Photoshoot in progress

Make sure you keep an eye on my Facebook artist page as I will be posting an exciting giveaway very soon!

Slashies - Eugene Tan

Slashies are online videos that explore the lives of passionate people who have followed their dreams and pursued their true calling. The first video is about Eugene Tan, the surf photographer behind Aquabumps who quit his corporate design job to follow his passion for photography.

It's very inspiring, I highly recommend watching it!

Peace Love and Brown Rice

I love it when good design and great content comes together to produce an amazing book. I recently got my hands on Peace Love and Brown Rice: A Photographic History of the Big Day Out. As the name suggests, it documents the Big Day Out music festival from the first one in 1992 (with Nirvana and The Violent Femmes on the setlist) right up to 2005.

The photos in this book are all by Sophie Howarth, and I love how she didn't just take photos of the bands but the whole festival vibe. A lot of the photos of the wacky festival punters are more interesting than the band shots! The pages are so thoughtfully designed to perfectly capture the gritty, grungy and chaotic nature of the BDO festival.

A beautiful book. Love, love, love it.

Tony Mott

Of all the types of photography out there, music and concert photography interests me the most. I recently received the book Rock'n'Roll Photography is the New Trainspotting which is a retrospective of Tony Mott's photographic works. The reason why he's one of my favourite photographers is because he has managed to capture the essence of so many Australian bands, some before they hit the big time. Midnight Oil, The Divinyls, Paul Kelly, Nick Cave... the list goes on.

The photos in the book are amazing and there's a good mix of old and new and local and international bands. I wish there was a bit more info included about the photos though - sometimes Tony will say something like 'the band was difficult to work with' and I was dying to know why!

Lady Gaga's copyright demands on photographers

The photographers' pit. Image courtesy of Daniel Boud.

Copyright is an issue that's close to the hearts of many creatives whose livelihood depends on the things they create. That's why I was quite frustrated to read this news story on the Rolling Stone website about how Lady Gaga demands that photographers surrender the copyright of photos taken at her concerts. This means that all the moral and copyright rights of the photographer are immediately transferred to Lady Gaga the moment the photographer takes the photo. But it's not only performers like Lady Gaga enforcing these crazy rules - other bands such as the Foo Fighters and The Beastie Boys ask photographers to sign over their copyright. These contracts are extremely unfair to photographers who have spent hours waiting before the show, get paid very little and then have no ongoing revenue stream from the photos they take. The article makes the comparison that photo contracts would be like the venue saying they own the rights to that show's music because it is played in their house.

What do you think? Is it fair for musicians and performers who make their money from their creative output to make such restrictive demands on photographers?

Lizard

For the last few months or so my garden has had a new resident. A lizard, to be more specific. I've named him Stumpy and he is very cute! He's also very shy, so I'm amazed that my sister managed to get this close to take a photo.