Portraits for New Edition of ANZ’s InPrivate Magazine.
May 15th, 2012 § 4 Comments
The beginning of this year I started working on creating some portraits for a newly designed ANZ magazine
called In Private. Working on location with Niche Media Project manager Julia Garvey and ANZ Bank Brand
Manager Brooke Donato we needed in a short period of time, with busy people to create an inspiring image of each of the
people featured to appear in the magazine. We would arrive an hour early to prepare for the 20-60 minutes we had to photograph each person.
The digital retoucher Rufina Breskin did a great job with minimal adjustments. I believe each portrait was kept very real
tweaking subtlety the skin tones and contrast resulting in four portraits in the first edition of the year I am very happy with under the
circumstances and in the context.
Portraits for consumer magazines involve multiple layers of considerations and compromises that consider the client, the subject and the art director.
These days I enjoy the challenge of bringing all these considerations together to make a good result while hopefully pleasing everyone.
Blog Featuring John Leongard
March 8th, 2011 § 5 Comments
Some months ago early September 2010 actually I was sent a link to this great interview with John Leongard
made by Scott Kelby. I think photographers, picture editors and those that watch the creative process may get some thing from
John’s Blog.
http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/2010/archives/11324
Interview with John Leongard
When I was studying photography at Sydney Technical College and working at News Limited as a Cadet photographer in the early 1980s John was the picture editor of Life Magazine. Certainly the world of journalism photography has changed a lot since then although Johns advise rings just as true today as then. I found the article useful despite not being a picture editor myself.
New Open Road Design
January 10th, 2011 § 2 Comments
OPEN ROAD January-February
The OPEN ROAD, the NRMA’s member magazine has just had a redesign. NRMA Publishing’s creative director Peter Sewell and his team have redesigned the masthead and there is new typography as well as other new editorial features. I was fortune enough to work with Peter on the cover story featuring NRMA president Wendy Machin. It was decided the portrait of Wendy should be made outside parliament house on Macquarie Street. The photographs needed to fulfill a strong brief so specifics were important and close collaboration with art direction necessary.
The pictures needed to point to the story to highlight the need for road funding commitments from NSW government.
I arrived early with assistant Gary Compton to work out where I could make a clean cover shot with parliament in the background as requested The photograph was quite a challenge with such busy backgrounds especially when shooting in bright sunlight.
I decided to shoot from two locations on the other side of the road from parliament and frame Wendy close and centre using neutral density filters to blow the background out as much as possible at f 2.2 or so. I would then pull back for the inside shot where background context would be helpful. I use my Canon flash fired wirelessly with a pocket wizard through my small Chimera softbox I have had for twelve years and as good today as when I bought it. We decided the background was not clean enough and we should try setting up on the same side of the road as parliment. The sandstone wall and the black iron gate would serve as clean background going out of focus nicely shooting at f2.2. I used the soft directional light just above the camera and padded down some specular highlights on Wendy with powder. We worked on as many subtile variations on body language and expression as possible in our time so the best image would reveal it’s self in editing.
Here are the published results the cover and inside feature page.
I am really happy with the way it ended up published Peter made the most of the selection I feel.
OPEN ROAD inside feature spread
Alan Davies and the NSW State Library Collection
December 14th, 2010 § 1 Comment
The ‘Iconic Australian Photography’ short story by the History Channel is now showing on Foxtel (channel 44) and via the NSW State Library’s website. Curator of photography at the NSW State Library Alan Davies discusses the collection in a five minute video production.
Alan discusses, a beautiful story, one that I had not heard before of two mates Max Dupain and Damien Parer. Alan also relays the story of discovering in a shoebox of negatives the photography of George Caddy and his photographs of Bondi Beach acrobatics from the 1930s and 40s.
Alan Davis NSW Sate Library Curator of Photography
It is a brief outline of the workings of the library and it’s collection with it’s million plus photographs. Two of my own photographs flash before the screen for less than a second during the presentation.
One a photograph I took of Australian Aboriginal runner Cathy Freeman as she realised the expectations of a nation winning gold in the 400 metre final at the Sydney 2000 Olympics . The second photograph I made as a guest of a friends wedding as the groom swiped the top of a profiterole wedding cake with a Naval College World War I ceremonial sword.
Cathy Freeman winning 400m at Sydney 2000 Olympics.
The art director for TIME Pacific back in 2000 Susan Olle kindly hired me to photograph the two weeks of the Sydney Olympics. TIME pacific needed a specially accredited photographer of their own just in case at any time during the Olympics they needed a photographer to make a portrait, attend a demonstration, or photograph a particular person in an event. I was not really needed for the sports action, they had Joe McNally from the USA assigned and another photographer based in Russia. TIME had access to Allsport’s photographs (now Getty images). I photographed a different sport every day over the two weeks. I covered beach volleyball, rowing, swimming, the marathon, equestrian, kayaking and of course athletics.
I remember very clearly just how much Australian expectation there was for Cathy Freeman to win the 400m. Australians wanted, actually needed her to win. Standing high up in the stand I had a very ordinary position facing the finish line with my 600 mm lens on my main camera and a 80-200 mm lens on the second camera using 400 ISO colour negative film. I photographed it because I just wanted to be there to watch history being made. Up in the stand I was with hundreds of photographers all elbow to elbow. After photographing most of the event with the long lens I switched to the 80-200 zoom and once she got up from the ground after sitting down for what seemed ages it could have been between 5-7 minutes I made photographs of her walking and waving to the crowd. In a number of frames I included in the picture the time of her run, the final places on the board, I composed her very small in scale to the enormous crowd. I have had many positive comments from writers on this photograph none from photographers. It is not a photographers photograph, it is a historian’s photograph, it is all about time and place. TIME Pacific published it across two pages as the opener to the coverage that week and some seven or so years later Alan Davies purchased the photograph for the NSW State library archive in 2004, one of twenty or so I have with the library. This Cathy Freeman photograph was one of a number of images I selected for the final edit of the games. It was Susan who actually spotted the image and considered it as some thing special amongst perhaps twenty or so photographs of the Cathy Freeman race. Susan chose it for the magazines opener for that weeks coverage otherwise the photograph may have passed by any notice in the busyness and stress of the time.
Cathy Freeman winning the 2000 Olympics 400m
Felicity and Dat cut the cake
Felicity and Dat’s wedding in contrast was not work. I just took some photographs for a close friend’s wedding. When you are not commissioned you can do what you want. I actually like photographing weddings, especially when I can work in a documentary style. At some quiet time in the proceedings, usually after the ceremony I make some portraits of the couple and their family, an image to put in a frame where the couple are at their best and the photographs reflect a sense of place.
In this case I had the camera-lens combination I always used to loved when I was using film, a 28-70 mm Zoom on a Canon SLR and a 35 mm on my Leica rangefinder camera. It was time to cut the cake and as I waited to document the event Dat lifted the sword and just took a swipe at the top of the cake I instinctively lifted the camera and took the photograph. I must have pre focused without thinking about it as the photograph was nice and sharp, a little movement although that added to the energy of the image. It happened so quickly I had no time to think, I just did it. Alan purchased this photograph for the library and it along with the Cathy Freeman photograph. Some year latter they featured in the book on the collection the library published in 2004 called Eye for Photography.
The key for photographs presented to the library is, their information and their historical significance. It’s nice to have a few photographs in the archive at NSW State Library.
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Brunette Downs -Northern Territory
November 3rd, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Photographs from assignment on Brunette Downs in the Northern Territory. Der Spiegel writer Takis Wurger and myself spent 5 days on Brunette Downs, one of the largest cattle stations in Australia it is said to be bigger than some countries. Henry and Burnadette Burke opened up all doors to the property to us with very warm hospitality. We had a taste of most aspects of the daily life of the property as we crossed the length and breadth of the 12,212 sq km Barkly Tableland property. We witnessed the repairing of a problem bore, went out with cattle muster, stayed overnight sleeping under the stairs along with a muster team camped out on location, we watched the movement of the muster from a muster helicopter, observed the drafting of cattle in the yards, and watched the three carriage road train drop animals off in a new paddock.
The work is highly skilled, physically demanding and requires a lot of strength and patience.
Australian Cattle Property Brunette Downs – Images | Michael Amendolia – Photography.
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Der Spiegel article.
November 3rd, 2010 § 1 Comment
Der Spiegel Article on methane gas from cows
Der Spiegel article on methane from cows and three ipad videos. In August this year I spent five days working on a story for Der Spiegel magazine in Germany on the effects of methane gas from cows and it’s effect on the greenhouse gas and climate change. Working with staff writer Takis Wurger it was the first time I had shot video on an assignment. As a result Der Spiegel created these three videos for the ipad edition.
I shot the stills and video on my Canon 5D mark 2. In making the video I attached a Hoodman Lube and a Rode stereo mic, for interviews extended by an extension cable with the microphone held under the chin of the subject. Interviews were made using a lightweight Manfrotto tripod and a video head. Some of my video got a little shaky bouncing along on the back of the utility following the cattle muster otherwise I kept the focal length fairly wide when working handheld and used a tripod for longer lens work. Working in stills and video comes with some compromise, although I feel it was fine when you have some time.
I cannot image it would work well on a moving news assignment although on a feature story it may be fine although tough decisions need to be made when time and moments are short.
Click on the links to check them out.
http://video.spiegel.de/flash/1089086_996x560_H264_1400.mp4
