Projects
Australia's Big Days
(ongoing)
A series of portraits exploring Australians’ relationship with its public holidays, or at least the reasons behind them. These include the three biggies: the King's (or Queen's) birthday, ANZAC Day and Australia Day (for now, all named as they appear on the calendar). As part of their portraits, the sitters offer handwritten messages reflecting their thoughts on the day.
I began the series in the 1990s, resurfacing it a generation later to provide a historical bridge between old and new perspectives. The portraits were shot in public on or around the days of the commemoration. Not unexpectedly, Australians’ views and attitudes vary but there’s no doubt that these are days and issues of national significance. In giving people an opportunity to voice their opinions, this project gives us an insight into the Australian character and reveals a little of how Australia sees itself.
2024
RESEMBLANCE
RESEMBLANCE is a series of portraits made with generative artificial intelligence (ai) using text prompts. I arrived at this set of images after many years of photographing people in a conventional way, face-to-face with a film camera – see Australia’s Big Days. As well as depicting the subject’s likeness, those real world encounters reflected the person’s opinion on the theme of the day.
In this project, the theme is the emergence of generative ai. I documented the inhabitants of the ai world, asking them to tell us about this game-changing phenomenon. The people and their messages are generated with ai but they are also the result of my discussions with ai, as well as ai’s interactions with a mind-blowing volume of human made training data. The portraits are created in the style of studio photographs and the handwritten messages are generated by ai. The subjects’ eerie resemblance to real people is mirrored in the resemblance of the images to real photographs.
RESEMBLANCE is a series of portraits of people created with ai, with messages from ai, about ai, rendered in a photographic style.
scenes from the mall
The three sets of portraits below are from SCENES FROM THE MALL, an exhibition that took place at the Belconnen Arts Centre between 1.dec.2023 and 11.feb.2024. Each series was shot at the Belconnen Mall in the period 1989-1990. For those not in the know, Belconnen is a district in the north-west of Canberra, Australia’s national capital.
1989
The Lido Bistro
The people in these photographs were regular customers of the Lido Bistro, an eatery and bar on the Benjamin Way side of the Belconnen Mall. Now known as the Lido Cafe, this business has operated continuously in the same location since the mall opened in 1978. The people's photographs were taken at the Lido and, on one of their visits a week or two later, they penned a message on their photographs in their own handwriting . The conversation started off with their musings on the Lido itself, but they were free to go wherever they liked so long as they maintained a focus on themselves. Clearly, some people were more guarded than others but their messages are no less telling. Despite the differences in approach taken by each subject, the messages add a depth and intimacy to the images, transforming the final product into something of a self-portrait.
1989
Shoppingtown
Where once people would hawk their wares in town squares and entertain on the street, the mall provided a new environment for people to promote goods and services to the public. It was called a shoppingtown and
Belconnen’s new shoppingtown was one of a network across the country.
This series of portraits documents those doing business in the mall’s common areas. There were organised shows and performances on stage and stalls that advertised products, providing samples to shoppers and generating sales. These people drifted through the mall - itinerant entertainers, travelling salespeople, temps and casuals from employment agencies and volunteers, all trying to drum up business.
1990
Portrait of a stairwell
These portraits were taken on the landing of a stairwell at one of the Belconnen Mall’s parking areas. The portraits were all shot at this site on one day. All of these people were walking by and agreed to have their photographs taken on the spot. Highlighting their status as passers-by, the subjects are anonymous. The backdrop takes the studio out on location, making the momentary presence of these people into a layered portrait of this place.
1992
Working Peel Street
This series features portraits and street scenes from the 1992 Tamworth Country Music Festival. The photographs feature the buskers, hawkers and punters on Tamworth's main drag, Peel Street, over the Australia Day weekend. This collection of images contrasts with the scenes at formal venues and awards ceremonies that are often presented as the face of the Festival. Peel Street was and continues to be its own show.
1996
Hope School
This series includes a selection of portraits from Hi Vong (Hope) School for hearing impaired children in District 8 of Ho Chi Minh City. The children were photographed in one session, at the end of one of their weekly classes in photography. As if to balance the limitations in their hearing, the children responded enthusiastically to exploring the visual medium. Perhaps this influenced how they engaged with the camera.
