19 - Bowlarama

The Bondi Bowl-A-Rama is a skating event held at the Bondi Beach bowl every year in February. It brings to Sydney the best current professional skaters and also well known and loved skating veterans with plenty of prize money to be won.

I first attended it in 2012 and have been to the event every year except for 2014. Over the years I have taken a number of photographs of the skater spractising and also during the competition itself. I’ve shot 90% of the images on black and white film with a mixture of 35mm and 120 film.

Bondi Beach - Sydney, NSW (2012 - 2015)

18 - Family

I’ve been very fortunate to grow up in large, loving family. As the oldest of four kids, my mum and dad always made sure we were well provided for plus also making sure we had a great education. For the first nine years of my life, we were up in Cairns in Far North Queensland before moving down to Woodford in South East Queensland (about an hour north of the nearest main city, Brisbane). We were also very lucky to have two parents that had travelled a lot. My first trip overseas was Fiji when I was seven plus over the next 10 or so years we got to go to the USA, China, Bali and the UK/France. It has definitely rubbed off on me and my two brothers and sister with travelling being one of our biggest passions.

I took these photos while at home on the farm for Christmas last year using the timer on my Mamiya 7. They perfectly sum up our family with the inclusion of our loving and faithful dogs - Roly, Rusty and Cimba. My parents farm is such beautiful location and is always nice to visit for some much needed downtime away from the the busy world of city life. Can’t wait to get back up there again soon.

16 - Portraits

There is something really rewarding about taking someone’s photo and trying to capture them in that one moment. It’s something I discovered and fell in love with while shooting my 25 portrait series back in 2012/2013. A simple portrait can have so much power in it, the person looking straight down lens at the viewer like a gateway to their soul, giving you a glimpse about who they are.

Since completing that series, I’ve been motivated to shoot more portraits but not nearly as much as I would like to. I do love photographing urban and natural landscapes but portraits gives me the most satisfaction. So in light of that I wanted to share a number of portrait I have shot over the past three years. A mixture of black and white and colour photos only using natural light.

1 - 4: Christian Carney - Surry Hills and Bronte, NSW 5: Anthony Christie - Coogee, NSW
6 -  9: Rach Steele and Forte - Redfern, NSW 10 - 12: Joel Birch (The Amity Affliction) and Dondi - Susnhine Beach, QLD
13 & 14: Erica Russell - West Hollwyood, CA 15: Lindsey Lafferty - Outer Banks, NC 16: Becca Wong - English Bay, BC
17: Anthony Christie - Monument Valley, UT 18: Ross Naumov - Melbourne, VIC 19: Pat Barrett - Frenchs Forest, NSW
20: Genna Welsh - Frenchs Forest, NSW 21: Lynden Foss - Bondi Beach, NSW 22: Angus Nicholls - Bronte, NSW
23: Mitch Sharrock - Noosa, QLD 24: Richie Christie - Noosa, QLD 25: Chiomi Christie - Bondi Beach, NSW
26: Justin Bonsey (Reponsible Runners) - Bondi Beach, NSW

Shot on a Mamiya 7, 80mm f4.0 lens and Kodak film. Developed and scanned by Richard Photo Lab in California.

05 - Australia in black and white

Black and white (B&W) film is the original and classic film look. No matter what colour films have come and gone, nothing really beats a beautiful B&W shot.

When I started shooting film back in 2010 using my Pentax MZ-S as my main camera, I was shooting all types of film. Colour negative, slide, B&W, expired and fresh film to see what I liked and didn’t like. This included TMax 100 and TMax400 which have become two of my favourite black and white films. Some of my favourite shots from those first two years (2010 - 2012) are mainly B&W. There is something about losing the complexity and overwhelming nature that can come with colour and get back to the basics: strong focus on light and shadow, contrast and subject matter.

That’s why I always enjoy going into the vault and looking at some of my favourites and strongest images from my time shooting both 35mm and medium format film. Since stepping up to the medium format game with my Mamiya 7, I have shot 90 - 95% colour negative film. But again, some of my all time favourites from the last few years are B&W shots. I would have shot 4 - 5 rolls of B&W film in the first six month of owning the Mamiya 7 with 2 - 3 shots that I absolutely love which wouldn’t have worked as well had they been in colour.

After shooting family portraits on Christmas Day 2014 (blog post to come), I’ve realised again the power and effectiveness in a great black and white shot. So going forward I will be incorporating photographing more B&W film, even more so with a potential overseas trip to come in mid 2015.

Pentax MZ-S & Contax G2 (Brisbane, Sydney & Melbourne)

Mamiya 7 (Sydney & Brisbane)

All images shot on Kodak TMax 100, TMax 400 and Illford Hp4 125 film. Developed and scanned by Richard Photo Lab in Los Angeles, California and RDFL in Sydney, Australia.