Author: John McRae

Go ahead….book your Xmas photography session………..

Call mb: 0419619161

email: john@johnmcrae.com

I attended the opening of the National Portrait Prize, 2016 on Friday night (18 April).  I made the trip to Canberra to see my portrait of a group of performers outside the Imperial Hotel in Erskineville, Sydney.

This is the 3rd time that I have been hung in the prize and it is always a buzz to rock up to the wonderful building that houses the NPG.  As I walked in I was given a lanyard with my name and “finalist” status written on it…obviously to identify me as one of the finalists in the crowd.  The finalist were given VIP access to the space before the public entered to view the works and to mingle and meet amongst themselves.

What a nice feeling to walk in and see your work on the walls…..always a great moment for an artist and worth every effort of getting the work and your body down to Canberra.

Congratulations to the winner, Elizabeth Looker who’s work you will see if you visit the website of the NPG….or better still, take a trip to Canberra and see the work in situ at the gallery.

Exhibition runs from 19 March, 2016 – 26 June, 2016 at the NPG, Canberra

Dont forget you can also vote for the “People’s Choice” at the following web address:

www.portrait.gov.au/peopleschoice/

GREAT NEWS!!!

One of my recent works has been chosen as a finalist in the National Portrait Prize.

The exhibition dates are:  19 March – 26 June, 2016 at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra

Unfortunately I am obliged not to show the selected work until the opening of the exhibition which is a bit weird when you’re announcing the selection but do not show the selected work….but I’m sure you’ll understand.

I’m looking forward to the exhibition.  It’s one of the prizes that I like…always good portraits in the line up and well worth the trip to have a look at what other photographers are up to in the area of portraiture.

Hello Again!

Well this month has seen a return to Pomonal.  I took a trip down to Victoria for several reasons, one of which was to visit my sister in Pomonal, a village at the foot of the Grampain mountain range.

This time I drove.  What a boring drive it is!  Now that the highway by-passes all that is mildly interesting you are left with bitumen and Caltex Roadhouses.  Did I say already the drive was boring………

After hours and hours on the road I made it to Pomonal and to my sisters brilliant little house.  Here’s a shot……..

I found my sister, Helen and Denise on the porch, waiting for my arrival.  Denise is my sister’s best friend.  She is also a transexual, living in rural Victoria.  I love the dynamic between Helen and Denise and took every opportunity to get a few shots, as you will see in the following brief overview of my trip.

Of course there’s always something to do in the country, never a dull moment.  It was time to water the garden!  We can note here that the Wimmera Mallee area has been in drought for some time now.  It’s all you ever here spoken about in the public places such as the General Store, up the road from my sister.  Endless summerising and speculation about the elements, will we or will we not, get rain today.  It’s almost as good as the road trip from Sydney.

That evening Helen made a fabulous dinner for us.  I picked my brother Peter up in Melbourne so he spent the week in Pomonal as well.  Denise and her boyfriend of 3 years, Greg, also attended, along with a couple of neighbours.

We paid a visit to some neighbours, Nadia and Joel.  Joel has sheep and knows a lot about them.  Nadia runs the communications hub of Pomonal, the General Store.  At her General Store you can also pick up extra supplies, post letters, hire videos, get a sandwich, enjoy a great cup of coffee, buy fishing gear, get the daily newspaper, buy great “Grampians” olive oil, get some local craft items and the list goes on………  Every morning I would drive the 200m to the Nadia’s and get my daily dose of caffeine, sit and do my e-mails and have a chat to Nadia while all the locals, one by one, would file in

Next stop was a short visit to Denise and Greg’s new house in Stawell.  They had both recently moved from Pomonal where they were living right next door to the General Store.  I imagined that Helen may have been disappointed with the fact that Denise had moved away from the area however, that was not the case, Stawell is only a 20min car journey away….so they see each other almost as much as when Denise was living 200m down the road.

I took the opportunity to take a few shots of Denise and Greg in their backyard, next to a couple of cars they are in the process of doing up.  Denise was excited to tell me that both of them have joined the “Holden Car Club” in Stawell and that they intend to do up a number of old Holdens.  I tried to look interested.

Following…..Peter and I hopped in the car and continued onto Horsham.  Horsham is the town where I went to school, swam and played basketball.  I lived a bit out of the city on a defunct dairy farm…so I can’t really say I’m from Horsham.  Here’s a couple of shots of Horsham so you get the picture.

We made a visit to the cemetery where an ever growing number of the relatives reside then headed back to Pomonal for a swim in Lake Fyans.

We found an old chair not far from the shore of the lake which provided an unexpected but very comfortable seating arrangement for our numerous visits.  The lake is only a 10min drive from Pomonal and is a great way of cooling off when the temperatures sore.  Not that it was super hot at this time of year.

Speaking of the weather…….I mentioned that it was hot enough for a swim.  That was true for the first 2 days however, a chill hit on the 3rd day,  to the point that the thermometer dropped to nearly zero some evenings.  I wasn’t prepared for that!  Apparently this time of year can be a bit up and down and you have to remember….it is Victoria.  But seriously it is a great time to go to the Grampians….all the native flowers are out in bloom, the landscape is greener than usual (in spite of the ongoing drought, it still looked quite green) and the weather is nice and mild, not too cold and not too hot.  Of course, the other climatic scenario in this area is the annual bushfires during the summer months.  You are surrounded by the the charred remains of eucalyptus, evidence of the frequency of such events.

Helen thought that Peter and I would like a drive to an historic village, to meet a friend of hers and have lunch together in his rather large house.  Why not?  Off went went to near a place called “Willaura”.  I wouldn’t say it’s a bustling metropolis…..I didn’t see any people until I walked into the bakery and purchased a macadamia nut slice from the young man behind the counter.  I reckon they’d make good bread though….I just felt you’d get good bread at this place. Here are a few shots.

Lunch was delicious.  Peter and I enjoyed her cooking all week.  We ate with Rob the owner of a large bluestone homestead on a farm, 10 mins drive from Willaura.  He was a generous and welcoming host and we had a great time.

I suppose I should say I was fortunate to be in Pomonal during the week of the Stawell Show, the annual carnival of local produce and various activity.  I say this because it meant that Denise had decided to enter, once again, into some of the baking categories for the chance to take home the blue ribbon.  This also meant that Denise and Helen had organised a “baking evening”, the night before the entries had to be delivered.  Little did I know that Helen and Denise would be going, at it, until 2am in the morning, squeaking and giggling and basically preventing anyone with normal audio capabilities from sleeping.  Helen had the cook books, handed down through the generations and offered her tutelage during the long, noisy process.  She wasn’t allowed to touch any of the ingredients or have any kind of hands on involvement…..these were some of the rules that they both respected.

All in all it went fairly well.  There were 2 items (the date loaf and the nut loaf) that had to be re-made for various reasons.  The best bit is that Denise won every section she entered on the Saturday at the Show.  She was ecstatic!  All the hard work and late nights paid off.

See the little house in the background of the shot above.  That’s where she lived for sometime before moving in with Greg.  The house sits on my sisters property.  You can’t see it, but my sister’s house is just behind.  By a stoke of luck, Denise discovered the house on another property in the area.  The owners were going to demolish it and Denise took the opportunity to ask them how much they wanted for it.  She scored it for $100…not bad!  I imagine it cost more to organise for it to be transported from where she brought it to where it is now.

I left Pomonal with a warm feeling in my stomach, having spent a wonderful 5 days in rural bliss.  My sister was an amazing host.  She even gave me her bed.  Now Helen’s bed is the most comfortable bed I have ever experienced.  It’s like sleeping on a cloud with a silver lining….you float!

I stopped in on my friend Ned who lives in Melbourne to say hello and take a couple of shots.  Here’s one below.  Ned has a fantastic companion called, Merlin.  I made it home to Sydney, refreshed and happy.

GOOD NEWS!

My portrait of George Frazis has been selected, among 20 works, as a finalist in the annual “Shoot The Chef” competition.

Artist Statement:

George Frazis is one of those rare diamonds. George spent 15 years as a cook in the Greek Merchant Navy. In 1963, after jumping ship in Newcastle to be with his fiancee, Anthippe (pictured in the smoky background of the image), he found work as a chef in several of Sydney’s most glamorous and sometimes notorious restaurants, including Chelsea’s in Kings Cross, The Russian Coachman in Surry Hills and Dimitri’s, serving culinary delights to the wealthy, the not-so-wealthy, the famous and the infamous.  Fast forward 50 years and we find George still in the kitchen, now cooking in his son’s Rozelle coffee bar, Latticini, where we see the appreciation for his loyalty and hard work proudly displayed on the wall, ironically announcing his “Employee of the Month” status.

All 20 finalist works can be viewed on exhibition, as part of the Parramatta Lanes Festival from October 6 – 9, 2015  (http://www.parramattalanes.com.au)

People’s Choice Award:

Now I know all of you would want to cast your vote for the people’s choice award….well it’s very simple, click on the following link to take you to the SMH Clique page where you will find the winner and all finalist works displayed for you to vote on your favorite.  Make sure you vote!

http://www.smh.com.au/national/clique/for-the-love-of-photography-and-food-shoot-the-chef-2015-20150821-gj4ni7.html

I’m thinking that if I could get to do a regular post…may be once a month, that would be an appropriate interval.  By appropriate, I mean at a frequency that I could handle in terms of the time I have to sit down and pen such a thing.

So I here is my month in review for August.  Some, but surely not all, of the highlights during the month.

I loved the cover I did for SX this month.  Long time drag performer, Amelia Airhead posed for my lens.  I have been shooting drag performers for quite a while now but this is the first time I have come across Amelia.  I believe she is a contemporary of the like of the famous Mitzi Macintosh whom I have shot a number of times before she headed off to the Mother Land.

Amelia was promoting the “Broken Heel festival”….which as the name suggests is a drag festival which is taking place the weekend of the 5th and 6th of September in Broken Hill!  Yes, I said Broken Hill.  The whole thing sounds fabulous and if I wasn’t working this weekend I might consider going along to have a look….sounds like it could be quite wacky!  For more info go to: http://gaynewsnetwork.com.au/readonline/archives/sx763/index.html

Amelia was delightful and it’s always a pleasure to work with Reg Domingo, the Editor of SX.

Amelia Airhead

Amelia being interviewed by Reg Domingo (Reg is the one behind the camera)

Also, this month Matthew Mitcham performed his cabaret show in both Alice Springs and in Sydney at “Slide” in Oxford Street.  I was fortunate enough to be at both performances.

Here are a few shots of the evening……

And you even get a signed autograph (and photo, if you like) at the end of the performance!

What else have I been up to….

Well I shot the team at “Fastvisa” this month.  That was fun.  A good bunch of people who are making the arduous process of obtaining and Australian visa a little more human and a little more hastle free.  So if you know of anyone planing to move across here from another country and they would like some help in obtaining a visa and setting up bank account, business enterprises etc, give these guys a call.

Pictured Alberto Fascetti, Stefano Solferini and Conor Harty (from left to right)

www.fastvisa.com.au

Brigitte came to Australia this month. 

Brigitte is the friend of an artist friend of mine.  They met while both holidaying in NYC last year and Brigitte decided to visit this month.  I took the opportunity to mark the ocaision by taking her portrait on a visit to my studio.  (See below)

A friend said to me, “Have you seen the new Bachelor Girl?”.   I had no idea what they were talking about.

Later, as they explained, I realised that the person they were talking about was none other than the beautiful Heather Maltman.

I had met Heather some years ago.  I remember thinking that her brand of beauty was engaging in an interesting way and that I would like to shoot her.  She is a good sport and agreed to work on some images together.

I am particularly happy that Heather has now found her way to being on the TV in “The Bachelor” series on channel 10 and wish her all the best.

When I first met Will he was a dancer and choreographer.  Over a period of a few years I had the good fortune to work on a number of shoots with Will and his team, at the time.  However, he disappeared for a while overseas.  Recently, he re-surfaced in my life and asked me to work on a new set of images for a forthcoming project, based in Brisbane.

Here are some images from the day.

The “Sydney Props Specialists” in Marrricville, where the shoot took place,  has a bit of an “Alice in Wonderland” feel with all these props and sets lying around throughout the building.  The facilities are great and the place is a lot of fun.

My trusty assistant, Erick, re-living his days as a Paris cat-walk model…..a while ago, I might add!

I love taking shots of make-up and hair….always a very concentrated effort.

Maxime was covering day “en video”.  Can’t wait to see the results.

Dan Murphey was directing the video component…..

Plenty of talented girls animated the styling…………..

Recently, I had the pleasure of shooting  an English based fashion label who’s primary material was latex.  The label is “Catalyst Latex”.  The theme was “hospital” and there was plenty on offer for the fashion conscious doctor, nurse and patient.

It was a fun shoot which mirrored the tongue in cheek nature of the brand as you can see from the pics below.  So if you feel like getting into a bit of “hospital grade latex”…look them up.  I’m sure they have an on-line service.