100 people - #6: Victoria
Now Playing: mazzy star - so tonight that i might see
Topic: 100 people



I met Victoria a while back on Myspace, I can't remember now how long ago.

But I guess it was long enough ago that when we finally met up in person whilst I was visiting my parents in Queensland we talked as though we'd known each other for years.

Despite having worked a hectic weekend at Wasabi Restaurant as part of the Noosa Food & Wine Festival, Victoria drove down to Mooloolaba to meet me, where I was visiting friends from England who were in the area for a wedding.

Victoria, Julie, Jason* and myself had an enjoyable afternoon talking, laughing and drinking at a cafe on the Esplanade, then relocated to the Surf Club to have a few more drinks with friends of Julie and Jason's as the sun went down.

A little while later Julie & Jason headed off for a curry dinner and Victoria whisked me off in the dark to her place in Noosa for a lovely mushroom risotto, and to meet her cheeky cockatiels, Ed and Freud.

Originally from Birmingham, Victoria came to Australia for love, but has stuck around long after that love ended. When not fulfilling the role of a charming waitress at a local Japanese restaurant, Victoria is a philosophy student and has also recently taken to creating a series of daily photographic mementos.

*unfortunately i was too busy nattering with julie & jason to grab my camera out and immortalise them in pixels for this project. must rectify that when next i'm in england!

100 people - #4: Graeme and #5: Margaret
Now Playing: laptop hum
Topic: 100 people





AKA Dad and Mum ;o)

Whilst some people talk of how much they dreaded and were bored by the traditional family slide night, I was always a fan of those evenings spent in a darkened lounge room, the curtains closed, watching colourful images from my parents' and our collective family's trips away.

Whether photographs from the trip to the USA my parents took when my brothers and I were in early primary school; a trip that brought us each various souvenirs including t-shirts, before souvenir t-shirts became all post-modernist and declared themselves uncool (mine was from San Francisco and said "Go climb a street"). Or photographs from Antarctica and other strange far away places my Uncle John traveled to. Or even the photographs from the travels we three children ventured on with my parents around the Northern Territory when we lived in Darwin.

Slide nights are up there in my list of favourite memories, along with nights spent lying rugged up on banana lounges in the backyard of my maternal grandparents' house in Northbourne Avenue in Canberra whilst my Granddad pointed out constellations and my Grandma brought us out warm cups of Milo. The hum of the projector, the clacking of the slide tray turning or sliding as the corded remote was pressed, the delays when a slide got stuck or the attempt to go back to the previous slide caused a technical malfunction, and the dust particles floating around in the projector's light.

The projected images contained amusing memories of places we'd been, or acted as portals into intriguing places we hoped one day to go. And, of course, played an important part in inspiring my love of photography.

For a couple of decades slide nights in our family died off. My parents, like most folk, started taking their holiday and family snaps with negative film instead of as transparencies; and the act of reliving our family holidays or experiencing each others' was relegated to sitting around a table, possibly as a group, and passing around 6"x4" prints; or in the case of my photographs from the UK, viewed by my parents online long distance on my website. Perhaps, given that by this time there were five of us recording our holidays in photographic form, this was a good thing.

However, with the advent of digital photography, "slide nights" are back with a vengeance in my parents' house. Now they can be enjoyed in the morning and afternoon, not just the evening as they don't require darkness; and there is (somewhat) less pfaffing with the cycle of images played through the DVD player.

After viewing my parents' photographs from their trip to Africa last year and from their travels around the Eastern Rockies, USA, in 2006, I persuaded them to set up a RedBubble account for their travel photography. You should check it out.

100 people - #3: Chris
Now Playing: the puppini sisters - betcha bottom dollar
Topic: 100 people



I can't remember the exact circumstances under which I "met" Chris, affectionately known as Ziz. I believe I came to his notice through the Melbourne and / or Melbourne Silver Mine groups on Flickr sometime in 2007, and we started exchanging comments and messages and finally met in person at Unsensored 07 at Kerala Gallery.

Since then we've met up for various exhibition openings and viewings, various Flickrmeets, and well, any excuse for eating and / or drinking that can be made.

Chris primarily works in film photography, taking beautiful urban abstracts and capturing reflected light, and from time to time some beautiful portraiture. His love for photography (and his quirky sense of humour) has carried over to the naming of his kitten, Eighteen, with her 18% grey colouring.

I took this portrait of Chris on Wednesday as we sat in the front window of Bar Open on Brunswick Street drinking pinot grigio and Mercury sweet cider, people-watching, discussing photography and other things, whilst digesting the Kodak Salon and a large meal from Joe's Garage.

100 people - #2: Natasha
Now Playing: grant lee buffalo - fuzzy
Topic: 100 people



Natasha and I met virtually through a mutual friend about two years ago, but only met in person in late February this year, about a week before we set off on a road trip from Melbourne to Adelaide. The road trip actually ended in Halls Gap for me, but Natasha continued on to Adelaide and is, as I write this, now in Sydney as she traipses across Australia and then on to New Zealand on a much needed break to visit various friends.

Hailing from Derby in England, she currently lives and works in Vancouver, Canada and is a talented portrait photographer.

This photograph is one I captured of her on our first night in Halls Gap after a long walk into town and back only to find out the Halls Gap Hotel, a mere 100 metres or so from our accommodation, was the only pub in town.

100 people - #1: Feih
Now Playing: the hampdens - brightness falls
Topic: 100 people



Feih contacted me through Myspace back in late 2006. We met up for a drink at Tramways in North Fitzroy one afternoon and have been good friends ever since.

Feih moved to Melbourne three years ago from Wellington, New Zealand. She currently works as a barista during the week, and regularly performs as a jester at various festivals and sometimes in the Bourke Street Mall on weekends.

Though she'll tower over you at 6'7", she's anything but intimidating, and has a cute little cat called Nin whom I finally met a couple of weekends ago after the trip to Apollo Bay on which I took this photo.