One year on

Every single year I say. "Man that years gone fast." and everyone says. "Oh I know right?! totally." 

This time it's no different, the year really has gone fast. I've been at the Illawarra Mercury for ONE whole year now and 'how has it been' you ask? ---- It has been awesome, as simple as that. 

I'm grateful that I've been given so many fantastic opportunities at my work, I've been in planes flying over the Illawarra, I've been on boats cruising around in the lake, I've been up and around Sydney shooting random stories and I've had amazing opportunities to shoot sports like the NBA,   A-League, NRL, State of Origin and soon the NRL Grand Final. I don't think many photographers get the chance to shoot such big and important sporting events, let alone a cadet.

In Gladstone, I really had no one to look up to, my boss was a self taught photographer who had only been in the game a year longer than me and was too focussed on her wedding business. Here its been different, I have colleagues who collectively, maybe have over a hundred years of experience in the game. They've won Walkleys, PANPA's, shot World Cups, Olympics, Commonwealth Games, travelled around the country, travelled the world, you name it, they've done it all. 

These guys are people I really look up to, I don't tell them because... that would be stupid... but they are everything I always wanted to be when I was growing up. 

So basically, what i'm trying to say is, I'm pretty happy with my job. There's not many people who can say. "I'm doing what I actually studied at uni, I get to take photos every, single, day." I'm extremely grateful that I even HAVE a job, being a photographer is hard enough, a NEWS photographer.. they are certainly very slim pickings...

My first year has been a bit of a learning curve, I started off confidently, lost all motivation and confidence in my imagery halfway through, but feel like I've been coming strong for the last couple of months. Hopefully this upward trend continues and I can start to really spread my wings and get out there and do what I know I can. We'll have to wait another 12 months and see..

Until then,

Chris.

Lions, bats, hawks and dragons.

Unfortunately I didn't shoot any of those animals, a dragon would be cool, maybe even cooler than a unicorn, but we all know how hard they are to find and shoot.

Chinese new year just passed earlier this month and they sent me down to Crown street mall and the Nan Tien buddhist temple to shoot some lunar new year celebrations. Nan Tien is beautiful, it's the largest buddhist temple in the southern hemisphere I hear, architecturally very beautiful with fantastic gardens as well. Having spent the last couple of Chinese New Year's in Gladstone it was nice to come to a city where they had a lion running and jumping around. Obviously it's not Melbourne, Sydney or Asia but hey, it's better than nothing.

Sometimes in my job I have to go and photograph things that are pretty confronting, things that make me feel uneasy, usually i'm not too bothered by things, i've been to my fair share of fatals, sure they're bad, I don't enjoy seeing people die, but i'm usually pretty distant from it. I'm an observer just documenting what's happening in front of me, however this time it was different. 

I wasn't at a fatal shooting someone who had driven into a truck and killed themselves at 100km/h, or someone who had been murdered by their significant other, it was a bat, a grey fruit bat. We covered a story about people putting nets over their fruit trees because they didn't want birds or bats eating their fruit, sounds fair enough, when I was growing up my uncle would always put nets over his apple tree to deter the birds - and it worked - however I never thought about what would happen if they got trapped or if they ever injured themselves on the nets. 

The job description for this was pretty basic "meet such and such who is a carer of fruit bats." in my head I had the perfect shot, she would be smiling at me and her arm would be out with some bats hanging off her. Brilliant photo, lets go. 

I walked up and introduced myself and prepared for my shoot, I asked to see the bat we'd be shooting. She scurried off to the other room and pulled a bat out of a cage who'd been severely injured when caught in nets. 

It was not what I expected, he was dying, practically dead. She pulled him out slowly and he let out what seemed like his final breath, the smell of rotting fruit is what struck me. Here was this little creature about to die, dying right in front of my lens. 

I'm usually not bothered by these things but anything to do with animals hits me right to the core. We shot him for about 10 minutes and when we put him back, Sandra, the fruit bat volunteer told me. "He's gone." She slowly put him back in the cage and covered him with his blanket. 

Feeling pretty despondent I asked to see if she had any bats which were on the up, not so.. dead, to be blunt, luckily she had some.

Speaking of 'on the up' the Wollongong Hawks won their 4th game in a row last week against the New Zealand breakers. The hawks have been pretty up and down this year, unfortunately NBL is no where near as big here as it is in other countries, there are rumours of clubs shutting down due to lack of funding and low ticket sales, but the Hawks are one of, if not the only original club left since the inception of the NBL in the 70's. They're playing for their 5th win in a row tonight, fingers crossed they get there.

Last week I shot my first NRL game, I don't know anything about league but being in a stadium with thousands of fans cheering really gets the hairs on your neck to stand up. I've shot league before but never at a professional level. I don't know any of the players, hopefully I can learn them within the next few months so shooting them and identifying them will be a LOT easier. 

New paper!

I always say this but i'm horrible at blogs, i don't even know why I bother sometimes, I can't ever seem to be consistent and update frequently. Anyway, it's been a busy few months, left and old job and get a new job at a new paper in a new city, new state.

I said goodbye to Queensland at the end of September and started my new life in New South Wales, it's very different, that's for sure. So the new paper is nice, different, more professional but i'm still learning the ropes and trying to feel my way around. Unfortunately I don't shoot as much as I'd like to, it's just the way it is around here. The standard is definitely higher and i've learnt more in 6 weeks than I did in the two years I was in Gladstone.

I took this job looking for a new challenge and looking to improve my skills and learn more about the industry, i've certainly done that since moving to Wollongong. The Illawarra Mercury is a good paper with high standards in their photographic department. I'm the first NEW full time photographer in 20 years.. I know right! The photographers here have been here for years, 20+ years would be the average i'd say, and I don't blame them, good location, why would you ever want to leave?! 

Enough talk, here are a few photo's i've done in the past 6 weeks. Like I said, I don't take as many photos as I used to - or would like to to be completely honest - but it's a start. Coming from Nikon and being forced to shoot Canon was a bit tricky to start with but i'm slowly getting the hang of it..

So that's pretty much all i've done in 7 weeks.. Like I said, i don't shoot as much as I'd like to, but at a bigger paper like the Mercury there are days when you don't shoot as much as you'd really like - just the way i is. The standard here is ridiculously high and the photographers I work with are all phenomenally talented. I have a long way to go.. that's for sure.. 

High Flyers

As usual i've been a bit lazy with this blog and haven't posted in over a month nearly. Been a bit uninspired with the blog, not work, which is a nice change for once. Obviously i've been up to a lot of mischief in the past month and taken lots and lots of photos but not many were a real stand out. Luckily for you i've picked a few photos that I liked.

Amazingly and to my surprise there was an airshow in Gladstone, well it wasn't Gladstone but one of the surrounding regions. This was a Mig15 that some dude owned, he apparently bought it at an auction and he flies it around. Go figure. Having said that though, this was the last flight for the Mig 15, it was donated to the Air Field and now it lives there as a museum/display piece for people to awe over for years. I don't remember the last time I went to an air show, could've been when I was about 10 with my old man, but man, it's pretty damn cool. I've always loved planes and been in awe of their ability to 1) even fly and 2) the grace and beauty of them while they fly.

This jet was a different story, the speed was phenomenal, sure its a 50 nearly 60 year old plane but it flew by in a heart beat and all you'd hear is a 'whoosh' then a second delay and 'roar' from the engine. This thing was FAST and nimble, just rolling over in the air, looked so amazing. Good fun. shot the shit out of it.

So here is the pilot and his son. They landed and taxied over to a spot and they all got out to a large crowd who were asking questions about the plane, when I saw the sun come out from clouds and cast a beautiful orange glow on their faces. I used my 'authoritative' voice and asked the people to kindly move away for a quick second whilst i took the photo. Upon asking the people to move I got a few 'why's" from people, I just said "Observer, it'll be two seconds." some people annoy me, however i'm happy with the shot. 

Just a little artsy shot to finish the day. He is a little bear inside the cockpit of some pilots plane. I thought it was cute. 


From high flying planes to dead seagulls. We got a call from a local resident who noticed dead seagulls on the beach, I thought nothing of it and presumed it was just some person with nothing better to do than call the Observer, so obviously I was sent out on a 'mission' to investigate the dead gulls. When I got there, damn, there were dead gulls.. lots of them.. I walked about 20m of the beach and came across 6-8 dead seagulls, they didn't look like they'd been there for a while, they were still looking quite fresh. The gulls were just lying there, on the beach, some on the footpath and a couple next to each other. I've never seen THAT many dead birds in such a small area, not sure if it was suspect or not but I did feel sorry for them.

Not much to the photo below, just a disgruntled trucker who's not happy with the state of the roads in Gladstone. He was a good poser. turned out pretty good. Flash camera right. added a bit of fill. Nice and easy. 

The Mount Larcom show is coming up (June 23/24) I assume i'll be shooting it and i'm getting pretty excited about it. Apparently it's one of the biggest events in Gladstone? There's gonna be like, wood choppers, goats, piglets, stalls, lots of good stuff. Anyway, this was a preview piece we did in lead up to the event. The guy on the left is Craig Butler, he ran for Mayor a few months ago, lost by a few hundred votes, maybe not even. Now he's running the Larcom Show, well, he has been for the past 19 years or so. I like this shot. It's simple, basic, but still tells a bit of a story. I really like the lighting most of all. Flash to camera right just to fill them out in the shadows. The natural hair light from the sun and fill flash almost gives it a very editorial look. Diggin' it. 

Quint-essential sport shots. League and junior soccer 

I like this photo cos the girl is kicking ass with the ball and poor young mate is lying on the floor haha.

Got to go sailing for the first time the other day, really enjoyed it and had an opportunity to shoot lots of cool photos. This one is kind of my favourite. I'm not sure why.. just the angle, the sail, nice blue sky? who knows. I like. 

Had to wake up at 6am the other day after finishing work at 9:30 (2130) not fun. Had to cover the morning markets in Gladstone, was hating life, too early, too cold and not enough sleep, but I did manage to get a nice shot of this young girl helping her mum grab groceries in the morning. Nice colours, nice light and a beautiful smile doesn't hurt either.

These two boys happened by chance, I was in Lowmead (2hrs from GLA) doing a shoot on Trial Bike riding, on the way home I saw a goat in the middle of the road, sitting under a street sign minding his own business, I immediately pulled over (as you do upon seeing a goat in the road) and started snapping away, these two boys came out and I asked if it was their goat. It wasn't theirs but their aunties, so i was like "right, lets get a photo with the goat!" unfortunately in the boys excitement they startled the goat so he ran away.. seeing that I told them i'd photograph them, I had to find another cool photo we could use, luckily their dog which was also walking around on the street, came over and we used him as a prop instead.

Gotta love random happenings.

Ciao.