Saturday, January 21, 2012

Pigment... Euan Macleod..

































N.Z. artist Euan Macleod was introduced to me via Neil Frazer and Joanna Braithwaite.

Euan who is an Archibald winner, kindly invited me round to his studio to collaborate with me for my artist series..
http://www.wattersgallery.com/artists/macleodold.htm

Euan lives round the corner from me and has a great studio space.. I keep getting the same reaction as from all the artists, there is a little confusion why I want to photograph the objects, that I choose??

But seeing Euan's reaction to the images I took was fantastic.. He looked at his day to day tools in a completely different way, through virgin eyes, so to speak.. Yet again, seeing how differently all these high profile painters work is really interesting and they're all really lovely people..

Euan will be sitting for his first of three portraits next week, baby pending... As with the other artist portraits, I'm aiming to move away from their comfort zone and their work and show another side to them as people.. Here is my selections from the series, including a pile of oil scrapings, which I stuck a $1coin next to, to try and show its scale...

As always click on the image to enlarge...

Euan mention in one article written about him, his name was spelt three different ways..

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Friends of Friends... Brendan Maclean.


I met Brendan Maclean on a casting for an ad job, a couple of years back.. He got the job and we've stayed in touch, working on a fair few projects together.. Mr Maclean has his fingers in many pies, so to speak. A talented singer/songwriter, DJ on TripleJ and actor, where he has just starred along side Leonardo Dicaprio and Tobey McGuire in Gatesby.. I think Brendan has a very rosy future ahead of him and he's a all round good egg too..

As always click on image to enlarge...

Friends of Friends... Rai Thistlethwayte.


As part of this years Head On Exhibition I'm working on a new portrait series Entitled 'Friends of Friends'. I aiming to take 15-25 portraits of celebrities, but in a more natural, humanistic way and show a different feel to the subject matter..

Here is Thirsty Merc front man Rai Thistlethwayte, who is a friend of a friend, Amber.. I shot Rai about 5 years ago, as part of my 'Facial' series at The Enmore Theatre. I have always felt Rai's hair has been his trademark, so I wanted to try a different look for his shot..

Under all that hair is a good looking lad, I offered to shave the lot off and I was surprised when he declined my kind offer.. Rai has kindly offered to get in touch with a few of his celebrity contacts, for my series, so fingers crossed we land the couple he mentioned?

As always click on the image to enlarge the image...





 

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Friends and Neighbours..












Over the holiday period I'm always getting itchy feet and want to shoot stuff.. As we're always having people drop by for a drink, I thought I'd approach friends and neighbours to shoot a portrait of them, for a series..
All up I shot about 23 friends and these are my favourites from the lot, Roseanne being my favourite.. What I love about photographing close friends, is that when you're grading the images you really get to study them close. Even more so than in the flesh, every line, scar and dare I say blemish..

Friends and Neighbours are as follows:
George (Father-in-law), Max, Dave, Hannah, Judith, Roseanne, Lee (Mother-in-law), Kenny, Isabelle, Mal and Gav...

Monday, January 9, 2012

Pigment.. Neil Frazer's Portrait, oh and Brains...








I emailed Frazer this morning if he fancied a quick portrait shot, before my wife gives birth over the next few days.. He said for sure, so I popped round to shoot him in his studio along with Brains, his and wife Jo's dog... Artist Frazer and his wife and artist Jo Braithwaite are lovely, I've only met them a couple of times, but I feel like I've know them for much longer.

Frazer will be having three separate portraits done over the next few months, this been the first of them.. It's not very often you get an opportunity to shoot someone, whose jeans can stand up by themselves... My friend Matthew Lawrence Bespoke, is going to be making him a suit for one of the shots and the third will involve his plastic paint covered wall... ]

Brains also got in on the act today getting a few snaps taken before I headed off, Brains was a natural in front of the lens..

Jo's portrait will be shot in a few weeks time..

Hopefully next up in my Oil series will be Euan Macleod, along with Ben Quilty..

As always click to enlarge the image...