Posts Tagged ‘Ian Poole’
IAN POOLE photographer: eulogy
Poole by Poole 2006
IAN POOLE photographer: eulogy by Doug Spowart
I was over in Wellington New Zealand attending the Photobook NZ conference when our mutual friend Simon Woolf came to tell me that Ian had passed away. Vicky and I had visited Ian and Louise at the Mater Hospital a couple of weeks ago and while Ian was in a difficult place we shared some past experiences. We spoke excitedly about how Ian came out of hospital recently to open ‘Floating’ at Woolloongabba Art Gallery. It was an important occasion as the exhibition featured work by his long-term friends Glen O’Malley and Yoshiteru Asai as well as artworks by Yayu, Ken Yamane’s grand-daughter.
Ian Poole, Glen, Ruby, Asai, Joe and Doug at the opening of Floating
Ian Poole and I shared quite a chunk of history – On hearing the news whatever I was to do that day in Wellington, and my flight home to Brisbane, my thoughts were with Ian, Louise, Nicola and Denise. What follows is a fragment of our connections and things that I remember about the guy…
Pinhole portrait of Ian Poole 1993 by Doug Spowart
My earliest memory of Ian was in the mid 1970s when I met him as an employee of Kodak in Brisbane. Ian had formed a commercial photography partnership with Greg Minns and I served him in my early sales position behind a wholesale warehouse counter in the Fortitude Valley head office. Over time I was to learn of Ian’s pre-commercial work as a part-time wedding photographer for some of Brisbane’s significant studios.
Ian Poole went out on his own in 1976 with the business name ‘Ian Poole does Photography’. He shared a studio in an old church in Warren Street, Fortitude Valley with commercial photographer and AIPP devotee and then Federal President David McCarthy. From there good wine, cigars and Fiats were funded through a diverse range of commercial commissions.
Ian and Denise were married and soon after Nicola was born. A long-term relationship with documentary/art photographer Glen O’Malley strengthened along with his interest in photography beyond the ‘job’ – for him photography was more than just what you did to earn a living.
Ian Poole and the IAP and the AIPP
Ian joined the Institute of Australian Photography (now AIPP) in 1975. An interesting bit of information about Ian is that he entered the very first Merit Awards (APPA) in 1977, and was awarded a Merit for a high contrast photo of a fuzzy hairstyled, seated, saxophone player. I remember that photo well.
In reflection, I always remember Poole being involved with the AIPP in some capacity either at state division level and in the late 1980s on the National Board. During the 1980s I served with Ian on the Queensland Divisional Council and remember many council meetings at Imagery Gallery that finished with us discussing the meaning of life and photography. Together, we also contributed to the development of education and training for photography in Queensland and served on many Arts Industry Advisory Council and Curriculum development committees.
Anonymous Torsos exhibition at Imagery Gallery 1990
Early exhibitions of his work
His interest in personal photography, and in particular the female nude, led to his work being presented in exhibitions. In 1984 I curated an exhibition entitled ‘5 One man shows’ in Stephens Gallery in the Brisbane City Hall, which included a selection of Ian’s nudes. Later in 1990 his first solo exhibition ‘Anonymous Torsos’, was held in Imagery Gallery (a gallery run by myself and my mother Ruby). He also participated in many group shows in galleries in Australia and Japan.
Doug Spowart and Ian Poole with the poster for Shot from down under PHOTO: Victoria Cooper
The Japanese connection
Ian made connections with Japanese photographers through his co-ordination of AIPP events in the early 1980s. This led to an exhibition of 13 photographers organised by Ian and hosted by artist Rick Everingham in his Brisbane studio during Expo 88. Poole followed up this exhibit with an exchange show, ‘A shot from down under’ at Design Expo in Nagoya, Diacolo Gallery in Osaka and amazingly in the Kodak Salon, the Ginza, Tokyo. Ian coordinated a tour for the participating Queensland photographers who spent about 3 weeks in Japan travelling with the exhibition, attending the openings, staying with the Japanese photographer’s families and experiencing Japanese life and landscape.
Poole+Spowart at QCP: Photo Adam Finch
Working for the Queensland Government
By the early 90s photography was changing and the Queensland Government reviewed all their departments that had employed staff photographers. They decided that only 3 photographer positions would be funded into the future. The 3 positions were advertised in the public domain and Ian, not only applied, but also won a position. It should be noted that Ian around that time completed by part-time study a Graduate Diploma of Visual Art at the Queensland College of Art. The topic of his research was portraits of artists.
Australia Council Residency and sessional teaching
Poole’s interest in the art of photography needed to be pursued alongside the day-to-day grind of professional work. After completing the Graduate Diploma he sought and was awarded and Australia Council Artist in Residency in Tokyo where he immersed himself in his passion for portraiture and Japanese culture.
Ian Poole and photobook made in a workshop with Simon Woolf with Vicky and I in 2005
Ian’s assistants, peers and mentorees
Ian always had assistants, mentored those seeking advancement of their skills, as well as sessional teaching at the Queensland College of Art and the Queensland University of Technology. His endorsement of professional practice meant that through his patronage and support many of the Institute’s significant photographers came into the AIPP fold.
Poole and the Australian Professional Photography Awards
Soon after I became Chairperson of the APPA’s in the 1990 I championed the development of judge training and the need for judges to have extended their understanding and appreciation of the art as well as professional practice.
Into this space I brought Ian Poole – he had the ideas, debating skills, knowledge and understanding of art to help with this aesthetic transformation of APPA. His dedication to ensuring that the entrant who made special works, in Ian’s opinion, got a fair hearing. I’ve spoken to many awards entrants, at all levels, and they have a story about Ian ‘going into bat’ for one of their works.
Ian skills as a judge and inspirational speaker were recognised by New Zealand Institute of Professional Photography and he became an Australian judging ambassador for the NZIPP Awards.
Ian Poole and others at Toowoomba TAFE doing final year assessments
Support for TAFE Toowoomba and Nicola’s study
As a teacher in the photography programs at the TAFE college in Toowoomba I was always privileged to have Ian and many other professional photographers and artists carry out the final holistic assessment of student work as well as endorse and support my institution.
Nicola Poole and Doug Spowart
When Ian’s daughter Nicola wanted to pursue photography Ian arranged to bring her to Toowoomba suggesting this is where she needed to be. She enrolled and over the next two years she completed her diploma studies in 2003 with the Graduating Student of the Year Award.
Team Foto Frenzy – an Impossible Project 10×8 Polaroid by Doug Spowart – RHS Ian photographs Doug
Foto Frenzy
When Ian formed Foto Frenzy with a small group of photography identities including Darren Jew, Tony Holden, Cam Attree and Susan Gravina from Brisbane Camera Hire I was honoured to open the enterprise. Later, Vicky and I were invited as Artists in Residence for a month in 2013. While we where at Foto Frenzy we participated in workshops, re-configured the premises into a camera obscura, made 10×8 Polaroid Impossible Project images and held an exhibition of our photobook and image work.
Ian Poole, Diane Byrne and Eric Victor at the State Library of Qld looking at prints by Richard Stringer
John Oxley Library donation
One of many things undertaken by Ian that many may not be aware of is his donation of his professional photography archive to the John Oxley Library at the State Library of Queensland. For quite a few years he has been going into the Library to unpack and catalogue the work so that it can be successfully searched and retrieved into the future. Now much of Brisbane’s cultural history from buildings to fashion, ballet and theatre, portraits of the rich and famous and those curious dated art-directed advertisements of the 1970s and 80s, are there as a document of our times.
I’ve been around professional photography for nearly 50 years and I’ve seen the disappearance of numerous professional photographers and their businesses – but what of their photographs? Lost? – Not Ian’s work, which he has given in an altruistic act for Queenslanders and their history.
In conclusion
I was always fascinated by Ian’s business name – ‘Ian Poole does photography’, we now know he did much more…
At this time I, and many others, will reflect on and remember Ian Poole
– his legacy will continue on in all of us.
Doug Spowart
NOTE: I hope that all this is correct – should their be any errors I am happy to make the corrections
What follows are some published works relating to Ian, some links and some other images…
Ian Poole’s website: https://poolefoto.wordpress.com/
Photo.Graphy Journal: Ian Poole Guest Editor
PHOTO.Graphy Journal – Ian Poole Guest Editor
QCP ALT Catalogue — Curated by Ian Poole
Ian Poole curated show at Qld Centre for Photography
f11 Magazine Ian Poole Folio
f11 Online magazine: Ian Poole folio
Ian Poole – On the lounge
https://wotwedid.com/2012/05/17/ian-poole-aipp-on-the-lounge/
Some images by or about Ian…
Ian Poole and Kev Hudson judging the 1982 Brisbane National Exhibition of Photography at Imagery Gallery
Doug Spowart in Imagery Gallery Darkroom by Ian Poole
Ian Poole moving out of Berry Street
Toula, Ian and Louise at the Photobook Club meeting at the Cobb & Co Museum Toowoomba
Ian and Doug at a Foto Frenzy opening
Ian Poole photographed by Wayne Radford at the exhibition End of the roid curated by Doug Spowart
Ian Poole at the opening of ICONS at the Cobb&Co Museum in Toowoomba
A Foto Frenzy opening
The opening of Foto Frenzy
An animated Ian Poole at an AIPP ‘On the lounge’
Foto Frenzy Polaroid group setup PHOTO: Victoria Cooper
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Ian Poole, Glen, Asai at the opening of Floating
Farewell Ian….
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1993 THE BRISBANE PHOTOGRAPHY SCENE: Ian Poole Guest Editor
Cover-PHOTO.Graphy Vol4 #5
From 1990 to 2001 I edited and published a journal called PHOTO.Graphy (ISSN 1038-4332 and earlier called ‘News Sheet’). This journal was created to fill a gap in the discussion, critique and commentary about a segment of the photography discipline within Australia. Occasionally I would engage guest editors to add their voice to the conversation. Ian Poole was the Guest Editor for Volume 4 #5 – Here is my Editorial introducing to Ian’s view of the art photography scene in Queensland in 1993.
Ian’s survey of the Queensland art photography scene makes for interesting reading nearly 25 years on… Mentioned in the survey are; Rod Buchholtz, Andrew Campbell, Ray Cook, Victoria Cooper, Marion Drew, John Elliott, Peter Fischman, Craig Holmes, Andrew Hurst, Chris Houghton, Susan Leway, Kerry James, Gail Newmann, Glen O’Malley, Charles Page, Graeme Parkes, Ray Peek, Howard Plowman, Rhonda Rosenthal, Maris Rusis, Doug Spowart, Ruby Spowart, Richard Stringer, Carl Warner, Jay and Younger. Charles A. von Jobin is also featured in the issue.
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A PDF of the full issue is available HERE: PHOTO.G-Vol4n5r.
WORLD PHOTOBOOK DAY – The Photobook Club Brisbane events
WPD Poster
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For photobook people the 14th of October is World Photobook Day (WPD) and celebrations worldwide are coordinated through the Photobook Club group. On this day in 1843, the British Library catalogued Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions by Anna Atkins, and is therefore considered historically significant as the first official record of a published photobook. In 2013 Victoria Cooper and I organised an event in Toowoomba. This year as part of my Siganto Foundation Artists’ Book Research Fellowship we arranged two events to take place at The Edge facility that is part of the SLQ.
The QCP WPB event
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The first event was arranged for Queensland Centre for Photography members to view contemporary photobooks, artists’ books, photo-zines and photo-papers from our collection. Around 30 publications, mainly by Australian photographers and artists, were presented to a group of around 18 participants. This selection included two books, Ying Ang’s Gold Coast and John Elliott’s Ju Raku En, which were launched only in the last few weeks. Staff members from the Australian Library of Art attended this opportunity to view examples of this emergent book genre.
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With Ying Ang’s Gold Coast
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The main Photobook Club WPD event took place in the evening and was attended by around 24 participants. Each brought along their favourite photobook to share and discuss with their fellow attendees. The oldest book presented was a photographic portrait book from the 1860s, and the more recent books included, W Eugene Smith’s The BIG Book, Spada’s Gomorrah Girl, and Spottorno’s PIGS. Many participants contributed their own print on demand books, or bespoke handmade artists’ books thereby representing the spectrum of the photo and the book.
A special part of the evening WPD event was a presentation by Dr Gael E. Phillips about Anna Atkins, her family and motivations for her cyanotype work. Phillips, a local Brisbane resident, is a distant cousin of Atkins shared her extensive research of this significant family connection. The assembled group were presented with the fascinating story of Anna Atkins (‘Anna Children’ – her maiden name), her father – George, relatives and networks in photography, science and society in nineteenth century England. Two attendees Dr Marcel Saffier and Sandy Barrie both significant photo historians showed a strong interest in Phillip’s research and talk.
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Gael makes her Anna Atkins presentation
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Apart from the two events we curated this year, two new South-East Queensland organisers also presented WPD events. This provides evidence that there is a strong interest in seeing, talking about, publishing and collecting photobooks.
As part of my Fellowship activities I’m scheduling further events to keep the interest in his research growing, and to promote a greater awareness of the significant resource of ‘the photograph and the book’ held by the State Library of Queensland.
Keep in touch… Doug Spowart.
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Anna Atkins-Portrait 1861
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What follows is a precis of Dr Phillips’ presentation:
Anna Atkins (1799-1871) is now recognised as being the first person to publish a book using a photographic technique. This recognition has come late but is, I think, largely due to the work of Prof Larry Schaaf. My cousins, Jean Doggett, Elizabeth Parkes and I were also doing similar research at the same time because of a family link with the Children family. The Children family have been long established in Kent and trace their family back to Simon a Children in 1370.
Anna Atkins was born, Anna Children, her mother dying when she was a few months old, but she grew up in a wealthy household surrounded by family friends who included many of the great Gentlemen Scientists of the Regency period and later. These included Sir Humphry Davy, Dr W H Wollaston, Sir Joseph Banks, the Herschels and William Henry Fox Talbot. Her father, John George Children, was a well known scientist in the first half of the nineteenth century and his publications include descriptions of the largest electrical battery ever built, which he and his father constructed in their own laboratory at their home, Ferox Hall, in Tonbridge.
Following the failure of the Tonbridge Bank, George Children, Anna’s grandfather, was bankrupted. His properties were sold to pay the creditors of the bank. His son, John George Children, obtained a position at the British Museum, and appears in the painting of the Temporary Elgin Marble Room in 1819. Initially in the Antiquities Department, he later became the Keeper of Minerals and then the Keeper of Zoology.
Anna Children illustrated Lamarck’s ‘Genera of Shells’ which her father had translated. In 1825 Anna married John Pelly Atkins JP, and they made their home at Halstead Place. Mr Atkins was made High Sheriff of Kent for 1847.
In 1841 a Manual on British Algae was published. Anna used the Cyanotype process, newly invented by a close family friend, Sir John Herschel, to make numerous images of British seaweeds. The first volume appeared in 1843 and pre-dated William Henry Fox Talbot’s ‘Pencil of Nature’.
Anna’s father acted as an intermediary in her scientific endeavours, writing to Hooker at Kew Gardens about the progress of the imaging of the algae and Hooker, in turn, instructed Anna in botany. Her father’s chemical knowledge was invaluable in the production of the cyanotypes. Father and daughter had a very close relationship and when her father died on the first day of January 1852 she was grief stricken. Her Memoir of J G Children, privately published in 1853, was modestly signed AA, as were her volumes of cyanotypes of British seaweeds. The memoir includes poetry written by her grandfather, George, her father, John George and also poetry she herself wrote.
We celebrate the anniversary of the accessioning of the first of her volumes of cyanotypes into the Library of the British Museum. Anna Atkins, nee Children was an artist – she drew, she did lithography and was an author, writing poetry and the memoir of her father. She was also a scientific illustrator as well as being the first woman to produce a photo book and, many believe, the first woman photographer. She has no descendants but is memorialised in a beautiful mollusc, Anna Children’s lucine, Miltha childreni (Gray 1824). Her father is also memorialised in a number of animals, including molluscs and insects and the mineral Childrenite.
Gael E Phillips.
14 October 2014
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Doug makes a thankyou presentation to Gael
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Other images from the events…
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The Anna Atkins ‘memorial’ with Larry J Schaaf’s book Sun Gardens
Looking at the books brought to the event
The artists’ photobook end of the books brought along by Adele Outeridge, Mel Brackstone and Jan Ramsay
Looking at W Eugene Smith’s BIG BOOK.
Checking out Jacob Raupatch’s newspaper
FOTO FRENZY’S WPD Event
With Doc Ross’ book 37 @ the Foto Frenzy WPD event
Ian Poole @ the Foto Frenzy WPD event
@ the Foto Frenzy WPD event
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Until next year….
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PBC logo
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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
JUDGEMENT DAY @ SQIT PHOTO
The assessment team with teacher Alison (left) and student Aidan (seated)
As the end of the teaching/learning year draws to a close the annual assessment day for student folios draws near. This year 5 Brisbane photographers joined with local professional identity Syd Owen to provide this important industry connection with the Southern Queensland Institute of TAFE’s Photoimaging department’s students. The team was (left-right) Alison Ahlhaus, Syd Owen, Andy Cross, Mark Schoeman, AIPP Queensland President Jan Ramsay, Cam Attree and Ian Poole.
The assessment team looking @ work
This year assessment consisted mainly of final folios from the Certificate IV in Photoimaging (CUV40403) and a Diploma of Photoimaging folio. The folio submission consists of 16-20 high quality 20×30.5 images from work made throughout the year as course work. Students also present a photobook for assessment. The photobook represents a major component for holistic assessment of a broad range of professional practice from image-making, optimisation and online output through print-on-demand book service providers. Importantly the photobook project necessitates the development of a conceptual body of work which the student melds into a personal narrative.
Ian providing student Aidan with some feedback
These photographs of the event provide some representation of assessment day activities. The Photoimaging Team, Alison Ahlhaus, Rachel Susa and myself greatly appreciate the special connection that this industry liaison provides for the college, the students and the ability it provides for our student work to be moderated against contemporary industry standards in photoimaging.
Cam, Jan and Ian looking @ a student photobook
Jan and Doug towards the end of the busy day PHOTO: Mark Schoeman
IAN POOLE: AIPP On the Lounge
Ian Poole addressing the audience @ Photo Frenzy
Ian Poole is well placed to have an opinion about fine art photography and collecting photographs. He has been a major player in professional photography in Brisbane for nearly 40 years and is a respected AIPP judge with yearly invitations to also judge the New Zealand Institute of Professional Photography awards. Despite his professional photography connection he has been a part of a sector of the Queensland photographic art scene that extends from the early 1980s with Imagery Gallery, later with the Photographer’s Gallery and more recently with the Queensland Centre for Photography. He has completed a Graduate Diploma in Visual Arts from the Queensland College of Art and has been awarded an Australia Council residency in Tokyo. Adding to this he has curated photographic exhibitions in Japan (of Queensland photographers) and exhibitions in Australia (of local and Japanese photographers).
So when Poole offers commentary on aspects of the photographic art world of Brisbane and Queensland it should be something of an opportunity to connect with his extensive knowledge of the genre. Recently as part of the AIPP ‘On the Lounge’ lecture series Ian Poole presented to an assembled audience of around 40 a dissertation entitled, ‘Have you ever wanted to collect photographic art, or be collected as a photographic artist?’
Ian – getting his message across with passion
Ian Poole began his presentation by reviewing recent art auction records for photographic artworks including those by Adams, Sexton and Dupain. Thousands, hundreds of thousands and even millions will change hands for well-known and rare works. The recent phenomena of Nick Brandt’s African work,which had been shown only weeks earlier in Brisbane, attracted some discussion. Perhaps some in the audience felt a little inspired by the possibility that, if they could enter the fine art field, that there was recognition and the possibility for a significant income to be made.
Poole introduced his collection of images that were hung on the walls and laid out on tables before the audience and discussed their histories and stories. For him the concept of ‘provenance’ elevated the importance of each work. A small Dupain image of the interior of the National Gallery in Canberra made during its construction was linked to his encounter with the work in a Brisbane gallery where it was purchased for a few hundred dollars. His most exuberant discussion related to a Joachim Froese diptych acquired when he swapped it with Joachim for a 4×5 enlarger. An expanded provenance trail led to it being loaned back to Joachim so that it could be displayed a QUT exhibition of his work.
A long-term friendship with north Queensland photographer Glen O’Malley presented some interesting provenance stories. O’Malley is not fully recognised for the significance of his practice in Queensland – he could probably claim to have had the first ‘photographic art’ exhibition in this state in the mid 1970s. Poole presented to the audience an image from O’Malley made as part of the Queensland Art Gallery’s 1988 Journeys North commission. The 20×24” black and white photograph showed a scene in Poole’s home where the O’Malleys were having dinner. The image was part of the accepted images for the Journeys North show and was subsequently published. Somehow Poole’s own life had become art photography itself.
Another photography collaborator presented by Poole was John Elliott. Well known for his documentation of country and western music and its heroes and doyens including Slim Dusty, Chad Morgan and Jimmy Little, Elliott is an enigmatic character of the photography scene. Ian spoke of John’s most recent show Gifted Country at the Caboolture Regional Art Gallery and his photobook publishing ventures. A recent journey to Townsville that Poole had shared with another of Queensland’s enigmatic photographers, Maris Rusis, resulted in a body of work by Rusis that dealt with the décor of budget north Queensland motel rooms. These small and fine gelatin silver fibre B&W prints presented to the audience the fact that traditional values remain key to some workers who continue to practice analogue photography in a digital world.
Question time brought up some difficult truths – Why does the Queensland Art Gallery/GOMA not seem to be collecting photography generated within this state? Did they ever collect? Some discussion related to the archival needs for conservation framing and presentation.
As a conclusion to the presentation Poole spoke of the way in which he and his photography acquaintances swapped and shared their works, and how much of his collection was built around the generosity of fellow photographers and their desire to share. He held a bundle of his own gelatin silver images up before the audience and made an offer that ‘you can have one of my prints this evening – and send a print to me as a swap. Start your collection this evening …’
While Ian Poole began his presentation with a review of the overtly mercantile auction scene, it seemed that his passion about photography, photographs, friends, shared experiences and the meaningfulness of the provenance of the works, that these things could not be commodified. He spoke of his collection of photos, books and ephemera as being an entity that would be bequeathed to his daughter Nicola, also a photographer and present at the talk. Through the audience he directed to Nicola to ‘treasure and look after these things … they were important, valuable – not only as the stories they depicted through their image on the front-side of the print, but also of the back-story of their origin and collection.’
There is no doubt that Ian Poole’s passion for photography and his understanding of how it operates at a personal and cultural level is something that was shared and communicated on this evening. And those present will be inspired to develop a new appreciation of what photographs are and what they can say about the human condition.
Doug Spowart May 20, 2012
Ian talking with OTL attendees at the end of his presentation
An unusual meeting – Face-to-Face with an early portrait of one’s self – circa 1982 found in Poole’s collection
PHOTOGRAPHY: 5 Years From Now
I’ve just asked 6 prominent Queensland Professional photographers “What will photography be like in 5 years from now?” Their answers I’ve assembled into a YouTube Video.
Their answers give us a crystal ball glimpse into the future. As the clouds and mists swirl and part in the orb what emerges are visions that may just help us prepare for what’s in store.
The photographers were: Jan Ramsay (AIPP Queensland Division – President and Eyeon Photography), Ian Poole (international professional photography judge and presenter), Gary Cranitch (Photographer – Queensland Museum), Stephen Jones (Photography – Arana Photography), Tony Holden (photo-equipment representative – C.R. Kennedy), Mark Schoeman (wedding and portrait photographer – Brisbane).
SEE THE VIDEO: Click Here!!
This project was supported as a SQIT Release to Industry activity and the Photographers of the Great Divide.
Thank you to the participating photographers.
Concept / words / photos / video: Doug Spowart
14+15 November: Second Year Photo Assessment
On these two days Second Year Diploma of Photoimaging students from the SOuthern Queensland Institute of TAFE participated in an industry assessment of their folios and professional practice preparedness. The assessors were AIPP Queensland Division President Jan Ramsay, accompanied by Mark Schoeman, well-known photo identities Ian Poole, John Elliott and Andy Cross and local photographer Syd Owen.
Student folios from the key industry disciplines, Domestic portraiture, Commercial and Media were assessed. The assessment included work samples that would be expected from practitioners of the disciplines, business operation documents, website and online networking sites such as Linkedin, Behance Creative Portfolio and WordPress blogsites. The assessment expectations are comprehensive and represent the intended expectations of the CUV50407 Diploma in Photoimaging training package.
Ian Poole, Syd Owen, Andy Cross with student Shanea Rossiter
To see a sample of the online presence that students create see:
Lindsey Collier’s Linkedin site.
http://au.linkedin.com/pub/lindsey-collier/2b/36a/400
And Philippa Hodges’ Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/philippa-hodges/30/62b/718
NOTE: To see the full folio you may need to be signed in as a Linkedin member.
Pictures to follow
Cheers Doug
20 October – The end of the Roid Exhibition Opening
Type 59 transfer: Tracey+Shanea by Wayne Radford
Photo: Ian Poole. Wayne Radford being photographed by Doug Spowart
Type 59 transfer: Wayne Radford by Doug Spowart
Photo: Ian Poole. Doug uses white wine as the transfer fluid!
Ian Poole photographed by Wayne Radford 10x8 Type 809 Polaroid
Vicky and Doug: Portrait by Wayne Radford
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Wayne Radford’s last portrait was of Victoria and myself. The Type 59 Polaroid sheet film had sat in the bottom of the box for over 5 years beyond the expiry date and the mark of time left as a humidity smear of magenta in a reduced D-max. It’s a great image — and a fitting end to the ‘Roid’.
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Bye Bye POLAROID …
May 17 – NEW VIDEOs – QCP ALT & Japanese Pinhole Opening
Uploaded two Video presentations from the Queensland Centre for Photography shows – ALT and Seven Japanese Pinhole Photographers.
THE ALT + PINHOLE OPENING
SEE THE OPENING VIDEO:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYAY3zXQrfI&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
SEE THE JAPANESE PINHOLE PHOTOGRAPHERS VIDEO (Note: Mainly in Japanese language)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewUTYY2enKc&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL.
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wotwedid 