It’s been so long since I last sat down to write for a blog post that there’s a little voice in my head questioning whether I still know how to do it. Funny.
I have a ton of things that I should have shared on this blog over the last year an a half, but that I simply didn’t. Life changing events, little wins, big losses, and of course, pictures. The list is really dense.
But instead of going all off and starting in “medias res” as my old ancestors liked to say, this time I will take a lighter approach and dip my toes into the water before diving into the sea.
Over the weekend, at Studio Brunswick (the creative studio in which I’ve been one of the resident artists in since June 2016) we decided to partake in a wonderful event called “Brunswick Studio Walk”. Brunswick is a particularly warehouse-studios-dense area of Melbourne and once a year, said studios open their doors to the public for a day, and trow exhibitions of the residents’ works.
We opened our door and exhibited works from all the resident artists: painter Mark Ogge, painter Selwyn Rodda, creative agency Your Creative, photographer Max Milne and myself.
I exhibited four of my favorite images from Project 24 and a completely new piece recently created for the exhibition : I AM ONLY HUMAN.
Shot with the fabulous model/photographer Hana Schlesinger and Ollie Savage at make up, it comes from the desire of being more honest with what i'm living at the moment and using photography as my vessel to express it.
"I am only human" is a sentence I've been saying to myself over and over in the last few months and I feel it totally represents me today. That being said, I will write more about this in a future blog post.
This photo was shot two weeks ago and to build the set, I had to paint two walls of my studio black with chalkboard paint, wire and organize the light fixtures for it (4 LED tubes), create a stencil for the lettering and spray paint it on the wall.
Needless to say, after the image was shot, I left the set standing as it was and during the exhibition on Saturday, I thought it would have been a waste not to use it. That's when I decided to shoot portraits of the people that were wandering into the studio to see the exhibition.
The funniest thing, and one that I totally didn't expect, was the impressive amount of questions I've been asked about what I was shooting and why I was asking random people to sit in for a super quick portrait whenever they wandered inside of my little studio. Everyone kept asking me: "Is this your new project? What is it about?"
And yes, I know, I'm a very project-based kind of photographer. But this one wasn't. And it made me laugh to see how the notion of shooting for the sake fo shooting, without wanting to do anything in particular with the images, confused people.
Taking portraits is my favorite thing in the world. It's the one I think of when I wake up in the morning, and the last one I think of when i'm about to fall asleep. It's on my mind while on the toilet, when smoking a cigarette in front of my studio, when I order a double espresso. It's on my mind when I speak to my mum on the phone and when I try to figure out how to get my next visa.
And it's all natural for me to just spontaneously start taking portraits of everyone that walks inside my studio as part of an exhibition, because why the hell not.
So yes, this was not a project. But it was just as important as every other project I ever did. Because I got, for another day, to do exactly what I love. And that's simply awesome.
Here's some of my favorites from the day, straight from the camera to Capture one and then to Jpg.
Thanks to everyone that came to the exhibition and for everyone that allowed me to take a portrait of them!