slow shutter speeds.To get shots in focus we shot each frame multiple times with count downs to hold the poses.

I spent three nights location scouting trying to find locations that suited the brief but also at the same time trying to find locations that had the right mix of available light (in my scouting I was looking for the right temperature as the main light and any other available light that would add to the mood of the concept). These shots were shot at a mixture of shutter speeds ranging from 1/6th sec – 1.3 seconds (and note NO HDR was used in the post processing of these shots).

Another difficulty from this shoot was that both Kate and Kier couldn’t actually see through those masks, so instructing them which way to move and pose was a little difficult.

Anyway here are the results. Let me know what you think.

The Fatty Gets a Stylist album is dropping in Australia in June.

In April I was invited along to Band Camp Fast Track, a four day music workshop for emerging musicians put on by the Moreton Bay Region Council.

I was asked to run 45 minute press sessions with the bands and musicians in attendance and show them the ropes of having their photos taken.  With each band I attempted a few different looks with the aim to deliver 2 – 3 photos each.

With an hour before hand to location scout this shoot had the challenge of being shot at QUT Carseldine campus, a location that proved to be not very inspiring.

Armed with 400W strobes and a bit of creativity we were able to pull 5 different looks from the grounds.

Julz de Maria

We started shooting with Julz de Maria. Being a solo musician the long grass we were able to transform in to the look above. Without underexposing the ambient you would be able to see the fence for the boundary of the campus in this shot.

The back of one of the buildings had these discarded sheets of board uner some stairs. I arranged them against a wall to give a more textured look.

The Verge

The Verge were shot second. This was a shot at the end of their session were the boys wanted to play with a more dynamic look.

The first shot I got with these guys was from a shallow puddle that was in the carpark.

The Mental Charms

The Mental Charms were the last band I shot for the day. Nailing some great poses in between these water tanks, we only managed one ‘location’ for them but managed to pull off some greats shots that the boys were happy with.

On Friday I was asked to help Sydney based photographer Dan Boud in covering the Brisbane leg of the St Jerome’s Laneway festival. My job was to second shoot, basically trying to catch many of the same artists that Dan was shooting but from a different angle. And also to cover bands that clashed in the timetable.

The day started off incredibly hot, which left most photographers quite drained. Highlights from the day photograhically were !!! (pictured above), Les Savy Fav (who’s reputation for his dynamic and crazy live performances has quickly spread around the country) and personal favourites Holy F*@k and the Jezabels (who I made a point of staying and watching the whole set of).

!!! from man Nic Offer headlined the Inner Sanctum stage and contended the title for the best stagemanship of the festival.

Pipped at the post by crowd favourite Tim Harrington from Les Savy Fav. From the moment the band took to the stage and even before playing a note, Harrington brought the crowd a grotesque yet entertaining show (wrapping a monk style fabric around his genitals like a diaper wit gaffer tape, which he then proceeded to accessories with props from a box on stage, and also during songs disrobed from items of clothing that had ripped during crowd surfing and his general crazy antics on and off stage).

Cloud Control play the Big Sound/ The Zoo stage, the only midly laneway-esque stage in the whole festival.

Holy F@*k bring their experimental electro dance complete with film strip.

Complete with technical difficulties, Gotye plays a difficult set to a mixed crowd.

My current obsession, The Jezabels, headline the Big Sound/ Zoo stage with a laneway full of mesmerised punters.

Confusing most over at the Carpark Stage, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti played a drug induced/ shambolic psyhcodelic lo fi pop set to a bemused crowd.

On the New Alexandria stage, Two Door Cinema Club were deemed by most to be the stages most enjoyable act. Crowd instantly began to surge, dancing and pumping fists during their set.

More photos below.

Just after Splendour I photographed up and coming band Calais in a promo session. We tackled a couple of safe shots plus one idea I wanted to try using fluoros that the band now want to use for branding. All the boys are still in high-school and are currently regularly gigging. Check them out.

Day four of Bluesfest saw me shoot Gogol Bordello with a dying camera.

This was the second chance I had to shoot Sydney’s band The Snowdroppers. They were probably the shooting highlight of my festival.

The pit for Crowded House was beyond ridiculous. But I guess that is what to expect from a Bluesfest pit.

Poor Man’s Whiskey played a roving gig around the festival grounds, which was fun to shoot.

More photos below