For the last 10 years my photography has primarily been black & white film. For me the colors of Spring and Summer are captured by the wonderful tones of Kodak Tri-X. But sometime in Winter I start reacting against the world around me which is by that point very colorless. And that is when I turn to the small bit of color I shoot in the year, almost all of it in the Fall. And why not?
Over the past couple of years I’ve been working through a shoebox of expired film given to me by a friend. I started with some exotics – some 120 Agfachrome 100, some Ektachrome 100 and160T, some Portra 160 NC and the like before I moved down to the regular stocks. Most of the stuff was, as far as I could tell, about 20 years old and had never been near a fridge. The E6 stock was really useful; I’d shot a couple of successful projects with it, made work for exhibition, all that stuff, but it was gone. Then, rummaging through the 135 that was left, I noticed five rolls of Fujicolor Press 800.
My oldest kid got married on September 6. He had a wedding photographer to take the official photos, the digital ones. You know the kind. It was the perfect occasion for me to give use to my beloved Nikon F4, with the nifty 50mm 1.8D. No pressure. Just for the absolute pleasure of it. So, I grabbed a pair of rolls of Portra 800 and a roll of Ilford Delta 3200 and to the party I went.
One of my favourite environments to photograph is a protest. Over the last few years I’ve had plenty of opportunities to document all kinds of demonstrations and protests; peaceful, violent, and everything in between. I think that this kind of documentary offers insight into the ways society communicates in groups in a really unique way, and I really try and make images that are significant, emotional, and hopefully long lasting.
Back in the 90s I used to shoot “Melbourne City Scene” articles for a wine magazine where I’d write little pieces about wine bars and illustrate them with quick shots of bottles and glasses and groovy wine-bar people showing what it took to be cool.
