Wow – I’m so slack at updating this thing. Since my last post I’ve been pretty busy and shot Spearhead (Great Gig!), The Dresden Dolls at the Victoria Room for JTV, Joan as Police Woman, Placebo and the Howling Bells so if you’re interested in checking out shots from those concerts check out my Flickr page and/or the triple j galleries. Gigs I’m shooting in the next week include the Drones, Parklife and the Foo Fighters so I should have some new photos on these pages soon.

There’s also a few magazines out now with my pics in it including:

Paperplane
This is a travel magazine made by the guys responsible for the always excellent Monster Children. I haven’t actually tracked a copy down yet – but it has a few of my shots from New York. It makes a nice change seeing stuff other than my Rock and Roll stuff being published.

J Mag
Nothing really exciting in the latest issue – a double spread of Missy Higgins playing at the Unearthed launch is my main contribution. It isn’t my favourite pic from the night but I can understand why they used it as it has the Unearthed banner behind her. I actually gave that pic to triple j marketing for that reason so it’s shown up heaps of places. Of course when the Daily Telegraph used it they cut the banner out – so you can’t win!

RollingStone Australia
This month’s RollingStone has a story on N’Fa and includes a photo of him playing at Splendour. I was the only photographer at his set (unless someone did a sneaky and took some shots later) as everyone was waiting for The Vines to make their “surprise” return on the other stage. Not my best work (as I only stayed for about one song then rushed to the main stage in time for The Vines) but I guess it shows that you never know what pics are going to be needed…

Big Life Out
This is an independent publication out of Adelaide. They used one of my Hot Lies photos from this year’s Come Together as the main pic on their front cover. Looks good!

Ok enough with the self promotion…

I haven’t shot anything for weeks and of course the two bands I’ve been looking forward to see had to be on the same night. Luckily both bands didn’t enforce the “3 songs” rule so I was able to shoot about half of each set. Plenty of make-up and botantical stage props at both gigs!

I really enjoyed the Sleepy Jackson – they can be a bit hit or miss but the current line-up have really gelled. There were some great extended jams and I could definitely hear a Syd Barrett influence which gets the thumbs up from me.

There’s a few more photos over at flickr and I’ll have the triple j galleries up sometime Monday.

So I’ve finally joined the web 2.0 revolution and got myself a flickr account.

After spending a few days checking out the features I’m pretty impressed. The use of tagging to build communities is realised brilliantly – it’s not only a great way to find specific images but it also allows you to explore unexpected paths. The new geo-tagging mode is also quite fun. Unfortunately street maps for Australia haven’t yet been introduced however the satellite view does go to street level which allows some degree of accuracy when tagging images.

I still don’t really know how I’ll use my flickr account – I’ll start by putting up a bit of the non-rock photography rotting on my hard-drive (so yes look forward to heaps of sunset, cat and flower shots). Anyway add me to your contact list – I’m a bit lonely at the moment!

Look forward to my next thrilling blog post – Matt gets a myspace account (shudder).

Here’s a pic of Kate on a train taken on Saturday. (Settings for all you camera nerds: focal length 20mm, ISO 400, manual exposure, 1/30 sec, f3.2)

Earlier that day, Kate gave me an accidental poke in the eye which led me to get a corneal ulcer (well I was silly enough to put in a contact lens after it happened which probably exacerbated the problem). It was a painful injury – I couldn’t sleep at all that night as it felt like I had razor blades under my eyelid. As my condition hadn’t improved by Sunday, a trip to the doctor was in order. He quickly diagnosed the problem with a fluorescein drop.

After a course of antiobiotic drops and plenty of shut-eye (pun intended) – my vision is almost back to normal. It wasn’t the nicest experience but it has definitely made me appreciate my sight!

It’s been a forgettable year for both these teams, however I thought I’d cheer the Cowboys on in their last Sydney game for 2006. I pulled the camera out for a few minutes in the second half – it makes a nice change to shoot in direct sunlight! It also gave me another excuse to use my 135mm f2.

Even with that focal length it’s still not really long enough to get close crops of the action – but it gave pretty nice results when the play went near the sidelines. Here Matt Bowen and Matt Sing combine to round up the Rabbitohs Joven Clarke.

Matt Sing was playing his second last game in Cowboys colours. He’s been one of my favourite players for years – I’ll never forget his heroics playing for Queensland in the ’95 Origin series.

Oh and I should mention the score – the Cowboys ran away victors 34-12.  Despite the loss I have to give wraps to the Rabbitohs fans – they were still cheering their team despite being behind on the scoreboard.

The poster for Bernard Fanning’s upcoming Australian tour features a photo I took at his Live at the Wireless performance late last year. The quality of the photo wasn’t the greatest (I blame dark ABC studios!) but it’s a pretty cool poster.

The end.

update 27.08: Has anyone seen this street poster anywhere in the city? I saw a few half torn down from the car window coming back from the football today and wouldn’t mind getting a photo of one out in the wild. They’re bloody huge!

update 06.09: Well no thanks to any of you – I (well actually my lovely assistant Kate) found a poster in East Sydney. If anyone cares check out a photo and map of the location on flickr. Oh I also saw a guy selling the poster ripped from a Melbourne Street mag on ebay – so the poster must be in high demand ;)

This London based band have been getting a bit of airplay in Australia with the song ‘You are the Generation that Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve’. Knowing very little about them I was probably expecting a more electronic vibe – however they were actually quite punk (in a good – not greenday sort of way). I haven’t been to Spectrum in over a year but it’s still dark and packed – a photographer’s nightmare! Despite this I’m pretty happy with how the photos turned out.

Jet are back for their first shows in Australia since Homebake in 2004 – playing tonight to a sell-out crowd at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney.

The first time I photographed Jet was the Big Day Out in 2004. I knew that they were going to be Number 1 in the Hottest 100, so took an obscene amount of photos in the hope that one would be ok for the triple j front page. (well I thought it was obscene at the time – I just checked and actually only took around 25 images – the joy of having only a 256MB card!) The band played in the early afternoon on a smaller side-stage but drew a massive crowd. Despite the hype I remember feeling slightly underwhelmed with the show. Two years of touring however has allowed them to hone their craft. Tonight they commanded the stage like a real rock and roll band – well for the first three songs anyway!

update 18.08: Check out the gallery from last night’s concert on triple j.

Jet perform at the Big Day Out in Sydney in 2004.

There was some unusual weather in Sydney this afternoon and like every man and his dog – I had to take a few happy snaps. This is probably the closest I’ve got to seeing snow!

This was taken at the front entrance of the Powerhouse Museum in Ultimo.

Inside the museum looking through at Harris St.

After the storm the light was amazing.

Well it’s all over. Thanks to everyone who turned up. I’ll write a more thorough report in the coming days but here’s a few more photos of the gallery space. I’m sure some more pics will show up on Boudist.com. Now it’s time to get some sleep…

ohh spooky we’re ghosts. (l-r Nic, Me, Dan)

Nic.

Dan.

more dan.