Camden Haven, April 27-29
Cocos Lunch vocalist
Now in its twelfth year, this festival originally started out with Chamber Music as its primary focus, but has progressed to World Music and some dance as its staple. I'd been invited to stage manage the two main venues - one in a huge hoecker structure and the other in the old School Of Arts Building located directly across from the common. Although the festival proper ran from Friday 27 April to Sunday 29 April, the weeks leading up to the main event included a series of workshops and masterclasses with some pretty talented artists. Check the festival website at the bottom of this post.
The programme this year included some well known artists such as Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter, George Washingmachine, Coco's Lunch and some relative unknowns who are sure to make their mark in time nonetheless.
Camden Haven [Laurieton] is a beautiful, somewhat sleepy "fishing village" that has retained a lot of its charm - quiet streets, friendly people and some of the most beautiful coastline around. Surprisingly, the festival is run almost entirely by volunteers and capable ones at that!
Although the weather leading up to the weekend might have dampened crowds initially, by Saturday night the whole place was buzzing. Sunday nights' high energy closing performance by Monsieur Camembert and their irreverent take on gypsy folk was a fitting end to the whole weekend.
My job was made all the easier by the extensive pre-production work carried out by the festival co-ordinator and my audio and lighting crew who managed to contend with a few last minute but demanding changes. This allowed me to take a heap of photos - click on any photo below - it will automatically take you to the album page.
Congratulations to everyone involved - maybe I'll get invited back again next year?
In the meantime - here's a few more pics...
Karifi - African Traditional
Professor Michael Atherton @ workshop
Festival and artist links:
http://www.camdenhavenmusicfestival.org.au
http://www.washingmachine.com.au
http://www.syncsonics.com
http://www.cocoslunch.com
http://www.kristinaolsen.net
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Camden Haven Music Festival
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
woopiwood
14 April
Festival of Vaisakhi, the Sikh New Year
http://www.curryfest.com.au/
Woolgoolga or "Woopi" as the locals call it, has the largest regional Sikh/Punjabi population in Australia and is the site of the first Sikh temple built in Australia.
You can see more photos of the event by clicking on any of the following shots...
From curryfest 07 
From curryfest 07 
From curryfest 07 
From curryfest 07
From curryfest 07 
From curryfest 07 
From curryfest 07 
From curryfest 07 
From curryfest 0
Other links:
www.sikhs.org
www.sikhnet.com
www.sikh.com.au/inaus/wool.html
and then there were firetwirlers on the beach...Kyle and Niki, Josie and a few others who were kind enough to pose in the shallows for the shots here...
From curryfest 07 
From curryfest 07 
From curryfest 07 
From curryfest 07 
From curryfest 07
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
a words worth
About a week ago I met Paula - a photographer, architect and poet [amongst other things!] - and since then we shot stills and video to accompany her exhibition at gallery 37 in coffs harbour which closed today.
Unfortunately it was only up for a week but the opening on Saturday night was a blast, with quite a few new faces, some good wine, friends from Brisbane and some crazy footpath antics.....
As part of the exhibition we shot a series of time lapse stills [one every minute] which documented the installation [from bare gallery], the opening night, and the bump-out tonight.
This will end up edited down into a 3-5 minute sequence, to accompany the video screened during the exhibition, along with other selected photographs, transcripts of Paulas poetry, and whatever else takes our fancy - a kind of "virtual tour experience" of the whole process - from whoa to go so to speak. The final package will be a DVD with cover sleeve adorned with photos relating to each of the poems and the worded text.
If you're interested in purchasing one - drop me an email.
In the meantime - here's a few selected shots to whet your appetite.....or pique your curiosity...
 |
| From "words worth"... |
 |
| From "words worth"... |
 |
| From "words worth"... |
 |
| From "words worth"... |
 |
| From "words worth"... |
 |
| From "words worth"... |
 |
| From "words worth"... |
Monday, April 09, 2007
where did the last 6 months go?
Only now does it seem there is time to update this blog and to make sense of it all I'll send it through in chronological order. There's a host of photos to accompany the adventure that has been and much to share.
To pick up from the last post, I was asked to shoot some promotional photos for Circus Amorphus crew, and mid October saw the fruition of my Exhibition. As well there were screenings for the Dorrigo Youth Services premiere of their Digital Storytelling Project and another Bass Camp Party [with the photos to prove it!]
Circus Amorphus photo shoot
This talented performance troupe features stilts, poi, flags, firetwirling and fluoro shows. Although they only got together a short time ago, they've performed all over northern NSW and have a varied range of costumes and routines. Email me if you'd like to get in touch with them.
Here's a few sample shots from their portfolio:
Enlightened Exhibition notes and background:
October 14 saw the opening of the Enlightened Exhibition, a joint venture between myself and my kin brother Paul from Kyogle. Without his long distance support and artistic contributions this would never have happened. In between teaching at Port Macquarie TAFE in the lead up [2 hours from home], I managed to pull together 49 digital prints - sort of themed in seven categories but with the emphasis on light and nature - how and what we see and the beauty that surrounds us in our ever fragile environment.
Fortunately school holidays fell 2 weeks leading into the exhibition, in which deciding from some tens of thousands of photos the final selection was made. Then sizings and titles and paper types and invitations and a host of other tasks. Paul is mostly responsible for the mandala nature series and has been a collaboration for a few years now...
We decided to donate a portion of the print sales to Rainforest Rescue - www.rainforestrescue.org.au - you can save a portion of rainforest in perpetuity for very little money....
Heartfelt thanks to Ray & Ann at digital fotofx coffs harbour for their technical advice, support and quick turnarounds. [ fotofx@bigpond.com ] We printed on Epson ecography chemical free papers and the results were no less than astounding.
To pick up from the last post, I was asked to shoot some promotional photos for Circus Amorphus crew, and mid October saw the fruition of my Exhibition. As well there were screenings for the Dorrigo Youth Services premiere of their Digital Storytelling Project and another Bass Camp Party [with the photos to prove it!]
Circus Amorphus photo shoot
This talented performance troupe features stilts, poi, flags, firetwirling and fluoro shows. Although they only got together a short time ago, they've performed all over northern NSW and have a varied range of costumes and routines. Email me if you'd like to get in touch with them.
Here's a few sample shots from their portfolio:
 |
| From Circus Amorphus |
 |
| From Circus Amorphus |
 |
| From Circus Amorphus |
 |
| From Circus Amorphus |
 |
| From Circus Amorphus |
Enlightened Exhibition notes and background:
October 14 saw the opening of the Enlightened Exhibition, a joint venture between myself and my kin brother Paul from Kyogle. Without his long distance support and artistic contributions this would never have happened. In between teaching at Port Macquarie TAFE in the lead up [2 hours from home], I managed to pull together 49 digital prints - sort of themed in seven categories but with the emphasis on light and nature - how and what we see and the beauty that surrounds us in our ever fragile environment.
Fortunately school holidays fell 2 weeks leading into the exhibition, in which deciding from some tens of thousands of photos the final selection was made. Then sizings and titles and paper types and invitations and a host of other tasks. Paul is mostly responsible for the mandala nature series and has been a collaboration for a few years now...
We decided to donate a portion of the print sales to Rainforest Rescue - www.rainforestrescue.org.au - you can save a portion of rainforest in perpetuity for very little money....
Heartfelt thanks to Ray & Ann at digital fotofx coffs harbour for their technical advice, support and quick turnarounds. [ fotofx@bigpond.com ] We printed on Epson ecography chemical free papers and the results were no less than astounding.
 |
| From Random |
Then there were 6 orbital lanterns, made from recycled automobile wheel trims suspended within bicycle wheels stripped of their spokes and adorned with various other kitchen implements and found objects. Suspend from ceiling and add a candle and voila - you have an orbital lantern.
 |
| From Orbital Lanterns |
Add 6 more hanging lanterns - this time perspex tubes wrapped in nature images printed on backlit film, lit from within by 1 metre lengths of tubelight - nice, warm, even light. The technical and physical design and construction was done a few days before we installed. [To add to the deadlines, it had been raining for weeks and the property I live on is exclusively solar powered - so any prolonged use of computers/internet/lights, was completely out of the question!]
The Bunker Gallery curator, and volunteers were amazing. I entrusted the framing to the volunteers and only needed to advise on a couple of minor issues. Collectively we decided upon placement, groups and spacings for the overall plan and this was executed in the space of a day. My time was spent assembling the orbital lanterns and rigging the electrics and making sure everything stayed in the roof. Paul arrived by train at lunchtime and assisted with the rest of the install, ready for Saturdays opening.
Once the physical objects were in place, we rigged an LCD projector and spaceframe with screen to project all of the images in the exhibition plus the ones that didn't make it into print form but were part of the same series or sequences. This DVD runs for about 40 minutes and has a nice ambient chill soundtrack as accompaniment. The crossfades and dissolves between shots are slow and gentle - it makes for a nice organic background or meditative assistant!
Lastly, we introduced some potted palms, dracenias, and shrubbery to reduce the size of the entrance into the space - like entering into the forest...I wanted to make it intimate and interactive, and it turned out to be exactly that.
Paul in the foreground [and background]
15second exposure - playing around at the end of the day
The Bunker Gallery curator, and volunteers were amazing. I entrusted the framing to the volunteers and only needed to advise on a couple of minor issues. Collectively we decided upon placement, groups and spacings for the overall plan and this was executed in the space of a day. My time was spent assembling the orbital lanterns and rigging the electrics and making sure everything stayed in the roof. Paul arrived by train at lunchtime and assisted with the rest of the install, ready for Saturdays opening.
Once the physical objects were in place, we rigged an LCD projector and spaceframe with screen to project all of the images in the exhibition plus the ones that didn't make it into print form but were part of the same series or sequences. This DVD runs for about 40 minutes and has a nice ambient chill soundtrack as accompaniment. The crossfades and dissolves between shots are slow and gentle - it makes for a nice organic background or meditative assistant!
Lastly, we introduced some potted palms, dracenias, and shrubbery to reduce the size of the entrance into the space - like entering into the forest...I wanted to make it intimate and interactive, and it turned out to be exactly that.
Paul in the foreground [and background]
15second exposure - playing around at the end of the day
 |
| From Randoms |
Heres a shot of the gallery before we opened
 |
| From Random |
and a few of the exhibition shots
Since this was my first public exhibition and my name doesn't appear on the invite, I was curious to see who would be curious enough to show up.....I'd sent out a bunch of emails to friends and others and figured all would be revealed on the night.
A crowd of about 60 people propelled and bumped and manoeuvred through the space as it was quite busy with all the hanging implements! There was a large contingent from the community on which I live, a few travellers from afar and some new folk venturing into the unknown.
The whole idea was for people to engage with the elements within the space, and pretty much everything was designed to be "industrial" strength - tested with kids and survived! It was a very social night and the feedback was positive on all levels...
and once all the pleasantries were done, it was time for the drive to......
Bass Camp Mystery Doof www.basscamp.info
This party was held on the same night as my exhibition - we drove the 90 minutes to the remote site to join in the festivities. This crew have been operating for the past few years and have put on some nice events, quite inclusive and usually well organised....its always nice to have some installations well lit to document the night activities - here are some of the results:
 |
| From Randoms |
 |
| From Randoms |
 |
| From Randoms |
 |
| From Rainforest |
Since this was my first public exhibition and my name doesn't appear on the invite, I was curious to see who would be curious enough to show up.....I'd sent out a bunch of emails to friends and others and figured all would be revealed on the night.
A crowd of about 60 people propelled and bumped and manoeuvred through the space as it was quite busy with all the hanging implements! There was a large contingent from the community on which I live, a few travellers from afar and some new folk venturing into the unknown.
The whole idea was for people to engage with the elements within the space, and pretty much everything was designed to be "industrial" strength - tested with kids and survived! It was a very social night and the feedback was positive on all levels...
and once all the pleasantries were done, it was time for the drive to......
Bass Camp Mystery Doof www.basscamp.info
This party was held on the same night as my exhibition - we drove the 90 minutes to the remote site to join in the festivities. This crew have been operating for the past few years and have put on some nice events, quite inclusive and usually well organised....its always nice to have some installations well lit to document the night activities - here are some of the results:
 |
| From Bass Camp Pro... |
 |
| From Bass Camp Pro... |
 |
| From Bass Camp Pro... |
 |
| From Bass Camp Pro... |
 |
| From Bass Camp Pro... |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
