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ZoeFest 2009 Australia Mission Beach

…and we named him Octavius

Like most good things, it started with a delicious dinner.

A month or two before arriving at Mission Beach, Michael Marlborough and I met up to eat Ethiopian food and chat about travel plans (and before anyone says it, yeah, Ethiopian food – kind of an oxymoron, huh? But it’s awesome. Try it). Some wine had been drunk and we were throwing out ideas for shoots. There was a nautical theme going on – we talked about anchors, rope, and sailors. Then I said, “Giant squid!”

Michael’s eyes lit up.

Now, I wasn’t exactly joking when I started talking about cephalopods. You know those images you have in your mind, the ones you hope someday with enough time, resources and the right people to work with, you’ll get down on film? Well, one of the ones in the back of my head, taking up important room, involved a many-legged sea creature. Turns out my photographer friend had a similar affliction. Perhaps we were onto something. Since both of us live inland, shooting near the ocean is not something we get to do very often and our access to sea creatures is limited. We had to take the opportunity while we could.

Weeks later, driving from Townsville to Mission Beach, we procured ourselves the largest frozen octopus we could find, with the help of a very bemused fishmonger. This was Octavius.
He was so big that, once thawed in a bucket of iced water, we needed an assistant just to keep him in position. Plus rubber bands, several chairs and afterwards, a lot of soap. But we worked it out and Octavius turned out to be a pretty decent model.

There is nothing quite like seeing an image you’ve had in your mind, exactly as you saw it, finally come into being on the preview panel of a camera or a proof sheet. It was one of the best moments at Mission Beach and something I’ll never forget. The feeling of having a large octopus draped over my face has been largely blanked out, so there’s nothing but happy endings to this story. Oh, and some pictures.

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ZoeFest 2009 Australia Mission Beach

Babinda Boulders: Slippery When Wet

I made two excursions to Babinda Boulders.  It’s located in a park in the jungle midway between Cairns and Mission Beach, Australia.  Rapids run through beautiful curvy rock formations carved by the river as well as rain erosion.  The first visit was upon arrival in Australia. Claudine and I were anxious to shoot and stopped by there on the way to Mission Beach after flying into Cairns from Auckland, NZ.  There is about a mile of paved paths running high above the river bank to give you several lookout points over the beautiful rocks.  We reached the end of the trail overlooking a vast stretch of boulders with rapids running through them and cascading in small waterfalls.  Kids were everywhere jumping from boulder to boulder and over the stream as well.  Danger signs were everywhere – “Extremely Slippery, People have died here !”   With all the kids jumping from boulder to boulder, how dangerous could it be?  So we ventured out.  Of course, I find a wet patch and proceed to fall on my ass. It was like walking on ice! The signs were not joking.  So we gingerly wandered among the boulders trying to find private places to shoot.  In most cases, we had just a few minutes opportunity to shoot before onlookers materialized.  However, even with those limitations, I love the images we got – especially the ones of her curled up in these gorgeous womb like carvings in the rock.

The next day I went on a scouting trip of some locations for shooting later in the week and Rebecca came along for the adventure and also some shooting if we found some places.  Josephine Falls was gorgeous, but too crowded.  We were near Babinda Boulders and thought Rebecca might enjoy seeing it. Plus, there was a whole section I had not seen the day before, and it might not be as crowded to shoot in the areas I had been. We went back to the area Claudine and I had shot in.  It was not as crowded as the day before and we wandered around looking for shooting locations.  I warned Becca about the slippery rocks.  She thought it would be cool to shoot by the water by jumping down about 4 feet  into this cubby hole by the water. I was nervous, but off she jumped…..annnnd slipped right off the little rock ledge and into the rapids.  She was caught in a shoot of water barely clutching the rock walls before being swept down stream. I jumped down in the same cubby hole, slipping myself and it took all my strength to steady myself on the slippery rock and pull her out against the current. Miraculously, the sarong she had on didn’t get ripped off her by the current.  So now we are holding on to each other stuck in this cubby hole, just big enough for the both of us, with the rock ledge we need to get out 4 feet up.  So, I steadied myself and pushed her up the ledge and she was out.  But now I was stuck. It was too slippery for me to get any kind of footing to get out. Luckily two Aussie teenagers came the rescue. One holding on to me to pull me out and the other holding on to his mate to prevent him from slipping down into the hole with me.  Without them, it would have been a loooonggg wait because nobody was around.  So we were both bruised and banged up, but nothing major.  We had lost the confidence in remaining safe in the area, so we departed for the upper part of the river.  Here, the water pools into a small lake before being channeled into the rapids below. Rebecca went swimming in the pool with me shooting at a distance with a 300mm lens.  I couldn’t get closer due to the danger of slipping on the rocks to get to the pool and going swimming with my camera gear.  I think Rebecca enjoyed her skinny dipping and swimming except for one time putting her hand on a rock and finding a spider larger than her hand in a cubby hole. I love the ones we got with the light highlighting her form while swimming.  Later in the week, we visited a crocodile farm and learned that crocs are known to habitat bodies of water like the one Becca was swimming in.  hmm. That’s one bitey thing I’m glad we didn’t meet in the wild!

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ZoeFest 2009 Australia Mission Beach

Soph: Jungle Dance

This was a day of firsts.  First time working with the lovely Soph from Australia, first time entering the jungle forests of Australia and the first time I encountered the biting things of Australia.  The first two firsts more than made up for the last one.  We shot in two locations, first in some forest near Mission Beach and then among the rocks and trees on Mission Beach.  We entered the forest on a trail and did some shooting among some trees using the shadows of the leaves to paint her body.  Then we continued down the trail coming to a creek where we also ran into some other members of our group. Soph wandered up the creek where we got some stunning shots with the jungle canopy surrounding her.  And this is where the jungle dance comes in.  It was my first experience with the biting flies of Mission Beach.  And it’s not one or two attacking you..but swarms of them about the size of a US horse fly biting you and drawing blood.  But what am I complaining about! I had shorts on and they were just biting my legs. Poor naked Soph was getting bitten all over. It’s amazing either of us could hold still enough under the dark canopy of the jungle to get any sharp images!  We then escaped the killer flies to go to the flyless beach.  When we arrived at the beach, we ran into the same members of our group we encountered in the forest.  I swear we were not stalking them!!!  Once on the beach, we got some beautiful images among the boulders and trees.  Thanks to Soph for sharing the experience, the bites  and getting some lovely images

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ZoeFest 2009 Australia Mission Beach

Claudine and Rebecca – Raumati Beach, NZ

After 3 days of rain on the South Island of New Zealand, our drenched group headed back to the North Island. We passed through Wellington and headed about 40 minutes north to spend the night at Raumati Beach before traveling on to Taupo the next day.  I awoke in the early morning darkness to go check out the weather and beach for a possible shoot that morning. OMG….not a cloud in the sky and the beach was gorgeous was a small river flowing into the ocean strewn with logs and debris. I found some beautiful shooting locations using that debris, and stumps of trees on the beach with the large Kapiti Island as background. Claudine was ready for an early morning shoot and we got some beautiful pre-dawn shots as the light was just hitting the waves giving it an amber bluish hue.  I then went back to our hotel and grabbed Rebecca.  The sun had risen at that point and got some nice slightly overexposed shots with the sun behind her as well as it accentuating her porceline complexion.  It was a tricky location because there were houses all along the beach. A few early morning passerbys just waved or ignored us.  Shooting like this is so natural to me now, that I forget it might offend some people.  Well apparently it did, becuase by the time Edward and Vassanta started shooting the police were out. I wish we had more time to spend here becuase you could take a boat to Kapiti island and I’m sure there’d be interesting shooting and hiking there.

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ZoeFest 2009 Australia Mission Beach

Do you have any Polaroid left?

Rebecca and I didn’t have plans to shoot before arriving to OZ … as I couldn’t get in touch with her traveling booty! But, the first time we shot together in California I was going to use the Holga/Polaroid Back camera with Type 85… but I was out of Sodium Sulfite for clearing the negatives. So, we weren’t able to do that. So in OZ, she and I both had some time the last day and she asked, “do you have any of the Polaroid left?” Awesome! So, that’s all I shot her with. And I’m extremely happy with what we created! Some of these crazy shadows … only this film would ever bring them out like this. So glad I still have some left. These are always very precious pictures to me since there will never be Type 85 again. Enjoy.

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ZoeFest 2009 Australia Mission Beach

Joceline! (she always gets an exclamation mark!)

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Joceline
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Happy
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Palm
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Electric
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ZoeFest 2009 Australia Mission Beach

Some Finished Work

Oh all the Polaroid Negatives to wade through… All the 120 and 35mm to develop. My lab will rescue me. But, in the mean time… here are a few finished works from me. Thank you to the models. More coming soon…