JourneyBlog #17 #villalenalife

Today I'm spending my last Friday at Villa Lena. I'm not going to do the full debrief today, but I am feeling a massive sense of urgency to work through my last images of the residency in my last three days here. 

This week was all about bringing it together. After a lot of trial and error and experimentation I have landed on the concept and design of my next series. It's called "Chroma" and it builds on my fascination around the cities we live in. You may have seen this evolve in my work over the past months, using colour as a way to show our urban surrounds in a hyper-real way. I'm really excited about it, even more so to see what some time away can do for the mind as far as creative is concerned.

In the last week I spent a lot of time in the Villa as well as a couple of days in Florence and a trip to Carrara. I have been shooting with Chroma in mind. Below are a couple of shots from my trip to Florence. Let me know what you think! 

I have a few more days left here in the Villa then I'm off to Rome to do some new shooting for Sony before making the daunting almost 24 hour trip home to Melbourne!

Till the next one... 

Journeyblog #16

London and Paris. This has been the last week. A little break from the Villa to visit family and friends. 

Best shooting of the week definitely was around La Défense in Paris. I was totally blown away with the architecture (example above) which was in stark contrast of the traditional parisian architecture just down the street. 

Today is my last day in Paris before returning to the Villa for the last two weeks of the residency. Im looking forward to getting back into it!

JourneyBlog - Half way

So the plan was to blog daily, who would have thought it would be that hard right?

The last couple of weeks have been pretty damn great. I've had the time to really think about what direction I want to move in artistically. Something that's been really hard with day to day life doing what it does. It's been unreal to have this studio space (above) to call home.

I've also had the opportunity to get a car and drive around Tuscany. Carrara (above) is something to be seen, arguably the home of marble, monster block after monster block of marble can be seen all around you. 

My trusty little Opel has taken me to Pisa and on one of the most amazing road trips to Cinque Terre. This is a drive that rivals the great ocean road, absolutely breathtaking. 

Tomorrow takes me to London for a few days then onto Paris. Can't wait! 

Until then...

JourneyBlog day #15

The end of my first week at Villa Lena is fast approaching. This week has been a mix of getting set up and road trip to Milan. 

Milan was showcasing its Design Week which was great to check out. You could feel the energy on the streets as building after building opened its doors to show the latest design and trends for the year ahead. I spent a day walking the streets and found an eclectic mix of architecture, a highlight being a store that had filled its exterior walls with flowers (above). 

Feeling like i'm getting into the groove now, working on a number of pieces. 

Side note; driving in Italy is scarier than Shanghai. I didn't think I would be saying that!

Journeyblog day#12

After a huge couple of days of travelling I have arrived at Villa Lena for my almost 7 weeks in residency. 

There is a great group of people across multiple disciplines here, its going to be fun!

Today I set up my studio space and worked on my first image (above). It's named Peek and was shot in Hong Kong.

More tomorrow. 

JourneyBlog day#8

Today it was F1 day. 

I was a lucky guy to get a ticket to the F1 practice session today. I headed down with the boys, about a 40 min drive from where I'm staying in Shanghai. 

Such a cool circuit. A little light on atmosphere wise (comparing to Melbourne), but perfect conditions to get some shots. 

Out for some seriously good Tapas tonight then back to the bund for some night shooting!

Journeyblog days #5,6&7

It's been a few days since the last post. It's been a crazy few days getting used to life here in Shanghai. It's so much different from any other place I've been to, I'm still trying to piece it all together. 

One thing's for sure though, the architecture is out of control and, I was a very lucky guy to have blue skies over Shanghai to shoot. The shot above was taken from the Roosevelt on the Bund. 

Journeyblog day #4

Today is my last day shooting in Hong Kong. I've had such an awesome time here. I have even almost become friends with the humidity (only almost). 

I decided to hop on a tram and go from one side of Hong Kong island to the other. It was a really cool ride, up top with the window down, everything in front of you.

There was a little stop at Happy Valley. I've always wanted to visit the valley on race night, alas not this time, I'm missing it by a day or so. I did however get to walk around the track today which was the next best thing. The shot above was shot at the valley and really sums up how I feel about Hong Kong. Such amazing layers of culture and architecture, and if you don't go in with an open mind, it might get the better of you. 

So, thanks Hong Kong, it's been great. See you again soon.

JourneyBlog Day#3

Another great day here in Hong Kong. Today I spent the day with Steven, who works (in HK) with James, my bro in Melbourne. 

Pretty huge day as far as distance travelled, we hit over 20kms while hanging out. We had a really good look at both sides of Hong Kong. It was amazing the amount of history and info Steven had about HK. I really feel like I know a whole heap more about this place, the good and the bad. 

Here is a shot from the day, still a whole heap to process - all in the bank for Villa Lena!

Thanks Steven, looking forward to returning the favour in Melbourne!

JOURNEYBLOG Day#2

Today was a pretty special day.

I was up before dawn today to shoot with Tyson Wheatley who I was introduced to by a friend of a friend via the interwebs a couple of weeks ago. Tyson has been shooting a lot on Instagram lately and was pretty inspirational to hang out with for a few hours. He's made the jump from corporate life to shooting 100%. Pretty cool stuff. 

We headed down to Tseung Kwan O, which is a little ways out from Hong Kong. As soon as we stepped out of the station, there was a crazy almost mystical fog hanging over the rows upon rows of residential skyscrapers.  I was pumped!

So above is one of the shots from today. It's one of my favourite shots to date. 

If you haven't already seen Tysons work, you need to go check it out on instagram now;

instagram.com/twheat

JourneyBlog Day#1

It's a bit hard to believe that it's here. It was over a year ago now that I got a email from Jerome at Villa Lena asking me to come along. 

I was pretty excited, 24 hours later, I had been able to have a chat to the guys there are about what they are doing and talk about what an artist residency at Lena would look like. 

And here we are. Well, almost.

I decided to take the opportunity to shoot Hong Kong and Shanghai on the way. Two places that have interested me for a long time. Two places that I knew would push me. 

So here I am, it's day one in Hong Kong, and it was crazy. 

I've been to Japan a number of times, KL as well but thats about it as far as my Asia journeys are concerned. Japan has been good for me because this place is equally as epic. 

It's big, not as big as Tokyo but still big enough to make you feel like you are completely insignificant. The density of the building and apartments here is full on. It's why I wanted to shoot here but I couldn't help but think how lucky we are in Australia to have the space we do, even if it feels like it's shrinking every day. The shot above is a shot I took today in Kowloon. 

Spring is coming

There is a special kind of light that comes into our kitchen at this time of year. The days are getting longer, spring is coming.

It's cold, it's snowing and I just want to shoot.

It's been a little hectic the last few weeks. Work has been demanding and I bought a sous vide. Both have had my attention, and rightly so. Today the girls and I decided to make good on the cold winds passing through Melbourne and set out on an adventure to find the source. Well, sort of.  Today we set out to find snow and Mount Donna Buang was today's destination. It only took us a couple of hours to get there, while driving it took a little while to understand what Asher was repeating the whole way up the mountain, turns out it was "snowman". We did build a snowman and I did take some photos. Here they are;

I've never been this excited about a lens before

I don't think I've ever looked forward to getting a lens so much in my life, and yes that includes my tilt-shift lens'. This Sigma 50mm 1.4 Art lens is comparable (and even better in some areas) to the Zeiss’s 55mm f/1.4 Otus. Only 1/4 of the price at about $1000! With a bit of luck, I'll be shooting with it this weekend!! Check out the awesome review at GIZMODO (image sigmaphoto.com)

Day trip, Olinda.

Today our journey took us east of Melbourne. Olinda is a little over an hour east of Melbourne, not too far away from the Alfred Nicholas Memorial Garden we visited last week. It was cold but incredibly beautiful. Single lens today, Canon 50mm 1.4, I love this lens a lot. 

A day out in dandenong

It's been a long time since I've been up to the Dandenongs, east of Melbourne. The girls and I decided to jump in the car and make the most of the public holiday. Adam, a great mate of mine from Ueda Sōko Ryū Australia told me about the Alfred Nicholas Memorial Gardens, a fascinating and beautiful gardens which was funded from a successful venture manufacturing Aspro. Crazy stuff. So, here are some shots, if you get the chance, go for a visit!! 

Weekend away

I've just returned from a fantastic weekend away with my girls. We shot over to Kyneton, which is about an hour north of Melbourne by car. We stayed in a awesome little converted workers train carriage from around the 1860's. I managed to sneak in some shots while we were away just before the rain came along. Nice autumn colours everywhere!

Revisiting some images and experimenting with some new processing

I'm enjoying a pretty relaxed weekend, its been a while since we have had a clear calendar and I'm using it to revisit some images.

Today I'm working through some images I took while in New Zealand last year. It's actually something I love doing, revisiting a body of images from a while ago. Typically when I shoot on location I take a ridiculous amount of frames. I mean ridiculous. For me this works really well, I try to set aside time to revisit these images as often as I can. Each time I do, I find that I see new stuff and my output becomes more refined. 

My processing is also something that is constantly changing. For this round, I wanted to concentrate on the colour of the sky. This particular hue of blue is a hue that I love a lot. 

So here they are, some images of the beautiful mountains in the south of New Zealand. 

New website and some new work

Its been a big weekend. This weekend we have launched a brand spanky new website! We have tried to consolidate much of the content from the previous website, hopefully its a bit easier to find your way around. Let me know what you think!

NYCC

I decided to blow the dust off some older images today. I often find myself going through older shoots, each time I do I end up seeing something new. My treatments are also something that are constantly changing. I decided to play around with some darker tones today. This is a shot of NYC from a heli, man it was fun!

Interview with Ben, Bettery Magazine

My interview with Bettery Magazine (from the guys that make smart cars) has just been released. Check it out by clicking here!