Terrible. Happy. Talks.
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Terrible. Happy. Talks.
#241 - Aaron Brown: The Timeless Medium of Film Photography.
Join us as we chat with the charismatic Aaron Brown, whose skateboarding photography defined the Australian scene throughout the 90s and beyond. Discover how Aaron's early skateboarding roots continue to influence his artistic vision, and why he remains devoted to the depth and tonal richness of film photography despite the lure of digital.
Aaron takes us on a nostalgic ride through the skateboarding communities of Sydney's North West, celebrating the camaraderie and creative sparks that shaped his career. He reflects on the evolution of skate photography, contrasting the technical challenges of film with the convenience of digital formats. He reminisces about iconic magazines and photographers who inspired his unique style, how he was able to generate a liveable income from shooting skate photos alone, working for mainstream media companies, and the creative projects he has invested in since.
From capturing legendary skaters like Matt Mumford to winning unexpected photography awards, Aaron’s stories are a testament to the unpredictable yet rewarding nature of life and art.
Shoutout to this week's guest co-host Jim Turvey!
Enjoy,
Shan
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Hey, it's Shan here. This week I catch up with the charismatic and passionate Mr Aaron Brown. Aaron is a prolific photographer and through the 90s he took a bunch of skate photos. In fact there was a period of time there where you couldn't open up an Australian skateboarding magazine and not see a photo from Aaron. He also shot probably a dozen covers, took photos of literally the best to do it of that era and I always liked his perspective and the angles that he took. They're a little bit non -traditional and he was just pushing the boundaries.
Speaker 2:These days he's working on more creative projects outside of skateboarding and he sits down with myself and this week's guest co-host, mr Jim Turvey, and just takes us on a journey through his life so far which is very tied into the Sydney skate scene. Aaron is somewhat of a character. He's passionate, he's engaging, maybe a little bit eccentric I'll let you be the judge of that but all around he's just a kind-hearted soul who I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with. You know these podcasts we sit down for hours at a time talking and it's really hard to encompass someone's whole personality in that time and document their whole life story, but we get a pretty good perspective on this one. Aaron starts to really relax as we get into the second half of it and we have some pretty funny moments as well.
Speaker 1:So sit back, relax and get to know Mr Aaron Brown. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm more interested in other areas of photography, not just skateboarding as such, but the skateboarding background is part of everything that I shoot. Now, what do you mean? It just depends like my photography style, I guess, and kind of like to this day, like my favourite photographers are still the skateboarding photographers, like Daniel Harold Sturt, there's people like O'Me Lee, Dave Chamey and then Grant Britton, and so how can I say this? So being interested in their photography kind of led to the development of my own photography and their photography kind of led to the development of my own photography. And then what I've done since then, like yeah, I guess the skateboarding influence is, yeah, underpins that.
Speaker 2:Underpins it in regards to your style.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd say so, and the way I look at things as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sorry, shane, do you find it way easier now that it's digital? Like, are you still in a mindset of I'm shooting on film and I've got to get this in a few shots?
Speaker 3:Yes, I kind of am Like, if I'm doing like my own projects, I still use film cameras, so I do only shoot like within a few frames, but more of that's kind of like film expenditure or something like that. Um, when I use my digital camera, like if I have like like a photo job, like I don't do too many of those, but when I do do one I shoot heaps of photos. I don't know why, like a lack of confidence in kind of using digital cameras, like since you can preview it instant, instantly. Like I think, like I'm my, I hold more skill, if I, if I, if I'm blinded by the results and well.
Speaker 2:Has it actually developed your process or has it hindered your development as a photographer?
Speaker 3:yeah, I think, like I've, I've became clumsy with my exposures when I'd be using digital cameras, especially like if I'm like shooting like with available light, like not using flashes and things like that.
Speaker 2:Like too relaxed.
Speaker 3:Just like I don't know. Just sort of I had such a good understanding of like the metering of light with film photography and then when the first generation of the digital cameras came out, it wasn't so much like the metering of light with film photography. And then when the first generation of the digital cameras came out, it wasn't so much like the metering systems in the cameras weren't accurate, but it was just the way that the cameras were reproducing like the imagery it didn't have like the depth and tonal, like values of like film photography. And then I'd bring that into question with my exposures and I'm still like that today, even though the camera sensors and things like that have moved on a long way. Digital cameras are pretty good, but yeah, but I don't have that like a yeah, so I feel a lot more confident with a film camera.
Speaker 2:Interesting eh yeah, listen, and I want to delve deep into your photography journey and I've got legendary Jim Turvey with us today and even before we started, you know, you've brought some of your old photos over and your clippings from newspapers and like so much history, and it's like I just really got this sense of like. You know this could be a really long night, because then it's sparking Jim's memory and his knowledge and watching you two bounce off each other is pretty magic. But before I get into that stuff, I've got this memory of you, man. I was watching TV one night back in the 90s.
Speaker 3:I know what you're going to bring up here.
Speaker 2:I want to start with this because it's such a trippy story and it was like a reality TV show, like RPA emergency ward stuff and I'm watching it and some guy comes into the emergency ward with an ear complaint and then they flush this person's ear out and there was like two massive cockroaches in his ear.
Speaker 3:And that person was you, yes, so tell us man, that's pretty funny, hey what?
Speaker 2:happened with that?
Speaker 3:So how's this? Like I was at, so that was in, like that was the beginning of 1997, I remember, because I was at university at the time. So I was living. I'd only, like I'd only moved out of home, like properly, like the year before Maybe, but I'd been living in Darlington and we just moved into a new unit In Petersham. Like it wasn't new, it was like a 1960s job or whatever. It seemed pretty clean on the inside or whatever, but I'd only been living there for a few nights or whatever. And I woke up in the evening and there was just this rustling on my eardrum, rustling kind of on my eardrum, so that rustling, like you can put up with it for like maybe like 20 seconds, but you know, like put up with it for some minutes, 10 minutes, going into like an hour it would drive you.
Speaker 2:yeah, Did you hear something scratching in your ear? Were you in pain?
Speaker 3:Not in pain, but it's just the noise and the echoing and the vibrations in your ear. It would drive you insane, I'd imagine. So what?
Speaker 2:happened.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, I went. So I had to go. I can't remember it would have been in the evening, no, it would have been in the daytime. So I lived above a doctor's surgery, so it was, like you know, like a doctor's surgery beneath the apartment or whatever. I think I must have gone down there from memory.
Speaker 4:Oh sorry, jim were you living with other skateboarders?
Speaker 3:no, no, I was in. This guy called sean russell at that time, yeah and um, yeah, they probably like, looked at it and couldn't, didn't have the equipment to flush it out, so they sent me the RPA and then so I rocked in RPA. I just want to get cockroach out of my ear because it's driving me around the twist, so you knew it was a cockroach.
Speaker 2:You just guessed.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I had a pretty good idea. It was a cockroach, it was one of those little brown German ones. Yeah, of those little brown german ones. Yeah and um. So I go to rpa and then there's like they're filming for like the reality tv show there, and they're I don't know like. The producers come up to me just super psyched and I I'm like, yeah, whatever, I really don't care, you can film whatever you want. I was going through one of those little, I think, like a free-spirited phase. You know like, yeah, there's no hidden truth. So, yeah, they filmed like the flushing of my ear, and then they even do little things, like as you're leaving the hospital, can you like scratch your ear? That type of thing.
Speaker 2:Like they wanted you to like. Ham it up for the camera ham it up for the camera, yeah, yeah, and then like the next natural
Speaker 3:so how's this? I'll go to university. That like I'm I don't know like the next day or whatever. And like I'm in this, I'm like some pretty much like I was doing this clinical. I was doing like clinical psychology. That's why I started university. So basically it was like man, there was only me and like a bunch of girls like that was back in the 90s that were becoming psychologists or whatever. So like all the girls that I was in the course with, they were all kind of you know, girls can be amongst each other when they know something about someone, but they're not saying anything and you're just thinking there's something going on here. But like what is it? Because I didn't even have a television either. Hang on. So hang on, I'm getting this story mixed up a little bit. So I was on TV like maybe a month later or whatever.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so it's after it went to air.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and I rocked in the university so I didn't even know I was going to be on television and like, and also like people were recognizing me, just in general, like, did you get paid? No, I didn't get paid. They sent me like a, like a channel nine cap or whatever, so they got your details.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, yeah. So I went to air and then what you got? Like fame.
Speaker 3:And you know, the funny thing is with this is people knew, like people were recognizing you People recognized me. Oh shit, oh shit. And even like I went some, I even went somewhere and people went, oh, and they were talking about it, like, oh, did you see on RPA, like that guy with the cockroaches in his ear? I don't know if they knew it was me and they were like doing that in the conversation, but I don't think they did.
Speaker 4:Did you keep the cockroaches when they got them out?
Speaker 3:No, I think my mum recorded it, but I've never watched it.
Speaker 2:Well, I think Jim went looking for the footage because Jim's, you know, went on a deep research. Did you find it?
Speaker 4:No, I couldn't find it. I spent about three hours the other night trying to find the footage. Yeah, I think we've got it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and everyone saw it Like. Everyone saw it Like it was interesting.
Speaker 4:Like the kind of Sydney skate scene. At the time saw it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and family saw it, Everyone at university saw it, just like everyone saw it.
Speaker 4:Like everyone was watching Back in. Yeah, it's super interesting. You know and this is just very quick I had a Christmas beetle in my ear for two years, oh really, and I didn't know that you'd had the cockroach in your ear. And when Shan told me, I spun out and I was like maybe that's why we get along so well, because we both had the bug ear experience.
Speaker 3:So you had like a Christmas beetle is probably about the same size as the cockroach that was in like size, but I guess I had two. You had two of them there.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and mine died in there pretty quickly because I think when I went to the hospital they couldn't. It had aggravated my eardrum and it had bled and it was behind because I was only a little kid and so it must have been behind kind of in a sarcophagus of blood and so they must have been behind kind of in a sarcophagus of blood and so they couldn't really see it when it was in there. And I think they thought I had an ear infection and I would go to the doctors regularly to get my ear flushed. And when we moved to Newcastle the new doctor that we saw up here flushed it and a little leg came out and he was like oh, and he ran a hose from the sink in his surgery into my ear and slowly flushed it all out. And the reason I asked if you kept yours is because I you kept your.
Speaker 4:He put in a little urine sample container and I took it to show and tell at school the next day. That's rad yeah.
Speaker 2:Why did you choose psychology at uni originally? Yeah?
Speaker 3:that's a good question, shannon. Uni originally yes, that's a good question, shannon. Um, so basically, like I didn't really know what I wanted to do at university. All I knew was I wanted to go to university like and that sort of yeah, there's another thing behind that as well. But, um, so I either wanted to, like I wanted to do either like visual arts or some like journalism type course, like a communications course. So I applied for like a Bachelor of Visual Arts and then General Bachelor of Arts and got into Bachelor of Arts.
Speaker 3:I went to it was the University of Western Sydney, so it was like a brand new university at the time. This would have been like it was probably like 1993, I think it was and yeah, sort of a major. Like I didn't really know what I wanted to do, so I did, like you pick like four units, like I did psychology, communications, computers, maybe creative writing or something like that, I can't. Well, yeah, it was those four and I ended up like so I just excelled like at psychology, like for some reason, kind of, and then I ended up doing a double major and then did my honors in it.
Speaker 2:So yeah, wow, yeah, but never pursued it I did like that as an actual profession.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I started doing my master's like, and then so that would have been around the time that I had the cockroach in my ear, and that was that period when I was living in Petersham. And so I did my fifth year, which is like it's really hard, like it's a solid fifth year clinical psychology. And then, yeah, and I was kind of like I was working, I was, I was working as a skate, like a skate photographer, I had a job as a cleaner and I'm doing like a full-time master's course and my and things just started to like fall apart, the seams like, so to speak. So that year, my, my fifth year of my master's like all- my camera gear got stolen.
Speaker 3:I don't know. Do you vaguely remember?
Speaker 2:Was that a stolen car? It was in a car, no.
Speaker 3:No, like someone like climbed up I think they might have climbed up the balcony, like where I lived in that unit in Petersham so I had like, yeah, like on my camera gear and then so I remember that happened and then, yeah, I ended up.
Speaker 3:So, long story short, I just got, I failed my professional practice in my sixth year and then just got kicked out of uni, basically and just did you just decide to let it go because you were like well yeah, they sort of did like the psychologists were like they kind of knew that it's funny, like not that that means anything, really like when you've been through these courses and things like that, like you think, oh, there's some sort of measure of you know worth and they can tell me exactly what I am in life. But they were the writing was like I was already working, more or less had the job as a photographer. They're like you just just go out and work as a photographer, you don't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Were you. Were you feeling disinterested in the stuff at uni and just really excited about the skate photography stuff?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that was making up your mind. Yeah, because, like at the time when I was of embarking on a career, really didn't know what I was, wasn't really interested in it. Basically, why did?
Speaker 2:you go to uni in the first place.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a good question.
Speaker 2:Is there a story there? Was there like family pressure?
Speaker 3:No, it's more the opposite, like kind of like feeling like so. Like when I left school, thinking, okay, like, like, so this is the early 90s, right, like I left, I finished, I did my HSC, like in 19, 1990, right, um. So there was kind of that was like a you know, like recession era, like it was, um. But I think like I just had a sort of like my sense of worth. I felt like, you know, like I wanted to be more in life and didn't want to sort of just work like like in a, like I had a job working in coals, like when I was in high school and then my first year out of school, things like that. But I kind of wanted to be a more professional person or something like that, just wanted to sort of like achieve something a little bit more in life and felt that university was probably like the way to do that and also felt that it would just increase my esteem as a person. I don't know if any of that did, but yeah.
Speaker 2:You're thinking of the right table here, because, Jim, you felt the same, didn't you? Yeah?
Speaker 4:I mean, I did want to go and study. You know, I did a Bachelor of Arts measuring, english and creative writing. I wanted to study that and I wanted to be exposed to other people who are interested in that kind of thing. But I also think there was kind of some kind of like I don't know prestige attached to going to university. Not that I necessarily believe in that now. It was more about being, it was more about a confidence thing for myself. I think if I thought I could complete the course, it wasn't about what the course would get me, it was about kind of my own self-worth. And I don't necessarily believe in that now, but I do think and looking back on it, I learnt so much from what I from even just being at university and being around like-minded people.
Speaker 4:Not necessarily the coursework, and I am a believer in tertiary education If you think it's for you. I don't put a lot of worth in people going oh, so-and-so did this, he's smarter than you. I don't believe in that kind of thing. But I do think, obviously like I don't think I would be sitting here with you two tonight doing that I think it gave me the skills that I use almost every day yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I totally agree with what you just said, jim.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, I think a big thing is um those immeasurable skills of like problem solving, analyzing, and probably developed your writing indirectly absolutely just even writing essays even yeah, it's practice, you know it's.
Speaker 4:It's the same as doing skateboarding tricks. Writing is is just practice makes perfect, it's. You know, it's the same as doing skateboarding tricks. Writing is just practice makes perfect. It's just you get consistent at doing something if you do it over and over and over again and university is a great place to go and do that where somebody that knows what they're talking about will actually look at that writing and tell you whether or not you know it's valuable.
Speaker 3:It's funny because you did like your creative writing is, aren't you, jim? Whereas I'm like more psychology. But writing is so integral to psychology and it's in the academic sort of. You know, referencing and citation. Yeah right, you know, like you can't just sort of, you always got to attribute credit to.
Speaker 2:Did you find satisfaction in that? Yeah, I loved it.
Speaker 3:I loved crafting up like those psychology reports and essays and things like that and like, just as Jim was just saying, it was that sense of yeah, learning, learning, yeah, learning to write and learning to write really well.
Speaker 4:The critical thinking that is if, look, I as much as I said, I don't think tertiary education is for everybody. A lot of people you know, some of the smartest people I know, were completely autodidactic, completely taught themselves everything.
Speaker 4:They know, Autodidactic, but I do think, especially in this day and age, critical thinking is really, really important and I think even I think it should be taught at school. The ability to like analyze information successfully and break it down critically and discuss it like with people without arguing yeah and looking at the sources of information, now more than ever, is really important, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's true. Yeah, yeah, Okay, it's fine. Well, you're a teacher. You're so polite, aaron, what? You have the right to talk over us. You're the guest tonight, so don't be so polite. When you want to talk, you go.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, it's interesting because you're a teacher, Shannon, and I guess, like you were just saying Jim about, like now I've got to frame your words.
Speaker 2:But yeah, what's a?
Speaker 3:didactic, to be able to sort of, you know, to think independently, and I'm just sourcing information as well, credible information, yeah, how do you?
Speaker 2:what do you think about that, shannon, like in regards to like education and the way sort of yeah well, you've got to remember, though, we're from a different generation, and you have to always try to put yourself in the shoes of the next generation. Think about it, you know, and we always used to criticize older people for not understanding us, and so I'm always very conscious of not doing that to the younger people. Yes, and you're dealing with the generation that were born with, with access to information, that we never had phones. They were born with phones in their hand, effectively, and searching things up, just like that, so their skills are so different, like their skills are. They know that they can rely on um it's, it's how they're utilizing technology or not utilizing technology, as opposed to their ability to think critically. It's really hard to quantify, actually, like I've really analyzed it, yeah, but I think that, ultimately, I feel like the critical thinking skills are getting progressively worse, yeah wow.
Speaker 2:Because of the oversaturation of information.
Speaker 4:Like a symbiotic relationship with like information or their phones, almost so they rely on that as almost like a second brain almost.
Speaker 2:Well, that's it. They're just defaulting to it and, let's face it, we do it too, Like I don't know how many times you go. Oh, I'm just going to search it up. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, as opposed to like, actually, before I search it, search it up, which is not a bad thing necessarily, maybe give it a little bit more thought. You know like delay that process, you know, and then search up more accurately. You know, and then, starting to devise, you know where exactly your sources of information are coming from and how reliable they are, as opposed to you do a search on any most search engines, like Wikipedia, is one of the first things to come up. So it's like is that the most reliable source of information? And it's like teaching young people how to actually, you know, decide what is creditable and what isn't. I don't know, yeah, anyway, but look, yeah, is creditable and what isn't. I don't know, yeah, anyway, but look, yeah, what do you got? I mean, I don't know. It's a really big discussion, that one.
Speaker 4:I just wanted to ask Aaron something maybe completely different Go dude as long as it's cockroach related. It's not cockroach related, but can we just for me personally even I just want to hear this and I've asked you in person, but I know you. So you started skating in the um, like the balkan hills area is that correct.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and you're around like dave rocks and like sin michael davidson and stuff. Do you want to? Can you just give me like a brief overview or as in-depth as you want? Actually, how come everybody that comes from like the Balcombe Hills like area all became somebody like is Kerry Fisher from out there?
Speaker 3:too. Yeah, he's from Cherrybrook.
Speaker 4:How come everybody from out there in that area in the late 80s and the 90s became a famous skateboarder or a famous skateboarding photographer? What is in the water out there? Can you just like give us a bit of a history lesson?
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's something out there like in the water out there. Can you just like give us a bit of a history lesson? Yeah, there's something out there like in the water, like, so to speak. Like I think so we all like.
Speaker 3:So I grew up in Castle Hill so I moved there in 1980 and probably like so I was like I was just, you know, like seven years of age or whatever it was back then and Davo, like he lived like up the road, like maybe like half a K up the road from me, like he lived with his, like his mum and his grandparents. They all lived on the same road and I sort of met. So I kind of met Davo like Michael Davidson, like when I was a kid Like I would have been like 10 or 11, maybe I don't even think I was in high school when I met him and Tamara, his sister. I also went to Cubs at this same age, right. So I was like and I went to Cubs with Hank Scott and his brothers, glenn Scott they're like Borko through and through and then there was no skateboarding like at this point, but yeah, we were all from the same area.
Speaker 3:And then when I started high school, we all started skateboarding. I went to high school with Glenn Scott, matthew Warner, like Wally so, and our friends with other people from the Borkham Hills area, like Jeff Bennett, russell, freckles, freckles, yeah, there would be David Rocks, chris Tudor, there was Paul Savos. He was even then we sort of yeah, but Paul Savos is going into the Parramatta area now. But people like Roxy were. I think he was from North Mead. Yeah, yeah, it was just yeah, keep going, keep going.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's remarkable when I kind of like think back, because we all just stayed tight with skateboarding and there was Kerry Fisher as well, as we already mentioned, from Cherrybrook. But I think, like Glenn Scott and Hank Scott were kind of like they really they kind of brought cohesion together with everyone and created kind of like a scene. This is particularly when skateboarding started to die out as well. We're going into like late 80s, early 90s now. So Glenn and, yeah, the Scott- family.
Speaker 2:You think that was just like driving their progression.
Speaker 3:Definitely Like Glenn Scott, like Glenn and Hank, they were kind of like Davo's coach, you know what I mean. They really took Davo under their wing and you know they just wanted to see the best for Devo because they could see how brilliant he was at skateboarding. And yeah, I was just. I guess I grew up in an area where we had like a tight click with skateboarding and, yeah, fond of memories oh yeah, like sort of like yeah, all the. And yeah, find memories.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, like sort of like yeah, all the different yeah, so you were from actual Borkham Hills or Castle Hill, castle Hill, castle Hill, born and raised.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I'm not really a borker really. Yeah, yeah, kind of They've been precious. Yeah, I don't think Don't go there. Yeah, I don't think.
Speaker 2:Don't go there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I won't. I won't. I mean, I kind of am, but I don't even think like, yeah, I don't even like they see me as one, but anyway, let's leave it at that.
Speaker 2:I'm sure they would. How would you reflect on your time at home in your early days with your family?
Speaker 3:Yeah, sometimes my mum and dad like they're're still married, like I actually live at my parents' house, which is in Lake Munmura, so I don't know Like, for all the dysfunction, there's obviously been some function that's held things together pretty well. Yeah, I came from a pretty good home in the context of, you know, having parents, and you know that my parents loved me.
Speaker 2:Supportive of everything you tried.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that would have been like everyone was apprehensive of skateboarding back in that era.
Speaker 2:How old were you when you started?
Speaker 3:I would have been like I was like I had like a little board when I was probably like seven.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then, like that would have been like probably like that late 70s sort of boom, I had like a fiberglass one and then, like you do go back, but I didn't, I only rode that for a little bit like and pulled it out every now and then, like maybe every six months, I took it for a burn down the driveway, you know like with no shoes on that sort of thing, probably got hammered, my toes smacked into something because I. But I got like a proper board when I was like third. I think I started writing that board again when I was 13, waiting for my birthday, because I wanted a proper board like a reflex for my 14th birthday.
Speaker 2:Why were you attracted to it?
Speaker 3:Back to the Future would have been it. Yeah, Michael J Fox kicking up that board.
Speaker 2:I swear you put it down to a few things like Back to the Future or Tony Hawk's computer game, PlayStation game, which I never played you never played that, no. But most people will say, oh, it's because of Back to the Future or that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, back to the Future, like definitely our era, you know, because you're going to think like there was, yeah, we wouldn't have even seen like footage of them even skateboarding, because you only saw that rock and slide around the bowl on Wide World of Sports on a Saturday Harbour and that's the only thing we ever knew of skateboarding. Back to the future, so that was yeah, because I'm like I'm a street skater right, like I skate mini and all that. But yeah like invert and stuff.
Speaker 2:I guess, like you know, following the trajectory and look, I'm really and I know Jimmy's too really eager to get into the nitty gritty of your photography journey. So you obviously love skating and you're skating with that Borco crew. They were probably the people you would mostly skate with.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The Davos and the Scott brothers and all that crew. They were your crew.
Speaker 3:Pretty much. Yeah, like I didn't, so, like, like, so I'd go to school like I was in, like me and Glenn and Wally, like we were all in the same year and we'd all hang out lunchtime and we just talked about that's. All we would have done is talked about skateboarding all through year nine and ten and the high school was called. Gilroy College. There you go, yeah.
Speaker 2:And Glenn and Hank went both into that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, so Hank's two years older, so he was in my brother's year I know, yeah, yeah, because Hank moved to Nowra.
Speaker 2:You know that, don't you?
Speaker 3:I do know that, yeah, I mean yeah, yeah, I was telling we're talking about, we're talking about that. I was talking to Jim about that, like a big brother to me.
Speaker 2:He always had my back.
Speaker 3:I don't know why.
Speaker 2:He just did. He was yeah, yeah, yeah. Shout out to Hank. Thanks, Hank. Yeah, he's I know Glenn by default through Hank. Really, yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 3:Like I used to see everyone, like when Hank, before he joined the Navy, like he worked.
Speaker 3:I think he worked at like Franklin's, like Castle Hill, like, just like, and he was just doing time there for like a year until he was I think I don't know. I think he had to meet, like he had to be 19 or something, I don't know what it was, but yeah, he had to wait a year until he joined the Navy. But Hank would was, but yeah, he had to wait a year until he joined the navy. But I'd hank would was a little bit like he would just go off skating by himself or whatever. So he would like glenn and glenn, glenn, and like carrie fisher and that jeff ben those guys didn't really come over, come and skate the banks at castle hill high then, whereas hank would you know what I mean like, and every now and then bump into hank and I'd be like the skate with Hank was like you know, you get people and you just love skating with them. They're so much fun to skate with. Well, that was like Hank yeah.
Speaker 3:And yeah, he had a big like. He made a big impression on me. Did he? Like when I was like in year 10, you know, like 11, 12, when I was younger.
Speaker 2:Yeah, year 10. You know, like 11, 12, that when I was younger.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 40 years. Yeah, actually, what kind of student were you at high school? Like dumb student? I wasn't dumb, but like um you went top of the class no, no, I would have like looked out.
Speaker 3:I would have been like just looking out the window, like thinking they should have like a half put like a vert ramp out in that grass area out there. And yeah, I wasn't really. I only went to school because I had to be there and I stayed on for year 11 and 12 because I already had a job. Like I was working in coals like I worked like thursday night, friday night and on and on saturday like. So I was actually like making good money as well when I was in high school, but I didn't want a full-time job because I already had a job and I've kind of thought work sucked. So I sort of even though you have to do it, but yeah, it's kind of why I stayed on, did year 11 and 12.
Speaker 2:Yeah, interesting. Yeah, so like with that skate crew. Then, like, did you get into photography so you could shoot skateboarding, or were you already into photography?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's In a creative way, that's a pretty good question. So, yeah, it's awesome actually because, like skateboarding, like exposed me the magazines like trans world, or like if, like, I think I got frasher first, like, but even like someone like bryce knights or luke ogden, they're really good photographers and you're looking at these like so you're looking at those mags going, okay, okay, that's a rad photo, yeah, but who took it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm starting to look at, yeah, I was looking at that. And then when Transworld came out, like, and then, like I said, not came out, like when I started getting Transworld, like because remember this was like 1987. Like I'd get imported into the skate shop and that type of thing and just buy the news, you type of thing, and just buy the news, you could a bit later on but like, but then seeing Grant Britton's photos, and you know, like in Transworld, and he took photos of other things as well, so he, you know, like that vacant pool shot or whatever you know, with the palm tree, you know, so you're looking at, I was looking at these photographs and just thinking, and then I also looked at surf magazines before that, a little bit, just before that, but I thought, like the crossover, like different. But I found that, like with skateboarding photography, they were looking, you know, like, if, for example, like there was an article like on Canada or Montreal or whatever they trans-worked around, they'll take photos of other things as well. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Like, yeah, it wasn't just action sports, skate photography, but it just really. And surf photographers do the same thing. They take photos of bums on the beach and girls' bums on the beach and stuff and just beautiful photos. Yeah, sunsets, and I got into photography, obviously just from looking at like these magazines skate mags, skate mags in particular that was like bang, I want to be a photographer, but not like a skate photographer. I wanted to be a photographer oh yeah, not specifically skating no, I always wanted to be like a journalist.
Speaker 2:Photographer well, do you remember that moment?
Speaker 3:do you remember that moment where you went hey, that's what I want to do, yeah, yeah, you actually remember it yeah, yeah, because, like my next door nate, like so one day when I was young, like I was in year 10 or something, like the guy that lived behind me, like he was my you know, like I live in my you know, I think heist was in year 10, right. So this guy called Peter Wagner, like so he's, and he lived with his family, he was like the property behind, and my parents were friends with the Wagners and Peter was a bit of a dick. He just pinned me down one night and I think they'd probably all been drinking a little bit as well you know, the parents or whatever and he just started grilling me about what, asking me about what I wanted to be in life, and then I just pulled it out. So I wanted to be a photographer.
Speaker 3:And then the interesting thing is, like he then he had, like he didn't lend me his camera, he had a Canon AE-1. So I don't like, if you know, like people that listen, if people listen like know a bit about photography, like that's like a good camera to get started with. But he didn't lend me the camera, but he lent me like a book that he had bought, like how to use the Canon AE-1, and I just studied that book and then, yeah, so I kind of knew how to use the camera manually before I even had a camera.
Speaker 2:Right and for those listening, we need to really clarify this is pre-digital.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is.
Speaker 2:This is developing film.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I hadn't. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that era, yeah, yeah, Wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Mm so cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So that was when I kind of yeah, yeah, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.
Speaker 2:You knew who were some of the early skate photographers that really stood out Like. You mentioned Grand Britain.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, grant Bryce Canites, who were some other big influences. Yeah. Luke Ogden Steve.
Speaker 3:Sherman, oh yeah, like MoFo, like Spike Jones, daniel Harold Sturt was the one that came along and you just sort of even I wouldn't even think I was aware of, like you know that he was using like the, just the. He used, yeah, his photography. He was using medium and large format cameras and doing an unusual printing and things like that. My brain wasn't even kind of up to par in understanding what his approaches to photography were, but you can't help but stand back and just see that his photography is brilliant. You know what I mean. Like anyone can see that.
Speaker 2:Were you just like copying angles and thinking about the angles he was taking?
Speaker 3:like in those early stages.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I didn't really like. I didn't really copy like because, see, when you're starting out, you'd start out like with a basic like. I start out with like a Practica, like a Russian metal camera with a 50mm lens, so I don't have like a 16mm fisheye or an 80-200 on it or something that those photographers would have been using, so I certainly wasn't getting their angles. But kind of like persevering with like a camera like that, you kind of, yeah, you learn to start to see things in your own way, because you're sort of limited with the equipment that you have.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, did you have any other Australian photographers, like skateboarding photographers, to talk to as well, like at this stage, did you?
Speaker 3:No, david Walsh would have been the only. There was two, there was Michael Restuccia. So he I used to bump into him when I was like doing my like I was in high school, like when I was so, when I was like in year 11 and 12, we used to go skating at the Squash courts at St Mary's. They had like they had the spine mini ramp there and they had a. They had like a vert ramp there as well, far out. Yeah, so like I remember, Borco guys.
Speaker 3:They were Like because the thing I didn't tell you this about Like with With Glenn and Wally, like when we were on high. They all left in year 10. Whereas I and they went and got apprenticeships, like I think they both became roof plumbers, but I stayed on so I lost. I didn't really have much to do with them anymore, like because you know like. But I'd bump into them, even though we were from the same, we've known each other into them, even though we're from the same, we've known each other. They kind of went like Wally, glenn and they sort of how can I say it?
Speaker 3:and Jeff Bennett and you know like and Russell and yeah they all sort of they all really skated, you know, because they all worked like they had apprenticeships and they were pretty tight. But yeah, I used to see them out at St Mary's, yeah, and then, yeah, so I used to see Mike Rastusia out there. So Mike Rastusia, he worked for Canon at the time, like he was like a photographer, photographer, photographer, but he was trying to be a skateboard photographer and yeah, so I could see what he, you know, like he was using flashes, like shooting indoors, things like that real basic stuff. I was still only, I didn't know a lot about photography. It takes years to acquire the knowledge and things like that.
Speaker 4:Would you ask him for advice or anything, or?
Speaker 3:I think I would have back then. Yeah, I would have asked him about, like, what his shutter speed was that he was using, like if you're shooting indoors, like onto fluoro lights and things like that. And that he was using, like if you're shooting indoors, like onto fluoro lights and things like that and O'Meally hadn't started shooting yet, right, he wouldn't have even he wasn't even Did you know.
Speaker 3:Mike. I knew him as well at this time so I knew O'Meally through Skating Cool Park. So we became friends like also like I would have been like in year 11 or year 12, but I would bring my camera. So I had that Practica camera with the 50mm lens, my first camera that I got for my birthday when I was in year 10. So I've got photos of him actually doing hand plants and things like that, maybe doing invert and rock and rolls. I think he wore a red helmet. He would know that, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was going to ask you. Sorry, jim, but I was going to ask you do you remember who your first skate photo was exactly?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it was the first one. Did you just ask that?
Speaker 3:No, but that's a good question. So the first skate photo was that. So I got my camera for my 16th birthday and then we went up to Castle Hill High School and it was this guy called. It was either I think it was either Sean Gorman. Like this guy I went to school with doing like a slappy grind on like a metal pole that was on top of the banks. If it wasn't him these are like the first frames out of this camera, first roll film ever put in it it would have been michael wilson. This guy's like a legend. He's doing like, because I've got two frames that took a backside boneless that he's doing on the bank, so it looks like he's doing a judo here. It's like a cool photo way, like his foot's not planted, yeah, and that's pretty good backside boneless frame I I think that might be my first frame and if not, the other one he took he did like a frontside boneless and again I've got that and his foot's not on the bank too, which is pretty good.
Speaker 2:So just to clarify, this is a single shot, it's not. You weren't taking a sequence.
Speaker 3:No, no A motor drive was in.
Speaker 2:There's no motor drive.
Speaker 3:Prospect of a motor drive was light years away at that point.
Speaker 2:So it was literally about like sharp timing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and trying to get it in focus.
Speaker 4:No top mounted flash.
Speaker 3:No flash. That wasn't even in the board. Yeah, didn't. Even my brain wouldn't have known remotely what to do with a flash.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so cool. Yeah, so that was your first person, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it's funny that you mentioned like, because at the same time like I think the second time, like second roll of film I had for that camera, I went, I think the Bones Brigade came to Martin Place like in 1980, 88 for like Hosoi was there as well.
Speaker 4:Was it the same time they had the demo at the Opera House? Was it that the one at the same time they had the demo at um the opera house during that? Was it that?
Speaker 3:that one at the opera house.
Speaker 3:That was like that was 89, that was yeah, but that was yeah, that was 89, this one that was an easter demo, I think this one was like later in the year, like it would have been. It would have been like october and november because my birthday was in october at the time. So, um, but yeah, like. So I'm talking, I bought a flash cause it was nighttime, and I'm talking to this lady on the train and she looks at my flash and she looks at my camera. She goes, yeah, that'll work. I don't know, like to me, like she. I mean, it looked like she knew that she looked like a photographer to me, anything about photography. So I'm, I shot like, shot like 40 photos, maybe more. I think I passed 40 and I'm like Flash is working pretty well, I'm thinking, but the film should have ended by now. They only have 36 frames on them.
Speaker 3:I haven't loaded the tongue.
Speaker 2:I thought it was 25. It depends. Oh, you might've got the bigger one, 36.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I thought it was like I didn't. I was thinking maybe they've given me some more film in this role, but I hadn't actually like loaded the film into the camera properly, so I didn't actually take any photos.
Speaker 2:And then you ruined the film and exposed it because you checked. You opened it and checked.
Speaker 3:No, even dumber, Like I rewound the film and then put it in the lab and it's just come out completely clear, which means like if you've got, like if your necks are completely clear. It means that, like no image has been exposed and the fixers just removed all the chemistry and it's just nothing.
Speaker 2:Jim, you're an amazing photographer as well. I know you'll deny that, but you are. I think you're pretty good. Okay, is that better, if I know you won't? I know you'll deny that, but you are. I think you're pretty good. Okay, is that. Is that better if I say you're pretty good?
Speaker 4:no, I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm not just saying that.
Speaker 2:I don't fake it till you make it okay, no, but anyway. So like you definitely started as in the digital era, correct?
Speaker 4:yeah, yeah, I mean I've taken little 35 millimeter photos plenty of times just with disposable cameras. Or I've got like a little plastic, just film camera, like a little. It was literally made by Kodak and you could just buy. It has no settings on it, it's the equivalent of a disposable camera that's not disposable, and then you get it processed and that's it and you get it processed.
Speaker 4:That was the first thing I ever shot like photos on, but there's no. It's the equivalent of taking a photo on a phone. It's just not digital because I don't get to. When you shoot those photos, I can't change the settings, other than buying a certain ISO or film or something Like. There's no shutter speed, it's literally just pointed at something and press a button.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's got like two settings. Like some cameras they might have like three shutter speeds, like one second, one sixtieth of a second.
Speaker 4:Yeah, this one doesn't even have that.
Speaker 3:And a hundredth of a second.
Speaker 4:Yeah, this one doesn't even have that, but yeah, and then my partner is a food photographer and I borrowed one of her Canon bodies. And then I actually bought a fisheye lens off um Brennan Caldwell, who was one of Rowan's filmers, um Rowan Davis's filmers, and he had it for filming like with a digital video camera. But, um, it was actually like a I mean, it was a Canon lens and I bought that and just started experimenting with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess like and it's like it's less consequential. I guess Like again, you know you get a roll of film, you stuff it up, you go and pay for the processing of it and then you've got nothing to show for it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was quizzing Jim about like one of these pictures he took because he has, like he showed me one of his. Like Jim does a zine, right, and I'm looking at the photo, I'm looking that's pretty good, like I'm looking at where the light's coming from, and then I sort of think like hey, like did you use a light in that picture?
Speaker 4:You know what I mean Like and he says yes no-transcript equipment like I need to light up this, this spot, and I just yeah, like the flash that I used to shoot the photo I took of you in SLAM. Yep, that is the.
Speaker 3:that's the light that Aaron's talking about, so you would have like, so you would have used, you've used. It was um, like it's um, also wireless as well. Yeah, so you didn't have cables running no no, no cables.
Speaker 4:You got a remote and, like you can, you can change the remote sensor to high speed. So when I change the speed of the photo, essentially like how fast I can capture you moving, so it will capture you in real time, essentially as I pull the trigger.
Speaker 2:It's just such an interesting contrast to have you both here. See, I've never done that in a skate photo.
Speaker 3:I've never used like a studio light as a main light scape.
Speaker 2:Photo. Well, so then, as things started to progress for you in your photography journey and you started using flashes for night photography and stuff like that how is it different to what Jim's doing Like break it down?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I use like little speed lights. So I use the ones that you put on the top of the camera, you know, and then so you can use like like several, like I'd use like a bunch of those, like three or four of them or whatever, but they're sort of, would they be disposable? Or something, no, no they're just like a typical flash that you put on like an slr camera. Okay, you know they go up and go up and then bend over yeah yeah, yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 3:so they're kind of like a harsher light, like with like a studio light. You can diffuse the light more you can, just there's more and it yeah, it's just a different sort of speed. Lights are harsher basically as well, but there's that's like a, there's a style about the way they work. That's appealing as well Interesting. It's not like one's better than the other, it's just like the effect that you want to get out of.
Speaker 4:One definitely requires a lot more skill. I'll tell you that much, and it's not the one I'm doing.
Speaker 3:Oh, you're talking about. You mean like, using like, because you can preview what you're doing.
Speaker 4:No, you're. I mean, I'm essentially just pointing and you know, setting the camera up and setting the light up and waiting for the skateboarder to do a trick, whereas with using film and those little speed lights and positioning them, stuff, it's all science. It's really different to what I'm doing and I'm being really honest there. That's not yeah yeah I'm a writer, not a photographer.
Speaker 2:Aaron's a photographer yeah, and so you do think your photography journey just uh, grew out of a necessity to have a photo with your written articles.
Speaker 4:I started shooting little 35mm photos to go in zines and stuff. But it was really because Brendan Frost, who was Newcastle's primary skate photographer, like the most recent one, moved to Melbourne. I'd already started experimenting a little bit for fun, just to like see if I could take a skate photo. But the only reason I started taking more was because Frosty moved away and like Connor was like Connor Reeve was shooting with Sam, like Sam Cody a lot, who's one of my favourite contemporary Australian skate photographers. He's amazing. But Sam lives in Sydney and you know he only comes up here every couple of months or something. So it's just with Frosty gone and you know there's no access to you know photographers.
Speaker 4:Ty Nielsen that you had on the podcast recently is a great skate photographer actually. I know he's tied up running the shop and stuff at the moment.
Speaker 2:He shoots a good photo, yeah, cool. So I guess, aaron, like I'm, the reason I'm sort of what I'm leading to here is like do you feel that skate photography is of less value than it was back in the 90s? Yeah, um, yeah, I do, yeah, okay yeah, yeah, there's certainly.
Speaker 3:Um, yeah, I do, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, there's certainly like, okay, I pick up. I don't really look at skateboard magazines that much, like I really don't look at them at all and um, except for like I've I mean, I looked at them for years. You know like a good decade I got like you know like 15 years, I don't know a decade of thrashes and trans worlds at home or whatever, but and all photos like my own magazines and stuff where I had my pictures and things like that. But yeah, I just don't think it's changed. Like I look at like I think like aha, uh, like I'm one of my mates aha, you know, aha, andrew alcorn, he lent me a frasher and this still shot. Like the lighting's not all that different, like it's, you know, like it's offset lighting coming from. You know like different, different views creative because it's all fish eye stuff, stuff.
Speaker 3:It's not. I didn't. Yeah, I think it changed really, I thought it just kind of seemed the same to me Interesting.
Speaker 2:What same angles, same lighting, less creativity.
Speaker 3:I think like, even like, see, when it was film photography you use like, oh yeah, the film was really slow, so you're restricted to using 50 and 100 iso film, which means that you're shooting like with slow shutter speeds all the time, particularly particularly if you're skating in the city like late in the afternoon, like you remember how sydney cbd is like, yeah, exactly, yeah, there'll, yeah, there'd be like a patch of blue, like you know, like in the sky, like above the buildings or whatever, but like yeah, it's predominantly dark. So you, basically you had like exposure drag in a lot of your photos. So you see, like a lot of movement. Some of that's like exposure drag can look pretty good, but yeah, you would see that in a lot of old photos.
Speaker 2:Even the ones you were showing us earlier. Yeah, you would see that in a lot of old photos, Even the ones you were showing us earlier.
Speaker 3:yeah, that like, but also like because it was, yeah, I think like, okay, like there was just so many like, like kind of options for creativity that you could use. Like you could use a 35mm camera. You could use a medium format camera that shoots either 6x7 or 6x6 or, you know like, it basically shoots in another format. It's not so much the film size, but those whole camera systems are different, like the lenses and things. They all feel different. And then you can go into large format, which is even like using cameras with bellows and you're focusing on ground glass screens. And then there's half frame cameras which, like split a 35 millimeter frame into two frames. So that's just film camera. That's just the different types of cameras you can use and the different format films to fit those cameras. And then there's things like using infrared, there's cross-processing, there's all the different printing techniques. There was like a lot. There was a lot that um was involved in in film photography, as opposed to just maybe using, like you know, like a full-frame mirrorless camera, 35mm. You know that's interesting.
Speaker 4:Do you think that and this is a genuine question, and maybe for both of you too do you think that lack of progress or innovation that you're talking about in contemporary skateboarding photography, that you know somebody that took a break from skateboarding, looking like you and looking at a magazine? Now you don't think that the kind of artistry of the photos has changed that much? Do you think that sometimes comes back to the magazines too, because skateboarding is really like ingrained in, it has to look a certain way and sometimes if you experiment with photos like I really like doing it like mucking around, taking from a weird angle or using the fisheye through something or whatever and being silly, there would be no chance of getting those photos, even if it's a fantastic photo in the photos, right, there would just be no chance of getting them published, even if the trick's fantastic, even if it's a great photo, because it doesn't look like a traditional skateboarding photo.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you have to sort of subscribe to a style.
Speaker 4:Would you agree with that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I haven't. I think they all. Sorry, jim, I think the photos all look like they're just flooded with flash and compensated with a background exposure that fits it, and it's either shot with a longer focal length lens or a fisheye. Yeah, like that stuff's. Yeah, yeah, like that stuff's. Yeah, it's a subscribed style now that, yeah, maybe people don't want to deviate from it too much, maybe, but I don't know, I haven't been. I don't look at the magazines that much, but certainly that one particular fresher that I looked at like a year or two ago was flooded with pictures like the ones I just talked about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll go. Let's just get back to the chronology a little bit, like I want to go back to.
Speaker 2:okay, you finished uni, you had the cockroach in your ear, you had a bad time, I had a bad year and I kind of like it, sort of had my camera bag stolen had your camera bag stolen and it kind of just effectively rattled, you put you on a different trajectory and realized that you know I don't know if I really want to be a psychologist and at the time, like your photography was popping off, like from my recollection, there was a period of time over a few years where every single Australian skate mag that you would open there was photos just predominantly from you, mike, o'meally Curtis Marr they were you three were kind of just, especially you and O'Meally Curtis Marr they were you. Three were kind of just, especially you and O'Meally were just across the board. Yeah, do you remember that era?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I mean I want to, I want to delve into that time. I mean, were you earning a livable income, primarily off skate photography during that time? Pretty much like, and that's all you were living off.
Speaker 3:Yeah, pretty much like and that's all you were living off. Yeah, when, like when I was Like, when I was doing my Like on Like, like my first year, second Like, hang on a thing.
Speaker 3:I think I had like Jobs, like working car detail or in car yards, things like that. Like when I was Like in my first and second year I sort of got good at Like my photography, just Like when, like I would look at Mike O'Meally's photos like in the first, like slam magazines that he was having his photos in like and he's like learning curve just went, you know, like super steep and just he picked up like slave lighting and all his exposures and everything was just on point tip.
Speaker 3:And then me seeing that and becoming envious of like what he could do.
Speaker 2:Did you feel like you were in competition with him at times?
Speaker 3:I don't think he was too much worried about competing with me, but like I certainly would be looking at his photographs and thinking like I wanted, like I always love, like clear, well-lit, sharp photos and he's pretty good at doing that. Yeah, yeah, I certainly kind of I always want my photos to be better than his and my exposures and things like that and my flashlight.
Speaker 2:Oh, you want to get published more.
Speaker 3:Oh well, he, it wasn't so much that Like the thing. It was interesting what you said about the pictures either being taken by him or by me. There was no other photographers like we both like when. So when we both became photographers this is the early 90s people like Scott Needham he'd become a snowboard photographer. Like Scott Needham was full, full-blown fashion photographer. This is like when I was in high school Forget about that Like, yeah, there was like David Walsh, I think he moved to America and liked to pursue fashion photography or printing or something like that.
Speaker 3:There was Dave Pang. He was in the Air Force Gourlay Gourlay Gourlay Gourlay. He was with Mano Mili, Like Gourlay was a little bit before me. Me and him were around, maybe started around the same time.
Speaker 4:I think he was shooting. Yeah, he definitely. He has a photo of Justin Hughes or Gizzo in that same issue that you had your first photos, that your first photos were in.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's doing like.
Speaker 4:Slam 17, yeah. Doing like a nose grind on an orange bench or something, isn't he Yep, yep in South Australia and it says Justin. It just says his name is Justin.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and Steve Goyle used a slave in that photo.
Speaker 4:He did yeah.
Speaker 3:And I wouldn't have known how to use a slave at that point.
Speaker 2:For those that don't know, because people are listening. For those that don't know, because people are listening, just tell everyone what a slave exactly is.
Speaker 3:It's a type of flash, so you've got like yeah, it's so they call it. It's a second flash that you use, like when you're taking a picture.
Speaker 2:It's on a sensor. It's on a sensor or a cord. If you can't afford the sensor version, is that right, yeah?
Speaker 3:you're exactly right A sensor or a cord, or it can be on a remote. You know so it's triggered by like a receiver. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:And very important to scape photography because it can really change the lighting and the angles and the effect that you're trying to achieve, well, the whole thing with scape photography.
Speaker 3:If you're going to use, like a fisheye lens, a fisheye lens covers like 16 mils. Like 16 mil, that's the focal length of the lens. It's almost like 180, it's not 180 degrees, but it's a pretty wide lens. So a flash when it pumps out, like even with like a diffuser on it, like a diffuser is to broaden the light. One flash by itself is not going to cover, like the, the coverage of a 16mm fisheye lens. So if you're shooting a skate photo with a fisheye lens and just one flash on the top of your camera, you're going to get these black edges around the side because the flash coverage just isn't enough. So you kind of need to use slaves to basically, you know, like to fill the frame with light, yeah, to light up the whole scene, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, gotcha. Yeah, because I think at what point were you? Because I know you predominantly worked for Skateboarding Australia. Right, yeah, but not so much Slam. No, were you actually an employee of Skateboarding Australia?
Speaker 4:I wasn't employed by them. Australian Skateboarding sorry.
Speaker 3:Sorry, australian Skateboarding. Yeah yeah, australian Skateboarding.
Speaker 4:Sorry.
Speaker 3:No, so I started out like. So my first pics that I ever like started sending into the magazines they were the Slam magazine, and then there was no Australian like Australian skateboarding that hadn't. That was basically Australian skateboarding was Skating Life. It was the same publishing company, but Skating Life, like that, had shut that down. So there was only one magazine Slam magazine. Like when I first started sending my photos in, so around the time like I started university as well, like I had this like sort of like an identity crisis, like so I gave up skateboarding for about a year. Yeah, it was like I'd even like hang out with skaters but I wouldn't skate. You know, like just watch what they're doing, stuff like that. It's like even though, like you're yearning on the inside to want to skate, you're just punishing yourself. Like anorexics do it. Like you know, people do it to themselves. I kind of did that to myself.
Speaker 2:I don't know why. You don't know why, no Okay, burnout. I don't know why. You don't know why no Okay.
Speaker 3:Burnout. Yeah, it'd be like a. It'd be some stress related sort of thing from growing up or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like, and then you got back into it and then really delved into it. That's when you started working more as a photographer for Skateboard.
Speaker 4:Yeah, well, the whole so Wait, you had a couple of photos published in 92. Yeah, well, the whole. So Wait, you had a couple of photos published in 92. Yeah, right. Then you took a year off. Right and correct me if I'm wrong, but Andrew Curry was bombed at you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, he was pissed off because, like because with Cazzo's, like he like we had all been through this, like we all you know, likeing crap, like died in the late 80s and suddenly like we're the least popular people in school and we've got no friends to go skating with. That happened to kaza and like from what I understand, and like um, so he didn't really he didn't take, he wasn't, he didn't particularly like it when people just gave up skateboarding yeah, interesting yeah, even though like so was there an actual riff or he was just kind of disappointed?
Speaker 3:no, there was no. I never spoke a word to him, like I've spoken like to andrew, like since then, like over the years, and yeah, he doesn't, but yeah, there was no no, I'm just more sorry to interrupt.
Speaker 4:I just meant he's a lovely guy, I meant I more meant that he was bummed because you'd be sending him some great photos and he was the editor of. Slam at the time and then, all of a sudden, you stopped contributing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I didn't even look at it from that angle, but yeah, there would have been. There was no one taking photos in the country at all at that time. There was David Walsh and he was doing his own, like Street noise and hardcore, and then moving to America. Everyone had bailed out, like there was no photographers at all. Cousin was taking pics as well. Yeah right, it was too.
Speaker 4:He took some great photos.
Speaker 3:There was Steve Gourlay and myself, Andrew. Curry like all those other photographers Scott Needham, mike Restuccia, like Dave Pang yeah, they had stopped taking skateboarding photos at that point. I don't know about Dave Pang Pang was still shooting stuff. He was probably still shooting stuff, yeah, in Canberra for sure. Yeah, yeah, I sort of felt it. I was excited. I didn't want to tread lightly saying that about David Pang, because he loves skateboarding, photography and photography so much.
Speaker 4:And then yeah, because this is just before, amelia kind of hits the scene right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is all. Yeah, before that, Even like Trent Roden was taking photos.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:He did like Slingshot magazine. There was no photographers. So when me and Amelia like so for him, like it would have been pretty easy to get a you know, there was no one taking photos and the same thing, so I'd stop taking photos with my identity. I'm a crisis for a year, for about a year, and I it's funny you laugh about that, but I look back at it and just you know, I think what partying, chasing girls, partying stuff like that- no, like studying, like trying to like learn the right essays, and like just committed to, like wanting to.
Speaker 2:Just off skateboarding.
Speaker 3:just off it for a while Off everything that I'd done up to my point in life. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it was really beneficial, though, to you moving forward though, like having that year of just finding yourself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think so. Like it's because I started skating again and just sort of and like my and like, but I, yeah, I would have taken skate photos though as well. I remember, like taking photos. Remember that photo? You remember this one, jim? It's that one in Crank Of Dave Rock, still in the nose slide, and Dave O's holding the slave in the background. Yeah, yeah, I would have taken that. At that point I would have gone out with them. They were skating, and I would have been just thinking, why isn't Aaron skate anymore? And I would have like, and I would have worn jeans and I probably wore like Some cherry coloured Doc Martin shoes. So this is like, this is like I've gone out and shot a skate photo and I've and you got it in a magazine.
Speaker 4:It's like in Gleam in the Cube. When Christian Slater I don't know how to describe it he stopped scanning for a little while.
Speaker 3:I just tried to not be like. I was trying to not be the person I was. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but then you came back to who you were. Yeah, sort of.
Speaker 3:It's been a struggle for my whole life. You know like yeah, in some ways.
Speaker 2:You seem like you're in touch with who you are as a person, though. Yeah, I am.
Speaker 3:But like, yeah, I've always, like you, question your confidence, question your identity, your integrity, you know like things like that about yourself.
Speaker 2:But I really want to know is, like about being a working skate photographer. I want to learn about this. Like you know, when were you actually really doing it and which magazine were you mainly doing it for and which editor were you really working for?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that would be Australian Skateboarding. So it was.
Speaker 2:Nick Farris was the editor. And then Gordo became the editor.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, because Nick was awesome. Like Nick was a little bit older than so, I would have like, soeally, like we're, I'm old, I think I'm maybe a year older than o'meally yeah, um, but we're, we would have only been like, I don't know, like 22, 23, nick would have nick, he seemed nick would have been like 30, you know what I mean, which is young, he seems old, yeah, but he was, um, he. So he wasn't trying to be a skateboard editor or anything like that. He was just tied in with Mason Stewart, which was the publishing company that ran these magazines, and he was actually like a snowboarding magazine, edited the snowboarding magazine. But they just decided that they wanted to start up like relaunch skating life. But they, yeah, they had to start up like relaunch skating life, but they, yeah, they had it as Australian skateboarding. I won't go any further, you know. You can probably read my mind, jim.
Speaker 2:What do you mean? You won't go any further.
Speaker 3:Oh, because it was. John Fox was the editor of like skating life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:But they had Nick Farris, do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I mean good memories, good times.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, how many cover shots did you have? Oh heaps like probably like a dozen of them, I'd say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, more, yeah, I can't. Jim would know the exact amount.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, so I didn't. I'm sort of going off track. So there was no, there was, it was just the perfect opportunity to become a photographer, like if you followed your passion, like with skateboarding. Because there was no, there was, there was a whole, there was. There was no one doing it there were no photographers.
Speaker 4:I mean, there's a handful of photographers, but there was slam. Then crank comes out and then australian skateboarding comes out. So there's three mags that's separate to all the little zines and there's only like three photographers. So of course you're going to get run.
Speaker 3:And Mike O'Meally. He wasn't allowed to send photos to Australian Skateboarding because I think because he was on, he had like a contract with Slam Magazine?
Speaker 2:Did you have a?
Speaker 3:contract Mm-mm, so I never. So I just got paid for like what? Got used. And this is interesting because, like Slam was really, I'll give you an idea about, like, how much money and stuff I used to make out of it all.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm trying to get to.
Speaker 3:So we've okay. I shot like. My first check from Slam was like the center spread with Danny Way and then the cover with Troy Mahoney. I think I got like $250 for it or something.
Speaker 2:You know like Wow One $150 for it or something you know like Wow, one episode, one issue.
Speaker 3:That's kind of crap, I reckon, for shooting a cover and a center spread, and that was 1992, right, yeah, yeah, the beginning of 92.
Speaker 2:So it wasn't lucrative and you had to hustle.
Speaker 3:No, no, but how's this Shannon, so Slamwood? They didn't pay much back then for like photos or whatever Australian skateboarding paid like really well for photos and if you look back at those early magazines like I shot the entire magazine.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So I'd make about. So I was making about $3,000 every issue, so that was coming out. That's monthly, coming out every second month.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's bi-monthly and it was yeah, and then like, so it was me, yeah, but it was yeah, it was yeah, bi-monthly, yeah, so it was six issues a year, but still for like back in that that era, like that's eighteen thousand dollars a year. And then I shot other things like as well, like um, like I did inside sport articles juice articles I'd shot, and I shot for cycling magazines. I shot for other magazines that that publishing company produced. So I worked on it.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, so they're under the same publisher.
Speaker 3:It was all freelance, yeah.
Speaker 2:But under the same publisher, so the work came easy. Easy Because they're like oh, we've got a guy yeah yeah, and they're all in the office talking.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's exactly it. Yeah, they had like all the they would have. So the skateboarding magazine was in this big office that had the snowboarding magazine or they called it the, I can't remember. It was like a smelly den or something, it was just like. And they had like tracks magazine was in there as well. And I think there was a bodyboard magazine. I think everyone hated the bodyboard magazine editor, but yeah, I think there was a bodyboard magazine. I think everyone hated the bodyboard magazine editor, but yeah, I think they called it the Pit or something, but yeah. And then they had like cycling magazines and things like that, but they had this great guy called Tony Nolan Tony, fucking Nolan. I remember Tony Nolan.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he was like the only photographer that they employed. And then Tony loved me so he got me work with all the other magazines.
Speaker 2:So you were doing all right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did Like I had, like I was more or less like, just like, made money.
Speaker 2:Did you get much creative input in terms of layout and stuff like that? Was that contentious at times.
Speaker 3:With the first, like the first. I remember like the first proper, like the first issue, like they released, like the very first issue. They did like there was a photo of Dom Kekic on the front. I think he was doing a switch 180 over like a bench shot in Melbourne. That's correct, and Jesse Featherstone shot that picture. Like I only had a few pics, like in the first issue, but they did like a little like photographer profile on me, like I met Dave Mock, was still taking photos for the first issue and I met Dave Mock through my taking photos for the first issue and I met Dave Mock through Mock. Yeah, anyway, it all just fell into place. Let me think what I'm getting at here Of all of this. Damn, there just wasn't many photographers and basically, like if I could, I could, I had to. I was like I could shoot the whole magazine really and like, yeah, Were you sending?
Speaker 4:so, say, if you the photos that you had published in Australian Skateboarding the B-size things that weren't accepted would you shop those around Like? Would you send stuff to Crank, for example, to see if they'd publish it for a little bit of extra money as well?
Speaker 3:I used to do that with Transworld, so like what I'd do, like I'd save, like. So I remember, like some of the interviews yeah I did it with with Tran, I didn't so much like I wouldn't really send my photos to Slam Magazine and and Crank I sent my photos to Crank before Australian skateboarding started, but I sort of just stayed loyal to them, like not that they cared, but that's just sort of how I am anyway, like yeah, that Dave Rock's photo on issue one, the nose month slide, where he's got the camo shirt on.
Speaker 3:Oh, that was, that was the one I was talking about, that was that in that little like they did, like the little photographer thing?
Speaker 4:on the first issue, which one of my favorite photos ever.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes so let's let's talk about, like, the gradual exit out of it into other projects and moving on from you know earning an income that way.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What was next from there? How did it sort of start to wind down or end? Did you lose interest or just no, I didn't.
Speaker 3:Like I always wanted to be like work in journalism, like I always wanted to get like a cadetship or something like and become like a news photographer. So that's yeah. And then, as so let me think about this when I finished my master's, like when I finished up with university, like I just left the course, I just was almost like being reborn again, you know, like I just weight just came off my back. This whole thing I didn't want to do, you know, like I'd had enough of psychology. I certainly didn't want to do, you know, like I wasn't. I'd had enough of psychology. I certainly didn't want to work in the clinical setting and I was just, and I'd suffered enough, like with my studies, like sacrificing photography and things like that, because I was having to write essays and research all the time. I didn't have time to to do any of that. So it was just like that's all gone, bang, you know. And then, um, yeah, I just went full bore with photography.
Speaker 3:Now, I didn't, I had time to be able to go and shoot it and I so I'm just thinking like some of the photos that I took around this period, like I took, like I remember I went on a lot of missions with like steve tini davo um would go, um tizo would come out with us um. Do you ever remember some photos taken at Walsh Bay, like with the Sydney Harbour Bridge? In the background, there are these long finger container, there's these. It's down near Pier 1 and it's Pier 2, Pier 3, pier 4. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And they used to have warehouses on them.
Speaker 3:Warehouses. They're called. Yeah, they're called like finger wharfs, longshore wharfs or whatever.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we like around this period of time, yeah, we'd go on little missions and I wouldn't say break into it, we would just get into these places. And there was like a photo of Davo doing a backside nose. It might be it's a backside nose, grind backside 180 out icon and you can see in the heart. Basically we shot it on one of those longshore wharfs with the doors wide open and the harbour bridges in the background Sick, but it just seemed like I don't know. I shot Dave's interview for Australian Skateboarding at that time. I just remember my photos. Like they just it seemed like they really started to like get they. Just, I don't know, my creativity just started to blossom, like, yeah, really Blossom, blossom or bloom, I guess I don't know. Like, yeah, it really started to, just started to get I don't know when did you start working for fairfax media then?
Speaker 3:so that was not. I started working for fairfax in 1999, so, gotcha, yeah. So I basically just decided that, um, I don't know that. Um, yeah, just started, I had like enough I put to get a portfolio, I'd shot like all these different sports and like portrait pictures and things like that.
Speaker 2:Were you feeling like, oh, I've got to get more of like a real job.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just wanted to be like a journalist, like an adult job, not like that, like it. Just there was a bit of pressure like that from my parents and my parents wanted me to have a full-time job and they didn't understand. Like back in this era, like you didn't you had like a full. There's different, different era, you know what I mean. Like so they're just worried about everything that I've would have been doing, not understanding that you can make money out of doing things that way or whatever. But that aside, like I I kind of saw myself as having done like my apprenticeship, like as a skateboarding, as a photographer, through the ranks of skateboarding. Like that's a pretty hard apprenticeship to do as well. Not everything's given to you. You've got to be self-motivated. You're teaching yourself how to do everything. You start out buying everything for yourself and skateboarding Like it was a pretty authentic approach to journalism.
Speaker 2:And did it really help you at Fairfax oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So like when I started up, like I just started up as I was, like I started out as like a B-grade casual photographer, which, like I didn't even like a B grade casual photographer, which, like I didn't even like have to do an apprenticeship, and I was like as good as I was, probably like better than the photographers that had been there for like 10 years and my level of skill was like a lot. It was maybe like I don't know, it was just like more skill. I knew how to like. It's just like more skill. I knew how to like.
Speaker 3:It's funny, like when you're working in magazines and things like that, like you, they only, you only use slide film. When you use slide film, like you got like um you'd call it tolerance these days like exposure tolerance. Well, with slide film, there's only a thin margin of to overexpose it and a thin margin for underexposing it. If you go over that margin, photos just shit house. Like that's kind of um is you? You become a pretty, you become pretty good with your exposures and things like that. Like um for using slide film and using it all the time, especially like expensive slide film that's like $20 a roll, which is like Fuji Velvia. Yeah, and by the time I worked there. So when I started working in newspapers, like I was really good with lighting and my exposures and they're the basics for taking a good photo and then your composition and things like that.
Speaker 3:Like if you don't have good exposure, regardless of your composition, it's still going to look terrible.
Speaker 2:It can't be fixed up in post-production.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:It couldn't be as easily fixed in post? Yeah, like how is?
Speaker 3:this like it's funny, like so when I started working at Fairfax Newspapers, like I was shooting, I worked on the community newspapers and they were still predominantly black and white newspapers but they had colour pages in the newspapers which meant that everything was shot with colour film because they didn't know what pages were going to be allocated, like the stories were going to be allocated in black and white or in colour. So the darkroom days of the newspaper, when I started working at newspapers, were gone, like they didn't have like black and white, the black and white printing and all that stuff. That had only just finished like a year or two before I started in newspapers. So I started like 1999.
Speaker 3:It still was film cameras and using um Kodak scanners, so everything was shot with colour film and then scanned. So there was a little bit of like Photoshop like I was using Photoshop back then so you could do things like lighten up, you know, like faces and things like that, like where flashes kind of hadn't exposed them properly, and stuff like that that you could do with the newspaper. With skateboarding you couldn't. There was no adjustment to nothing. So how you shot that on the slide is how it came out in the magazine.
Speaker 2:So when you were shooting a skater, for example because I've seen this in real time, when a skater's battling a trick and you're trying to get a sequence and you're burning through roll after roll like that's coming out of your pocket- right, yeah, that's it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, you can hide like a couple of rolls, because I'd only get like a budget of like 20 rolls of film for a whole issue, for a whole issue. So if I did the maths on that, so five of those would have been black and white. So that's like 150 frames of black and white, like you could probably burn like 50 frames. Sequence now how fast the motor drives work okay, like 10 frames a sec. Now, whatever, the motor drives are only slow. Then they're like five frames a second.
Speaker 2:You know like five and a half so, like, were you just sort of, were you getting like selective with who you'd shoot with, based on their consistency and their ability to get the job done quick?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was pretty apprehensive about like shooting sequences unless, like I could yeah, I remember with Morgan, like because, like in photography in Australia everything's really expensive. So, like in America, like a roll of film film like kodak roll of film be like three bucks over here. That roll of film is like 12 bucks, you know like it's different, like um well, maybe not that it might have been like six bucks and it was like two bucks over there. Yeah, black and white roller slide film was different. A roll of slide film in america would be like five bucks. That would be like for a roller Velvia, over here it was $20. So I wasn't going to be shooting Colour sequences full stop. At least I got 36 chances of getting a single frame. My flash is going off. I'm going to waste that film. Shooting sequences ain't gonna work, mate.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's stressing big time yeah because, like, because like I'd have, like they didn't give me a lot of film like I, I did get film to shoot for the magazine and I also would buy some of my own film, but, yeah, I wasn't gonna, I wasn't prepared to like there must have been moments when it created serious tension between you and the skater you were shooting yes so they're getting close but you haven't got the shot yet.
Speaker 2:But you're running out of film and they want to keep going and you're like I'm out of yeah there's a point where you sort of got.
Speaker 3:I remember like I was with morgan campbell and we'll in westernist, so in in wa and do you know? I think it's. I think it's one of the beaches, it's like Cotter's Low and it's got the transitioned. It might not be Cotter's Low, but it might be. So it's in the Perth area but it's one of the beaches there and there's like a life-saving club or something and it's got a roof with transitions on the top. And I was shooting some pics with Morgan, like we're trying to do, like he might have been. I can't really remember what he was doing. He might have just been like a big backside ollie or something like that over the hip. It had a hip as well on that roof, crazy yeah, do you?
Speaker 4:know the pics jim yeah yeah, yeah, jim knows man I mean, I know the spot. I couldn't. I've never been to wa, but I know. I mean I know from magazines.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know, yeah but I remember being with morgan on the rooftop there and he was. I was trying to shoot a sequence of him and then I and he just kept like kicking his board away and bailing and I was just burning the film and I remember like getting the roll of film out of my camera and throwing it at him. I was that pissed off burning film and Morgan like he remembers that.
Speaker 2:Because you didn't have a single good shot in the whole roll.
Speaker 3:Oh man, I'm starting to like throw film at like there's no point in processing it, yeah like what if you've got a skater who, like, there's no point in processing it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like what if you've got a skater who, like you know they can do it with bailing all the time? You're like, why are you fucking bailing? Like, would you go through moments like that, Like stop bailing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you try and be nice and you think, yeah, no, you can do it, we'll try and get the next one, but there is a breaking point.
Speaker 2:You know how did he react to that when you threw the film at him, how did he react?
Speaker 3:Oh, he would have got pissed at me. I know he's like because Morgan's mentioned it to me before he goes. Yeah, Aaron, can get pretty gnarly when you're shooting sequences and whatever, and I start flipping out at people. I think it's like I probably can't see it myself. It's probably a monster behind the camera front.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I get it oh that's interesting but yeah, I definitely I have done that frown role film morgan campbell maybe a couple of roles that day thanks for meeting me.
Speaker 2:Sorry, morgan, I really am yeah it's, it's crazy like um, just you know, when you started at Fairfax you were saying earlier in the night that like you just found shooting that kind of photography for newspapers just like a breeze and easy. Yeah, did you progress up the ranks quickly in the newspaper and start to solidify yourself there as one of their premier photographers.
Speaker 3:Kind of Like so when I because when I worked at Fairfax I didn't, so I only worked there for a year, and so what happened when I worked there was they didn't have, so they, it was Fairfax Community Newspapers.
Speaker 3:So they had about a dozen like like suburban newspapers like sprawled throughout Sydney, Like they had papers like all throughout the western suburbs, Like they had them in Liverpool, they had them in Fairfield, they had them in Castle Hill, they had you know, like Cronulla Hurstfield, like the latest they had like yeah, so I worked on all of those newspapers. Like I didn't work like typically how it worked back then was like each they employed like two photographers per newspaper, but they couldn't give me like a full-time job to work on one newspaper, so I worked as their casual like on all of their newspapers. But yeah, so everyone. No, and the funny thing was like um, so when I'd go and work on a particular newspaper for a couple of weeks, like yeah it was, I kind of had a reputation like that, like I was, that the photographer that was coming in was a pretty good photographer. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Cool man so like I kind of was, they loved me at Fairfax and then I got headhunted for another job which was working at a company called Federal Publishing Courier. So they did like the Wentworth Courier and like the Inner Western Courier and Southern Courier, like some suburban newspapers, like in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, and then, yeah, like they didn't really appreciate me too much, like which is a little bit, but yeah, it's a bit of a shame because like Fairfax, like I would have just climbed through the ranks there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, interesting. Why did you leave Fairfax for them?
Speaker 3:Because like a full time job, oh okay, yeah, security job, oh they headhunted you yeah, yeah, you didn't feel appreciated by them oh there's, you don't have to.
Speaker 3:Oh no, I don't mind. Like it's all ages ago, so like. What happened was like when you work in like these industries, like so the boss of, so the, the editor-in-chief, like the chief editor of, like fairfax community newspapers, like he, he left, he jumped ship and went over to this other company called federal publishing courier, so, and then he started bringing people from fairfax over. So he brought me over, like based on like he would have like sussed out like the chief photographer at Fairfax and asked you know, like sourced me from there.
Speaker 2:Basically, yeah, oh gotcha, yeah. Hey, before we started the podcast, you were talking to Jim and I about Matt Mumford cover shot for Transworld. Yeah, and you showed us this amazing photo you took of Matt.
Speaker 3:Doing the tail slide.
Speaker 2:Tail slide Down, the handrail Redfern.
Speaker 3:Suicide Towers, was it? No, it was like some. No, it wasn't Suicide Towers.
Speaker 2:It was like a 10-stair rail, like in Hurstville somewhere, and you're telling us the story and I was like don't tell us, because you want to hear, tell us on the podcast. But can you just like sort of reiterate what was going on? Yeah, yeah, so it was a tour and so it was skin phillips.
Speaker 3:He was like the, he was like deputy editor of transworld at the time and like their chief photographer, he came out to Australia to like shoot photos. I think it was for Matt Mumford's interview. So Matt Mumford, like he was living in America at the time he came out with skin and like he was skating for Zero and he also brought Adrian Lopez with him. So the other two Zero guys and I knew Matt.
Speaker 3:I know Matt Mumford really well because I'd photographed, like his interview, um, for Australian skateboarding. And I knew Skin fairly well too because, like I'd met him through Dave Swift, who I'd met through again like Matt Mumford. Matt Mumford opened the doors like like he through Matt Mumford, I've met've met like these people at Transworld which are huge in skateboarding and photography. But yeah, so Matt's come out to Australia and he's like and I've been good friends with Matt already anyway and he's contacted me and like, basically, like he wants to shoot him and Adrian Lopez wanted to shoot photos with skin and they just wanted me to sort of show them around, take them to some spots and and they want to hang out me or whatever as well but I think they just want to like go to spots and shoot pics and stuff like that, and I could do that with them.
Speaker 3:Um, so I've met up with, I met up with them. I must have been at work, so I would have been working at the newspaper all day and then I'd say I've met up with them because that newspaper the leader that I principally worked out of, was based in Hurstville. So, either way, we've met up and we've decided to go out and shoot some pics and, like Skin's the main photographer there, it's his gig, not mine.
Speaker 2:He's been flown out from America for this, for this, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:But I asked him I'm like, do you mind if I shoot some art pics, like I'm just working on like an art project which is like a book that I published?
Speaker 3:The art project was meant to be like an exhibition, like in 1999, but it turned out to be a book that I published only two years ago, which, yeah, pretty long project. So Skin's like, yeah, it's cool, you know you can shoot these art pics or whatever. He didn't mind me being in the background, like taking the same photo, basically, and then like on another shoot, like we took Adrian Lopez, like again the three of us, like the four of us, so Skin, mumford and Adrian Lopez, like we went to Silverside Towers and shot, like Skin and I but more Skin shot the photo of Adrian doing the frontside board slide While you poached yeah, yeah, yeah, I poached the shot like from behind the bushes, like literally like the frame that I've got, it's got bushes and everything and it was like those porn photos where they're shooting from behind the bushes, like mine's, like that, but Adrian Lopez like from boarding doing the rail.
Speaker 2:Was it a better photo though? Yeah, I reckon yeah, because it was like saturated colour fisheye flash blowout photo.
Speaker 3:Yeah, his was just typical, like typical sort of like fisheye photo of the day skin photo.
Speaker 2:I love you like backing yourself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, keep going yeah, mine was kind of cool photo like I've shot I would have only had. I probably, because back then I would have just rocked like I had, like they were metal body cameras like I would have used like an fe2, so they're not like sophisticated looking cameras like now, and I would have just had like a 50mm lens on it, okay, but yeah, which is like just a basic lens that comes with the camera when you buy it. Yeah, yeah, my photo is really good. So did you just like?
Speaker 2:see the angle and you know what that angle is sick. I'm just going to maybe snap a couple.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but it's not also like not too many people could like in Sydney were frontside boardsliding that rail. You know what I mean as well. It's like an opportunity too, but I didn't mean it in that way using it. It's just funny I used that word opportunity but I shot like in my right state of mind it was for my art exhibition. But anyway, somewhere along the lines the photos like Steve Teeny and Matt Coit have seen them at Australian Skateboarding. Like it would have been me I would have gone in and go check this out, these cool photos that I took with Skin and with Matt and Adrian Lopez, so the one of. So these photos are not really meant to be published. So the one of Matt Mumford doing the tail slide down that rail in Hurstville gets used on the cover of Australian Skateboarding and the same magazine. The center spread is Adrian Lopez doing the front side board slide down the handrail and suicide towels and like. So this has all come out.
Speaker 3:That magazine came out. I think I got the magazine like on, like maybe like a Wednesday or something or I can't remember what day it was like it was like a couple of days. I think I was talking to we were talking about this earlier. I think I said like a week later I was going to. I think I was going. I went over to Europe for a month to photograph the World Cup skateboarding. It might have only been a couple of days after that magazine came out, but either way, like I was real proud and took it over and like Transworld's got a subscription to it, so they've already received the magazine. Skin's already seen the cover. So I get, I rock up and I'm in Prague and I see like Mumford and I see Adrian Lopez and they're like my buddies right. I saw you in Sydney like a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 2:So they weren't fazed.
Speaker 3:Even Mumford was pissed at me. They were all super pissed at me.
Speaker 2:So you got bad vibes when you seen them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, mumford and Matt's like Aaron. You should know better, you know, because Matt Mumford like he really likes me, but he was just disappointed in me. Adrian Lopez was pretty pissed at me because the thing with that photo was like Adrian Lopez's front board was used like it might have been in the Cyrus ad or the shoe ad, it was a shoe ad Circa, circa. It's a bad thing to do. You know, like especially a shoe ad. It was a double-page spread advertisement. It wasn't like a little picture, it was a two-page ad. Yeah.
Speaker 4:And was Skin's version of Mumford's photo published in Transworld as well.
Speaker 3:The tail slide. They probably pulled that one at the last minute because it ended up on the cover of Australian Skateboarding. It was a disaster, His whole story's a disaster, but wait up, wait up.
Speaker 2:Who was the editor-in-chief at the time? Gordo?
Speaker 3:Matt Coit was Okay, so he knew what was going on. Yeah, he became the editor of Rolling Stone. No shit, no shit, no shit. Fhm and then Rolling Stone. I don't think he cared too much about skateboarding.
Speaker 2:But did he know the scenario?
Speaker 3:But he was a cool guy, so he knew the scenario.
Speaker 2:So he knew, when you submitted those photos, what was going on. And he just went ah, whatever, let's just go, let's run them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there was some sort of like lack of value.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3:There, so you can't yeah, there was some sort of like lack of. I'm trying to bail you out of here. Yeah, I don't know there was some breakdown in communication that might have been on my part, but man, I reckon like I was just so like I also smoked a lot back then just in the green room all the time. Oh yeah, Yep.
Speaker 2:I don't think, like I forgot, you were a stoner. Yep, is that phase of your life over or you still get phased?
Speaker 3:Well, that's a that phase ended for a long time and then like more, like with the medicinal. You know, like medicinals it's a whole different thing now. So I have, like I do have a, I do smoke up, and certainly not like I used to, no way.
Speaker 2:No way For medicinal reasons. With medicinal what?
Speaker 3:yeah, this is I think I really have anything wrong with me. But yeah, it is for medicinal purposes.
Speaker 2:You, have a prescription yes hey, I think like if that's, if that's the the loophole that we have to to make cannabis legal. I mean, I don't smoke marijuana, but I do think it should be legal. I agree you know, I can't believe it's not legal. So that's great that this is the new. This is how they have to do it and it's accessible now for people that actually need it, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I agree, it's got amazing medicinal qualities it really does.
Speaker 2:Just don't abuse it.
Speaker 3:Yes, no, I think like. Yeah, I never thought we'd be living like in this era. I was watching the Dolphins football game at the start of the year. What?
Speaker 2:a shit name for a rugby league team.
Speaker 3:Alternaleaf is the major sponsor. Seeing Alternaleaf, yeah, like on their around the All around, like because you, they use those digital billboards. So there was. And then you know, like the average punter out there probably doesn't know what alternative is, you know, and it's medicinal.
Speaker 2:Like that's my hookup. Yeah, yeah, all right, let's have a taller break. This is a common podcast problem.
Speaker 3:We all okay. So yeah, I'm coming back. I was just talking about like I was like I was just saying telling shannon how I also went to america when I was 18, so it was my first year out of high school. That same year, like I took that photo of danny way doing like the japan air at darling harbor, like he came out with chris miller for the amazing when I shot the center spread with slam was like my first published photos and things like that.
Speaker 2:You want to talk about that too? Remind me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I went over to America for like two or three months, like when I was 18, and yeah, sort of just came back like sort of a different person, like something, could sort of change in kind of like yeah, just I don't know, it's like that sort of like you'd pin it down to like sort of like you know, when you're going through adolescence or whatever, and you just your temperament and things like that change, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, your eyes had been opened to the.
Speaker 3:I don't know, but I didn't see anything too confrontational in america. America is a completely like we went to like san diego, la san francisco, saw things like like in sf, like you'd see what, like I've never seen like poverty before, you know. Like you know again, like it was um, like the recession of the early 90s and things like that. But, um, yeah, I don, I don't know. And as I was saying, like I was telling, I was just talking about saying that, like when I was in year 10, like a couple of kids I went to school with, like I was pretty good friends with one of these kids it was like because I used to get called Booger, which was my nickname, but anyway, these two kids, like that I went to school with, jumped off the Harbour Bridge. So we all went into school on Monday morning and we had like yeah, it was just I don't know. I think things like that can sort of affect you in life.
Speaker 4:Was one of the kids, the one that came up with the nickname Booger.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that was Matthew Johnson, yeah, yeah, so I don't know Stuck with that. Yeah, that was Matthew Johnson, yeah, yeah, so I don't know, it's stuck with you. Yeah, that's where that. Yeah, so I don't mind, like if someone like Glenn Scott or you know, like those guys, then like it's endearing to hear them say it. You know what I mean. Yeah, because it's like I've yeah, yeah, I went to school with those guys. Yeah, I went to school with those guys.
Speaker 2:It deeply affected you for many years. You think, or still affects you, that tragic incident.
Speaker 3:It doesn't affect me anymore, but like I just think it must have done, like, done something to my confidence. It's done something you know Like reduce your confidence. Yeah, yeah, yeah, interesting. Yeah, I'd sort of relate that to why I stopped skating for a year and I sort of wanted to go to university, things like that. Like it sort of you know like, yeah, just did, oh man. Yeah, yeah, that was a long time ago though. We're talking like 35 years ago or something like that.
Speaker 2:Thanks for sharing it. 30 years ago yeah. Thanks for sharing it 30 years ago. Yeah, thanks for sharing it. And you just mentioned your first published photos. Yeah, yeah, like tell us that story, because I know there's a story. So you submitted some photos to Slam for the first time.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what happened?
Speaker 3:So with the Danny Way and the.
Speaker 2:Yeah, were they the first photos you ever submitted?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Photo of Danny Way skating at Darling Harbour.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so the first photos I ever submitted were it was the yeah, it was the Danny Way, chris Miller, like Tarson Bend, pappas demos down at Darling Harbour and also around the same time I went to Melbourne for they have like a competition at Prahran like it was a Verton Street competition Rudy Johnson came out for Blind, that's right. Yeah, rudy Johnson came out and so and I shot like pics of again, it would have been Tarzan Ben, it would have been Ryan Denerez as well. There there were people like that skating and I shot a photo of Troy Amahony doing like a paddler's backside disaster, like on the vert ramp, and that was used on the cover of the Slam magazine. And then that photo of Denny, like a photo of Denny Wade, doing a Japan air at Darling Harbour, was used in the Santa spread. So they were the first photos I ever had published, ever and it was the first time you'd submitted to a mag.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah, that's pretty crazy. What a good start.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was funny because that one like if you have a look back at the gym you'd notice like it was the first issue of slam I ever bought too but how way?
Speaker 3:there was, like in the slam that came out before that. There's a photo that scott needham took at the darling harbour demo I think of maybe like um, of like it might be like danny way doing a very old 540 or something like that. Either way, like yeah but it's funny. But my photo still got published, like on the cover, on the center spread of the magazine, like the following issue yeah, well, things weren't as instantaneous back then either.
Speaker 4:You know, like if you had a roll of film and it was, you know some of the photos were from the year before. You know in in, including in Thrasher and Transworld and stuff like that, and things were changing so quickly so boards would look different. You know you'd see photos. Yeah, you know. You look at questionable video and Danny Way is still writing blind and H Street boards in some of the footage. You know.
Speaker 3:Crazy. I'll give you the perspective of like how the state of magazines as well, and you would know this is like they'll half like. If you picked up a slam back like that Denny Way issue, the one I'm talking about with the Troy Mahoney on the cover in Denny Way a lot of the photos in that would have been submitted by American photographers as well. Like half the issue would have been like photos by Tobin, yeeland and Dave Swift and Sherman. Yeah, exactly yeah, there was just no photographers in Australia.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm actually sitting here thinking man. I wish I got into photography at that time. You know what. You said something to me once I'll never forget I went on a shoot with you when you shot the cover of my friend Johnny O'Connor from Vaucluse. Yeah, he's champion, Shout out to.
Speaker 3:Johnny man, he's champion Shout out to Johnny man.
Speaker 2:he's such a kind soul.
Speaker 3:He was such a good dude, and he's brother's champion as well.
Speaker 2:He's a twin. Yeah, those guys. Yeah, he actually reached out to me recently.
Speaker 2:Anyway, yeah, and you shot a cover shot of him doing, yeah, like a frontside-bluntside transfer on this flat rail, and I was watching you and I was talking and I think I said something like, oh, what about this angle? And you were like, hey, shannon, I think you've got a really good eye for photography, because, like, I was like putting my two cents in and I don't know if you were being like, just like, you know, nice, or but or I was pissing you off and you just wanted to get me anyway.
Speaker 3:I was like, yeah, I was like you said that Did you point something out and like, oh, would that be not bad from sort of did I go over and like.
Speaker 2:Something like that.
Speaker 3:yeah, Sit over and try and shoot a photo from where you Something like that From what you suggested.
Speaker 2:And you were like, yeah, yeah. And you were like, yeah, you've got a good eye for this, don't you? And I was like, oh yeah, thanks, man.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you probably did. Was he just being nice Nah?
Speaker 2:He's probably thinking don't tell me to do a fucking job.
Speaker 3:Nah, I wouldn't have. I would have probably. No, I think I would have been genuine saying that I can't remember. Hey, I remember. Like, excuse me. Yeah, I remember shooting vaguely.
Speaker 2:I remember shooting that cover, are you okay?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I remember shooting. The cover Was that University of New South Wales was it yeah? Ed Randwick. Yeah yeah, I know the exact picture. It was that little, it was like a low rail, it was easy to get onto and then it dropped off. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like, do you like, I guess, like we've been talking for I don't know, like between an hour and a half two hours. But you know, when you do reflect on all of that period of your life, because so much has happened before then and after, then you know, would you say that it was a good time in your life overall, yeah, or is there painful memories associated with it?
Speaker 3:No, Like, skateboarding photography is like, that's my, they're my best memories of photography. There's no doubt about that. Like, yeah, that whole period, that being exposed to, like even before I picked up a camera, like looking at like Sturt's photos or, you know, like Spike Jonze's photos, Grant Brinton's photos, Bryce Kinnott's photos, Luke Ogden's photos, Steve Sherman, you know you just all of those names. You never forget those names because they just took wonderful pictures and they kind of exposed you to something that forever changes your life. And skateboarding photography is just so diverse and yeah, and so creative. I feel so fortunate to come from that, from skateboarding.
Speaker 2:So the book you've made. You've given me this beautiful gift tonight. I mean I'll cherish it forever. I literally will. It's called Backlight in the Grain Angels of Skateboarding.
Speaker 3:Angels of Skateboarding.
Speaker 2:Angels of Skateboarding. So do you feel like when you created this, it's an ode to that period of your life?
Speaker 3:Yes, that's my PhD. That's like my master's. Really. I didn't come out with a master's project in the actual psychology course, but that would be my equivalent there.
Speaker 2:I generated everything into that. This is kind of like symbolic of the stamp of that time time stamp.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, yes, all encapsulating. Amazing yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, emotional when you look at it sometimes.
Speaker 3:Or was the process of creating, an emotional process of creating. It was like it's yeah, I can't, it's just um, it's just something I'm really like. It's a body of work that I'm proud of yeah kind of like it.
Speaker 3:It wasn't driven by. Like most of those photos, most of the photographs like the cover photograph from the book of Kai Stanley Olley and the pole with Devo on the background, that was used on the cover of a magazine and then there's, like it was, on the cover of one of those Australian skateboarding poster issues but pretty much like none of the photos, like about 95% of the photos in that book have never been published because they were shot with the intention of the art project that I was talking about a little bit earlier. Wow, when I was, when I poached.
Speaker 3:yeah, when I poached skin, you know like Suicide Towers of Adrian Lopez doing that front board and all that Like I had in mind.
Speaker 2:So you were sitting on. You were sitting on this stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I didn't have like the focal point wasn't. Like it wasn't meant to be a book at that time, like I wanted. There was a photographer called Lewis Morley. He took a famous photograph like of this beautiful woman naked like with her elbows leaning over the back of a chair, like she's involved in like the Profumo affair. So she was like an escort that was involved like an alleged affair like a Russian diplomat had with her, like it was big news. So Lewis Morley like took that photograph of her. So it's a really well-known photo I was meant to have.
Speaker 3:So at the time, like this is in the 90s, lewis Morley was still alive and he had an art gallery in Annandale and I took some skateboarding photos and this is all before like I'd only you know like this was the conception of shooting, yes, shooting this like black and white art project. And he said he pulled aside like I had like a whole bunch of photos like photos of like street people in Sydney and buildings and I had some skating ones. And he pulled the skating photos out and he goes these are fantastic, come back with like a box full of prints and we'll do an exhibition. And I never went back and so and he passed away like about 10 years ago, and then yeah like it just ended up becoming the book, basically that one of Pat Darfee.
Speaker 2:I like it. It's hard because this is an audio recording. It's just hard to. Yeah, we're looking at the book at the same time it's hard for people to really understand how insanely like the moments you've captured are just so unique. And.
Speaker 2:I guess the big question. I had like so that cover shot. You chose that photo of Kai Stanley to be the cover of this book. But if you go through the book, there's so many amazing photos. Why did you choose that photo to be the cover? Yeah, yeah, what stood out for you? You and what drove that decision?
Speaker 3:It's probably the best photo in the book, like that Ollie, in terms of the difficulty. Yeah, in terms of difficulty, like to be able to like Ollie pole, like with that gap, like that, like not many people would ever be able to do that. Kai Stanley, like he would be the most gifted Him he may just be the most gifted skateboarder I ever.
Speaker 2:What about Kyle Muskie? Yeah, oh, wow.
Speaker 3:Kai Stanley. He's incredible. And then it's got Devo in the background and he's kind of holding a long neck and just Billy.
Speaker 2:Harris shout out no negative.
Speaker 3:Yeah, crow War Ride yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:But I mean, yeah, okay, so you picked it because you just think like it was just such a difficult thing to do. But I mean just from an art perspective, I mean I feel like there's more artistic photos in here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I think I probably didn't want, I don't know. I just love that photo, yeah, and I didn't have too many like. Yeah, I just think, like david on the background, and I just, and also I remember, like when we went out and shot that photo that day. Steve Tierney's also there, but he's behind me holding a slave or something. Slaves keep coming back into it. There's always a slave. We'll talk about slaves. I remember I was shooting pics and I'd always grab someone and say, hey, man, can you just hold this flash for a few minutes while I shoot this pic? And half an hour later they're still holding the flash with a sore arm.
Speaker 2:Chima at Prudential. Yeah, oh my God, and he would have been what Looks like, maybe 12 or 13.
Speaker 3:He wouldn't have been like, I reckon that was Even younger. Yeah, he's only a little kid. He wouldn't even be like shop sponsored or nothing.
Speaker 2:I mean I wonder if he was ollieing the Prudential double set. Yeah, I mean I wonder if he was ollieing the Prudential.
Speaker 3:Double Set. Nah, he was trying to like 50, that ledge.
Speaker 2:Did you ever ollie the Prudential Double Set? No, I ollied it, me, and my friend Duncan Guzeff ollied it one night. So you only. Do you remember Duncan Cam's brother? Yeah, yeah, I do. Yeah, he's an amazing skater.
Speaker 3:So you only ever ollied it once, once Just ollie'd it. Yeah See, I never ollie'd it and I could ollie it. I probably could have done.
Speaker 2:Did you ollie it? No, no.
Speaker 3:I don't know why, like just Kind of like I ollie'd down 10 stairs and stuff like that, but like I don't know why I didn't Just a straight ollie. I don't know Never did it. It's pathetic.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, I mean Alex Smith was the first to kickflip, it wasn't he?
Speaker 3:Yeah, he would have been the first.
Speaker 2:Jim fact checker? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I'm like yes, guys, it's amazing having Jim here and switch 360 flip it.
Speaker 3:I saw him, he switch traded man. I don't know if he ever finished. I've watched him and he was landing it Land roll, fall off, Land roll, fall off, Land roll. And this is like 1992 or something Like some ridiculous time period, Maybe, no, maybe I'm exaggerating there. I think like 93 maybe Like pretty early in the yeah.
Speaker 4:Around the same time that he 360 flipped into the pit Like that same era.
Speaker 3:Yeah, around that time, yeah, yeah, and he was gnarly and he would also like Just do a switch 5-iver on that prudential. Like you know, the ledge around the corner.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like switch fiver on it. Remember him. He had Alex Smith had real big calf muscles, Right. You guys, any of you guys remember that? No, no, yeah, people would know. Yeah, like they were like tennis balls coming out of the back of his legs.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:He was gnarly.
Speaker 2:He was gnarly, Switch fly though he was definitely ahead of the game. Yeah, yeah, you know, there's always that person, every generation, who's just had that extra X factor. He had an X factor. Yeah, yeah, what other? Skaters that you've worked with have had. You just see the X factor? I mean, we just looked at Chima. Chima had an X factor about him, davo had an X factor about him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, davo for sure. Everything he'd done.
Speaker 2:You know who else would you Would you love him?
Speaker 3:I was thinking about this Like Brett Margaritas.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like he can't do anything wrong on a skateboard. Everything and everything. Yeah, and it's that X? I don't know, it's just.
Speaker 2:They have something different, right, they have something different.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and even his approach to skating and his understanding of it. It's sort of like because we're all sort of cut from skateboarding, but yeah, I noticed with him he was like a higher level with it. Yeah, because I used to live with Brett, because he lived with me and him like lived together in Petersham.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like you speak of Brett quite fondly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because he's wonderful, do you?
Speaker 2:consider him as someone that's been very integral in your life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, he did heaps for me, like when I was kind of Brett's I don't know how to he's real he's. How can I say, like he's very stable Brett, is he? Yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2:It's like Jim in my life he's stable, he's great. Oh, thank you, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:You're the same back to me too. Oh really, yeah, oh man.
Speaker 2:I've never been regarded as stable, ever.
Speaker 3:Thank you, I'll take that I was going to say. So coming back to like, there's certain skateboarders, like Blake Convey in Canberra like Kazza in. Queensland Davo like here I'm thinking like then there's like Dom Kekic.
Speaker 2:Dom Kekic.
Speaker 3:There's certain people and they're just brilliant at skateboarding.
Speaker 2:Dave. Bodnar Yep spin I always thought he was incredible Actually Jake Brown. I remember the first time I seen Jake Brown skate a vert ramp. It was a skateboard board ramp. They set it up in Fairy Meadow in Wollongong. Jake Brown turned up and he was a little young kid and just the way he was floating.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And popping his ears and like actually ollieing into them and just it was like oh, x Factor.
Speaker 3:Wow, you remember I know different. I used to skate Fairfield Like we used to go to like Fairfield Mini Ramps, yeah.
Speaker 3:So I remember like, I vividly remember like I would have been like, because I'm like a good two or three years older than like Spin. I'm probably a couple of years older than Spin and Jake, but I was like in year 11 in high school going there like on a Thursday night to skate, like out at Fairfield, and Spin and Jake were there and they were like little kids. They might even be like more than they, might even be like four years younger than me, I can't.
Speaker 4:But either way, they were just these little skate rats and Jake's from Cronulla right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, this is out near Fairfield, yeah. Because that's what you did At 10 o'clock like on a Thursday night or something you know, but I just remember like yeah, how incredible like they were both, like I always thought like Spin was like brilliant, it was incredible.
Speaker 2:And stylish.
Speaker 4:They both had just natural style and Jake yeah, you shot that great photo of Jake Brown dreads out with the superstars on. It's like an indie nose bone or something like that.
Speaker 3:The frontside bone hair yeah. Frontside bone hair, yeah yeah. At Bondi on the old vert ramp.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and he just looks like. I mean, he looks like somebody from like a Cypress Hill video clip or something. It was one of the freshest photos in my mind Amazing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he might have been. I never really hung out with Jake but I've known him for a long time again because from the Fairfield days and things like that. But he might have been in the rave scene back then. Yeah, it was pretty hardcore.
Speaker 2:Oh man, how spectacular dude.
Speaker 3:The two of those I just always tell people because then what Jake went on to achieve in skateboarding, like everyone around the world saw him do that like that big air, the mega slam. The bottomed out. Yeah, the mega plug, the mega plug, yes, but he just accomplished so much and it's funny how like. And then I think of Spin's brilliance on the skateboard as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny. I was talking to someone about Jake's mega plug, like I mean it's good to see him get this global recognition, but in the weirdest way, like it's almost unfortunate because like that kind of was what he got recognised for on a large scale.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because he was so much more than that like you know, yeah, I don't know, but he sort of became a household name because of that one slam.
Speaker 3:He was like the first. When I think about it, like that was like the first one of the first big YouTube sort of kind of where everyone's it was Went viral, went viral, yeah.
Speaker 2:It was such a viral moment though I mean I still look at that and just like I can't believe what I'm seeing A big slam and the fact, he survived and walked away.
Speaker 3:It's insane Every now and then, like I watch some of the X. I don't know, I don't really watch any of it, I just capture glimpses of it and it'll be Jake doing something gnarly. Oh, did he do the 720 Ollie? Yeah, he did that 720 Ollie over a gap, didn't he Over the mega gap?
Speaker 4:Like Nally, absolutely, isn't that what?
Speaker 2:he did before he plugged it. He was one of the pioneers. He did a 720. 720.
Speaker 3:Ollie.
Speaker 2:Before he hit the quarter and plugged it right. That's what he did Insane.
Speaker 3:But yeah, it's a catch. So I guess someone like I said, on one hand like he's recognised for plugging that big air, but he also did a 720 Ollie across the mega gap.
Speaker 2:Commentary is epic because Tony Hawk's commentating Everyone's like oh my God, he's almost died. The first thing Tony Hawk says in the commentary is like I can't believe you landed that 720. Like he didn't even refer to the big slam, he was still stoked on the 720. So good, yeah. But everyone else is like, oh my God, he almost died. Yeah, but everyone else is like, oh my God, you almost died, yeah, anyway. Anyway, in stark contrast to that book that I was just holding, I'm holding another book that you've made and it's called Starting Blocks the Ocean Baths of Newcastle and Merriweather by Aaron.
Speaker 2:Brown. Now, I mean, if I hold these two books together, like what a contrast, yeah, you know. So let's talk about the backstory of this book. So why did you feel compelled?
Speaker 3:So with the Ocean Bar's book I was basically like wandering around Newcastle like just shooting street photos. So I'd come into Newcastle and I'd because I didn't really have like a focal point for photography like anymore, like I didn't have a job at newspaper Like I sort of do like photo jobs but this is photo jobs, you know what I mean Like it's not something that I particularly enjoyed doing. I wasn't shooting skateboarding anymore. So I started going into Newcastle and just wandering around the foreshore and also like wandering like through the streets. So I'd go for like walks up King Street, hunter Street and just like looking for like things in the late afternoon. That stood out because I liked the way that the sun sort of recedes, like in the west, and it kind of lights everything up like a candle.
Speaker 3:So I found myself down at the ocean barbs and I was like sitting like at the ocean barbs and I was looking at like on the eastern seaboard like and there's these starting blocks. So there are these white tombstone-looking blocks with black numbers on it. Basically the swimmers do laps between these starting blocks, but the way the light hits these blocks it just lights them up like a candle. So I was just captivated by the light, and more so. I was captivated by the swimmers Not so much swimming, but just portraits of them at these starting blocks, doing whatever they do like, sitting there thinking I don't know, maybe adjusting their goggles as they're about to swim another lap, taking a breath of air, and the more I started going down there photographing, like just driven by the light, I started to develop like sort of an interest in in this culture of swimming, like the same, as you know, I'll develop an interest in skateboarding or surfing or anything.
Speaker 3:And then I started documenting it, so trying to capture, um, different aspects of the culture of ocean baths, swimming that's unique to newcastle and and the merry weather, ocean baths, and, um, what unfolded was it was a, was a, was a book, a hundred page book, um, yeah, can you talk about the camera that you used to shoot that whole book as well?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah. So with the Starting Blocks book I used a. I principally like used the medium format like studio camera. It's called a Mamiya RZ67. So it's a camera that's really designed to be used like with studio lights, like on a tripod. But, yeah, I sort of I used that camera because, yeah, I used that camera because, yeah, I wanted to shoot like a larger format to try and get like more detail, more particularly with the portraits to begin with, but then I ended up just using that camera to shoot the majority of the book and then I also used like a large format camera.
Speaker 3:So again, that's an older style camera that shoots 4x5 inch film, which is film that's roughly like the size of like a compact disc cover, you know, like it's a fairly big image. And I was using that camera because I could shoot infrared and things like that. So basically, I was interested in looking at how people's bodies react to heat when they're in the water. So through using infrared film I was able to blacken the sky, blacken the water, bring out the clouds and make people look like white floating objects. It's really cool.
Speaker 2:I love the night, like the night photos as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's your wall there.
Speaker 2:Dude, I know I was trying to show it to Jim like hint hint. Jim See that what's going on. Come on, man.
Speaker 3:I walked around.
Speaker 2:I flashed that he doesn't want to shoot it.
Speaker 3:I flashed that wall about 40 or 50 times with a speed light so I painted the wall.
Speaker 2:What do you mean?
Speaker 3:So the wall, what do you mean? So that's like so there's a photo we're looking at it's of an elevated like ocean barbs wall. So it's this big wall and it's got steps so people can sit on it and sunbake and that sort of thing, and just look at what's going on in the pools around. It's a big, long wall. It's about 25 meters long. It's amazing. But I put the camera on a tripod and I did like a 15-minute exposure at night and that wall would usually be black, like you wouldn't see anything. But I walked around and painted the wall with a flash. So you just walk every metre, you go bang with the flash, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang bang. So I flashed it about 50 times.
Speaker 2:So it actually looks bright.
Speaker 3:It looks like a shot with just one flash, but it was. I had two flashes, like I was holding like two Colt guns, you know, like one on the other, bang bang bang bang bang bang bang.
Speaker 2:I just walk around, just light the whole thing up, dude, there's a bit of a genius vibe here.
Speaker 3:Oh well, I sort of got the funny thing with that was like Gabe Morford and Lance Dawes and remember that Santa Rosa skate park. Like they did that once, but they did it way better than me Like they did it with colour film and they used coloured gels, so like they've got this. It's in one of those old slap magazines, remember. It would be like their still life picture at the end of the magazine, or Santa Rosa skate park and it's lit up with blue, yellow, red, green and they did the same thing probably.
Speaker 3:They just walked around flashing it. That type of thing.
Speaker 2:It's a technique, right yeah.
Speaker 3:You understand the principles of photography and the way that light sort of goes into a camera, like whether it's hitting a digital sensor or whether it's hitting a sheet of film. It's just the same thing, and lights are exactly the same as well. Interesting it doesn't? Those fundamentals of photography haven't changed one bit. Did you know that, Jim?
Speaker 4:I mean, I wouldn't have articulated it like that. He's way more switched on.
Speaker 2:You have heard of that technique.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but like, maybe not even as somebody that's interested in, maybe somebody that's interested in photography as somebody that's interested in photography, not somebody as a photographer Okay, Because I'm interested in it as an art, as an observer as well. More so than somebody that you know.
Speaker 2:I only really take skate photos yeah.
Speaker 4:But I consume all photography, you know.
Speaker 3:Cool and yeah, but I consume all photography. You know, cool, yeah, there's no, there's no like, no, no, no rule. There's no rules to to what you can do or right or wrong way of doing something, and you just sort of um, yeah, you can do anything you want.
Speaker 2:Really, yeah, I mean I feel the power, I feel the passion in in actually with the skate stuff, like I know that it's like you know you've accumulated those images over years of shooting photos for various reasons, but for some reason, with the Starting Blocks book, I don't think you realize it's actually made an impact on me and on my children. So for example.
Speaker 2:Can I put it in context really quick? So context is you know, I'm living in a place where I'm unfamiliar. I moved to Newcastle to be closer to my children, so it's not home for me, and so spending time with my children is very important, but I don't feel like I have a solid home here. So we found this common place, places where we really have a good time together as a small family, and it's the ocean baths. So when Jim gave me this book and I had it laying around the house, the kids were just enamored with it.
Speaker 2:That's interesting, isn't it? So do you ever consider the impact you're having on people without even knowing?
Speaker 3:Never, never. I feel like what you're telling me like makes me feel like I really appreciate, like that I really do, like because you sometimes feel that you don't you just sort of I'm just pumping out projects, pumping out I wouldn't say I don't pump them out either, really, but like I sort of have this idea in mind and like I have a project, like the starting point of that was a project, you know, and I gave myself X amount of time to shoot it, and then I kind of put the book together, processed all the film, did all of this, all of this, all of this, all of this, and then done, I finished it.
Speaker 3:Now and then I sort of move on to the next one and I don't actually sort of like take time to stand back and recognise the impact that's made on anyone because I didn't have a book launch, I didn't have an exhibition, I just I don't know like.
Speaker 2:I just what's driving it? Like the potential for money, no just pure passion?
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's no. No, I couldn't care less about money for that Photography like. And then, yeah, the money I mean the aspect of money that's just starting to become a little bit too expensive to buy film now, like which is sort of just bordering on insanity, to kind of try. And that's only recent, though. But I was also trying to think I was thinking like I was so passionate I wouldn't say passionate, say passionate but like my first 10 like remember I was talking about how I was a newspaper photographer.
Speaker 3:You could bear in mind, like when digital cameras and things like that came out, I was one of the first photographers that started using like full digital setup. Like I had a digital slr camera, like around the time that the sydney olympics were on, like that was, and then we've, and also stopped, sort of stopped, taking skating photos around that time. But you got to bear in mind, say from about the year 2000 and 2000 and 2008, like digital cameras weren't that fantastic? Film cameras were still kind of um, the go-to if you were going to like be publishing like imagery, like full bleeds, things like that.
Speaker 3:But I'd been shooting, like I'd stopped shooting like film completely and was just working with digital cameras, and I guess, like I sort of realized that there was a lot of there was the tactile approach to photography, like processing film, looking at negs through loops and then using enlargers and things like that, putting you know like paper through chemical trays and coming out with a print. All these like facets of photography that basically didn't. They didn't exist in my world anymore, because I wasn't doing that anymore and I realised that there was something that was completely empty. So I started like I dusted off my film cameras and started using them again, also because I realised that film's finite now, so there's probably going to be only like I just tried to get what I could out of it for the last 10 years of why they're making decent film. Ultimately, though, it won't be manufactured, and if it is, it would be shit. It won't be like Fuji and Kodak and stuff doing it anymore?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't think they will be anyway. Yeah, yes, I just wanted to get as I just wanted to use, I just wanted to shoot.
Speaker 2:as much of it as I can, because I realised I missed it so much You're not really considering also, yeah, like I said, the human impact that you're having on people potentially.
Speaker 3:I'm hoping, like I feel like what you said to me, like I appreciate it and the two of you.
Speaker 2:Same with what Jim does too like you know, and any artist or writer or creative. I wonder if they consider that potentially they're going to impact someone.
Speaker 3:That's the whole. That's ultimately like. I think that's what underlies it all Is it. Yeah, like I don't see the point in like, if you can sort of like make an impression upon somebody like you've done, it can only make you feel good in life, you know, and sort of a but yeah, yeah, put it this way.
Speaker 4:You know, for me being a fan of yours before I met you, I had like and I can access it now in my brain I have a back catalog of your photos in my mind right without ever having me, like, met you in person. It that's crazy. So something that you kind of sat down, framed up, took a photo and film, had it developed and published in a skateboarding magazine, like was so influential on me in the way that I saw skateboarding the world, sydney as a city as well, that it actually like there's like a folder and same with amelia stuff too. But you two like definitely almost framed the way that I see cities wow you know what I mean yeah, that's awesome
Speaker 4:like I feel like when I saw amelia's the 360 flip down um, I've said this before that 360 flip of alex smith down into the pit, that cover it made me feel like, uh, it was the first time I really saw like sydney represented as like this kind of cosmopolitan city in the skateboarding sense. You know what I mean. I know it had been other work, like in the art world and stuff, and I feel the same way with your photography as well, like there's this kind of way that you guys elevated sydney to be taken seriously almost as like a serious city in like in the skateboarding world yeah and it gave it, like this certain gravitas that I don't, you know as a historian of these things and going back and looking at it, there's all these amazing photos, obviously before that stuff.
Speaker 4:But to me, like yeah, it just ultimately yeah, fundamentally changed the way that I like look at and perceive cities that I've travelled like all around the world to, and even the way that I interact with them, like going to look at places that I've seen in your photos, just so I can say that I've seen it in person. You know, like that's a pretty amazing thing and now like it's kind of then trippy to be friends with you now as well, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just thought you saw a lot of loss for words because, like, I think the whole, like what photographer doesn't want to make an impact on? That's why you take photos in the first place, you know, and to inspire or to sort of kind of yeah, yeah, man, that makes me feel good, you know, like I really appreciate both you, shannon, and you, Jim, for what you've said.
Speaker 3:It's awesome but kind of lost for words for it, but certainly like I would have loved to have like Apprentice or something like that, like I sort of pass on like yeah, because newspapers and stuff I never really had, like I never really had like Apprentice's on to me and stuff like that I would have been pretty good, I reckon what's next like what's in the works.
Speaker 2:You think you have something else going on. Any other projects in the works, the projects? So I didn't tell you. So I did.
Speaker 3:You think you had something else going on, Any other projects in the works, the project. So I didn't tell you so I did. So this will come back. So I'll come back like seven years ago Like I had a job, like I worked in the NRMA for about a year, like I worked in road service. So I was taking like all these phone calls like on, you know, to like send out a tow truck or send a mechanic out trying, you know like help people out. Yeah, Ran out of fuel, yeah, Sitting in the car.
Speaker 2:Are you the last person that would answer the phone? Yeah, yeah, yeah Okay.
Speaker 3:And then like yeah, and log the road service call. But what happened when I was doing that job? Right, like it was like NRMA is like New South Wales and you know like people also break down like Northern Territory and other states but I started getting these calls, you know, like someone calling from Cobar, someone calling from Deniliquin, someone calling from like Broken Hill, and I'm starting like sitting there, like in this dull job you know, logging these breakdown calls. I'm sort of like listening to the people on the phone and I'm sort of just imagining like what it's like where they are. So I'm working in NRMA and over the course of a year, like I'm taking calls from all over New South Wales, and it sort of just gave me this idea to go out and pursue a project on regional New South Wales. I went and bought a four-wheel drive and I went out camping for like it's all bush camping type, you know like free camping. I didn't pay to go do it. Yeah, you don't have to.
Speaker 2:You can just pull up wherever you want.
Speaker 3:Really, you can Like I didn't do that that trip. I sort of stayed in those like wiki camps, free campsites and all that sort of thing. I sort of stayed in those like wiki camps, free campsites and all that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:But if I'm going to do it again, yeah, you can go anywhere, just go stay in, like Lakes Beach, lakes Beach car park or something Like, with a swag or something.
Speaker 3:I'm even bolder than that. I'd fold my rooftop tent out. Oh, you'd have my nose, yeah, yeah, I think we would just do it on the side.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Yeah, I see them, but I feel weird being up on the roof.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, I mean, are you scared of heights though?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like, do you feel like you're going to roll off?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that don't happen. But the thing is like you've just got to worry about, like, when the wind picks up, Ah, you might be blowing off that roof.
Speaker 2:Like what if you're with? I don't want to ask that.
Speaker 3:What if you're with a girl in there or something like that? You just don't want to be like. You don't want the roof of your car to collapse. Very best to just take it easy. Yeah, Too much downward pressure, mate.
Speaker 2:I just made it silly.
Speaker 3:No, no, no so yeah, so I pursued like, so I went out like, and that was like a project I did like seven years ago and that was actually that's another book. It's called Corrugated State. It's called Corrugated.
Speaker 2:State, so you probably made it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just didn't print that one because I wasn't really like.
Speaker 2:Are you self-funding these? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I just pay for it all myself, like I design it and just.
Speaker 2:And then make a bunch of copies and then try and sell it to bookshops.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I wouldn't. I don't even really try and sell it, I just make a bunch of copies. I haven't been trying to sell them too much, but yeah, why not Even just just to recoup your costs. Yeah, just like, just don't care Too much. I don't care about the costs. Well, I'm not. It's not driven by like wanting to make a profit out of it, but it's hard to make a profit out of doing this, not even a profit.
Speaker 2:It's a break even.
Speaker 3:It's just, I just want to kind of yeah, I don't mind, like I haven't thrown like too much money, but yeah. So coming back to the question about the projects, well, that's a project from like eight years ago that really, like, all I need to do is just print that book. I've still got to like try and tidy up a few things with the introduction and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:And that's actually really cool. And then that book, so and then I've got another one. So that was the original trilogy was Backlight and the Green Angels Skateboarding Starting Blocks, the Ocean Bars, newcastle and Merriweather, and then Corregated State Regional Towns of New South Wales Epic. But I've since then got another project, like my current project is about graffiti, so I'm hoping I'll turn this into a book because it's looking like there's going to be four of them. What do they call that? A quintet?
Speaker 2:Is that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, quartet Four. Yeah, because I'm going to have the fourth book and that's about regional, it's about Quartet, quartet.
Speaker 4:Quintet, yeah, quintet's five, quin is five?
Speaker 3:Oh now, Jim, You've got the wordsmith here, a true wordsmith here, Quart Quart quarter Quart. Quartets, quintet.
Speaker 2:Quarter an ounce.
Speaker 3:You could say quadrology. So, yeah, there's a project I'm working on at the moment, like a current project, which is about I've been out photographing like graffiti on train carriages. So I've like focused on a project that's unique to Newcastle, like the Hunter area, so I'm photographing like coal and grain carriages, yeah, so basically I go to Carrington and Stockton and Mayfield different places the train yards.
Speaker 2:So what's drawing you into it? Is it the contrast between, like a grain carriage, which is farming, and the urban vibe of street art or graffiti?
Speaker 3:That's interesting.
Speaker 2:Do you think that's what it is is a clash of country and city? Man, I haven't. You can use that in your bio.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I have no idea. Like it's sort of I just found myself doing it Like I'd just be, I'd just, I'm just curious like what's drawing you to that? Then Like you don't have no idea, because I'm not even You're not a graffiti guy, not even into graffiti.
Speaker 4:Did you ever I mean, know a lot of the heads that you were taking photos of?
Speaker 3:in the 90s definitely wrote, even if they were just tagging yeah, like yeah.
Speaker 2:What are you drawn to, bizarre?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd always like, because if you have a piece or something I'd photograph and then they might use it in the background with other photos and things like that. I was always taking pictures of it. But it's exactly the same thing as the Ocean Barbs book. I just found myself at the same place trying to photograph the same thing and I don't know really why I was doing that. And then after a while, a body of work just starts to materialize and then the projects form. It's not actually driven intentionally by anything, the project just unfolds haphazardly or incidentally, or whatever. Yeah, the one thing that we were talking about this day when we were talking on the phone yesterday is that it's the textured surface of the carriages that drives this. Like the graffiti just looks amazing on these brushed steel train carriages that you see. It just looks incredible. And then, like with black and white photography, like the whole thing about that, it's about the representation of tonal values to try and give the image a feel of texture, does that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, dude, that's what the essence of black and white photography is. You see it in old photos. Like Edward West, he took a photo of a capsicum and it looks like two bodies together. Or he took a photo of a porcelain toilet bowl and it just looks like a beautiful figure.
Speaker 2:Like, yeah, it's about, yeah, I don't know I noticed that actually in your starting blocks book there's one particular photo at mer with the ocean baths and it's got the shallow kids pool and then the deeper pool next to it and you've taken it from above and for some reason I don't know if it's the wind direction the shallow kids pool, the surface texture, like the ripples, were going one way, but then in the big pool the ripples were going an opposite. They were just two contrasting textures. It was bizarre. Maybe I don't know what the wind was doing that day. So, yeah, that's the theme. Yeah, sort of You're drawn to that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just with, but also, yeah, it's also just such a very.
Speaker 2:Even with the skate photography like book. It's just a very, it's very human.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the skateboard, like I didn't mention this, but like, say, around the time, like I shot the escape, like back like the great angels skateboarding, like I wanted to be a journalist photographer, like that's when I started working at Fairfax newspapers at the time and my biggest influence would have been like magnum photography. So you're looking at like those, like you know, like the photographer Steve McCurry, who took, like the Afghan eyes things, like those photographers were a huge influence she's doing a switch front, so pop, shove it.
Speaker 2:Anyway, keep going.
Speaker 3:Wouldn't mind laying there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, keep going.
Speaker 3:But um yeah, so yeah, there's Sorry. I yeah, it's funny because, like, different, different influences in photography have also, like, have driven, like the way I've approached these books. The skateboarding book was photographed like 25 years ago Like that one there, aaron, it was a different approach, look at that Like the textures of the surfaces.
Speaker 2:Yeah, is that a trip?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah it looks amazing.
Speaker 2:What a contrast that's because it's got why.
Speaker 3:That would be like Like that's smooth, is it looks? Amazing, what a contrast, that's because it's got.
Speaker 2:Why that would be like Like that's smooth, is it because it's lower or something? One's like smooth and the other one's ruffled, and they're right next to each other.
Speaker 3:I think they're even Pretty nice. I like that picture. See those, yeah, the three figures and the little kid In the wetsuit Behind. They're all walking in the same. They've all got the same footsteps. It's like big. It's like dad, middle man, son.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a cool pic. But yeah, it really does seem like you are interested in humans and, I guess, documenting the human experience in some way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love the photos Like I was into like Vietnam War photography like heavily Like that was so there was like I love the photos like I was into like vietnam war photography like heavily like that was so there was, like this photographer called larry burrows and there was two of them was this guy? Oh, there was a heap of good photographers from that, from that era, but they really like and those like, particularly like those the photographers that were were, you know, covering like that conflict. Their whole impetus was to create these like these images that that will end with the war. You know, I mean like and and they were looking like, you know, trying to really um and kind of um. I just I don't know, I didn't want to use the cliche but but hot, you know, but highlight the human condition, so to speak, what people are going through. You can see that in the portrait. Portraits are wonderful for kind of like showing how someone feels about things you can usually see in their eyes or give you a bit of an idea of things. I love portraits.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Jim was telling me about you actually received a photography award for a sports photo.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Is that correct? Yeah, I got like two, so one like, tell us about it. So the first one, one of them was like so I won like Australian Suburban Newspapers Award, like for like a best editorial photo, so what, that was a long time ago. Like I won that. That was like 2004 or something. But this is funny. I'll tell you a funny story after this one.
Speaker 3:But that one like, basically I went down like it was just a briefing. Like when you work in a newspaper they give you a little briefing and it was, um, it was to do with like the mascot juniors, like under 10s football club have got a new sponsor and they've, they're all got a brand new jersey. That was like. That was like the news briefing. So I go down and meet like the coach and all the little kids are down there and all their little soccer gear or whatever, and like I can see it had been like just one of those shit of a day, like it's been raining, drizzling or whatever, and then a bit of sun's come out and there's this big arcing rainbow. I'm like, okay, well, I can. I could see that this was only going to last for like 30 seconds or whatever. So like I just go into like photographer mode and just yell at them or I would have put on like a big, like a long focal length lens, like a telephoto lens or whatever.
Speaker 3:So I could, you know, go back and kind of like create this, this picture, like, um, I wanted the rainbow, just like coming out of like this huddle of kids, um, with their coach, like looking like they're having like, uh, you know, like, uh, I don't know a coach, like soccer moment, yeah. And so I just screamed at them go down there, get in the huddle, move over there. And I probably moved a little bit myself and lined up the picture and shot it, and so that won the Australian Suburban Newspaper Awards. But that was, you know, I only won the photo because of the rainbow. The photo wasn't really that great, I don't think it was anyway. But like I'll tell you a funny one, I was like I'm not really like a sports photographer, not really Like I'm more like I am a sports photographer but I'm not Scabonis on a sport. No, that's.
Speaker 4:It's a culture.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but like I used to photograph sport quite a bit when I worked at newspapers I used to go to NRL games and all that sort of stuff. I'd photograph like netball, all sorts of shit. You know like just photograph things. But I remember like I went to like a I won like the Phil Trezor medal, like Phil Trezor Awards. This guy, phil Trezor, was like a sports journalist, so I won like Cricket New South Wales like Best Cricket Photo of the Year Award journalist. So I've won like Cricket New South Wales like best cricket photo of the year award. Really yeah, and I was working at like the Bankstown Torch at the moment. I probably, I, probably. I hate cricket as well, so I would have only been there for like two minutes, I would have just rocked in. I'm going to shoot this as fast as I can.
Speaker 3:I haven't seen the photo. What's going on Describe it? Yeah, it was one of those moments like someone was bowled out. It was like a how's that moment? Oh, okay, and everyone's like, so, like everyone, like, I've done a tight photo of the whole pitch, like. Anyway, it turned out to be some like definitive moment in the game of cricket that decided on the grand final win or whatever it was.
Speaker 3:And you captured it and I captured it, but I only wanted to be there for two minutes, like go home and smoke some cones or something you know like. Whatever I had to do, that was back then.
Speaker 4:And you won like a really prestigious award for it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I got 500 bucks as well with it, that's amazing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's funny, like it's sort of a yeah, you're not proud of it, no, because, like, it was the week it was like what happened with that job was like that I only just got that job, and it was like around the same time that we moved up the central coast. Like that it was just he much stress and I crashed my car no way Like, and it didn't have any insurance on it, like on Canterbury Road, so like, and I just had to like, couldn't go back to my like anyway, like, so I moved up Central Coast with no job.
Speaker 2:No, car For a couple of months.
Speaker 3:No car, no money. And then like I ended up like bringing the editor of that newspaper group up, like I won the award and stuff as well, yeah, in this period of time, and then they sort of got me back working on the news. My dad worked in the motor industry. We just got some bomb car so I could drive down to Sydney and go to work. But then I had another car accident on the Hawkesbury River Bridge. What we had a super storm come through about 15 years ago, while you were driving.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then like Was it the Paschal-Bolka?
Speaker 4:storm?
Speaker 3:Yeah, the Paschal-, then Was it the Pashawalka storm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Pashawalka storm, oh no shit, yeah, yeah, how's about the Pashawalka I?
Speaker 3:was driving, yeah, so what was happening was, like you know, the Hawkesbury River Bridge coming from Sydney.
Speaker 2:Sorry, that's an old joke between me and a friend.
Speaker 3:Sorry, when the conversation ever went dull, I would say want to hear the story, yeah, so what I was driving like, so sorry, I'm just driving my car like down, like on the m1, like coming on on approach to the hawksbury river bridge, like if anyone's you've driven there you know. Like it's a steep, like they have, like there's there's ramps on the side for trucks to fucking drive up if their brakes fail things like that yeah, so that was, and then, as I was, it was raining. It was that the Paschal Bolker was getting hammered onto Newcastle.
Speaker 4:Beach. In the rain it was like coming down in sheets.
Speaker 2:I know it was crazy. How's about the Paschal Bolker?
Speaker 3:So as I got closer, like driving, I was in like the outside lane, like the overtaken lane, the third lane, and as I got a bit closer it looked like a caravan or something.
Speaker 3:And I got a bit closer it was just a car, completely sideways Bullshit In the middle of the freeway, not in the middle, like blocking, there's two cars that basically had like, had an accident, like they hadn't hit each other, but one car was sideways blocking the lane and the other car was locked up next to it and it was raining and I couldn't like I could either like. So what I did is I swerved my car so I wouldn't T-bone the woman because I would have killed her, and then I ran into the back of the other car because I couldn't have enough time to look at my rear vision mirrors to change lanes.
Speaker 3:I wasn't thinking, man, they're not causing a fucking bigger accident, you know? What I mean. So yeah and then so I ended up like crashing into. I ended up like so long story short like my car got written off and then the cops they fined me for like I don't know why, but I got fined for not driving as well.
Speaker 2:You're saying like the road was blocked, yeah, there was nothing.
Speaker 3:Looking back at it like yeah, but it ended up and then I just couldn't go back to my see you later job. Like I couldn't do it Like I had no Well because you had no transport anymore. No, transport and just embarrassed as well. Another car accident, things like that. I was pretty looking I wasn't looking like the most reliable employee at the time.
Speaker 2:Oh man, Sorry to hear that.
Speaker 3:That was 17 years ago.
Speaker 2:You're over it now. Yep you weren't stoned were you. Would have been probably. Say no, Aaron. Say no, Say no.
Speaker 4:Say no, no, he wasn't.
Speaker 3:Thanks, jim no it wasn't, I didn't.
Speaker 2:But how's about the Pasha Bolka?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's gnarly, oh man Jim.
Speaker 2:Did you ever see the Pasha Bolka when it was up on the beach? I've seen photos of it and I've seen surf photos of it because, like then people would surf and like when surf it was actually the most interesting surf photography you'd ever been, because a lot of surf photographers were getting photos of surfers with the Pasha Bolka right there in the background.
Speaker 3:It had a decent break.
Speaker 2:The wave was breaking off it because sand started to form next to it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I saw photos, like awesome photos, of that Did you get a photo of it, jim?
Speaker 4:No, but I mean, I drove past it a bunch of times.
Speaker 2:Was everyone in Newcastle talking about the Pasha Polka?
Speaker 4:There was. Yeah, I mean my mum still brings up to this day. If it starts raining, she'll be like oh, there's got to be another Pasha Polka. I went and saw it Like I went and saw it.
Speaker 3:I went up to the beach and checked it out and it was literally like the nose of that ship was on the beach and I looked at it and thought they're never going to get that off the beach.
Speaker 2:I was just amazed that they did that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, how'd they get it off the beach? They waited for like the currents and like a super tide, and then those tugs are just gnarly.
Speaker 2:Are they gnarly?
Speaker 3:Yeah, they've got heaps of horsepower. Oh shit yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ah, a Pasha, bull car, but yeah, incredible they did that, hey, and we sit in real life, yeah. Those things are massive dude.
Speaker 3:They're massive.
Speaker 2:It's a bolt carrier.
Speaker 3:I still see them when they come in the harbour Like I still go oh, wow, man, look at that. Yeah, it's still real scenic Like a little kid, yeah, like they're big.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how long have you lived in Newcastle? For now? A year and a half. Oh, you're only new. Yeah, I'm a stranger in a strange land full of strange people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, because I've got like, because you know, like me, like on Central Coast, I'll never be local. No same, I'll never be like.
Speaker 2:I get it, I get it, I've been 17 years and I still tell people that 17 years there.
Speaker 4:Yeah, do you still say you're from Castle Hill if someone asks where you're from?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I do yeah because I'm like I do. No, I'll tell people I live in Central Coast. I wouldn't say yeah shit.
Speaker 2:man. I can tell people I'm from Sydney, do you mind if I ask like living with your parents? Yeah, I like it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're cool with it, my parents are getting older, Like my mum's 81, my dad's 80. No.
Speaker 3:I'm not a carer Like I have, like you know, I've got a job and things like that and they can care for themselves, but like I do do a shitload of things around the house that they wouldn't be able to do otherwise, the house that they wouldn't be able to do otherwise. Okay, you know, like it's sort of it's. Um, yeah, I don't really. You know, like it's. It's the point where it's other people will have to do it themselves as well, like it's just, and I'm glad that, like my parents, like I, because I work, I have it I have it like a I haven't.
Speaker 3:Like I work in market research and like I just got a regular shit job. Like I go work and interview people but I go in the nursing research and like I've just got a regular shit job. Like I go and work and interview people but I go in the nursing homes and things like that, like and I sort of. So I just think like yeah, your family's important. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Kind of like I think, like by me being around my parents, like as much of a challenge as I am to them, like it's probably good for them.
Speaker 2:But also like our culture of putting elderly people into nursing homes.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know a lot of cultures. Don't do that. You know the parents live with the family.
Speaker 2:You know and the grandchildren and they're all in one compound. Yeah, but we're in a society where we have to work long hours to keep up with financial responsibilities and then that means we can't look after our family, including our children, because then we put our children into daycares, we put our elderly people into nursing homes, you know, so we can keep up with the finance that we have to pay off. It's pretty strange, when you think about it, that we're paying other people to look after the most important people in our life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're spot on, like you're seeing it. Just an observation From both ends, yeah, from child care through to age care.
Speaker 2:But I personally really struggle with it as a teacher because I'm like I'm with other people's kids more than my own. Yeah, it just seems weird, like why can't I just be teaching my kids, you know?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we sort of like we sort of live in a funny like maybe. I mean like there's something like when you live with your parents, like, and you're older, like you don't have, like like I've got to be mindful of things. Like my parents, it's their house, things like that, like I don't think they mind me being around or anything like that. I think they do appreciate it, but you know, I don't have the independence that I would like and the privacy that I would like with some things. There's that trade-off to it which maybe some other people just aren't willing to kind of like to do that trade-off. But there's going to be like a point where I don't know I think that we will be living in larger families like down the track, like it's not just because of our housing affordability.
Speaker 3:We've just got to look after each other.
Speaker 4:I agree 100% yeah, Completely Speaking of families, you mentioned earlier that you do. You have an older brother as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I do.
Speaker 4:Does he live locally as well?
Speaker 3:He's in Borkham Hills. Oh right, so he's still in the old hood.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And you guys keep in touch. Yeah, I saw him like on the weekend, yeah. Yeah, yeah, he's not, he never skated enough. Did he get the okay from Glenn and Hank? To be called a Borko or my brother. Yeah, that's a good. Well, the only thing is, yeah, I think the funny thing is like, if you know Glenn and Hank, like they'll be respectful to my brother, hey. Of course they will.
Speaker 3:I'm joking, but so I don't know if they'll call him Borko, but he's yeah, he's part of. He's sort of, yeah, he's Borko, he, yeah, he's part of. He's sort of, yeah, he's Borko, he's Borko, yeah, okay, yeah, in a weird way, but like yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like starting a family, ever something you wanted or not really.
Speaker 3:That's another like was Is it too personal to ask that? No, not at all. Like it's sort of like looking at it and thinking the prospects are starting a family now. Like I'm going to be like shopping for something secondhand. Come on, you know, like it's true.
Speaker 4:How old are you? If you don't mind me asking, I'm 50.
Speaker 2:Right you don't look 50 at all, dude yeah.
Speaker 3:And yeah, so short and.
Speaker 2:So you're not interested in secondhand goods?
Speaker 3:No, I am, but like it's not, like you don't sort of like you can't think, okay, like I just want something brand new. I don't want something that's been married before or already had kids. Come on, I've got to like to put it into perspective and look at my age and the reality of the situation. If I am going to have a family, I'd say I'd be one of those. I'll be down for it if I love her.
Speaker 2:It's not something you're chasing, necessarily. Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 3:No, I'm not chasing it. Not chasing it, fair enough. I was sort of like I guess it's sort of you've always liked the prospect of like you don't want to be alone. Like I mean well, I don't mind, I've been alone for so long, I don't mind it actually like in the sense of partnering up with someone, Like I don't have to really worry about that, I quite like just being by myself. It doesn't bother me. Some people can't hack that, you know what I mean that's true.
Speaker 3:I mean like say, for example, like I started seeing someone recently and I quite enjoyed like being involved in the relationship. So, yeah, just see what happens, seen someone recently and I quite enjoyed like being involved in the relationship, like, um, so yeah, to just see what happens, like, and then you embrace it if it's something to nice man yeah it's a really honest way of saying it.
Speaker 4:You know, see what happens and then embrace it. If it so, a lot of people are searching for things that maybe are idealized and don't necessarily even exist well, I reckon I did that a little bit, but the way you just said it just then was so lovely. You know, just like see what happens and then embrace it if it does.
Speaker 3:That's a really lovely way to look at it, yeah so I'm slowly learning a few things as I become a little bit wiser with maturity. But you do have to try things as well.
Speaker 4:Of course, put yourself out there.
Speaker 3:Exactly, yeah, exactly, exactly. So there was something else I was going to say. Oh yeah, so we're talking. So it was about prospect of having family. Was there another question?
Speaker 2:for that. Starting a family, looking after elderly? Yeah, can't answer Parents, family. Your brother, your brother Borko, yeah no.
Speaker 3:I think I had to. I might have said what I was planning to say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess it's an interesting, I guess conundrum oh yeah, I don't know what to say.
Speaker 3:So what it is is like I didn't realize, like so I spent when I was looking at life this is I've been reflecting and thinking about things a little bit lately is that I kind of some people I'm noticing this with my job, like because I work in market research and I interviewed people like for the housing and income and labour type projects. Anyway, get to the point. I meet different people and I talk to them and I can see that they set goals in life. I can sort of tell that their goal was to kind of find some security and they might have that yearning to have children and have a family of their own and things like that. So achieve those goals and then work towards you know, other personal goals, which is maybe like personal interests, things like that.
Speaker 3:Like I didn't, like my brain just didn't go that way, like I just looked at photography and projects and just went that way. I didn't, and I sort of looked back and I don't know if that was the, because you know, like I might be, you sometimes need a little bit behind you, like whether it's like collateral or emotional support, and sometimes that helps to have that behind you as well, before you embark on um setting out to achieve your goals. So there's no right, or like I went. So, yeah, I sort of think, like I just was. So you know, like just wanting to be a photographer, like wanting to pursue my dreams, trying to survive all these sorts of things and just never had a family.
Speaker 3:Yeah, fair enough. Never, I was just yeah, it just seemed like it was.
Speaker 2:It wasn't on your priorities. It didn't feel like following the traditional it wasn't like a priority.
Speaker 3:It just seemed like it was just too hard to try and accomplish the other things, let alone trying to find someone. Trying to hold my own sanity, you know, I just I don't know. There's lots of things you don't need that.
Speaker 2:And you said that. You actually said that too. You said you know, like you're okay with being alone, you know, and like there's a lot of people who really aren't.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I don't know. And if you're, if you're cool with that, like that's a full, that's a strength in my opinion. The other thing is you, you created this body of work during that time. That will kind of like we're talking about before it inspires other people, but it'll also live on after you, I hope so like after you're gone and like, know, I know that's a long way off. I'm not being morbid, I don't mean it like that.
Speaker 4:It's not that far off though, really, because it's funny when you hit 50, like, you sort of start looking at You're very healthy, you do I know what I was trying to say is this body of work, though that was like quite influential and quite influential like in like a certain subculture, um, and part of like kind of like a very certain niche australian identity. It's a really strong body of work and like that body of work will live on and kind of like it's like something that you've left, um, you've left for the world and it's kind of like creating. That is in some ways like the same, as like that's creating your lineage, or like the same way as other people might have kids and you know what I mean like you have that other thing there as well. It's not like the world passed you by or anything like that. You created this amazing body of work that, like you know, the majority of people couldn't even imagine.
Speaker 3:Really, I really appreciate that Legacy man. Yeah, I always wanted yeah, it's funny because I sort of like I can feel that Sorry, dude.
Speaker 3:No, it's okay, it's, yeah, I'm hoping, like, I'm hoping, like in like. I'm just wondering if that's something that's changed, like in like, because, like I certainly have, like my photographers, like there's this guy called Eugene Smith. Like he was just brilliant, I just loved the guy's photography. He died like in 1974 or something and he certainly, like he, like I'm just one of like millions of photographers that adore, like have been impacted by his photography and just think, you know, like that's just brilliant and you know, like I love, like what he was trying to convey in his images, whether it was a social issue or whether it was, you know, just the portrait. And I'm just wondering, like you know, like sort of, if there's going to be like influential photographers like in the future, like there has been in the past. You know, with the way things are changing, that was one of my starting questions.
Speaker 2:I think too, like you know, in this digital age and I've asked other photographers this in the past you know like has digital photography devalued the craft and the art? And I guess, after listening to you speak about this and other people, I actually don't think it has. Yeah, I think the process is still a craft and it's a dark art that can never be perfected and all that I don't like that dark art that can never be perfected and all that.
Speaker 3:I love that dark art that can never be perfected.
Speaker 4:I kind of look at it like when the camera was actually invented. When people first started taking photographs especially like with the proliferation of the camera people still painted. Originally, people were painting to capture an image I love, like the first, you know what I mean, and it's not like when the camera came out, people were like oh, why the fuck?
Speaker 1:are you painting? Still, it's antiquated. Then you've got photos. Now you don't need to do that anymore. Take a photo of that person, yeah.
Speaker 4:I think it's the same thing with digital and film photography it's just another medium, it's a different medium, it's a different art form.
Speaker 3:It's like first came out, like the first like portrait, like it was portraits and landscapes, like you know, like were the main things that they were like shooting. They actually like used to use like soft lenses and things like that to try and make the early portraits look like paintings.
Speaker 1:That's right to mimic, oh really. Yeah yeah, yeah, they did, and then it was like it was Edward.
Speaker 3:Weston and Ansel Adams came along in like the 20s and 30s and they were like hang on, this is shit. The whole idea is to make a photo look as sharp, as you know what. I was talking about before, with like the rendition of like tonal values in an image like that's what they were all on about.
Speaker 2:There, you go.
Speaker 3:But yeah, the paradigm shifted, so to speak.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then there's painters who try to be as realistic, so it looks like a photo. Like FA actually put out a Dylan Reader board. Have you seen that? No, and it's a picture of Dylan Reader as a kid.
Speaker 3:And you think it's a because you know how they did a series of just like portrait photos of the pro models. You know I know nothing, but then for.
Speaker 2:Dylan Reader. It was a portrait of him as a kid, but it was painted, but so painted so amazingly it looked like a photo. But you look up close and you're like, oh my God, that's a painting. Yeah you see that. So maybe the mediums are complementing each other and maybe, like you, look at some digital work and it will give you inspiration for things you could do, you know, in the manual process. I don't know.
Speaker 3:But yeah, sort of come back to like that whole like notion of leaving a legacy, like yeah, that's also like yeah, who I mean? Who doesn't want to influence people and sort of have a positive impact on, like, the direction and people can sort of like look at that and go like wow, that's fantastic and then take it in their own direction.
Speaker 2:yeah, Well, artists and creatives and photographers are leaving more legacy items in this life than anyone else. You know, and I ask guests that a lot like what do you want your legacy to be? You know, but I think you've already answered it and Jim sort of just asked you and you know your image is going to be looked at for who knows how long. You know Already even in this life, like looking at photos you took. You know, 30 years ago, it's insane longer.
Speaker 4:Yeah, if you go into the State Library or the National Library of Australia, they hold Australian skateboarding. Do they? Yeah, and you can go and you know you can go and have a look Right now in the National Library of Australia. You can search Australian skateboarding in their catalogues yeah. You know how many covers.
Speaker 2:It's funny there's like Will digital assets last that long? That's my question.
Speaker 4:Well, that's why people Will digital assets last that long?
Speaker 2:What if the internet just dies tomorrow?
Speaker 4:Well, that's why it's important to preserve it in both mediums, physical and digital.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I like what like this is You've heard like you guys I don't know if you guys like know about these you got like because when I was working in newspapers like they just sort of like threw away all their negs and stuff.
Speaker 2:Threw away. What sorry.
Speaker 3:Their negs Did they? Yeah, like decades worth just went straight into storage, yeah. So there's like I just hate this like shatter the like, break the. What's the shatter? The optimism, the illusion. The illusion that people are going to be retaining this. Yeah, yeah. Then some knucklehead comes along and goes oh, we don't need that anymore.
Speaker 2:We've got no space for that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly that's what comes down to it. Yes, yes.
Speaker 4:They do have the microfilms of the whole papers, though, so they might not have the negatives from the original photos that went in the paper, but they have the microfilm and the microfiche of the papers themselves, which are obviously not as good quality as the photo, but you can see where the photo ended up.
Speaker 2:Oh, there you go.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's important there you go, I think the preservation of our history is so important, especially, yeah, that's important. I think the preservation of our history is so important, especially like news media and things like that, and sort of archiving this material is fundamental to sort of like, yeah, understanding who we are and our history down the track. But yeah, I'm certainly one for that Cool man. Whether other people are going to be doing. That's another thing. Yeah, We'll see. We'll see. Yeah, We'll see. We'll be advocates for libraries and archiving things.
Speaker 4:Can you preach into a converted ear?
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh yeah, I know that.
Speaker 2:But I wonder if it's like, as we get older, like is it an old person thing? I mean, my grandmother used to really like have a lot of photos around the house, you know, because I think she realized the importance of these memories and, you know, archiving, whereas as kids I didn't give a shit, you know. But as I get older I'm like, oh man, I wish I documented more, I wish I archived, yeah, yeah, it's funny. Like I don't really like, maybe it's an age thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's sort of interesting as well, like because I don't like this and like like I don't take photos, or like my friends and my family and stuff like that at all. I don't have okay too boring for you. I don't know like just don't you know, and that's what most people would photograph, like things that are in there, like immediately familiar to them. If I was testing something going, mum, I'll take a photo Seriously, though, like even my phone and stuff. I don't do that too much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what do you think of iPhone photography?
Speaker 3:Yeah, like it was sort of like the new ad. Hey, like I saw this just the other night, they've actually got buttons on the side of the phone, so they're trying, like in the commercial they were using it like a camera. Like I think the phone was pressed up, they weren't holding it like that, they were holding it pretty close and there were buttons, like you know what I mean, like a shutter button as opposed to touching the screen.
Speaker 2:You can do that with the volume.
Speaker 3:You can, yeah, but anyway, poking your fingers at screens to take photos and stuff, I reckon nah, I'm not too big on that.
Speaker 2:You need a click.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know yeah. And then, like the thing that get me started with iPhones, oh well, damn, okay. Like manipulating photos, like, okay, light hits a sensor and light can't really be manipulated too much, you know what I mean. Like, but just to blatantly like mix it up in post-production, like merging several photos into one so everyone's eyes are open in the photos and man Do, people do that.
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah.
Speaker 3:So they've got all this AI technology that's built into, like the camera phone. The camera phones are the worst for that sort of thing, for what I could gather.
Speaker 2:In terms of like fixing photos.
Speaker 3:Fixing photos, making skies look bluer than what they are, making colors look more vivid. I don't know. I'm starting to question whether I'm seeing the world correctly, or is it the saturation of the software?
Speaker 2:It's just standard now to put filter. It's standard to filter things. Everyone almost expects it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, whereas, like I don't know, they've got like you can basically like there's software now so you can shoot an out of focus. I haven't used it, I've just seen like you can shoot something out of focus and it'll focus it. Yeah, like, and I will. They'll have like the modeling like, because it'd just be modeling like the way, like they'd just have the sophisticated like computering that's happening, boom, boom, boom and it'll model everything like shadows, everything. That's just going to be around the corner.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But what I'm getting at is, yeah, the whole thing of like that's the authenticity of an image, is like that's sacred it is. You don't mess around with that.
Speaker 2:I think you can tell. Oh yeah, Whether your eye is trained or not, it's like you know that's what's authentic. It's like it's innate.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you reckon it's innate in us. You can sort of set off an alarm bell that something just doesn't.
Speaker 2:Something about it. You know that's been taken.
Speaker 3:I think there's some photos like in history Lee Harvey Oswald with a shotgun. They reckon that the shadow under his doesn't fit. There was a photo like of Joseph Stalin with Lenin, and they took Trotsky out of the image. Fundamentally, that's changing history by doing things like that. I do worry about the future with, uh, especially with like, um, yeah, artificial 100%.
Speaker 3:Worry about the future, I worry about the present photography and then I guess it's like photographers, philosophy as well, like, like my integrity is going to be different to some. I've worked with photographers that don't have any integrity in. You know what they're doing and will you know change eyes or something you know like get you know, it's not hard to do. They'll have like their banger photos, the one with the eyes closed, so I'll clone the eyes off another photo. Shit man, you can't do that. It's the eyes, for fuck's sake.
Speaker 2:It's all Franken-photo.
Speaker 3:I don't know, but what I'm getting at is you sort of follow that there is like there's lines that, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 4:It starts to defeat the purpose pretty quickly. Yeah, the purpose of taking the photo in the first place.
Speaker 3:So yeah, the phones. I'm not big on phones at all.
Speaker 4:Sorry.
Speaker 3:Oh, no, no, I don't use my phone, but they'll just have more AI technology. And then you like the ones, the forthcoming phones that we haven't seen yet.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then just the inherent danger of the people operating those phones and then how the images get used.
Speaker 2:I feel bad.
Speaker 3:I've gone pretty far with that, but it is like it is.
Speaker 2:I mean I use it.
Speaker 3:I've just sort of been watching it for years now.
Speaker 2:As a one-man show in production.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but you're using it as a multifaceted tool. You're not using it as your primary art form. You're not trying to replace what Aaron's doing with your phone You're using your phone as a tool, which is what it's supposed to be, even better.
Speaker 3:I love this. I love this when someone shows me a picture on their phone and then I shoot a four by five film like the negative is bigger than their phone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And someone's telling me how great their phone photo is. When I use large fallback cameras, I just go mad. It boggles me, that's hilarious too. But they're pretty good and they're going to put all photographers out of work and they're going to put all photographers Out of work and I just Get back on man, that's hilarious.
Speaker 4:Look, the video camera didn't put photographers out of work. The camera didn't put painters out of work. You know Paint didn't put charcoal out of work. You know all these things have been Happening and you know, as all these things have been happening, and you know, as long as we stay, as long as all of us stay true to our art forms, and you know, yeah, you think everything's going to be okay. Well, I'm not necessarily saying that, I'm just saying that I don't think that.
Speaker 3:I don't know.
Speaker 4:I don't think you can ever replace. I'm not saying people wouldn't try to, because I know they already are trying to, but I don't think anybody can ever replace what Aaron does.
Speaker 2:Okay, good, let's hope so. I think that's almost where to end.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm pretty how are you feeling? I've run out of words really. Yeah, well, yeah, How's about that?
Speaker 2:pressure balker, you hear about that. You could see it from here. Yeah, almost almost. Pasha Bolka, you've got a good view of the harbour. Well, you know it's our role anyway. Alright, thanks, aaron, thanks.
Speaker 3:Jim, thanks Shannon, thanks Jim.
Speaker 2:Aaron Brown, everybody yes for a couple of times.
Speaker 3:Brown everybody. Yes, yes, that's for a couple of times.
