Pigment.. Reg Mombassa...

  

  

Artist Neil 'Frazer' Frazer, introduced me to Reg a few months back.. Frazer said I would love the character in his face and he was right, Reg said " Well I'm sick of looking at it".

Artist/Musician Reg is a very well known man, his music career spanning 40 odd years, go hand in hand with his iconic art works for Mambo etc..

On meeting Reg at his studio 3 weeks back, Reg was easy to talk to and had the presence of man half his age. Reg made me a coffee and we talked shop, his musical past, flying in light aircraft and how little exercise he does, compared to Frazer, quote "The only exercise I do, is getting in and out of the car"...

Reg has such a strong style with his works of art and on entering his studio space and viewing a few he was working on, it felt I was meeting someone for the first time, that I already knew..

Reg is a very laid back, softly spoken gent, he has a fair few stories up his sleeve and I'm sure I could have heard a few more if I'd hung around.. When I went through Reg's studio to collect pieces to shoot, I spied this fine Fez, a real Fez, not a comedy Fez.. I picked it up and said I had to shoot him in it for his portrait, "Sure" said Reg and here they are...

When he arrived for his portrait Reg wore his usual black jacket and black beanie. He is very comfortable in his own skin I feel, maybe due to his successful career, but he is unstated in his style and manner, but really he is just a nice chap..

When he smiles his face changes quite dramatically, I was stumped for a gag to achieve this smile.. "Just tell me a joke about a monkey, or something".. I didn't have any monkey jokes, but the word monkey, seemed to do the trick..

Hopefully I will get the opportunity to photograph Reg again, down the line..? But I think I'd need to find another great hat for that session..



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

Father & Daughter..

 

After photographing John and Eddie last week, I thought I'd upload another set on father/child portraits.

On viewing this my neighbour Deb will probably dislike the shots of her husband Mal and say he looks like a convict (No Comment), but hopefully like the one's of her daughter Isabelle..?  I photographed the dad and daughter duo a few months back for a pitch..

The O'Briens live a few doors up from us and have become good friends, over the past 7 years.

When we first met Isabelle she was a young teenager, she was Mal's double in her looks and colouring, now she is away at Uni, but still her father's daughter..

Just slightly prettier.


As always click on the image to enlarge..

Cockney Sparrow.. Mr Gill...

 

 

Fellow Pom, Mike Gill and I met a few weeks back, this shy and retiring gentle character and I hit it off straight away..  His was sporting this fine moustache, which I asked immediately if I could photograph sometime this week..?

Mr Gill is a real larger than life person, who sounds like he has a stall down the markets, which I'm sure he won't mind me saying, a real Londoner..

There were too many memorable quotes from last night to mention, my favourite being that he was getting a silver tooth, because he was unable to eat apples since he lost his front tooth...

Not in a bar brawl I hasten to add.

As always click on the image to enlarge...

Pink.. Brendan Maclean's new series...

So I receive a Tweet from Brendan, he's taken a full length shot of himself in his mirror, wearing his new pink one piece.. I let him know my 4 month old daughter has a similar suit and suggested a new set of images...

Things are finally starting to happen for Mr Maclean, his 0.2 seconds of fame, in the new 'The Great Gatsby' trailer speaks volumes, for this 24 year old... Last week he was playing a gig at Baz Luhrmann's house, for his wife and it's only a matter of time before he gets his record deal...

I love random images, that really don't mean anything more than they are random and with Brendan, I achieve this on a regular basis... As I have written before, Brendan is eccentric and happy to experiment in front of the camera, the more odd, the better and that is the reason why I enjoy taking his picture..

I would love nothing more, than for celebrities to take a leaf out of his book, when being in front of the camera and let their hair down more often...


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

John's lad Eddie..

 

 

  

  

 

John 'Sticky' Llyod was my right hand man in defence, for Leichhardt Tigers, even though he supports the blue half of Liverpool.. Sticky and I have many things in common, we both played for Leichhardt, both English, both support teams from Liverpool and both bald as a coot..

I've known Sticky for about 3 years and have seen his lad Eddie grow up over those past few years. Eddie looks like a mini John and has always had these great freckles. I recently shot John for an exhibition I was doing and at the opening asked him and Claire, if I could shoot Eddie's portrait..?

Yesterday they dropped in for a 20 minute portrait and here are the results, like Father, like Son..
Eddie is 10 years old and isn't far from turning into a young man and teenager, he still has that innocence that we all once had and that is what I love about his series of images, along with his amazing freckles, that will fade over the coming years..

I honestly think the top 2 images of Eddie are my favourite portraits, that I've shot to date..


As always click on image to enlarge...

Pigment.. Artist Guy Warren...

Artist Guy Warren's series for Pigment has been an interesting one for me, for several reasons..  As I mentioned in my two previous blogs on him, he instantly reminded me of my late Father, in looks and his ways, on finding out they shared the same birthday, it was a little unnerving..

91 year old Warren is a straight shooter and tells it like it is, as he did when telling me he was not a fan of my portraits of him, my grading wasn't flattering and I made him look 10 years his senior... I do respect honesty and I suspect you can't always please your audience..

What I found in Guy Warren's studio space, was a life time of an artist, shelves that had tubes of paint, not disturbed for nearly 30 years, literally found, where they were left.. And this was the basis for my images of his chapter..

Winsor & Newton tubes, with logos long since redesigned, but this was the charm of the objects, along with French paints that looked 50 plus years old, it was almost like discovering a shipwreck on the sea bed covered in silt..

And finally Guy's apron of 25 plus years, with layer upon layer of oils etc, a piece of work in itself..

I'd love to exhibit Guy Warren's section alone, large graphic prints, I feel will be a powerful series, along with its stories of yesteryear..

I would like the opportunity to photograph him again at some point, whether he agrees or not, remains to be seen..? I think many take out coffees and muffins, will have to be the order of the day to get a yes..

Hopefully he will see the beauty and sheer history in his series of images, but we will see...

One thing is for sure, the more time I've spent with Guy, the more he felt like my late Father and this was rather an odd experience...


As always click on the image to enlarge...