Blog Marco

I bought myself a Holga 120 CFN recently which typically shoots 120 Film. Shot my first roll and I'm the hunt for a place to develop... Here's a few places in Sydney that still does 120 film processing.

For 12 shots, 120 Medium Format Film; Fotolab (same day service) quoted me $11.95 to process, $2.20 per 4x4 print (Shop GE, 303 Pitt St. - Sydney Ph. 92833721 http://www.fotolab.com.au/). Foto Riesel (Overnight service, drop by 10am) quoted me $27 for developing and printing. (364a Kent St Sydney 92996745) Other place you can try is Campsie Prolab.

Photo above by SlimJim

Watch these two videos below which describe the "10 Golden Rules of Lomography". The ten rules follow after the "Don't think, Just Shoot" motto of lomo style photography.

• Take your camera everywhere you go.
• Use it any time – day and night.
• Lomography is not an interference in your life, but part of it.
• Try the shot from the hip.
• Approach the objects of your Lomographic desire as close as possible.
• Don’t think.
• Be fast.
• You don’t have to know beforehand what you captured on film.
• Afterwards either.
• Don’t worry about any rules.

Lomography is the commercial trademark of Lomographische AG, Austria for products and services related to photography. I recently bought myself a Holga plastic camera to find out what this plastic camera craze is all about. Lomography emphasizes casual, snapshot photography. Characteristics such as over-saturated colors, off-kilter exposure, blurring, "happy accidents," and alternative film processing are often considered part of the "Lomographic Technique.". I'm yet to develop my first roll, but I'm excited to find out the results soon! (How long has it been since I used any sort of film? 6/7 years ago?)

Learn about Lomography and cheap plastic cameras from this short video from KUTV2 - "blurry, fuzzy and badly framed, all the things that make art photography great, and all available from cheap plastic cameras like the Lomo, Diana or Holga":

Found an Interesting Photography studio job on SEEK...

Studio Sales & Photographer – Full Time

Have you ever wished you could work in a professional company, with professional people, doing professional things in a professional way? alex&marc new generation portraits is recruiting a professional team for our state-of the-art studio in Castle Towers, Castle Hill.

As Lady Gaga sings in her hit song "Paparazzi":

Got my flash on it's true
Need that picture of you
It's so magical

Someone has "invented" a new gadget for celebrities: an anti paparazzi flash gadget which fits in a purse. A photographer shooting a celebrity at night, complete with flash will find that every photo would be ruined as the flash from the anti paparazzi device will blind the camera's CCD sensors. There are still bigs in the "invention".

I'm not sure if this was a mistake by the programmers by not automatically deleting previous backups but I've amassed about 10 Gigabytes for obsolete - old Lightroom catalog backups. Perhaps this is a use for having multiple backups at hand - but since I have a strong backup routine with all my other files, I think I can risk just having the last backup or simply to dump the whole backup catalog process.

So where do you find and delete these old Adobe Lightroom catalog files? In Windows its in your documents under the Photos folder then /Lightroom/Backups... So if you find yourself short of disk space (these backup catalog files/folders take up about 500 to 1 Gigabyte each!!!) you can find these folders and just delete them. While you're thinking about cleaning up your catalog, it may be a good idea to also "Optimise your catalog" to make it run faster (And defrag your computer while you're at it).

I got sent a random email message from Nikon (below) which states that Nikon product prices in Australia are set to rise in February 2009. Also reported by NikonRumours, attached with the email from the Nikon marketing department was an excel spreadsheet reporting the new prices as well as the wholesale price which retailers receive the goods from Nikon. The prices have a general 20-50% markup... Items below $200 seem to have a markup above 25% and lenses and cameras have a general markup between 20-25% or the recommended retail price.

What's shocking about the Australian Nikon price rises is the extent of the increase. For example, you can purchase a Nikon D700 body for $3,375 right now. But in a months time the same camera will be worth $4,799 RRP (or $3,839 ex GST wholesale). There is a similar price increase pattern for many of Nikon's lenses and other camera bodies.

Last weekend, news of this "nude photos of a kid in a magazine" scandal surfaced. Magazine was called "Art Monthly Australia". The editor responsible for the magazine is Maurice O'Riordan... was he just trying to get free publicity by causing yet another scandal? Selling more magazines? Or was he honestly acting for the art community, trying to continue a debate that just occurred a bit over a month ago with the whole Bill Henson photography scandal. The photo depicted on the magazine cover is of a 6 year old - a model, Olympia Nelson who is now 11 years old and who says that ""I think that the picture my mum took of me had nothing to do with being abused, and I think nudity can be a part of art. I'm really, really offended by what Kevin Rudd had to say about this picture." It is also reported that the actual magazine contained photos of oral sex by an octopus, bondage images, including one of a Japanese schoolgirl in school uniform trussed up in rope while another image shows an adult woman also trussed up, with breasts and genitals exposed, according to Ms Tankard Reist, director of Women's Forum Australia. Art is a very funny business...

About Bill Henson controversial photography art. I'm not going to add too much subjective commentary here - mainly because I don't have any to add - I'm more of a practical person - I see things as they are most of the time. Controveries aren't new to the art world. Although I do find it fascinating to hear/read other people's subjective commentary about Bill Henson's artwork and other art in general... Anyway here are some of his photos and related commentaries which I found scattered on the WWW.

So who is Bill Henson? Is he an artist or a pedophile? Are his photos pornographic or are they art? Bill Henson has skyrocketed into the news headlines as a result of controversy and scandal over an exhibition at the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Sydney which depicted naked 12 year olds.

Still looking at photography jobs... Below are three jobs: one is a product photographer, the other is a photography studio manager and finally another job for a dating website - which strangely appeared on the search results when searching for "photographer". I've looked at photography jobs before - here is a studio job, other jobs in the photography industry and another job for a photographer. What I tend to see with these advertised jobs for photographers is that most of them are low paying. I guess the high flying talented photographers have their own business and are either selling their own artwork.

Another controversial photoshoot. The art world seems to be pushing boundaries all the time. We've had the recent underage "art" photoshoot scandal will the Bill Henshaw Exhibition and justa few weeks back we've had a scandal with a topless 16 year old posing with a 15 year old published in a fashion mag. Now its some Lifestyle travel magazine in China called: "New Travel Weekly" who sent in models into the Chinese Earthquake zone and had a sultry photoshoot amongst the rubble. There is no taste in this. Posing for a photoshoot where people DIED is just distasteful. Posing in skimpy clothing and underwear is just disgusting. Worst of all - the magazine was published last Monday - which was the first day of mourning for the 50,000 people who died. The models, who appear sultry rather than sad, pose in front of and draped across fallen beams in ruined buildings, singly and together. Some appear to be wearing fake bloody bandages. The official news agency, Xinhua, said the propaganda department in Chongqing, where the lifestyle magazine is based, issued a statement condemning the publication's editors for "severely violating social morality, and causing extremely negative social effects". It said the magazine itself would be subject to "rectification", although the editors in charge have gone for good. In other words - the editors had their asses FIRED!

Girls are losing their sexual innocence much younger nowadays. Last week we had the controversy of the nude publication of a girl who was 16 years old in a fashion magazine. This week I was reading the opinion columns of the SMH where Miranda Devine writes about Bill Henson's new photography exhibition featuring naked 12 to 13 year olds at the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery which is opening tonight. Miranda writes:

It is now impossible to shield children from a culture dripping with sexual imagery, in which Saturday morning cartoons are interspersed with soft-porn music videos, pole-dancing kits with sexy garters are marketed to little girls and huge billboards for "Longer Lasting Sex" dot the landscape.

Still looking at the job pages for photography related jobs. Why? I'm just interested in what kind of jobs are out there for photographers and people who are interested in photographic arts. Also, its also interesting to observe what the business of photography requires. They need: photographers, assistants, graphic designers and sales people. My previous posts about photography related employment are: Studio jobs, digital photographer for a studio, another photography job, freelance photographer, a junior photographer job and finally a Starshots studio photographer.

A controversy has erupted in the fashion and modelling world in Australia as a 16 year old model, Zippora Seven, has been published on an 18 page spread in Russh magazine. She models in the spread alongside 16-year-old male model Levi Clarke.

This controversy raises an interesting aspect about the modeling and fashion industry. Many models that walk up and down the world's fashion catwalks are young, and a high percentage of them are under 18. It's just a "normal" for the industry. Photographers shoot these models walking up and down, a few times with garments barely hanging on. Yes there is nudity in this Russh photoshoot with Zippora Seven. But you've got to take it within context. The images are not erotic. They aren't sexual. They just are. They aren't targetted to the pornographic market but the fashion industry where this sort of thing is the norm. But then again she is a minor and she isn't mature enough to make "proper" decisions even though she may feel like she can. So is this a case of "yep, its art, not porno" excuse or "she's underage full stop".