Journal

August 2007

A what a year. I've got to write a book!

I've had a ball with a couple of clients Ian Rosser and his great staff David and Rosanne ok and Sharron and Interior Designer Sue Robbie. Ian is an Optometrist who has these great lenses that correct colour blindness, check out his web site www.colourblindness.com.au and Sue who is no.. has to be one of the world's best interior designers. Having lived in Hong Kong, the USA and worked in most parts of the world I think I can say that.



There was this old building that looked very tired at a major intersection on the Gold Coast and one day I drove past and it looked completely diffecent. I just thought to myslef "MMM whoever did that make over is briliant. I'd love to meet them." Turns out it was Sue. I'm currently doing all her work so again have a look at her web site www.samsuziestudios.com/ or www.suerobbie.com

May 2007

Where does the time go? This year I've been doing a lot of commercial work. It's always rewarding when you get the right image for a client with the targeted sales results.

The photography industry is changing so much. I'm still with film. I love it, it's organic and there's just 'something' about film... mind you I still have records and a turntable so there, that says something.

A number of friends in the industry have switched to digital and I do smile when they complain about the limitations in some areas and then say "If I'd shot on film I would have captured what I had in my head".

I do love the new Hasselblad, (only $39,000) and my next camera will be digital but only to supplement film. Meanwhile I'll stick to my old workhorse Nikons of which I have three, one being the original professional Nikon I had during my Newspaper Photography days.

People think I'm nuts staying with film. There's room for both and when you come away from a shoot knowing that would not have got that shot with digital (example the Natural Bridge pix below and in my Gallery section, including the Monk Picture) a little smile creeps in and you just say yourself "Oh well"

On a sad note my Father passed away last month. We had a great relationship, he would always be there encouraging me and 100% support. You hear of people who when someone passes away they say "If only I had said such and such..." Well Dad and I had said everything that needed to be said and if can leave you with one passing thought: "Never let the Sun go down without resolving a personal realtionship and never allow yourself to be caught in the trap of not telling those close to you that you love them."

"One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life; that word is love".
Sophocles, 496-406 BC

The Bunyip Story

In January 2005, I took my first pictures of Natural Bridge on the Gold Coast. What made this particular trip remarkable, is when I got the film back and checked the pictures, everything looked fine expect for this persons head in the water. At first I thought it was someone playing a joke, a man with a white bathing cap on sticking his head above the water.

Checking the frames prior to this frame and after, there was a rock but no 'face'. I thought I was seeing things and called my wife in to see what she thought, not saying anything she looked at the picture and said "Who's that?” Freaky! The rock clearly has eyes, nose, ear and a mouth in one frame and in the next, it's just a rock.

The water levels were down as Queensland has been going through a drought. I've been back and taken more photographs, there’s more water and the 'rock' with the face is still there submerged. What makes this all the more weird is that the pictures were taken a week after a young man was drowned in the pool.

I looked up the Aboriginal story of the Bunyip and discovered that a Bunyip can take on a number of different forms but basically lives in rock pools, entice people into the water and drowns them.

For stories about the Bunyip you can go to the National Library of Australia site and read them for yourself. http://www.nla.gov.au/exhibitions/bunyips/

Film or Digital

Funny but I've a couple of people come round to my home studio and have gone "Oh... you're still shooting on film"... Yes I love it. I'm a film guy. I met a young student at a coffee shop at 1 am in the Mall at Surfers during Schoolies and he was using a twin reflex medium format camera and an old 35mm Nikon. I challenged him about film. "Hey man you can't beat it"... was his reply! We swapped stories. I've seriously considered going digital and maybe use digital as a back up but will always shoot with film. Here are my reasons:

I love working with film I love the texture I love what you can do with film.

There are specialised portrait films that are fantastic and I just love the end look and 'feel'. It's organic. You can look at two photos of the same person, one taken with film the other digital and for some reason that can't be explained choose the film picture.

The photo I took of Natural Arch was a two minute exposure. A friend who is also a professional photographer had one of the top digital cameras and the digital could handle the exposures needed. So film still has its uses.

I had a couple of friends recently who lost all their photographs from the last couple of years one because the disc they used to store their pictures got damaged, the other because their hard drive crashed on their computer. Unless you make regular back ups of your digital photos you will lose them. Cd's do not last forever and hard drives are notorious for crashing. I feel their is a whole generation of people growing up today that in five to ten years time will not have the photographs they treasured.

With film we have the negatives, they are scanned to disc first as an archival file then as a working file and then they are backed up on DVD. If anything happens (and it has) we can go back to the original negatives. I'm sure things will improve and yes I'll be like a number of photographers, end up running both systems.

Lifetime Guarantee

A photo to me is a piece of art. Anyone can take a snapshot. A piece of art that you will want to enjoy for many years takes time. The average wedding shoot involves about 60 hours of work after shooting the wedding. A single portrait shoot can take an additional 10 hours of work. That’s the care and thought that goes into every picture and why we give a lifetime guarantee with every portrait framed by us.

Having the studio at home has its advantages and disadvantages but I would not work any other way. It means I can get up at 2am if a great idea hits me and be creative in the studio or on the computer which is can be a major problem when you're passionate about your craft.

© 2007 Don Gillespie