I have always loved taking pictures. My high school offered a photography class, and I joined up with my Olympus OM-1 35mm film camera my parents bought me for my 14th birthday. It happened that we had recently moved, and our new house was previously the residence of a surgeon who had his own darkroom set up in one of the downstairs rooms to develop X-rays. Access to a darkroom at home was a game changer, enhancing the photography experience with the magic of developing the pictures by hand. There was nothing like pegging up the freshly dipped Ilford sheets and watching the black and white images, dripping and curling as the subjects slowly appeared like apparitions on the line.
I had several cameras after that first one and continued to enjoy capturing places, people, and things of interest, just as a hobby. It wasn't until 2017, when I made the move from Australia to New York City, that I started to carry a camera again (an Olympus Pen-F incidentally) strapped to my person like my best friend, keeping me company in a foreign city-scape where I knew no-one and spent night after night in underground music clubs seeking out my musical mentors.
I quickly became a familiar face on the scene with musicians regularly requesting my ‘camera’s' attendance at shows . It is true that in a city like New York, you can genuinely re-invent yourself.
I go out weekly photographing musicians for the pure joy it brings and I work as a photographer in live venues, festivals, and the studio, the most sacred of all spaces.
My work has appeared in and on the covers of Downbeat Magazine, All About Jazz, The Jazz Times, Guitar Player, Drum Scene, and JAZZIZ magazine, as well as online in Guitar Girl Magazine, Jazz in Europe, Nightlife Exchange, The Bistro Awards, New York City Jazz Record, Stage & Cinema, and Broadway World, to name a few. I still have the Olympus Pen F in my gear (an update on the 0M-1) alongside my Canon Mark IV 5D.
"You must not think of yourself as looking at the stage from the audience. You must think of it as theatre in the round and look at it from all sides."
–– Jay Maisel (Light, Gesture and Colour)
I'd love to hear from you about your creative project.
Tell me about your photo shoot?
I can come to your live show and photograph you or we can set up a shoot in a studio or outdoor location. Skies the limit! (probably true because I can't photograph you in the sky…or can I?)