Lost photos

Several photos I had picked out for a series in my folio was old film shot, mostly from my Seagull camera. One night last week, I re-scanned them, because the old files I had weren’t big enough for printing. I was surprised the scans turned out so pale, I tried to boost the photo by post processing, but it just didn’t work. Sadly, the negatives I used were cheap and maybe also expired, so they have faded a lot over time.

The new scan

The old scan

This is one of my most favourite photos, I’m really quite sad and frustrated about loosing it, many other shots have suffered the same fate. I swear I will never use cheap or expired film again, EVER! I also want to send all my films to pro labs, but I doubt I can afford that, though it’s certainly cheaper than loosing my best shots…

Full steam ahead

I did the photo shoot with Adrian on last Sunday! For once the results came close to what I had in mind, which I’m very happy about. I arranged to pick up Adrian from the upstairs of Central Station and he stood out from a mile away in his sharp suit and sunglasses, in a good way of course.

V drove and we went to an abandoned location in western Sydney. Working with a professional model is such a huge difference. I only had to give a minimum amount of directions, he models, I just take the shots. I’ve never had such a smooth shoot with such good results. If I may say so myself :p

The location turned out perfect, the contrast between Adrian’s focused eyes and the messy rubble of the building was exactly what I had in mind. V was my assistant of the day and did a great job, he also gave me a few suggestions which turned into fantastic photos.

These photos have boosted my confidence about getting into Fabrica, my folio is definitely a lot stronger with this series.

upcoming photo shoot

Photo by Leslie Liu 

That is Adrian, a professional model and a friend of Gun’s.  Adrian and his friend Kevin need some photos for their folios, some of us amateur photographers also need photos for our folios, so voila, we’ll be doing some photo shoots, thanks to Gun for organising.

Leslie has already done his shoot, above is one of the great shots. I got mine coming up in 2 weeks time, V’s going to assist me and we’ll be going to a secret abandoned location :p

So hopefully Adrian plus this:

Will equal a good photo shoot. I’m quite excited! First time working with a professional model!

The fabrica dream

Photo from Psinewave. 

I had a dream about fabrica this morning. My alarm clock went off at 8, I turned it off, fell back asleep immediately after,  I woke up again at 8.30, so the dream must’ve been during that 30 minutes.

The dream was very vivid and detailed. I dreamed that I arrived at fabrica, but it was a whole bunch of buildings floating on the ocean off this beach. The beach and sea looked grey, muted and depressing, but I was too excited to care about the scenery. To get to the buildings, I had to ride this water scooter, looked similar to the photo above. But it was narrow and unsheltered so I didn’t dare take my cameras on it, I left them on the beach. Once I got to the campus, somehow my current work colleague Hazim was there, he’d been there on residency for a few months already. The campus was lively and had a great buzz. I found the girl that’s the student caretaker, we got a proper boat back to the beach to get my stuff. I woke up shortly after that.

Any of  you know dream interpretation?

Another list

Here’s a more immediate list of things to do, I like making lists.

• Design V’s business card and website.
• Design and print my photography folio.
• Redesign my own site to incorporate advertising, photography and crafty stuff.

I’ve started to lay out my folio on paper, just which photo goes where, keeping it simple and not too designed. I’ll be printing it through blurb, definitely the cheapest option by far. Had lunch with a friend today and had a look at her blurb book, I’m happy with the print and paper quality, so it’s definitely going to be blurb.

Read an article on pingmag about fabrica, apparently they get over 100 applications per week, which sounds very daunting. But I’m confident, I better be, I got no plan B. (Article here if you are curious.)

2008, a year for some changes

Allow me to make a list…

• quit current job
• leave advertising for good
• get into fabrica
• go to Italy for 12 months
• establish myself as a professional photographer
• enjoy life without a full time job

Sounds doable and sounds great. I know it will be very challenging, being away from Sydney, my family and especially V. I’ve never been away from family and friends for more than a few weeks, I know home sickness will strike me often. But I really need to get out of this uninspiring 9 to 5 rut that’s draining me creatively, can’t think of any better ways to jolt me out of it then fabrica.