20/11/2016 //
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This year I’ve begun a couple of new projects. One is about shopping (sounds exciting, I know, but with luck I can make something of it!) …

The other is to do with the Millennial generation coming of age (that is, people born in or close to the year 2000). This began with the realization that my own son, born in 2000, will be an adult very soon, voting, working: along with his peers, starting to run the world.

This project will be made up of collaborative self portraits. I’ll speak to the subjects about location, lighting, composition, etc; and they will fire the shutter with a remote control. For a long time I’ve been thinking about the influence that photographers exert on people when making portraits (and other images). This is partly an experiment in giving up a good deal of that power to the subject of the image, something I think is especially relevant in the context of this series.

This small gallery contains some test shots. I want to continue the series in the field, incorporating something of peoples’ environment into the photos rather than shooting in the studio. Please contact me if you know someone born around the turn of the millennium and might like to participate.

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07/02/2016 //
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paristo012-001sep16-copyMuhammad and Paristo, North Wollongong, January 2016.

I met Muhammad and Paristo as they were heading home after body boarding at the beach in North Wollongong. They agreed to be photographed and this portrait was made on the street where they live. They told me they were from Persia and explained that they felt the word ‘Iran’ often brought too many negative and complex associations with it.

These are the first posts on this blog for some time – I’ve been busy with many things and it’s been a bit neglected.

I moved to a new suburb of Wollongong, south of Sydney, late last year. Having finished (at least stages of) a couple of projects, I wanted to spend some time wandering around the streets with a camera. I’ve always enjoyed doing this a great deal – even if no images are made for extended periods. It lets me be in the moment and, apart from other things, think about photography, what it is, how it works, why it might be worthwhile to take pictures that pretend to be a record of a place at a particular time. A lot of those thoughts meander into considering how any such exercise is very subjective and prone to personal selectiveness and chance – and therefore how it can be very naive to think that one is adding to a ‘document’ that has some kind of relationship to the ‘truth’.

Without expanding on those considerations for the time being, below are some other images made while wandering around my own nearby suburbs. They really form part of a memoir – and also contain details that, no doubt, are of some value in a historical archive (sometimes despite the actual aims of the photographer).

Categories Southern Portraits

07/02/2016 //
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A couple in front of their home, Coniston, NSW 2016. The woman in the picture was at first quite reluctant to be photographed; but her partner insisted they should have a photo done together because it hadn’t happened in some time.

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07/02/2016 //
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A young couple at a Shell service station, Warrawong NSW 2016

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07/02/2016 //
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Pop-up amusement park, South Beach, Wollongong 2016

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07/02/2016 //
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Shaneequa, January 2016. Shaneequa was working in a carnival style amusement park at South Beach, Wollongong that had been set up on January 26th for what’s observed by some people as ‘Australia Day’. She was operating a ‘Win a Prize’ basketball game.

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Categories Southern Portraits

07/02/2016 //
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A young family, Coniston, NSW 2016

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07/02/2016 //
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South Beach, Wollongong, January 2016

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07/02/2016 //
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December 24, 2015. I stumbled across a street Christmas eve party in Coniston, up the road from where I live. Residents had blocked off both ends of the steep road with wheelie bins and kids were hooning down on their bikes. I held up this young lad for a few moments to try to get a portrait in focus in the dying light; I think he was concentrating on the smell of sausage rolls being served just outside the frame.

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07/02/2016 //
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A street Christmas Eve party, Coniston NSW 2015

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