Heather Shaw a photographic adventure

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:45:53 +0800

Recently I had the privilege of tagging along with emerging artist Heather Shaw as she took photos of Northbridge for her “Out of the Shadows” body of work, which is to be shown in a group exhibition at Spectrum Project Space from the 25th of July to the 10th of August.
Curated by Paul Uhlmann other artists in the exhibition include: Susan Williams, Eileen Whitehead, Maureen Wilson, Huilin Sun, Pina Ranalli.
Note: The image NOWHERE TO MOVE ONTO, 2007 was taken by Heather Shaw not Huilin Sun.
Heather focused on capturing night landscapes which were dominated by a single light source. She began this project in her final semester at Edith Cowan University, focusing on Perth City spaces, and has expanded it into Northbridge surrounding Spectrum.
I merely accompanied Heather so she wouldn’t have to be alone, but I managed to get a few shots that I thought turned out well. I liked to think of the artificial light as a means to control space. There is only substance where the light touches otherwise there is black nothingness. You could take the thought further and explore how light, especially at night, controls and/or influences human behavior. It might be something to work on in the future?
However in an effort to diverge from heathers work I started playing around with long shutter speeds and zooming while the shutter is open. I quite like the range of results achieved. In any case it was a fun night.
P.S. Photo shoots can be a much more enjoyable experience when accompanied by a large iced chocolate...

Photo Fashion with Penny Lane & Yolanda Stapleton

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 21:58:22 +0800

Let me begin by saying that this workshop, held at the Fremantle Art Gallery, was quite cheap for the information provided and the chance to learn from Penny. Especially when compared to others offered at F.A.C, however I couldn’t help feeling slightly disappointed by the overall experience.
The workshop started out with Penny, (she’s awesome), providing us with some examples of her fantastic work which, accompanied by a pamphlet, illustrated the various types of fashion photography and how they differ from one another. For example a Look Book focuses on the clothes where as a Campaign shot is primarily about atmosphere rather than how good the clothes look.
Yolanda Stapelton (also an awesome person) gave a small talk on the layout of magazines and how to make them interesting (good examples include the Frankie mag) and she raved about the beauty of Lomography. I know its popular but Im not the kind of person who researches their interests so be gentle.... Anyways I was so intrigued by this ‘Holga’ she spoke of I did some research and bought a Lomo cam on ebay (I will post the pics when I develop the film).
From there on it began to get frustrating as we spent the next half hour positioning a model for Penny to photograph. This model, may I add, wasn't a professional so she didn't seem to take instruction well. This didn't help.
We then got put in groups to find other locations to position models however, after an hour, I was starting to get restless. I would just like to point out that I wasn’t the only one expecting to actually get to take photos, as nearly everyone else brought a camera.
I ended up taking photos over Penny’s shoulder, which she encouraged, it almost seemed like she hadn’t thought anyone would want to take their own...
It ended with outside photography where I learned the benefits of a ring flash, however half an hour standing in the freezing cold trying to get a model to leap across the frame (I don’t know anyone who doesn’t know how to do that, but she couldn’t seem to manage it) wasn’t the best ending to a day I’ve ever had.
I did manage to get some great information about photoshop from one of Penny’s assistants, regarding putting my name in the file data so I cant get ripped off again, so I still count the workshop as time well spent. I feel like I would have had a much better time if I had known that we wouldn’t take photos as I think everyone was concentrating on what they were missing out on rather than what they were getting.
To view some of Penny's work visit her myspace.
Below are some shots I managed to take. Click to see the finished versions.

The Blog

Heather Shaw a photographic adventure

Photo Fashion with Penny Lane & Yolanda Stapleton