There's something a little fishy going on here

It’s been a bit quiet round these parts as i was dipping my toes into the warm waters of Thailand.

As has become the norm on holidays of late the SLR stayed stowed away for the most part, but i took it out for a trip underwater with an EWA Marine case borrowed from Charlie.

Cybele says hi

These were taken in the water off Phi Phi island, you drop a bit of bread in the water and the fish go bananas.

It's getting a little crowded in here

Swimming with this many fish is a bit overwhelming. It feels like you’re being eaten alive by a pack of piranhas, until you realise that the fish are doing their darndest to never touch you no matter how much you flail your limbs about.

Except for one fish who pecked at my nipple. Kinky devil.

Next to where these photos were taken is a little spot called Monkey Beach. Surprise surprise, monkey’s hang out there. They’re used to humans feeding them, so as soon as you arrive they descend from the trees in the hopes of a snack.

2am 1st January 2011. Phi Phi island.

This one's for all my friends in the Northern Hemisphere.

Happy 2011 everyone.

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As i mentioned before, on my recent US trip it was a joy to just be on holiday and take happy snaps again. That meant leaving the SLR behind most of the time and just using the iPhone.

As The Awl pointed out the other day, it’s getting a little old hat adding film effects to digital photos. But I like em better this way.

A pitstop on the drive through Big Sur

Cybele conquers the petrified wood

Los Angeles, land of the never ending palm tree

Nevada desert

$2.50 thongs at Walmart

True Blood country in Louisiana

Vegas Luxor

Our first night in New York we saw Tracy Morgan do standup at the Apollo

LA Roosevelt

First taste of the Gulf coast

South Beach Miami

Life is hard

Miami

Daytona

If you shake the iPhone while you shoot things get a little bendy

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In Joshua Tree National Park on the drive to Las Vegas

It’s been a bit quiet round these parts because i’m on holiday at the moment in the US. Cybele and i are in New Orleans now, leaving on a drive along the Gulf Coast today towards Miami, then onto New York.

I’ve been enjoying not worrying about photography and just being a tourist again, taking happy snaps on the iPhone. For it’s old school polaroid feel i’ve fallen for the Shakeit Photo app.

I’ll continue to post photos from the trip to my tumblr blog.

Cruising through Oakland in our convertible

Seattle

Cybele on a pitstop through Big Sur

At Hoover Dam

These are the cameras we lug around. No brand loyalty here - Bronica, iPhone, Canon and Nikon

Poolside in LA

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Matamanoa Island as seen from Hipstamatic

Cybele and I have just returned from a lovely week long holiday on the Fijian island of Matamanoa.

Like our last holiday, i hardly took any photos. Since doing photography for a living, holidays have been more of an occasion for downtime, away from the camera, laptop, iphone and distractions of twitter, facebook, email, rss feeds and information overload that’s normal life.

But one occasion when the camera came out was at night, to try and capture the night sky.

One lesson i learned is that you really need a rock solid tripod for this sort of thing. A rickety plastic table isn’t ideal.

And that the world spins remarkably quickly. The stars begin to blur after a 30 second exposure.

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The film projector at the Academy Twin, 2007

I was very disappointed this morning to hear of the demise of the Palace Academy Twin Cinema in Paddington. Apparently rental negotiations between Palace Cinemas and the landlord, the Greek Orthodox Community of Sydney have come to a stalemate and the cinema will close for good on June 27.

Quotes from both sides on Dark Habits.

Since i was a child i’ve seen countless films at the cinema and it holds many good memories. I have numerous friends who’ve worked there and i felt part of their staff community back when i worked at the Village Twin cinema in Double Bay through high school and university.  Even though we were competitors we had a gentleman’s agreement that Palace staff could come to Village Twin Double Bay for free films, and we could go to Palace Cinemas. I saw so many films in that time.

I shared my thoughts on the Village Twin closing down back in 2004, and i can imagine the staff past and present of the Academy Twin are feeling similarly.

The cast and director of Animal Kingdom at the Academy Twin, May 25th 2010

Most recently i was at the Academy Twin for the premiere of Animal Kingdom. It was such a perfect venue for it. The theatre, while a bit tumbledown, has a feeling of history and charm, and is far friendlier than the soulless multiplexes of Hoyts and Event Cinemas.

Some of the Animal Kingdom cast onstage at the Academy Twin

Ben Mendelsohn on the red carpet at the Academy Twin

It’s a great shame.

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The opening night crowd at Covers - photos by Patrick Stevenson

I was quite overwhelmed and touched by the support for Cybele and my photo show Covers opening night on Thursday.

Our thirsty guests smashed through 15 cases of beer and 12 bottles of wine in just the first hour. We sold a bunch of pictures and made some money for Oasis.

Now the first night is over the show continues. The covers will be at Mart Gallery until 20th February. The gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday 12-5pm.

The show and opening night wouldn’t have gone so well without the help of the following people. So HUGE THANKS  to:

• Mel at Mart Gallery
• Everyone who’s come along to the show, and especially those who bought prints
• Becks for providing the booze
• Liv and Mimi for serving all that booze
• Patrick Stevenson for taking the opening night photos
• Cybele for being amazing and the star of the show
• Justin for all his expertise prepping and hanging the work
• All the media for helping spread the word about the show

We enjoyed great support from:

• Time Out Sydney
• Drum Media
• The Brag
• Two Thousand
• Pedestrian
• Concrete Playground
• 3D World
• The Blackmail
• Coco + Maria
• Boundary Sounds
• FBi Radio
• Unseen Magazine
• Throw Shapes
• Side Street Sydney

Thank you.

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I’m off to Brisbane tomorrow, ready to speak at Underexposed on Saturday.

Underexposed is a series of music photography related events, a gallery show of music photography, live gigs and a forum/workshop/symposium type thing which i’m involved in.

The symposium goes for a full day this Saturday and features workshops for aspiring music photographers on everything one might need to know.

There’s also talks by people like me and my recent interview subject Tony Mott.

Tony’s is a great storyteller and legend of the music photography scene and is bound to give an entertaining and enlightening talk.

It’s $58 for the whole day which also includes entry to a gig on Saturday night with Screamfeeder, My Fiction, Grand Atlantic, The Cairos, Parlour Style, Steve Grady and Chloe Tully.

The Saturday schedule looks like this:

Tickets are available now from Faster Louder. There’s only 20 left.

You can find out more on the Underexposed website.

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A few snaps of tats, piercings and t-shirts at the Sydney Big Day Out.

Postscript

I saw this happy family down at Bondi and thought they made a nice addition to the collection of flag wavers.

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There was news this week that Flickr has struck up a partnership with Getty images to start allowing Flickr photographers to license their images via Getty.

Specific details about how it will work are scarce, but we know the system will begin “soon” and that it won’t be open slather across all images, only the ones chosen by Getty picture editors.

From a photographers perspective

I’ve long thought it would be handy if Flickr had an in built tool to allow people to pay for a license to use an image.

On a semi regular basis i’m contacted by people asking if they can use one of my photos they found on Flickr. From ad agencies wanting it for a campaign, to a band wanting a shot for a run of photocopied gig flyers. Most often it’s opportunists looking for a free photo but sometimes they approach prepared to spend.

As an example, i was contacted by an ad agency about licensing the image above after they found it on my Flickr page. I’m hopeless at negotiating money deals and knew that i’d probably underquote. I’ve done so before and felt a fool when i realised the proper commercial value.

So i flicked the ad agency over to Retna who i sometimes syndicate my images with. They sold it for US$3000, took a 50% commission and i ended up with US$1500 for an image i took over a year ago and never imagined getting paid for. Regular Flickr users don’t have that facility, i already had an existing relationship with the photo agency.

Without a photo agency involved it’s a fairly laborious process of many exchanged emails before a resolution is reached. There’s no set fee structure, so it’s always a stab in the dark at working out an appropriate fee. Most often nothing gets resolved and everyone’s time is wasted.

I’d find it handy to cut out this process and just let people decide for themselves whether they wanted to license the photo based on a preset fee structure.

Like adsense for photos

I don’t put photos on Flickr with a view to selling them. Many photos i couldn’t sell because of copyright issues or existing licensing deals.

But a bit like bloggers using google adsense on a personal blog, it wouldn’t hurt to get a bit of extra pocket money should someone wish to buy a license to use a photo i already took.

I already upload everything in hi-res, i title, caption and keyword the images. It’s all ready to go.

From a photo buyers perspective

I work in house for a weekly magazine sitting next to the picture editor. Every day she sources dozens of images to use; free publicity stills, agency editorial photos, cheap stock photos. It’s often pretty frantic trying to source the right photo with a looming deadline.

Sometimes a search finds a photographer on Flickr with a photo that would be perfect to use. But if we need the photo in hi-res for deadline that day it’s not even worth trying to get in touch with the photographer.

It takes days or weeks and many emails to negotiate with a photographer about using a Flickr photo. You have to wait for them to read the emails, negotiate a fee you’re both happy with, and then dig out the original hi-res file.

When buying an image from Getty there’s standard rates and you can have the hi-res in a matter of moments.

Even if a photo on Flickr is more appropriate and cheaper than a Getty shot, Getty wins for convenience and speed.

A Photo Editor’s perspective.

From a non-Getty agency perspective

Photoshelter is a photo agency that offers more generous commissions to photographers and helps foster a photographer friendly community through things like blogs and events. Prompted by the Getty/Flickr alliance they published a blog post titled “How Getty is killing the stock photo industry“.

They say it’s in trend with Getty’s monopolistic practices and non-photographer friendly licensing terms.

Earlier this year Photoshelter developed a tool to easily transfer Flickr photos directly into a Photoshelter account where they could be sold. It was shut down by Flickr less than 2 days after it launched. It was a shame because i think Photoshelter’s photographer friendly community vibe sits well with Flickr’s users.

I have a Photoshelter account but haven’t taken the time to upload more than a dozen or so pictures because it’s such a time consuming process titling, captioning, keywording and uploading each image.

If the Flickr/Getty alliance means little to no extra work for a photographer it’ll be a compelling proposition.

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On Saturday night some friends threw a party at Cybele’s studio for their book club called Even Books.

The book was The Dirt, the story of Mötley Crüe, so the night was suitably hedonistic.

There was a reading from the book by Septimus Caton, Rock trivia with Elmo, Guitar Hero and a performance by Chaingang.

Lots more photos in the gallery.

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