Two Fists, One Heart
Last monday night, Popcorn Taxi screened new Australian boxing flick Two Fists, One Heart, and held a Q&A session afterwards featuring a whole bunch of people involved in the production.
The drill with Popcorn Taxi events is that I shoot the Q&A, and then head out back to try and grab a couple of candid snaps of the guests while the team wraps things up. Usually the guests are eager to leave, or are surrounded by publicists and various other people, so it’s difficult to do anything other than a quick group shot or photograph them signing the posters.
This time however, they were gracious enough to let me photograph them individually, portrait-style - I still had to be super-quick, and take the shots in the one location (a small private corridor that opens out to the candy bar at Greater Union Bondi Junction), and had barely any time to set up any kind of lighting. I used a 50mm prime lens, and I attached my Speedlite 580EX II (set to 1/16th power) to an off-camera shoe cord so I could hold it in my other hand for some directional light. All shots were taken at f/8, 1/125th second, ISO 400.
Rai Fazio. He wrote the film, and also plays the character ‘Nico’.

Daniel Amalm. Star of the film, he plays main character ‘Anthony Argo’.

Jessica Marais. She plays ‘Kate’, boxing non-enthusiast.

Tim Minchin. Very funny fellow, he had a hand in the writing and also plays ‘Tom’.

Shawn Seet. Director.

Here’s the trailer for the film - it’s released nationally on March 19th.
Ruby’s Diner
Sunday breakfast at Ruby’s Diner in Bronte. Its my new favourite place, mainly due to their amazing hand-cut fried potatoes - the coffee is also pretty damn good.






Cut Off Your Hands
Cut Off Your Hands, rocking the Darlinghurst rooftops last night - a small farewell show for their departing guitarist Mikey Ramirez.




Australia
From April 2007 until October 2008, a large team of us at Animal Logic worked on the visual effects for a number of sequences in Baz Luhrmann’s film Australia.
I spent about three weeks in north Queensland, two weeks in the Northern Territory, and then two or three months on and off in Sydney, running around taking photographs of the sets & props, helping to record measurements, and anything else necessary for creating the digital set extensions of 1940’s Darwin.
Besides the landscape and sets, I also took a lot of photos of the extras hired to play the soldiers and townsfolk of Darwin. Playing an extra in a film is mostly about waiting, punctuated with short bursts of activity when you are required for a shot, so I found it fascinating to watch how people spent their time when they weren’t required for filming.
Bowen.
Darwin.
Fox Studios, Sydney.
An outdoor night shoot at Fox Studios, Sydney.
Skullsquadron
Here’s some photos I took of my friends, Skullsquadron at the CarriageWorks in Redfern recently.
The site, once an industrial train yard, was recently converted into a spanking new Arts Centre with lots of beautifully preserved brick buildings and original ironwork.
The goal was to use the elegant brick and yellow colour scheme of the environment to offset the guys’ simple black outfits so that they would stand out more. I had an off-camera flash on a cable that I could position as far as my arm could reach, to give myself a bit more flexibility with the lighting.




Even Books #7 … no-one belongs here more than you
Even Books is a regular night that combines literature, music, art, theatre and booze to be one of the most unusual book clubs around. Each night is themed around a different book, and last week’s theme was Miranda July’s collection of short stories, “No-one Belongs Here More Than You“.
The vibe was kinda like a chilled house party, with some activities and live music thrown in.
There were interactive projects, based on Miranda’s writing and web art.


Sui Zhen, Daisy M. Tulley (Bridezilla) and The Maple Trail played some folk tunes for the gathering.





The “positive message table”.


Sui Zhen even made a diorama inspired by Miranda July, especially for the night.

Sydney Opera House
I’ve been seeing a lot of Sydney’s famous landmark lately - a few weeks ago I came down for the Dappled Cities show at the Spiegeltent on the forecourt, last week was the SMAC Awards, and then on friday night we went to dinner at Guillaume at Bennelong, the flagship restaurant. Each time I’ve been down, I haven’t been able to resist snapping off a few shots. I’m very aware that there is an oversaturation of photographs of this building, but what the hell - here’s a few more to add to the pile.




Holy Fuck
Holy Fuck, performing at the Annandale Hotel, Sydney. 12.12.08.
To be honest, I was really only there to hear “Lovely Allen”, the standout tune from their self-titled album, but I was pretty blown away by how good the show was overall.


The evening was made even more enjoyable by the support of Melbourne’s terrific Mountains In The Sky.


The SMAC Awards
The winners of the inaugural SMAC Awards (Sydney Music, Arts & Culture) were unveiled to the world on sunday night, at a party held down at the Sydney Opera House. The awards, presented by Timeout Sydney & FBi 94.5, were thought up as a way to honour Sydney’s cultural innovators with traditional categories such as “Best Music Performance” mixed in with other more unusual ones, such as the “Remix the City” Award, rewarding the person or team who have used the city’s space in the most creative way.
Fergus Linehan took out the SMAC of the Year Award, for his sterling work directing the lineup of the annual Sydney Festival for the last three years.
- SMAC OF THE YEAR AWARD - FERGUS LINEHAN
- SMAC REMIX THE CITY AWARD - BIENNALE AT COCKATOO ISLAND
- SMAC IN YOUR FACE AWARD - RAISE THE BAR
- BEST MUSIC EVENT - SYDNEY FESTIVAL BECKS BAR/SPIEGELTENT
- BEST MUSIC PERFORMANCE - DAPPLED CITIES
- RECORD OF THE YEAR - THE PRESETS Apocalypso
- BEST MUSIC NEWCOMER - CLOUD CONTROL
- BEST ARTS EVENT - UNDERBELLY PUBLIC ARTS LAB AND FESTIVAL
- BEST VISUAL ARTIST - KILL PIXIE
- BEST ACTOR/ PERFORMER - BRENDAN COWELL – Hamlet
- BEST ARTS NEWCOMER - GREEDY HEN





















































































































