These Vices

About a month ago I met a really rad dude - Michael Panozzo from These Vices. We were collaborating to help a mutual friend, Chuck Mayfield, make a short video clip for his latest art gallery opening on Smith St in Collingwood. I've done some videography in the past, but it had been a while and I was actually really looking forward to getting back into it. I've been putting all of my energy into Awkward Portraits recently and I was feeling like I needed a bit of a change and a creative challenge.

After shooting some footage and exchanging details, Michael asked me if I'd be keen to help him with a few more projects in the future. He put me in touch with the guys from Apparition Media, and I spent a week filming the progress of a wall mural at Melbourne Central for Vans Shoes.

Check out the videos below. All of the editing was done by Mike at These Vices, and he did a great job. Really looking forward to a few more collaborations in the future!

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Huge thanks to These Vices for making this awesome video of the set up and opening night of our show. Also Karin Locke for her camera skills and Dj Sizzle for the soundtrack of the video and the exhibition opening. If you're not based in Melbourne and you were hoping to check out the art, this is for you :)Thanks to everyone for the support on this little journey. We're already moving on to our next project, we'll let you know what it is later this week! - Chuck & Júlia

Posted by Mayfield Palace on Sunday, May 31, 2015

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Lil' Freddie

When most people think of baby photography, they picture Anne Geddes babies dressed up as cabbages or sleeping precariously in teacups or flower pots. As someone who doesn't photograph babies too frequently, I tend to approach the subject in the same way as I would photograph an adult. It's still portraiture - on a smaller scale, and requiring a bit more patience - but portraiture happens to be what I love to do.

Last week I got to photograph a friend's adorable 3-month-old baby, Freddie. He was such a chill little thing, and didn't seem to mind a stranger tickling him and pushing a big camera in his face for two hours. We tried to get him to sleep for a few shots, but he was just too excited by all of the attention. 

Here are a few snaps of the handsome fellow, just hanging out in mum's fuzzy woolen scarf.

I'm looking forward to more of my friends having adorable babies so I can photograph them too.

(Click to enlarge)

Confetti Fair

Time flies when you're having fun. I've been really preoccupied with a side project of mine that's become nearly full time, hence the lack of blog posts in the past three months. I last wrote about my Awkward Portraits project almost a year ago, and it's been on a slow burn ever since.

The first half of 2014 saw a few little events here and there, including a quick sojourn up to Sydney for a 30th birthday party, and 2 epic parties at Forgotten Worlds in Collingwood for Valentines Day and Christmas in July. Later, in August and September, I took part in 2 instalments of the boutique party fair known as Confetti Fair, and brought on board my amazing partner Jason to help with the heavy lifting. (Turns out he's also a real charmer, and looks damn good in a vintage 3 piece suit.)

Confetti Fair Melbourne took place at the Arts House Meat Market, an incredible old heritage building in North Melbourne that's been repurposed as an arts & event venue. What a cool space! It was an all day thing, with setup starting at 10am and teardown at 10pm, but Jason and I had a blast dressing people up, posing them and making prints for our happy customers on the spot.

After the success of Melbourne, Claire and the Confetti Fairies asked us if we'd venture up to Sydney for the next instalment there. I didn't think venues got much cooler than the Meat Market, but I was wrong! We arrived at Fairground Follies after flying in that morning, to discover that it's a fully functional circus and carnival museum, full of carousels, vintage rides and music machines. There was even a popup wedding happening at the Fair that day, and the entire wedding party came over and had some fun with us!

Confetti Fair was such a great experience for our little business. It prompted me to branch out from my personal brand and create business cards, a website, Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter accounts just for Awkward Portraits. The lovely ladies at Confetti Fair were even nice enough to put up a little interview with us on their blog, which you can read here. 

What's next for Awkward Portraits? We're SO excited to announce that we will be a part of the One Day Shopping Festival at Melbourne Central on 26 November, as well as select dates over the course of December. You can find us in Shot Tower Square from 10am to 10pm on November 26, and on Level 2 for the following dates and times:

Thurs 4th December: 3pm – 9pm
Fri 5th December: 3pm – 9pm
Sat 6th December: 11am – 5pm
Sun 7th December: 11am – 5pm

Thurs 11th December: 3pm – 9pm
Fri 12th December: 3pm – 9pm
Sat 13th December: 11am – 5pm
Sun 14th December: 11am – 5pm

Fri 19th December: 3pm – 9pm

Can't wait to see all your smiling faces and double chins at Melbourne Central! In the meantime, follow our awkward adventures on social media, and check out the Awkward Portraits website.

Hand Lettering

I've always had pretty neat handwriting (people I went to school with used to joke around and ask, "What font is that?") and I've always enjoyed creating stylized hand lettering. Up until recently I've just done it for personal projects like card making and gifts for friends, but after doing some hand lettering work on my friend Marion's menu board, another local business got in touch asking for my services.

At first, the guys at Trippy Taco wanted me to create a template for their specials board that the employees could then write the daily specials on. After a few weeks, the bossman decided he loved the design of the board so much, he'd rather have me create some removable panels that could be swapped out on a daily basis instead of relying on his employees' artistic talents. 

Below are some photos of the specials board in the restaurant and the individual panels that I created for them. I must say I really enjoyed this project! I've been focusing on photography so hard lately that I've really neglected my graphic design and typography skills, so it was good to get back into it and have a fun project from a really great local business.

"Working" as a Photographer

It's been about 16 months since leaving my comfortable roots and successful freelance practice back in Canada, and I’ve switched from "Oh I'm just doing a year abroad, I'm going to work at any old job and take photographs whenever I can" to the decision that I would like to stay in Melbourne. As such, I've been working really hard this year towards working full time again as a photographer. I’m trying to stay positive, chalk every disappointment up to a learning experience, and look on the bright side. A few months ago I applied for a photography internship with a media company here in Melbourne. 

After a preliminary interview, I was asked to return the following morning to receive a brief. Myself and 8 other photographers were told that we were competing for 4 freelance contracts with the company, and we were tasked with a week-long project that we were to complete and present the following Friday. With the overarching theme of “luxury,” we were given 4 categories to work within and instructed to capture 5 different photographs for each category. The categories were: fashion & beauty, design, lifestyle, and buildings & landscapes. The final aspect of the project involved choosing our own category and creating another 5 images; I chose to explore texture, because the word “luxury” to me evokes all kinds of lovely things to touch, feel, and taste.

The next week was a whirlwind of brainstorming, lighting experiments, calling in favours, borrowing things, cold calls, location scouting and exhaustion. While the bulk of my experience as a photographer is in portraiture and interiors, I dabbled in product, food and macro photography over the course of the week. I planned and executed 20 separate shoots in 7 days, and I can’t thank my friends enough for coming through and giving their time, support, ideas, faces and bodies, and the occasional lift.

I was astounded to find out later that in addition to the group of 9 that I was in, the company had also requested a similar project from 10 other groups of 10 or more people to fill 4 positions! There was a lot of miscommunication; I was led on for over a month, promised call-backs and emails that never came, and in the end I can’t help but feel like some information about the interview process and the company’s intentions was withheld. I’m not entirely sure how many other photographers I was up against, but not surprisingly I didn’t get the job. The whole process left a bad taste in my mouth, but the end result was sweet - I haven’t felt so driven, so fired up creatively, nor produced such volume and variety of work in such a short amount of time since University! I’m really proud of how much I accomplished in the 7 days, plus I got some killer shots to add to my portfolio. And that’s what I’m going to take away from this experience. 

Here are a few of my favourite photographs produced during the internship from hell.