Archive for the ‘Meeting People’ Category
HARDY LAMPRECHT: Solo Photo Exhibition @ Gallery Frenzy, Brisbane
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. . Excerpts from an opening address: Hardy Lamprecht | Perspectives of Form: A Sojourn Away
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I’ve known Hardy Lamprecht for over 20 years. He embraced the larger formats of photography and the darkroom with gusto and passion. He enjoyed the landscape and made photography sojourns to the granite tors of Girraween National Park in Queensland, to the shifting sand dunes of Lancelin in Western Australia.
He has also spent a considerable amount of time in the United Kingdom working in his principle career, that has a lot to do with sight and seeing, but the tug of the landscape sent him out on weekends to misty moors, rugged cliffs and into dramatic urban and sculptural spaces.
Time passes and anyone with twenty years experience in photography recognises the need to make the transition of the wet darkroom into the dry digital workspace. While in the past once the films were processed Hardy would venture into the darkroom for extended periods to resolve the lived experience of the shoot as fine art black and white prints. These images would then be presented for exhibition to share his vision with others. Although many photographers of Hardy’s ilk lament the passing of the darkroom and, whenever a sympathetic ear is around, talk of the ‘good old days’ – but not Hardy. He assimilated digital technologies into his workflow by scanning negatives, optimising them in Adobe Lightroom and the printing them on fine art Canson digital papers. What we see on the walls now is the same attention to detail and creativity but within a contemporary medium.
So what this exhibition represents is not only one photographer’s journey in the landscape but also another journey from the traditional black metallic silver specs of the wet darkroom to the emergent digital space of pixels and ink on paper. I believe this work challenges the notion that high quality fine art photographs can only result from the wet darkroom. Should there be any question, I would present to them this body of work where: I’d talk with them about deep rich blacks and clean clear whites, I’d point out the both employ the same baryta paper base, I’d then discuss the dynamic tonal range represented in the prints and theories I have about every photographer today working in digital, is emulating the aspirations of the very few Zone System dilettantes of the past.
Once through with the technical stuff that pervades the discipline of photography and printmaking and much critical dialogue, I would challenge them to see beyond superficial technique to the more sublime nature of these photographs. I would elucidate on aspects of the photographs design–of abstraction, perspective and scale–of chiaroscuro and emotion. This work is the result of seeing and capturing a personal vision and empathy of the subject before the camera–a moment in time of place.
Ultimately Hardy Lamprecht’s images are about what he saw and was inspired by in the continuum of his lived experience. He then captured on film a kind of referential trace extracting a new visual interpretation or meaning of the original subject. In the digital space, aided by software, he reflects on his wet darkroom image interpretation skills and techniques and applies them to the modern tool of the computer. In doing this he achieves something that can be shared, as he did before, with us as viewers. As a result of that we can, in the space of this gallery, transcend time, space and photographic technology and encounter the world in the lens of your own memory.
Hardy, I take great pleasure in declaring this exhibition open … Doug Spowart May 3, 2013
Vicky, Hardy and Doug @ the opening
Selected images from the show….
Threesome
Subterranean Symmetry
Large Reclining Figure by Henry Moore
Going Under
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Orbits
Double Ovals by Henry Moore
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Exhibition photographs ©2013 Hardy Lamprecht, additional photography by Cooper+Spowart
Essay ©2013 Doug Spowart
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. . .
VISITING ARTISTS: Foto Frenzy ‘Exploring Photography’ Workshop @ Mt Barney Lodge
Mt Barney soon after dawn
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Last weekend we participated in a Foto Frenzy workshop at Mt Barney Lodge in South-East Queensland’s World Heritage listed Scenic Rim.
This bushland retreat is nestled in a valley only a few kilometres from the rugged Mt Barney peak alongside the upper reaches of the Logan River. The location for the workshop is ideally suited for photographers as there are views of both pastoral and rugged natural landscapes in abundance.
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Late afternoon clouds over the Mt Barney peak
An early morning encounter
A nearby peak
Reflections on the upper Logan River
Workshop participants relaxing in their accommodation @ Moringararah Homestead, Mt Barney Lodge
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Workshop lecturer Darren Jew links opportunities for photography with a hands-on computer set-up with a fine art printing facility. Participants start with an inspirational introductory session followed by colour management induction and calibration of their monitors to ensure quality output.
The keen photographers assembled pre-dawn on Saturday to witness and photograph the setting full moon behind the Mt Barney summit and a cloud-streaked sunrise.
The setting moon over Mt Barney
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Darren, assisted by Vicky and I, worked with the photographers to ensure that they made full use of the photographic opportunities provided. Breakfast followed and the work of editing and optimising files was carried out with tutorials presented by Darren.
Darren working with participants @ dawn
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As part of our visiting artists program we worked with the participants offering suggestions and ideas for image enhancement. Other projects undertaken with the group included the setting-up of a camera obscura in Boolamoola Homestead and a ‘projection and light painting’ on Saturday evening.
For many years we have created images of place by combining projected images with electronic flash light painting on outdoor subjects and buildings. These Projections or light sculptures are constructed from individual exposures to make a composite photograph. The final image or series of images presents the viewer with a visual story that is drawn from our exploration of, and empathy with, each place.
On Saturday night we included the participants to witness and make their own photos of the projection work around and on the Moringararah Homestead. The capture of separate elements for the final image was presented by Doug as a performance of how we work in these situations. First we projected a dawn image of Mt Barney over the front of the house for an initial exposure. Next, the internal house lights were switched on to create an exposure for the windows. Finally, additional flash work illuminated aspects of the garden surrounding the house–on this occasion the time exposure for the light painting enabled the ambient moonlight to create a glow in the sky.
Moringararah Homestead projection and light paint
Moringararah Homestead in daylight
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After this there was another ‘painting with light’ performance and photography opportunity for the participants in a sheoak grove by the small stream at the entrance to the Lodge. Each of the photographers present was given an opportunity to photograph the performance of the projection and light sculpting work.
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Sheoak grove light paint
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On Sunday 28th April students were assisted in taking photographs for World Pinhole Photography Day using pinhole devices made at the workshop and fitted to their DSLR cameras. The Boolamoola camera obscura was also available to the students a subject to document or just experience..
The workshop concluded with a frenzy of fine art printing of student work overseen by Darren.
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Student group Photo: Darren Jew
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The natural location of Mt Barney Lodge, the facilities and catering provided by the owners Innes and Tracy Larkin helped to make the workshop a great success. The Lodge provides access to this remote and rugged part of South East Queensland. For accommodation and camping information see their website HERE
This region, alongwith most of Queensland and other Australian places of natural beauty and agricultural importance, is under threat of Coal Seam Gas extraction and open cut mining – Being in this place makes you realise the need for care and consideration of the natural places in this energy hungry, development crazy world. For details of CSG and mining in the Scenic Rim click HERE
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OTHER IMAGES FROM THE WORKSHOP FOLLOW
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All photographs and texts © of the authors 2013.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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WORLD PINHOLE PHOTOGRAPHY DAY: Our Contribution
We were working with Darren Jew on a Foto Frenzy ‘Exploring Photography’ workshop @ Mt Barney Lodge, a bushland retreat in South-East Queensland’s World Listed Scenic Rim.
We briefed workshop participants on pinhole photography and helped them make pinholes for their DSLR cameras, and everyone joined in the activity of ‘pinholing’.
On Saturday we blacked-out a store room of about 3 x 3 metres square in the rear of the Boolamoola Homestead using plastic and curtain material in readiness for the big WPPD on Sunday.
Boolamoola Homestead – store room window at upper left
The room before set-up
While the others sat outside eating lunch on Sunday (World Pinhole Photography Day) we sneaked into the Camera Obscura and made our image of our lunch time. The ‘pinhole’ was around 8mm. Exposure of the image was by lensed (focal length=16mm) DSLR using f8 200 ISO and time exposure of 30 seconds.
Lunchtime Camera Obscura Mt Barney Lodge
The other way ’round
Looking up to the ceiling – Camera Obscura Mt Barney Lodge
View from the window
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VISIT THE GALLERY OF IMAGES http://www.pinholeday.org/gallery/
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All photographs and texts © of the authors 2013.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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CAMERA OBSCURA + Pinhole Event @ Foto Frenzy: A Report
Since the year 2000 we have been making large-scale room camera obscuras. These have been made as part of visual research for our Place Projects. Usually we document the process and the images form a narrative for inclusion in photobooks and exhibitions. In 2009 we launched WINDOW/s, a limited edition photobook of 9 copies, along with an exhibition of the 9 camera obscura images @ the Queensland Centre for Photography.
SEE the book as an Adobe Flash Pageflip HERE
In our Place Project work we have found that the camera obscura connects us directly with the place or site that we are working in. We have found that anyone witnessing the place-specific camera obscura responds enthusiastically this natural phenomenon. Time spent inside the camera obscura evokes a sharing of different perceptions: of the visual, of memory and of experiences in the lives of each visitor. So we decided that we should create a camera obscura as part of our Foto Frenzy artist in residence.
As a result of a conversation with a past QCA student of Doug’s from the 1980s, photographer John Pryke, through some great research on the internet, found that not far down the road was the site of an historical camera obscura on Whites Hill.
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The Whites Hill Camera Obscura c1924 from the ‘Lost Brisbane’ Project site
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The view from the front entry of Foto Frenzy was selected as its outlook is of the defining feature of this place – the major intersection of Bennetts and Old Cleveland Roads Coorparoo. A plan was created, the room blacked out with thick black agricultural plastic, a light admitting hole of around 12 mm was made and fitted in the door of the building, and screens arranged inside onto which the image could be projected.
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Saturday the 20th of April was a bright sunny day with occasional clouds and the 40 or so visitors witnessed the wonders of this simple device. Many brought cameras with them to make images, some brought family members including children – all, as we hoped, were taken by the visual experience of being ‘IN’ a camera, one which did not even require a lens.
As artists in residence working with the Foto Frenzy / Brisbane Camera Hire Team, we were around some amazing technology and people with special knowledge. Director Darren Jew produced his Canon EOS 1D and a high speed 12mm lens for the cover image of this post. If you’ve not been in a ‘lensless’ camera obscura you will not be aware of how dark the images is – usually it takes several minutes for your eyes to adjust to see what is going on, it is that dark. There are perhaps only a few movies of camera obscura images that have ever been made as it requires specialized cameras and equipment. Darren Jew offered to wind up the ISO of his latest camera and at 40,000 ISO we were able to create a movie of the impromptu performance of our antics outside the building as – ‘Vicky and Doug do a Selfie’.
SEE the movie here ….
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What fascinated us was the excitement and enthusiasm for the project, much of which was posted on Facebook soon after the event. With the permission of the respondents we have posted some of their images and words in the screen grabs that follow …
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Megan Rizzo and family visit and photograph the camera obscura
Sara Pearcy comments on her experience with son Nicholas in the camera obscura
Steven Underhayes’ terrific camera obscura image
John Pryke does a ‘Selfie’ in the camera obscura
SEE more of John’s photographs on his blog: <http://johnprykephoto.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/camera-obscura.html>..
.Additionally the event included a presentation of some of our pinhole cameras, pinhole making techniques, and discussions about how to make pinhole images with SLR and DSLR cameras. Most importantly we encouraged participants to make and enter photos made on April 28 in the 2013 World Pinhole Photography Day event.
Thank you to the participants, the Foto Frenzy / Brisbane Camera Hire team, in particular Darren Jew and Jacob Schneider, for helping to make this a successful event
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All photographs and texts © of the authors 2013.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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NICOLA POOLE’s ‘Lost Girls’ @ Gallery Frenzy, Brisbane
Lost Girls by Nicola Poole @ Gallery Frenzy, Brisbane.
Image from Nicola Poole’s Lost Girls exhibition
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Excerpts from my opening address:
Doug Spowart opens Nicola Poole’s ‘Lost Girls’ exhibition
This morning on checking my Facebook news feed, there was a message from Darren Jew, of Brisbane’s Foto Frenzy Photography Centre, in which he described the ‘Oh My God’ moment at the age of 12, that inspired his life in photography. That moment was watching a black and white print develop in a tray in a darkroom. I was reminded of my same experience. From other posts there seemed to be quite a few others who were also seduced by the darkroom’s red safelight and its mysterious stinky chemicals.
I posted back to Darren posing the question: ‘how many 12 year olds are out there making digi images today and missing out on that OMG darkroom moment?’ Later, during a conversation with my partner Victoria, we made the interesting observation that in the old darkroom days we ‘MADE’ photographs in every sense of the word. Film was handled in darkness and loaded into tanks–chemicals added, agitation, water washes, hanging up to dry–negatives placed in the enlarger carrier, paper touched and slid into the easel, exposed to light, paper slipped into chemicals, trays rocked… etc. Photography was something that extended well after the shutter was fired. It took time and trouble for an image or two to emerge–made–from the process.
We thought that today with digital photography we just TAKE images–with rapidity and ease. Just click, add a filter effect or two and share. And we may take many, many images. In contemporary image taking the picture has a very transient and superficial value. Quickly taken and distributed they are even consumed faster on social media and quickly lost from view–particularly if you have lots of friends who post with the rapidity of a machine-gun. What is missing today is the time spent with an image realising it as a physical object. Digital imaging is like visual ‘fast food’. We, as consumers, end up fat, lazy and with pixelated indigestion.
What excites me about Nicola Poole’s Lost Girls exhibition is that Nicola has assembled a collection of cohesive thematic image work and formed it into a physical and tangible MADE thing. Over the last week at Foto Frenzy I have witnessed her making this show. Photographs handled, selected and compared, prints emerging line by line from the printer, matted/mounted/framed, placed in the gallery space shuffled–moved, re-ordered and hung. I know that selecting, preparing and presenting work in an exhibition is complex and demanding. The artist embeds their energy and time in it and we the viewers are rewarded in proportion to the care and effort expended in its making.
I congratulate Nicola Poole and applaud her energy, enthusiasm and vision. As a younger girl herself, it is appropriate that she should make photographs the comment on her own experiences and on her generation. As we engage with these photographs questions might emerge: are the subjects looking into memories of the past, or are they facing an uncertain future? These images evoke a sense of, or a time of, waiting–a kind of anxiety or anticipation for something or someone. As viewers we may ponder and be drawn into the narrative.
As to the Lost Girls–What I do know is that in the making of this exhibition, somehow they have all been ‘FOUND’.
And, as Nicola’s first solo exhibition, it is indeed my please to formally announce it open …
Dr Doug Spowart
Nicola Poole and Me
Image from Nicola Poole’s Lost Girls exhibition
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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FRENZIED A.I.R. ‘PoPuP’ Exhibition @ Brisbane’s GALLERY FRENZY
We are now in Brisbane participating in an Artist in Residence @ Foto Frenzy in Coorparoo.
On Wednesday evening we presented an artist’s talk about our previous residencies and our approach to ‘Place Projects’. The event was attended by around 40 photographers, artists and students.
The exhibition will be on show on Easter Monday April 1st and Tuesday 2nd of April – We will be in attendance at the gallery between 11.00 am and 4.00 pm on those days.
GALLERY FRENZY is in the Foto Frenzy Photography Centre
Unit 3/429 Old Cleveland Rd, Coorparoo QLD 4151
We are also presenting a series of workshops @ Foto Frenzy–for details visit the website WWW.WOTWEDO.COM.
FRENzied A.I.R. Poster
Ian Poole, a Director of Foto Frenzy, opens the exhibition.
Vicky talking about her work
Selfie with Ian Poole
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SOME OF THE WORK ON SHOW …
The exhibition features a selection of Camera Obscura works, Projections, cyanotypes and artists’ book and photobook works.
CarCamera concertina book
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PLAY A VIDEO OF SOME OF THE CARCAMERA WORK
The ‘Hitting the Skids’ flipbook
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PLAY A VIDEO OF THE FLIPBOOK
‘A cyanotype by Doug Spowart ‘Wooli Beach Junk’
Projection – Myall Park Botanic Gardens
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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YOU ARE INVITED: Meet the Artists Talk @ Foto Frenzy
Meet the artists, see their work, hear them talk about creativity, invention, tinkering with art, and how to pursue personal directions in art-making and life.
The artists will also launch their Foto Frenzy workshop series and Artist in Residence.
Foto Frenzy
Unit 3, 429 Old Cleveland Road
Brisbane, QLD 4151
Australia
Wednesday, 27 March 2013 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (EST)
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The event is FREE but seating is limited. Please book through Eventbrite
Click Here 
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Victoria Cooper and Doug Spowart of Photographers of the Great Divide, are visual artists working in the fields of photoimaging, books as art, cultural research and education. They have collaborated on many art projects and exhibitions of book works that have featured their room and car camera obscuras.
As part of their PhD studies research and artworks produced were in the form of Photobooks and Artists Books. Both are Masters of Photography and Honorary Fellows of the Australian Institute of Professional Photography.
Spowart and Cooper have both lectured in Australia and New Zealand on the topic of the photobook and artists’ books and their book have been purchased for the rare book and manuscript collections in the State Libraries of Queensland and Victoria, and the National Library of Australia.
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Visit <wotwedo.com> for the Cooper and Spowart Workshops.
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CODEX 9: ARTISTS’ BOOK DISCUSSION MEETING
Queensland, it seems, is the place to be if you are interested in artists’ books (ABs). Queenslanders have one of the countries most significant collection of artists’ books in the State Library of Queensland, another significant private collection held by Noreen Grahame, herself a major contributor to the AB in this country. Other collections and events coordinated by Artspace Mackay including the Focus on Artists’ Books Forum and Libris Awards. There are also major practitioners of the art living and working in Queensland including Katherine Nix, Adele Outteridge, Wim de Vos, Ron McBurnie, Stephen Spurrier, Helen Malone, Jack Oudyn, Judy Barrass, and many more.
CODEX Event graphic
In this fertile space for ABs a small band of interested practitioners recently met to discuss the idea of forming a special interest group dedicated to the discipline. The invitation came as an email under the auspices of a CODEX 9 event with the following statement:
books by artists / artists books
printmaking, letterpress, papermaking and more
artists interested in making books are invited to
join an Impress Printmakers discussion group
located in Brisbane to foster and promote
contemporary artists book practice
Meeting on level 4 of the State Library of Queensland the 10 attendees represented a broad range of artists many of whom have had significant activity within the AB discipline, some had experiences of working as teachers using the book as a learning tool, some had academic links to ABs apart from their practice of making books, all had a definite interest in the discipline and wanted to engage in the idea of the discussion group as proposed in the invitation.
CODEX Event + Impress Printmakers AB discussion meeting
During the meeting many topics were raised including:
- The dogged question of ‘what is an artist’ book?
- What is not an artists’ book?
- Where does the apostrophe go in the term artists book and why does it move
- The Duchampian view of the ‘found object’ as art and his often cited idea that ‘it’s art because I say it is, and I’m an artist’
- If it has a colophon then it’s an AB(?)
- Scrapbooks as AB and the silent ‘s’ in the term scrapbook
- Ideas of sharing knowledge about the gamut of the discipline
One participant presented a polemic to the group, proposing that a freestanding 3D object on the table before us could be an AB – how would we know? The object was a folded “No food or drink allowed” SLQ sign. Discussion ended and reinforced the group’s interest in being challenged, as through such knowledge and understanding emerges.
a polemic for an artists book
Other structural matters relating to the group’s future activities, meeting schedule, email and communications methods were discussed. Some requested a degree of anonymity at this time. It was noted that the SLQ will be hosting the next Siganto seminar with the topic being the trouble with artists’ books. It was agreed that it will be a ‘must attend’ event.
The meeting concluded in a convivial mood with most attendees going for a coffee, and we guess, some more conversations about the idea of the artists book …
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Doug and Victoria
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
WHIPPING UP A FOTO FRENZY
Dr Doug opens the FOTO FRENZY Photographic Centre in Brisbane
The much awaited reopening of the expanded FOTO FRENZY Photographic Centre in Coorparoo took place on Friday, January 18, 2013. Attended by a crowd of around 100 well-wishers the event heralded a new beginning for dilettantes of a wide range of photography interests including:
- photography workshops
- photographic gallery
- fine art printing, mounting and framing
- photographic darkroom hire
- studio hire
- one-on-one consultations
Mark photographs the Foto Frenzy Team PHOTO: Victoria Cooper
The FOTO FRENZY space is shared with BRISBANE CAMERA HIRE, specialist in providing a range of photographic gear and unusual accessories.
The Foto Frenzy team includes Brisbane photo identities Ian Poole, Cam Attree, Tony Holden and Darren Jew. All four are photographers and have specialist areas of activity from photography as art, to location and underwater photography, nude and glamour photography and photography as personal expression. Darren Jew is well known in photo workshop circles for the ‘Faces and Places’ workshop that he established with Jim McKitrick in the late 1980s.
The team l-r Darren Jew, Tony Holden, Cam Attreee, Ian Poole and Susan BCH PHOTO: Victoria Cooper
The Foto Frenzy team have been together for twelve months in a modest facility just a short distance away from the new home. Now with the larger facility and the linkup with Susan & Jacob and Brisbane Camera Hire new and amazing opportunities for the business and the clients that they service are available.
Doug Spowart opens Foto Frenzy PHOTO: Victoria Cooper
As someone with a history in photography that connects with most of the Foto Frenzy team, as well as being a former Director of the photo gallery and workshop—Imagery Gallery, (that operated in Brisbane from 1980-1995), I was asked to open the new Foto Frenzy Photographic Centre. Some of my comments in the opening speech were…
The other day I was made aware of a TIME magazine article in which the claim was made that 10% of all the photographs ever made in the over 170 year history of photography were made in 2012!! This statement is evidence that with digital photography, including the now ubiquitous mobile phone, means that anyone can take photographs—But does that mean that everyone IS a photographer? My opinion is no—Because there is something special in the blood of the photographer that enables them, or demands of them, that just seeing and snapping isn’t enough.
True photographers want to ‘craft’ and create images that are about significant visual communication. Sometimes powerful, sometimes sublime, sometimes nonsensical or humorous and sometimes, perhaps even bland and boring. We know of these kinds of photographs because they tell us about beauty in the world, of atrocity, of feast, famine and of love and the human condition. These images inspire us and drive us, perhaps even spur us on to be better photographers ourselves—and this is where we encounter the need for networking, training, nurturing support, guidance and technology support. This is where the Foto Frenzy suite of services will link with our lives.
I congratulate the Foto Frenzy team and Brisbane Camera Hire for their vision, entrepreneurship and financial commitment in establishing this photographic centre. And what I see are the great opportunities for those of us interested in being a part of what photography is, and where it is going—to have a place that will be a hub, or should I say, a frenzied hive of activity.
It is with great pleasure that I declare the Foto Frenzy centre open….
Ian Poole in his thank you advised the attendees that Cooper and Spowart were to be, in a couple of months, the Foto Frenzy’s first Artists in Residence.
SPECIAL NOTE: We will be conducting a range of workshops @ Foto Frenzy over the following months. The topics of our workshops and consultations will include aspects of our PhD research into photobooks, creative photography practice, narrative and story telling in the photo sequence and aspects of social media, in particular Linkedin, Blogs and YouTube. We will also be available for one-on-one project/concept development.
To let us know you would like to be advised of the workshops when they become available
Contact us <Greatdivide@a1.com.au>
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Foto Frenzy @ Corparoo, cnr Old Cleveland & Bennets Rds PHOTO: Doug Spowart
The Foto Frenzy Gallery PHOTO: Victoria Cooper
Doug Spowart and Victoria Cooper in the Foto Frenzy Photobooth
Foto Frenzy opening shadows PHOTO: Doug Spowart
Cheers Doug and Victoria
FAST FOODS LEAVE BAD TASTE IN TOOWOOMBA
When a community challenges its elected representatives
On January 11th we attended a public meeting to join the protest against a Toowoomba Range development that would change the nature of a highly visible part of our town and diminish liveability values of an area close to where we live—the background of the protest and personal reflections on the meeting follow…
St Lukes Church – Toowoomba Range Public Meeting ………Photo: Doug Spowart
At a special meeting of the Toowoomba Regional Council on December 21st approval was given to a major commercial development at the ‘Top of the Range’—the main road transport entry to Toowoomba. The development, it is claimed, is required to service the needs of the local community with a McDonalds, a KFC and a convenience store that will operate 24 hours per day. The development is conditional on the installation of traffic lights, by the developer, at the intersection of the Warrego Highway (Cohoe Street) and Herries Streets.
It is claimed that responses provided by the community against the development in the pre-approval stage were not adequately considered in the Council’s decision.
Concerned residents called the protest meeting at St Luke’s Church because the development was given the go ahead despite their objections and those from other stakeholders. As the area is currently mainly residential with adjoining motels and a service station their objections included the 24 hour presence of:
- safety issues of the proximity of the traffic lights at the crest of the Range creating mayhem for trucks and busses—gearboxes, clutches, mechanical and loading problems that may require breakdown vehicles and Range holdup and delays;
- traffic/car park noise;
- overnight carpark lighting; and
- cooking odours permeating the local environment.
‘I have a question’ … .. Photo: Doug Spowart
The meeting was chaired by East Toowoomba resident Kate Powell and those addressing the meeting included State Government members Trevor Watts & John McVeigh, TWU state secretary Peter Biagini and councillor Mike Williams. Questions and comments from the floor were clapped, hissed and booed depending on the feelings of those in attendance. Councillor Mike Williams was indeed a brave man to attend such a meeting however his answers provided understanding of council process and procedures—he refrained from answering questions relating to the specific council decision to approve the development. He did comment that he had voted against the development in the December Council meeting.
The Second Toowoomba Range crossing was a side issue, but one which stirred the crowd. They were advised that authorities felt that the current crossing would be satisfactory for traffic densities of up to 23,000 vehicles daily and that was expected to be by the year 2020—BUT that number of vehicles is using the crossing every day NOW! And … 25% of those vehicles are heavy transport.
Traffic jam after truck breakdown, 10-01-2013 – Toowoomba Range ………Photo: Victoria Cooper
Members of the audience voiced their emotional outcries as well:
- ‘What an ugly entry this will provide to the our Garden City’;
- ‘What have you done to my beautiful city’; and
- ‘How can you approve another ‘fast food’ outlet in this town … there are already 7 in Toowoomba?’
It was agreed that the Council’s decision would be challenged by the appeal process and to achieve that a committee of nine members were selected from the floor. One attendee quipped that: ‘For council to fight a legal battle derived from this meeting they will use the money of those ratepayers here tonight protesting!’ And a legal battle is where this protest is leading…
What we felt important is the recognition that government, council or administrative bodies need to consider that commercial ‘development’ should go hand-in-hand with community values.
Dr Doug Spowart
The protest group has established a website called FRIENDS OF THE TOOWOOMBA RANGE – To visit click HERE
For more information see the links to some Chronicle Newspaper reports:
http://www.thechronicle.com.au/news/eighth-maccas-planned-for-city-east-toowoomba/1545915/
http://www.thechronicle.com.au/news/fast-food-development-approval-sparks-anger/1694378/
wotwedid 