The Chemist, The Rocket Room

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of doing a few press photos for the boys from The Chemist. After taking this photo of lead singer Ben at the Rocket Room a few months ago, I was keen to get back there and have another go with that backdrop. Luckily, management didn’t mind us taking over the venue for a few hours, so I carted my flashes, umbrellas and light stands into Northbridge for a cruisy little weekday shoot.

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A month or so ago I stumbled upon a photography magazine called PHOTOICON. They’d done the unthinkable and dedicated an entire issue to concert photography. Yes, an entire issue. With awesome contributors. So while I was a bit turned off by the slightly uppity statement ‘The cool new cosmopolitan magazine of photography’ across the cover, it was still something I couldn’t pass up. $15 and a matter of days later it was in my hot little hands.

 Absolutely thoroughly recommended. Head on over to the PHOTOICON website to order a back issue (with free international postage). Interesting addition to anyone’s collection. And it’s Issue 7 you want to buy, just in case Jimi Hendrix on the cover wasn’t enough of a giveaway.

Little bit of Tuesday night reading for you. This article was posted in the Concert Photography Flickr forum, and while I may have been swayed by the inclusion of my eternal favourite Jill Furmanovsky, I thought it was a pretty interesting little read. Going over how it was, how it is, and how it might end up in the future.

Clicky click through to see the online version of the mag, complete with all the pretty pictures.

The Dirty Secrets, Rosemount

The Rosemount Hotel is an institution in Perth, and for good reason. Not only a premier live music venue (voted Best Venue in this year’s WAMI Awards, if I’m not mistaken), it’s also the perfect pub when you’re after a few quiet drinks with mates. The Rosie had been getting renovated slowly over the last few years, and while many other city pubs had shed their homely roots and were targeting the sorts of people who wore oversized sunnies and popped collars, the Rosemount stayed faithful and probably gained more regular patrons because of it. The gigantic beer garden is the big drawcard in summer. Sunshine, green grass, deckchairs and beer…what more could anyone ask for? The cosy interior is just as inviting when the weather’s not as nice. Warm colours throughout, fake fireplace with a toasty heater installed, and a scattered bunch of mis-matched op-shop couches. Seriously, how can anyone not love this place?

Apparently it’s an impossible notion, considering the amount of people who turned out for the Rosemount’s grand relaunch in September. Even more impressive, considering it was a school night.

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So, it’s been all quiet on the western front once again, but I do have a pretty good excuse this time. Spent a couple of days in hospital getting my tonsils removed to cure me of this particular condition (which you may not want to read about while eating), and then a few days laid up in bed battling the irony of having to eat and drink normally while not being able to swallow. I’m up and about now, and feeling a bit better, so I thought it’d be as good a chance as any to catch up on some posts.

There’s two gigs worth of live photos, and one very enjoyable promo shoot session done with one of my favourite Perth bands. I’ve got another week of R&R ahead of me before I go back to work, so expect them sometime soon.

While I had planned on spending most of my recouperation time in front of the TV catching up on Doctor Who and Hornblower episodes, I’m pretty sure the boredom will set in pretty quickly, so I’ve decided to get started on the project that’s been ‘in the works’ for years. Since the self-published book phenomenon took hold of the internet I’ve been wanting to do one up of my own work. Problem was, it was time consuming, the books were expensive and the ones that weren’t were less customisable than I liked. And the major problem, I take new photos all the time, what if I sent it away for publishing and then took the best photo I’d ever taken the next day? The first part was solved when I found Blurb. Their prices were good for the product they delivered, and enough people I knew had used them and been happy with them for me to jump on the bandwagon. I decided the second part would be best covered by doing several books in an almanac sort of series, one for each year. Not only does it mean the content would be static and I’d have no desire to add new stuff to it, I think it’ll be a great way of seeing how I’ve changed as a photographer over the years.

At this stage I don’t think I’ll be making them available for public purchase, but I’ll see how they turn out. I threw together a small square softcover book on Blurb last night as a test print titled ‘A Scrap of Noise: An Introduction to the Photography of Jacinta Mathews’ which has gone to print, and should be in my hot little hands in the next couple of weeks. If it scrubs up well I’ll think about making it available for a limited period, at no markup. It works out to about $25ish Aussie dollars with postage which frankly I think is more than enough to pay for a mix of 19 fairly eclectic photos!

Anyway, that’s all from me for now. Expect those updates shortly, but for the moment I’m off for a date with The Doctor.