James and I are thrilled to be expecting our first child in June next year. So if you were wondering why I haven’t been posting any photos lately, it’s because we’ve been a little preoccupied. Apart from my favourite jeans not fitting anymore, everything is going wonderfully.

my naked self on the photoartgallery Friday the 13th home page

Yesterday I tagged along to the International Hairstylists Society hair show which is one of the largest hair shows in the country. Having never been to one before, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but “complete and utter chaos” comes fairly close.

Many of the stylists and models had been awake and preparing since 4am that morning for a 12pm show. Caffeine and sugary sweets were sustaining the tightly packed gymnasium sized hall. The fine line between sheer exhilaration and breaking into tears under the pressure was evident in the hallways and crouched in corners as entrants coached their models on posing and lay out hair pins before their event. For those of us who were spectators, our entry fee did not guarantee a seat, a view of the catwalk or even use of the toilets (good luck to you with 1000+ people wanting to do their make up! Lol.) But wow, that room had an energy to it you could set alight.

Event after event, models were herded into their seats for judging then lead over to the catwalk for 10 seconds of glory followed by the arduous and sometimes painful task of unraveling their hairdos. Then they could go home, finally eat something and have a nanna nap.

Towards the middle of the event, the crowd was urged into silence by the organisers. They killed the music and spent a full minute getting everyone to pay attention. Most of us thought something serious had happened, but it was just so the organisers could tell everyone off for leaving rubbish in the hallways and bathrooms and to let us know they didn’t want to pay for cleaners afterwards!

Despite the rushed, stressed, and relentless pace of the day, there were some real highlights – the talent. I discovered stylists and colourists that deserve to have their work in the national gallery. This was true art. Moving, inventive and ingenious.

Team spirit was evident in the many helpers and friends who had come along to support the entrants. The hair models had not only volunteered their time, but also their beautiful hair with dramatic chops and colour changes commonplace. The runway was littered with loaned designer clothing from local labels. It was this amazing sense of working together that made the day, despite it’s hardships, so memorable and positive.

Would I do it again? Hell yes. But with a packed lunch and empty bladder!

Today I celebrate a little milestone – 20 coffee cups saved from landfill.

Not too long ago, I became very aware of the huge quantities of coffee the RedBubble office consumes. (The internet never sleeps and neither shall we!)

I probably should have been concerned about the adrenalin pumping heart tremor causing effects of caffeine, but instead I set off on a personal crusade to reduce the number of take away coffee cups we were throwing out each week.

My first attempt was to drink fewer cups of coffee. I got the shakes as withdrawal set in, and was only saving 2-4 coffee cups from landfill per day. I declared this tactic a dismal failure and pledged to do better.

Thankfully, Russell knew a stylish and aesthetically pleasing place for us to pick up some reusable plastic cups for those times when our caffeine levels are critical. So we ordered a bunch and now every staff member here has one.

The amount of coffee cup waste has significantly reduced and today I ordered my 20th guilt free cappuccino with one sugar. It felt good. Very good.

But then I wondered about all the other disposable coffee cups out there. This got me searching for some cool things you can do with them. It turns out, quite a lot…

The lantern festival and reusing coffee cups
Foam cup drawings sell for hundreds
Coffee cup masks
Learn to make coffee cup tissue dispensers
Take the coffee cup challenge

I recently had the pleasure of working with a ridiculously fun model, Nicole, on a retro pin up shoot.

It’s funny how some shoots I walk away from shaking my head and praying for some decent results, and then others I freak out of the way home about how much space it’s going to eat up on my hard drive. This shoot falls into the latter category.

Nicole was so easy to work with and everyone involved was relaxed and up for a laugh. We were working outside after some heavy rain which ruled out many of the ‘usual’ pin up poses which require getting down on the ground, but the energy of the shoot was such fun we hardly noticed the restriction.

It’s been a while since I’ve shot anything in this genre, but there is something about the ridiculousness and humor of it which I really genuinely love.

Here are a few more images from the shoot:

“Yes” T-Shirt Design by mrbaxter [3312328-1] - RedBubble

A few days ago I almost halved my portfolio, overwhelmed with this feeling that none of it was good enough. And I realised that this feeling of “not being good enough” had nothing to do with the images themselves. It was related to how well I had achieve the desired result.

Using this same consideration, it’s easy for me to choose an image I am most proud of – Empty woman.

Before making this image, I was angry with women. At how we treat our bodies, and have lost touch with the health impact of our actions. We let ourselves become ridiculously overweight, we starve ourselves or cut out important nutrients, we binge drink, we pump our lungs and blood full of drugs. And why? To feel comforted, or beautiful, or sexy, or sociable, or liked. And this made me so angry. I wanted to show people how fucked up it is.

For Empty Woman, I wanted to focus on one example of this: that being malnourished or extremely underweight affects your fertility. We all sit in health class and hear stories about anorexic ballerinas who stop having their periods, and it feels so distant. Or we scrutinize celebrities as they yo yo between eating disorders. It’s rare that we actually meet someone who can admit they have faced these challenges.

Casting a model for this image was difficult. I wanted to use someone who was healthy in reality, yet extremely thin for the sake of impact. And I didn’t want her to look anything like a ballerina, or a celebrity. Just like a normal person. Earlier incarnations of this shot had the model holding an ultra sound (with child) in front of her pelvis and when finding an empty pool started looking very difficult, I considered shooting in an abandoned warehouse.

Eventually there was an opportunity to shoot at Aradale Asylum and I knew I’d seen pictures of an empty pool there from other photographers’ work. Completing this image was the main reason for going. And I was eternally thankful to my model who not only drove the 3 hours out of Melbourne to be there, but stood in a cold sludgy pool in freezing cold weather.

Looking at the final image, and more importantly, the comments people have left on it makes me feel really proud. It’s rare that other people see my work the way I had hoped or intended, but in this case, other people felt a bit of what I was feeling. And that means the world to me.

You may not know this about me, but I’m an insane Tim Walker fan. If you don’t know who Tim Walker is, I’m afraid we can’t be friends anymore. It is imperative that you seek out his work and drool while uttering three syllable adjectives to describe how wonderful it is.

Now that we’re better acquainted, I’d like to draw your eyes to exhibit A:
Tim Walker’s ‘Lisa Cant with 80 White Rabbits’ originally commissioned by Vogue, and published in his book from last year entitled Pictures.

And now I’d like to present for you, exhibit B:
The Dotti commercial from this month’s Cosmopolitan

Now, I know what you’re thinking – they are nothing alike. Look, in the second one the girl is wearing a hat. Totally different.

However, I do not agree with you. In fact, I’d go so far as to say this is a direct copy off of an awesome idea. And unless they have hired Tim Walker to shoot the Dotti commercial and he decided to rehash his own idea (Sorry Tim, but I wouldn’t love you as much anymore), then someone else has forgotten their imagination at the door.

I can appreciate a homage to a great talent, I can appreciate that inspiration comes from all around, and I believe that no idea is truly original (that we merely rehash a concoction of our lives experiences). But where is the line? Where do we stop saying “this was inspired by” and start saying “this is a copy of”?

So bringing my new ring flash home for the first time resulted in lots of random and fairly uninteresting shots. While the guys worried about F stops and technical stuff, I proceeded to poke stupid faces shouting “take one of me! take one of me!!!”

This is my now encyclopedic knowledge of taking photos with a ring flash, for your enjoyment, and my embarrassment.

Plucking your eyebrows is a must with a ring flash. In fact, if you have any skin insecurities, probably best to stay on the other side of it. (The photographer side that is) You’ll also notice that it gives you a crazy circle light in your eyes, kind of like you are possessed. I thought that was ace.

Because the light goes in a big circle around the lens, you can pretty much cover the whole thing with hair, or possibly other things, and it still manages to light everything up. I thought that was ace too.

In fact, lack of shadows is probably my favourite thing about it. You can flash someone straight on, even if they are having a girly hissy fit backed up against a wall, and there are no severe shadows behind them.

And you can take photos through blinds, bars and fabric without casting shadows on your subject. John’s a good sport and let us trap him between the blinds and the door to test out this theory. I reckon John is a bit ace too.

This whole “no shadows” business means it’s also great for taking photos inside things, which is also ace.

even inside your nose

And James thought that was ace. Just see how happy he is!

It was all hands hoay on Saturday for a pirate photo shoot with the always lovely Helen McLean. James Price also came along to hold a reflector for me.

I’m a bit nutty when it comes to pirates. I still remember very affectionately going to a school dress up day in grade four in pirate costume. There is something about a bunch of people who sail around and steal gold from other people sailing around that I find interesting. Of course real pirates do a lot worse.

Anyways, I’ve been wanting to do a pirate shoot for ages. The thing is, now that I’ve done one, I’m thinking of all the other pirate things I haven’t done yet. So if anyone in Melbourne wants to play dress ups with me drop me a line.

I recently exhibited with a collective of friend’s and fellow photographers calling ourselves “back alley atelier”. This article was published by the Moreland Leader newspaper.

Chris + Helen + Insanity = AwESomE!!!!

You guys are officially SO FUNNY!

And Chris isn’t a first time offender either!