[00:00:25] Speaker A: Good evening, everybody, and welcome to the Camera Life podcast. This is the random show and it's the 30th of June, it's the last day of the Australian financial year, so if you need to get any purchases in before tax time, you've got a handful of hours, get onto it.
But tonight is a very special edition because we're actually joined by a special guest who we'll get to in just a moment, but we are going to be discussing the Ballarat International Photo Biennale.
If I pronounce that right, 25. It's. It's a massive photography festival held in central Victoria every two years. And we are joined tonight by the CEO and artistic director. That's pretty greedy having two titles, I must say. But we are joined tonight by Vanessa Gerrans.
Welcome to the show, Vanessa.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: Thank you. It's lovely to be here. I wish there were two. I wish there were two. I wish they could be split.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: Or maybe two salaries. Two salaries would be good, wouldn't it?
And obviously we're also joined tonight by Lucky Straps founder, Justin Castles. G' day, Justin. How are you?
[00:01:35] Speaker C: Evening, everybody. Good evening.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: Hi.
[00:01:37] Speaker C: Lovely to have you on the show.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: And of course, Jim.
Round of applause for Jim, everybody.
[00:01:44] Speaker C: Just.
[00:01:44] Speaker D: Just Jim.
[00:01:46] Speaker C: Just Jim.
[00:01:46] Speaker D: Hey, guys.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: Jim. Well, because every time I go to stay your surname, I get it wrong and then I feel stupid.
Anyway, moving right along, everybody.
As I mentioned, this is the Camera Live podcast and it is proudly brought to you by Lucky Straps, makers of fine leather camera straps from Bendigo, Victoria.
And just a reminder, if you're watching or listening along either live or down the track, please give us a like. It helps us out a lot with the. The algorithms and make sure you subscribe and tickle the bell because then you get notified of upcoming events. Gives you some time to prep, grab a bevy, get comfy and dial in for some Camera Live action.
As I mentioned, we are joined today by Vanessa Gerans, who is the CEO and artistic director of the International. Such a long name Photo Biennale.
Is there an acronym that we can use that's quicker?
[00:02:39] Speaker C: Do you. I was wondering that when we were prepping the show, do you have, like shorthand that you guys use internally for. For the show?
[00:02:46] Speaker B: We would go. We these days go Ballarat photo because it's a mouthful to answer the phone.
[00:02:54] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And. And for whatever reason, Spellcheck doesn't like Biennale. Is that a made up word? Are you guys posh? Like, what's going on here?
[00:03:06] Speaker B: Pretty sure it's Italian. I'm pretty sure that's why we went for photo with an F also.
But all of these things can be blamed on Jeff Moorfoot, who founded the festival in 2009 in Dalsford. So he probably is overseas at the moment.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: We can load it onto him and he'll never know. Never be the wiser.
Well, before we jump in, do you want to say a couple of quick good evenings there, Justin?
[00:03:34] Speaker C: The chat's quiet, but our core friends are here. Paul says hello and hooray for Monday night. Philip Johnson. Good evening. Good to see you, Philip. And and of course, the one and only Bruce Moyle. Good evening, Bruce. Good to have you with us.
Yeah, quiet though. Quiet out there on the Internet land tonight. Oh, and Brendan waits.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: A Monday and the last day of the financial year.
[00:03:58] Speaker C: Could be people. People might have actual jobs.
[00:04:01] Speaker D: They're doing tax time stuff.
[00:04:03] Speaker A: Maybe, maybe everyone's at JB hi Fi buying appliances. Who knows?
[00:04:08] Speaker C: Could be good to have you with us, Brendan.
[00:04:13] Speaker A: Let's.
[00:04:14] Speaker C: That's a great question for later on. Just quickly for Brendan, think about this, Brandon. Later we'll.
I want to find out, did you have to do like crazy stock take today at your camera store? Was it like hours of counting things? We'll talk about it later. And David Leporati, of course. Good to see you in the chat.
Bruce has got a comment here. Jeff is always on travels overseas showing the world his beard. Is that a.
Is that a thing? Takes his beard on tour.
[00:04:44] Speaker A: Is that a fair assessment, Vanessa?
[00:04:46] Speaker B: It's a pretty fair assessment, yes.
[00:04:49] Speaker A: Do you know Bruce? Have you. Have you heard of Bruce Moore? Do you know Bruce?
[00:04:54] Speaker B: Don't think so. Sorry, Bruce, if that's not the case.
I lately have met a lot of people.
[00:05:04] Speaker A: All right, let' get stuck into.
First, let's find out just a little bit about you.
So you, as you mentioned, Jeff founded the festival ballarat photo in 2005 and you joined the crew as CEO and artistic director. Was that last year?
[00:05:27] Speaker B: It was in 2022 I joined.
[00:05:32] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:05:32] Speaker B: So yeah, the festival started in Dalesford actually in 2005. And then in 2009 move sort of outgrew Dalesford to an extent and moved to. To Ballarat 2009.
And then I had been working at the Warrnambool Art Gallery.
Actually hadn't really been to Ballarat very much, if at all. I had definitely not seen a festival before, shamefully.
So it was a pretty interesting learning curve about like not without its benefits to actually have to really understand what the festival is, why people love it and Then do one.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: Yeah, no pressure.
[00:06:15] Speaker D: Hey, steep learning curve.
[00:06:17] Speaker A: Very steep.
Now, we've been to a photography festival on the other side of Other side of the state in Bright.
We went last year to the Bright Festival of Photography. And that's a fairly, I'd like to say loose unit of an experience.
It's pretty crazy. It's pretty wild. What did we say the other night? There's shenanigans, Tom Foolery and ballyhoo aplenty at the Bright Festival. How does.
How does Ballarat compare, do you think?
[00:06:49] Speaker C: What are some words?
[00:06:50] Speaker B: Awesome.
[00:06:51] Speaker C: It is pretty awesome. It's very different, I think, but it's pretty awesome. Yeah. What are some words that would describe the Ballarat?
I can't even get the whole thing out without stuttering over my words. The Ballarat International photo by any Ali.
[00:07:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. No, it is tricky.
Well, I mean, it's a fairly well established festival. This is the 11th edition and they're good words from Bright, but without referring to, I don't know, the BFG for other, other words for it. I think it's a bit of a beast. Like the. The bigger your festival becomes, it's not always the case that, you know, your team grows with it. It's just this sort of passionate group of curators, photographers also bringing it together. And it can sometimes swell out of probably into the land of. Into Bright craziness. It's chaotic, but it's nice because it also takes place in a regional place against the backdrop of Ballarat's heritage architecture, which is quite. I mean, it's quite awesome to come to one place with like a great architecture and just be completely immersed in photography wherever you go.
And that's slightly, for us, a result of our program works with a core curated program, so we select shows for indoor and outdoor venues around town. And then we have an open program component where.
Well, this year we've got more than 100 artists who are involved and we pair them, help them work with local venues like businesses, cafes, restaurants. So pretty much everywhere you go on Ballarat, you will see some form of photographic work and that. That's pretty rarefied experience, I think.
[00:08:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:50] Speaker C: So it really, really envelops the whole town for those. So just, just for those that aren't aware, it runs from 23rd August to 19th October this year, I think. Is that right?
[00:09:03] Speaker B: Yes, it does. Yep. So it's a 60 day festival every two years.
[00:09:09] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: Can I ask a question on Patch 60 days? I've never. Yeah, it is, it is. Quite a long festival when you consider Bebop's three days.
Vanessa, why. Why was the decision made to only hold it every two years?
Do you want. Do you know the. The kind of. What led to that?
[00:09:27] Speaker B: I think it started. I think it started life as a biennial, and it probably has just this sort of cyclic. The amount of time it takes to put on a production this big and this distributed around town.
If I had a dollar for everyone every time someone asked me what we do in the off years, I think, you know, it's not that we have our feet up on the desk, we're scrambling and, you know, contacting people and generally on several different time zones to. To try and bring all of this together. So, yeah, I would say that would be why.
But it worked.
[00:10:05] Speaker A: Yeah, fair enough.
[00:10:06] Speaker D: It also means you can have a much cooler name, Greg.
[00:10:09] Speaker A: True.
[00:10:10] Speaker D: You know.
[00:10:13] Speaker A: An Italian word at the end of your festival, can't you? Yeah, doesn't have that.
And please, I apologize, I can't speak for the others if I. If I make reference to befop. It's just it's the only photography festival that I've ever been to, despite my users.
So we skipped ahead a little bit there. I just wanted to dive a little bit deeper into your experiences. So you have a Master's, an art cure, and you obtain.
Did you guys hear that question?
[00:10:44] Speaker C: We're losing you. We're losing you a little bit. Are you. You guys losing Greg, Jim as well? Yeah, I think your Internet's a little bit funky down there, Greg.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: In Melbourne, kids are playing video games online. That's what's going on.
[00:10:57] Speaker C: Lock them out.
[00:10:59] Speaker A: Anyway, sorry, Vanessa, you've got a Master's in Art Curatorship from Uni of Melbourne and you've worked in a number of galleries in the or. You've worked in this sort of industry in the past.
My question, however, is do you consider yourself a photographer?
[00:11:19] Speaker B: Not in the presence of you lot, but I did. I trained in visual arts in West Australia, where I'm from, and there was a dark room and I did take photographs. So technically, you know, there was learning involved there, lesser on the kind of curatorial side, because that sort of. I mean, I learned pretty quickly it's difficult when you're an artist to have a discernment process. It's not something I have necessarily about myself.
I quite prefer applying that to other people and helping and sort of helping other people achieve their ideas.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: So.
[00:12:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Does that count?
[00:12:12] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I'll give that a pass. Absolutely. And look, hey, you trained In a dark room. I mean most of the people we get on this show don't even know what a dark room is. So.
Full credits to you.
[00:12:24] Speaker B: Thanks. I mean I was trying not to say like, you know, another way of looking at some of, some of the cameras that I've seen lately is like a piece of jewelry. I'm not sure if that counts but it did cross my mind that I might wear some of them. They're very beautiful.
[00:12:41] Speaker A: Do you remember any that you were looking at?
[00:12:43] Speaker B: The. Oh, you know, the bf's.
Yeah, pretty nice.
[00:12:52] Speaker C: They're pretty nice.
[00:12:53] Speaker D: Very fancy.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: Anyway, yeah, yeah, I had a friend who went to a hands on in Melbourne last week where Sigma brought out a couple and he studies industrial design and yeah, he thought they were pretty cool. Although he didn't like the button placement. They thought the buttons were a bit small and fiddly. But yeah, from a design perspective it's something that I certainly, certainly I'm attracted to. It's a beautiful looking camera.
[00:13:19] Speaker C: Yeah, it's an artist camera.
[00:13:21] Speaker D: Yeah.
You could pair that with a lucky strap.
[00:13:25] Speaker C: You could.
[00:13:26] Speaker D: Quite the statement piece.
[00:13:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:28] Speaker C: Well played, Jim, well played.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: Use Code Jim for a discount.
I've just given up. I've just given. So sorry Vanessa.
We sell lucky straps.
That's how that, that's our core business.
But we offer discounts to our viewers.
Yes, we are putting some in your shop but we, we offer a discount for viewers of the show and you can either use Code Greg, Code Jim or Code Justin to receive the discount. And so far Jim is somehow winning only because most of the people watching are lazy and don't want to type more than three letters to get a discount. We think this is what consumerism has done to us.
[00:14:09] Speaker C: Yeah. So anyway, I think it might be his lighting in the background. That was pretty cool too.
[00:14:13] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe. Yeah, yeah.
[00:14:17] Speaker C: You know what I want to actually. Have you got more, more Vanessa questions?
[00:14:23] Speaker A: No, no, you fire away, boss.
[00:14:24] Speaker C: I just, I'm really interested to know from the perspective of the festival if you were going to attend this. This question's been playing on my mind for a long time. How much planning do, do you need to do to attend to make sure that like are there only certain things at certain times that you can see certain days throughout the 60 days?
Like if you were just going for say one or two days a weekend or something like that, can you see, do you have the opportunity to see everything or are some things only on certain weekends? Is there a schedule? How does that actually work?
[00:15:00] Speaker B: Yeah, so all of the core shows are on at the same time for the full 60 days.
You can buy a ticket at any time and you can see all of those shows in a day.
You know too, if you want to make it a great, you know, trip away to Ballarat, there are, because there are 100 distributed venues in the open program.
Those can be more targeted and they can be according to venue hours. So some do. Some tend to have variety of hours. All of those are listed in our festival guide. So that would be the place. And on the website, not yet, because we're still finalizing those, but pretty soon we'll have that out and. But the core program you can see and on top of that there's an event program which sort of also cycles. So something every weekend, sometimes on other days here and there.
If you had, you know, a particular event that you wanted to see, you would probably choose, you know, that weekend to, to come and see the program. But it's, it's always open.
[00:16:16] Speaker C: Okay. And are there any major events? Is there like a major. Is the opening weekend bigger than average or the, the closing weekend or anything like that? Like, is there, is there a particular time where it's like, that's the one that's, that's a great time to go or is it not really the opening.
[00:16:34] Speaker B: Launch, which is on the, the first weekend of the festival. So the 23rd and 24th August is a fun time to come because a lot of our artists are present. So we will have. This year we have Campbell Addy visiting from the UK with his British Cameroonian set designer. They'll be here.
Heaps of other photographers tend to gravitate towards that opening launch. So if you want to, you know, bump into photographers in the street, that would be the time.
Same with the closing weekend.
But outside of that, what we've tried to do this festival is to highlight different weekends. So we've got launch weekend, then we've got an open program, weekend showcase and the sort artists will come together around that weekend. There's a photo, photo book fair oriented weekend, etc. Etc. Sort of there's prizes towards the end because that gives everyone with the people's choice time to cast a vote, that kind of thing.
So prize announcements towards the end, always something on.
[00:17:48] Speaker C: Okay, it's actually a question here from Bruce.
Bruce Moyle wants to know how do you curate the program?
[00:18:00] Speaker B: It's a good question. And so we don't operate on an expression of interest, like a formal expression of interest like some, some other festivals might do. We we, we research and we connect with artists over time.
Something that might work for a particular, a particular time doesn't necessarily apply another year. So we look with a longer lens. I'm talking to people who are interested in the 2023 festival. They might work out this year. It might be a 2027 thing.
And so like logistically, because we've got so many different venues and they're changeable. Sometimes something just naturally fits into a particular venue according to our theme because the festival has a.
Has a sort of overarching theme which we choose and you know, and then connecting with artists, people still reach out to us or put forward proposals and all of those we, you know, with the sort of curatorial team will review and hopefully they'll go in one year or another.
Don't know if that's a really. There also is. The festival has a. Tends to have, because we're an international festival, key international shows that we bring in.
In 2023 we had Platon, we had Polaroids from Andy Warhol.
2025 we have Campbell Addy, who's a fashion photographer and Mapplethorpe, we've announced a few others and then as many Australian artists as we can fit.
Because it has the benefit of including, you know, having Australian artists included and curated into an, you know, an interesting lineup with international artists who are. And sometimes those international artists.
I mean it is interesting what the name recognition is on photographers generally.
And the festival has a broad audience, not always technically, you know, proficient in photographers or photography. They're also like a cultural loving audience. And so, you know, there's quite a lot of layers and it's a bit of a matrix, the curating of this festival.
[00:20:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I can imagine. And so this year you've already mentioned a couple of names you've also got. Is it Catherine? You've only just recently announced Catherine Leroy's works from the 60s.
Yeah, from Vietnam. One Way Ticket to Vietnam.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: I'm pretty sure her name is pronounced Law and.
[00:21:03] Speaker C: And she.
[00:21:06] Speaker B: Just in case I think of her, she's a really interesting photographer or photojournalist who is not with us anymore. But we have a show called One Way Ticket to Vietnam and it's the images she shot in the 60s and 70s. By year was 68 going to forget the rest. 60. 68 went back in 75 and then some. Some 80s work she went back again not only to Vietnam, Catherine also went to like Laos and, and was a well traveled photojournalist. But she was one of the first female photographers present in the War in Vietnam.
And it's a really fascinating under known and underappreciated perspective and body. Body of work as a result. So it's very exciting to have this first show. There's a book being published on Catherine's work by the same name, which will be released and launched during. Sometime during the festival. And the show and the book are complementary to one another. So. So the images are in black and white, mainly some color, and they show quite closeness to combat. But women generally in Vietnam at that time, I think, were a bit far further back from combat lines and in Catherine's case, led to her, I suppose, documenting the social experience of people in Vietnam at that time. And those sorts of works that, you know, they. They led to action in changing the perception in America and around the world about the war.
And so in Catherine's case with that show, the theme for this festival this year is Lifeforce. And it's sort of about energy and purpose and the.
It's a sort of basic idea. But the, the power of those photographs to change public sentiment is sort of why we went with her work in this festival.
[00:23:38] Speaker A: I think it's a really.
It's a really important point that you raised because I think in, you know, in a lot of the. The bigger wars that have taken place over the 1900s, including Vietnam, Vietnam was probably the first one where journalism was really heavily involved. There was journalism involved in the great wars one and two.
But Vietnam really stepped it up. And you're right, it did. It did have a huge impact and sway over public sentiment towards the war effort in, in most countries, but particularly here in the US and in the uk and obviously since then we've seen, you know, the Gulf War and the, you know, all the other stupid wars that have been fought, we're bombarded with media and imagery.
And I think this is a really important turning point in that sort of. In that style of photo documentary work out of the festival that you've got planned for 2025. What for you is the proudest or, or the one thing or the, the event or the name that you grabbed that you are most proud of for the 2025 festival? Yeah.
[00:24:52] Speaker C: Oh.
[00:24:56] Speaker B: Actually, it might actually be Catherine, but I can tell you about the others. But I probably am most proud of the Catherine show because it's important and it's weighty and it's a little bit difficult when you don't have a living artist and you're sort of working across time zones. But like that, that woman went to Vietnam when she was 21 with a hundred dollars and a Leica M2. And you know, that was her life and she was very brave and she broke a lot of barriers, you know, in a male dominated world at the time.
Haven't quite finished the curating of that show yet, but I, yeah, that one I'm pretty proud of. I'm pretty happy that we've got Mapplethorpe.
That show is, it's quite an elegant show. It's been curated by Edward Eningfour who was the Vogue and Conde nast editor for two decades. And it's, it's, it's 46 works in, in pairs. And I suppose listening to Edward talk about it, it's sort of an editorial influence that sort of led to his selection of those works. But it's really interesting to see Edwards choice, you know, choices of all the works that he could have chosen from the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation.
Lovely, elegant show.
Different from other Mapplethorpe shows that might come to mind.
But I'm looking forward to that. It's a pretty big coup for Ballarat.
Mapplethorpe has not shown in Australia since the 90s. In.
[00:26:53] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:26:54] Speaker B: Went to Sydney, in Perth, but not Victoria.
[00:26:57] Speaker A: Well, congratulations. That is huge.
[00:26:59] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:27:03] Speaker B: We just unboxed them.
I'm not sure if you can, if you call that, you know, condition reporting them from the crates, but they're beautiful.
[00:27:13] Speaker A: That must have been fun. Go. We love an unboxing here. We unbox stuff on this show all the time.
Nothing of that importance or value or cultural significance either.
And what about local talent? Who have you got that sort of showcasing in 2025 in Ballarat? That, that's local or perhaps even someone who's just, just finished their studies. And I know that you've got a, I think you've got a grad program for memory reading about that. Talk to us a little bit about what's happening at a local level.
[00:27:47] Speaker B: We do.
We have a great show by an artist called Phong Nguyen who is Vietnamese.
And actually it's an interesting pairing. Synergy across the festival, given Catherine, that is a like inquiry, I suppose into Fong's relationship with his father and family circumstance. And it's sort of a documentary style, I suppose.
Phong was the winner of our grad photo prize last year. And so this is the culmination of that experience, which is also something I'm proud of being able to do. Platform emerging artists in that way.
And then we're featuring some of the other winners and highly commendeds in an outdoor feature as part of the festival.
Who else do we have? We have.
We have also an emerging photographer from Darwin. Her Name's Lake and McKellar, and she is doing portraits of first nations families that she knows it's part of her community.
And they'll be produced on light boxes and a video as part of the festival.
But another aspect of the festival I'm proud of, we have an initiative called the Fire Country Initiative, which is about supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists to essentially do what they want.
So instead of curating a show in a group show with Aboriginal artists, we just follow their interests. And I suppose as a form of self determination, Lakin wanted to show her community against a.
Like, the reality of those people's lives. Like, not necessarily shown in a. In a bush context, but how they live. So I haven't seen them yet. I'm looking forward to seeing those works.
[00:30:09] Speaker A: More unboxings.
[00:30:11] Speaker B: More unboxings, yeah.
[00:30:13] Speaker D: With. With works like that, is that something that you would contact, like a photographer about and then they would then be shooting it, or is it usually works that's already been completed?
[00:30:25] Speaker B: Oh, no, it's. Well, I would sort of say it's a bit of both.
The most of, if not all of the shows are Australian exclusives or world premieres. It's always been the case with the festival that they are shown first and only. So with Laken's work, we commissioned those. We were put in touch with Laken by Michael Jellerie Torres, who is the founder of Black Lens. It's a photographer and videographer collective. You should interview Michael.
[00:31:03] Speaker C: I've spoken with him.
A couple of years ago, they were going to get some customers camera straps done, and I don't think he ever decided on what sort of artwork or whatever. But, yeah, I actually. He would be great on the podcast, actually. Yeah, I'm sure it was this. It was Michael. It was definitely Black Lens.
[00:31:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I think Michael put us in touch with Lake and that's. And Laken's making a new. A new body of work. That's what she's been wanting to do. And the same. Yeah. With most works are commissioned or in the case of Campbell Addy, he's showing his. He has shown once before, an exhibition of the same name. It's called I Heart Campbell, but he's adding works and they'll be shown in the feature in this beautiful heritage space we have in Ballarat called the Marnie Exchange. It's called Out My Window.
So it will be a different experience. New photographs and paintings and other things.
[00:32:16] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:32:17] Speaker C: Did we. We didn't pull this comment up yet already, did we? No, no. Tim Siamas says, I saw Campbell Addy's story on Nat Geo's photographer for the launch of his. I heart Campbell. I love Campbell. Is it I heart Campbell?
[00:32:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:32:30] Speaker C: Art show. Great win to exhibit it here.
So that's cool.
[00:32:35] Speaker B: Thanks, Tim.
He's coming. He'll be here at the launch weekend. So he's very energetic and he's very generous and he's very interesting. So the works.
[00:32:46] Speaker C: Nice.
[00:32:46] Speaker A: Very cool.
[00:32:47] Speaker C: A couple of other comments as well.
What else do we got? RXA Photography says. Bugger. I missed Platon.
And question from Bruce.
Bruce Moyle says festivals like this are really expensive to run. How do you make sure you don't go broke, especially running it over that length of time?
[00:33:07] Speaker B: It's funny you should ask that of the last day of the financial year. Bruce.
We do have. It is really challenging and it's a competitive in environment and entertainment. There's lots of things to do and we're lucky because we have.
Is it the. Because the photography community and then they know that it's good quality, you know, festival. It's certainly good value festival.
And so I think there's that like that. I mean even the people in Ballarat, I would say are quite well versed having held. Having held and hosted photography over so many years. It sort of has built in to sort of a heartland of photography here, it seems.
But we have donors and supporters which we're always grateful to. We do an awful lot of funding applications and we've been quite lucky this time around to have some really fantastic sponsors and supporters. So I'm very excited to share those because they are amazing coming up. So yeah, it's tricky.
[00:34:35] Speaker C: I'm just going to bring up the website quickly because there is a couple of ways on here that you can support.
You can donate if you just go to their website. Ballarat International photo by Anyali but it will be on. On the link in our description. Click on that. And then if you go to support us there's a donate button. But then there's also. I wanted to ask you about this. There's this membership where you can. You can become a member or gift a membership to someone else. What.
What's the deal with the memberships?
[00:35:06] Speaker B: Memberships are a good way to be connected and they also give you a good discount when it comes to buying tickets. So it's quite. And in our shop. So it's a good time to buy membership when we're about to launch a festival.
So it's sort of a way to support us, but also a way to engage with the community in a festival year and in and off in an, in an off year.
This is something that will grow as we. And something I haven't talked about yet tonight, but we're.
In addition to the festival, we are also constructing presently the national center for Photography in a very handsome building down the road in the centre of Ballarat, the former Union Bank.
And so we are in an interesting time in this festival where we're sort of metamorphosizing or transforming from a festival into a cultural institution that houses a festival. And so that membership will become more and more rewarding.
[00:36:19] Speaker A: So with the construction of that new space, that means that you have year round and off year, I guess, access to promote photography, to celebrate it, to showcase it.
Talk to us about what, what you guys are thinking around how you're going to curate for that other, you know, two years minus 60 days.
[00:36:42] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, some of that is yet to be determined but. And we're sort of, it's under construction in stages so we need to fundraise to get the upper levels of this building ready.
But we will sort of occupy and grow the space.
We've done some strategic work about the difference between photography and visual imaging. And like to what extent do we want to include digital imaging, that kind of thing? Do we want a photo book library? Like we've been through this process and I think not far after this festival is finished and we pack it up, I think probably will start reaching out to photographers in the industry about, I don't know, coming together and actually voicing an opinion because it's taken a little while during the construction process. There was a bit of COVID in between and yeah, I would hope that there's an opportunity to hear from. How will this centre be a national voice for artists and people practicing photography?
We're not quite there yet, but that, that, that would be my hope.
[00:38:01] Speaker D: Yeah. So is that sort of something that would be similar to like the aipp, what that was in the past, all.
[00:38:09] Speaker B: The good bits, like, I mean like people talk really fondly about what was and you know, it would be good to actually work that out, wrap it all up and still have it?
[00:38:21] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
Yep.
Just before we wrap up. I'm just conscious of time and we don't, we don't, we don't want to keep you away from your family for too much longer. But Vanessa, for those folks that are coming to, to Ballarat to see the, the festival, the Photo Biennale.
What's. What's the one piece of advice that you would give them? You know, whether it be, you know, book a room, stay a weekend, go and check out something else that's in town.
Because, I mean, you mentioned earlier, and I've heard this from other photographers, that the festival is not just contained to sort of the one site. It's spread throughout Ballarat. There's other businesses will put images up in their spaces, cafes and places as such. What's.
What's your ultimate advice to someone who wants to come and make the most of seeing everything that the festival has to offer?
[00:39:20] Speaker B: I mean, Bavarat's pretty easy to get to on the train.
It's, you know, it's an hour and a quarter on the train or it's a 90 minute drive.
I think the most to have a one night or a couple of night stays will make the most of it. We do have off site exhibitions and events. We have three exhibitions in Creswick, for example, at the RACV Goldfield site.
One of those is Knee Journal, which is a journal that Campbell Addy founded. So it's sort of an expanded showcase of the work he's doing in the main show. Would be good to see the headline. And then the Knee Journal at Arts House there, they've also got. There's a cool, there's a cool event there on the launch weekend called the Art of Lunch, which is where three artists present a little bit about their work. And then the executive chefs will create a meal entre main dessert based on the artworks. And it's a wonderful experience.
Yep. And we've got shows all the way up to the Pyrenees.
A couple of the wineries out there, Dini Tartani will have. So you could do, you know, a wine tasting tour at the same time or you could stay in town and hang out at any number of the cafes. Stay at one of the hotels all of them will have work on.
[00:40:59] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:41:01] Speaker A: Sounds terrible.
[00:41:02] Speaker D: So this could be like a tax writer for photographers then doing a winery trip for sure.
[00:41:09] Speaker C: There's got to be a way to make that work.
[00:41:10] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.
Not financial advice.
[00:41:15] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:41:19] Speaker A: Excuse me, I can.
[00:41:23] Speaker B: You could visit. Yeah, yeah. If you've not been before.
[00:41:26] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I haven't been before. And for those of you watching or listening along at home, Lucky Straps will have a small presence at, at the festival.
We're going to have some product available for anyone that's there.
But yeah, we might organize a bit of a trip.
[00:41:42] Speaker C: Well, you know, Be doing a trip for sure.
It's crazy that I haven't been yet, but I kind of lived under a photographic rock for 10 years, I guess. So it's, it's. It's time.
I wanted to go in 2023, but it didn't happen. But, yeah, it's definitely time this year, so we'll be getting, crossing and making the most of it, that's for sure. Yeah.
[00:42:05] Speaker B: One of your listeners was sorry not to see Platon and that like that. Yeah, that's the worst thing when people come and say, oh, I would have loved to have seen that.
[00:42:13] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:42:14] Speaker B: Yeah, that really was a good show. And he was amazing to see in person.
[00:42:21] Speaker C: Yeah, well, we, we won't make that mistake this year, that's for sure. We'll be getting.
[00:42:26] Speaker D: Yeah, over there.
[00:42:27] Speaker C: Well, yeah, we'll be going to. You know, I don't know if anyone's ever told you this, but for us here in Bendigo, Ballarat is Shelbyville, essentially. So we don't go over that way too often, you know.
[00:42:39] Speaker A: Yeah, but that makes you Springfield, so that's. Yeah. I don't know who's here.
[00:42:45] Speaker C: Same, same.
All right, very good.
Anything else for Vanessa or Vanessa, anything that you want to put out in the universe before we let you. Let you go?
[00:42:58] Speaker B: No, I just. It would.
Well, it would be great to see people. It's a. You know, we had 40,000 visitors last time. It would be lovely to have that kind of like, vibrance and spirit this time. I think we will. Not too much, just the right amount, but there is lots to like. And, you know, we've got dancing. We've recently discovered that some photographers also do boot scooting and there is a nice variety when the program comes out.
[00:43:26] Speaker D: Have.
[00:43:26] Speaker B: Have a read and make it out here if you can.
And yeah, further down the track and if you, if you are a photographer, we do, you know, we will respond to emails and, like, proposals or send your work through. If I'm around during the festival, come and say hello.
Yeah, we just would like to meet and connect with people.
[00:43:51] Speaker A: Sounds good.
Sounds good.
[00:43:54] Speaker C: We. We certainly appreciate your time. As does. As does the chat. Paul says. Paul says thanks. Bruce says, thanks, Tim Sciamma says, I'll be there opening weekend. Thanks, Vanessa, for sharing.
[00:44:06] Speaker A: Tim is keen.
[00:44:07] Speaker C: Yeah, Tim's very keen.
[00:44:09] Speaker B: I'll see you all in person. And yeah, I'm gonna go and feed.
[00:44:12] Speaker A: My kids, but yeah, best you do that. But just before you run off, just, just wanted to say on behalf of us here, but also on behalf of those watching and listening along at home or at work or wherever you may be, thank you, Vanessa, for sharing your insights into the festival and giving us a better. Or giving us a better insight into what's what the Ballarat International Photo Biennale 2025 will all be about.
We wish all the luck, all the luck in the world with the festival, but also with the ongoing projects around the center for Photography and, and the next festival in another two years. It feels so far away when you say it like that, doesn't it, that it's that. I'm sure for you it comes around very, very quickly.
But.
But, yeah, but look, thanks for joining us tonight and I think we've also got some other guests coming up in the coming weeks that we're currently working through who are exhibiting at the Biennale.
And just in general, I've spoken to a number of our photography friends that have appeared on the camera life here with us who are also going to Ballarat and have different, different parts to play in the festival as well. So we're going to be hearing more about that in the coming weeks and months. But short, the short story is wishing you all the very best.
[00:45:34] Speaker B: Thank you. And apologize on my behalf if I didn't. If I didn't mention them and they're about to come on your show because there's 100, 180 maybe artists this year. So I bet you I'll miss them. But.
[00:45:46] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's okay. That's okay.
[00:45:49] Speaker C: That'll be all right.
[00:45:50] Speaker A: Yeah, they'll be fine. Yep, they're in good hands, don't you worry. But look, we'll let you get back to it. But thank you once again for joining us and we look forward to seeing you in Ballarat.
[00:46:00] Speaker D: Great.
[00:46:01] Speaker B: See you. Thanks.
[00:46:03] Speaker A: Thanks, Vanessa. See ya.
There you go, folks.
[00:46:09] Speaker C: Put me over here.
How cool was that?
[00:46:13] Speaker A: That's very cool.
I learned lots about it. I mean, I've read a bit about.
[00:46:18] Speaker C: It today, but look, I didn't even use my graphic.
There she is. Now I gotta just move straight on to the next one.
[00:46:28] Speaker D: Didn't even get to use the noise.
[00:46:30] Speaker C: That's right. That's very cool. We will definitely be going.
We'll be getting across there, but I'm away for opening weekend, so I'll have to go to one of the other ones.
So we are doing the rest of the random show. Though for those of you that have joined us recently or that have been in here since the beginning, it's time to. Yeah. Bruce Moyle now. Now back to Silliness We've been holding it in the whole time.
[00:46:52] Speaker A: I know.
[00:46:54] Speaker C: I need a little bit of this just to get it. Get it back in the swing of things.
[00:46:59] Speaker A: There we go.
[00:47:07] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:47:09] Speaker C: Couldn't help myself.
Yeah. So that was cool.
[00:47:15] Speaker A: That was very cool.
[00:47:17] Speaker D: I think it's biennale.
[00:47:19] Speaker C: I don't know how to talk Bayern Alley.
[00:47:23] Speaker D: So I've been hearing about it for a long time since I was at uni, and that's how my uni lecturers.
[00:47:27] Speaker A: Used to say it was being biennale. What did I say?
[00:47:30] Speaker D: I could also be about to get roasted in the chat. So.
[00:47:33] Speaker C: Yeah, it doesn't matter.
[00:47:35] Speaker A: It does.
[00:47:36] Speaker D: It does.
Greg's a wordsmith.
[00:47:40] Speaker C: He's a wordsmith. Although he got one of the names mispronounced, so I enjoyed that part. That was one my favorite part of the podcast.
[00:47:47] Speaker A: I think I did. I'm glad she corrected me because. Well, I mean, it says Leroy.
[00:47:51] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:47:52] Speaker A: But, you know, there wasn't a little icon to press it and hear the. The. The computer voice say it properly.
[00:47:57] Speaker C: So Bruce says, jim is correct. Rodney says correct him. Paul's with Jim.
[00:48:04] Speaker A: You all the gym show.
[00:48:06] Speaker C: Okay, let's do this and watch him.
[00:48:12] Speaker D: It's just me.
Okay. So you guys coming back or not?
[00:48:18] Speaker A: No.
[00:48:23] Speaker C: See, you freak out for a little bit.
[00:48:28] Speaker A: Oh, you lost. You lost your confidence pretty quick, didn't you?
[00:48:31] Speaker C: Yeah, like. Like that. It'll be like that scene in Wayne's World where Wayne leaves and. And Garth's just there by himself, like.
No, just me.
[00:48:41] Speaker D: Just look at my head.
[00:48:42] Speaker A: I haven't watched Wayne's World for a while, I must admit.
[00:48:45] Speaker C: Watch it. It's. It gets better and better every time.
[00:48:48] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:48:49] Speaker C: So good. And it's actually watching it since starting this podcast.
[00:48:52] Speaker D: It.
[00:48:53] Speaker C: It's. It's quite.
I like it because, you know, we've got a show now. They've got a show. This show was very cool.
Should we bring up some comments? Why not?
[00:49:03] Speaker A: Yeah, let's do that.
[00:49:04] Speaker C: Yeah. I don't actually know where we got up to because of the Analog photography show from last week. So I don't know what comments I've read, what I haven't read. I don't know if I've just read them myself and. But we haven't read them on the show, so I'm sorry. If.
[00:49:19] Speaker D: Wouldn't we. Because you wouldn't have read them last week.
[00:49:21] Speaker C: Well, that's what I thought.
Yeah. That's why I think I did a couple. So this is bad because I missed some, but not all of them. But Just skim. Let's skim some of the older ones.
Fantastic chat. Yeah, I think we read that one.
All right, let's just go to this week.
David Mascara was. He said it was really great show, the analog photography show. If you didn't see it, we had a whole panel of film shooters or ex film shooters on the show and debated is film with it. That was on last Monday. Is it worth shooting film in 2025 or why bother shooting film? I think Greg said why even bother when you've got Fuji's film simulations and Dave and Mascara says really great show. Wish it was an afternoon show or us afternoon.
So we'll do another one. I don't know if we can do it in morning time.
Maybe see if we can drag some more film shooters. I did get a bit excited about film after it though and ordered some stuff.
It's coming up later.
[00:50:25] Speaker A: Yeah, we've got a new film project tomorrow too.
[00:50:29] Speaker C: Yeah.
Yeah, we'll talk about it. Talk about after. What's in the box.
A great comment from episode 60. So going back a ways where we talked about Photo Kaizen, which if you haven't heard of it, it's Matt Palmer's photo critique website, business service. I don't know what you call it, but basically you can submit a photo or collection of images or a book, anything and he will give you a very detailed critique of your work to help you improve your photography. Basically it's like as if you entered it in a competition but without any rankings or any. You know, you're not. Not necessarily putting it up against other people's work. It's just purely for your own development.
[00:51:16] Speaker A: And Matt is an accredited and highly acclaimed photographic competition judge.
[00:51:21] Speaker C: Yes. As well as multiple award winner of. Of his own work as well.
[00:51:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:51:27] Speaker C: So this was from at 2.28 photography. Which is that.
Is that some. Is that Paul's profile pic?
[00:51:37] Speaker D: Is this your same. Is this another burner account?
[00:51:40] Speaker C: This is another burner account. Anyway, after using Photo Kaizen a couple of times now I can attest to the exc detail and thoroughness of Matt's photo critique. He has been able to identify weak spots in the editing workflow that I've missed and provide specific technical advice on how to go about fixing them in Lightroom or Photoshop.
Similarly, he also explained how to optimize the image for printing great value for money and an excellent alternative to entering a regular photo competition for a rating or score. Justin and Greg have uploaded their photo critiques on the Lucky Straps blog for this episode and will give you an idea of what to expect. Yeah, we did do that.
[00:52:15] Speaker A: It did. It is Paul.
[00:52:17] Speaker C: Yeah, it is Paul. I don't know why it comes up different. I'm telling you guys, if you set up a burner account, you got to do a different profile picture.
[00:52:24] Speaker A: I don't think it's a burner account. I think that's like the account name.
[00:52:29] Speaker C: Yeah, it's the handle, but still, it's funny.
Also from Paul, as we were discussing on the Nick Fletcher episode. Who? Nick Fletcher, co somethinger of the Beef Op photography.
[00:52:45] Speaker A: He founded Beef Op, but he now runs it with Matt Crummins.
[00:52:48] Speaker C: With Matt Crummons.
Absolutely the opposite of the Ballarat Photo International Photo Biennale, but in a. In a. In their own great ways. The opposite ends of two different spectrums.
I think the strength of BFOP is the absence of a green room whereby instructors are forced to mix with us punters, AKA the Great Unwashed.
That is true.
Another comment on Nick Fletcher's episode, which was a great episode from Dave Fluttersuk. Wow, what a podcast and what a guest. Nick is a true legend of photography. His work is breathtaking and such a decent human being. Well, I think he missed it.
And it was great to see someone finally call calling out Matt Crummonds, as I'm not sure Matt has even seen a GFX 100 RF. Never mind actually used one.
Nick Fletcher's jumped in the comments to.
To get involved with the people that have watched his show. Thanks, Dave. That's really lovely. Matt is not such a bad guy, but he is deeply mistaken about most things.
[00:54:04] Speaker D: That. That's how you. Burner.
[00:54:07] Speaker C: Yes, that is how you do Burner Account.
[00:54:11] Speaker A: For those of you that may be watching or listening along.
And I'm pretty sure he's changed the name.
[00:54:15] Speaker C: I'm sure. Yeah. It was Clutterbuck. It was Clutterbuck. And he's changed it to Flutter Suck. Or he's. Or he's made another one.
[00:54:22] Speaker D: No, but that might be like how Paul's is coming up. It's Paul, but it's also.
[00:54:26] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:54:31] Speaker C: Very funny, Very funny. I don't know what else is. What else has happened in the. I don't know. Nev made some cool comments about the X. What did you. What did you get? The X. E5 and that sort of stuff. The lenses and also. What else happened? Anyway, lots of things. Oh, this was. I don't know if we read this out. So talking about the X half.
[00:54:58] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:54:58] Speaker A: They've all started arriving for people.
[00:55:00] Speaker C: Yeah. Gareth Davies 9141. Did I read this out after receiving mine? I received mine yesterday. It's a fun camera. Came across your podcast while looking for reviews of it. Your shows are awesome. Thank you. We've been trying to tell everybody, can't wait for the XE5 to arrive in August. And then I replied and asked for him to elaborate. And Gareth Davies 9141 says, hi, Justin. The image. Because I said, what do you think of the image quality and the shooting experience?
Image quality is fine for a smartphone screen. And nowadays most people just look at photos on smartphones, not big screens.
And even fewer people purchase prints. The shooting experience is fun. You don't need to think about ISO. You see something, you shoot it. It's a bit too plastic. I'd prefer a better feel to the lever, especially at the price. It's a bit slow, which is strange considering the processor is good, but it's quirky. It slows you down in a good way.
The experience for me is not only taking the photo though. People will see this camera and they talk to you. It's like a few years back, before COVID I'd been doing a paid shoot at a music event. I would walk around taking photos with the X T2. People see the dials and ask if it's film. You lie and you say yes. No, you talk to them.
[00:56:17] Speaker D: Have a look at mine.
[00:56:20] Speaker C: I'd carry an Instax printer and give them their photo along with a business card. This camera could get you work by opening up a dialogue with new people.
So, yes, it won't replace the XH2s for my main photography, but it will complement it. I pre ordered the silver XE5 with the pancake lens.
Never owned an XE camera before. I still have an X Pro 3 and will continue to use that.
But the XZ5 looks like a really nice camera.
Greg, Gareth has you beat for number one. Fujifan.
I'm gonna heart that.
Yeah, very cool.
[00:56:56] Speaker D: Gareth is Greg's burner account.
[00:56:59] Speaker C: I see.
[00:57:00] Speaker A: I have enough trouble keeping up with my standard one. I don't need a second.
[00:57:07] Speaker C: Bruce says I'm only halfway through Nick's interview and damn, some of it is funny. Yes. Yeah, it was pretty funny.
I'm gonna make some clips of him calling out Matt. I gotta figure out how to do that.
[00:57:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaking of which, guys, if you're new to the channel, new to the show, you're watching or listening, whether it be live or down the track.
We did interview Nick Fletcher. Who was the founding father, we'll call him of. Which makes Matt Crummins the founding mother of befop, the bright festival of photography.
But Nick is an amazing street and two wheeled sports photographer.
He shoots bikes, BMXs, mountain bikes, trail bikes, road bikes. If it's got two wheels, he's in love. So make sure you go back and watch that episode and give us a like.
[00:57:56] Speaker C: He's a solid camera nerd too. Solid camera nerd. Like, he enjoys, enjoys the gear, enjoys talking about cameras, different brands, lighting, all that stuff was fun.
[00:58:06] Speaker A: Yeah, it was a really good episode.
[00:58:08] Speaker C: Yeah. But also as Greg said, yeah, give us a like. Sorry I cut you off when you're about to do the big. Give us a like and a comment and all that stuff.
[00:58:17] Speaker A: But just. Can I just finish what I was going to say?
[00:58:19] Speaker D: Sure, yeah.
[00:58:20] Speaker A: Justin. Sorry. Yeah, okay, cool. Thanks. Just give me a sec.
[00:58:22] Speaker C: That's good.
[00:58:24] Speaker A: But yeah, no, if you are new to the channel, this is the Camera Life podcast. Monday nights are our random photography show. We did have a guest on tonight that was a scheduling thing to suit Vanessa. But usually Monday nights, just a random. We talk about a random show, we talk about news, rumors, we look at images we've shot during the week, we talk about projects, whatever else is going on.
But every Thursday morning at 9am Australian Eastern Standard Time, the. The Camera Life airs live once again. And every Thursday we interview a guest who is 99.99 of the time. A photographer.
And yeah, we talk about their craft, we talk about their inspirations, their journey and their current body of work and what they've got coming up. So make sure you, you dial in for those as well.
I'm done.
[00:59:17] Speaker C: Okay.
I was going to talk over you at the end, but I, I didn't.
All right, should we move on to the next section? The next segment? I got to get my sound effect back in action.
All right, News and rumors.
[00:59:33] Speaker A: News and rumors.
All right, couple of bits and pieces, snippets, shall we say?
Some light hearted stuff, some heavy hitting stuff. This one that, this is one that tickled my fancy. Oh, hang on, I haven't brought it up on the screen. Sorry everybody.
There's a new app coming. I think it's an app.
There probably is already one out there, but anyone that owned a Game Boy back in the day.
Did you own one, Justin?
[01:00:03] Speaker C: I can't remember if I ever owned one. I never had one when all the cool kids had one. I vaguely remember a clear one.
I think I got it when they were no longer Cool anymore.
You know, like they'd sort of passed and I think I got a second hand clear one which was.
Had Tetris maybe.
[01:00:24] Speaker A: What about you, Jim? Were you, were you a Game Boy?
[01:00:27] Speaker C: No.
[01:00:27] Speaker D: You? Never that cool.
[01:00:29] Speaker A: No, you weren't.
[01:00:30] Speaker D: I wasn't too young. I just. I was. Yeah.
[01:00:33] Speaker A: Yeah. All right, well, there's this thing coming. Is it an app? I should know this because I chose it.
They're basically creating like an emulator that turns your smartphone into a Game Boy camera. So back in the day, Nintendo put out the Game Boy which up until recently was the best selling handheld gaming device. And you could buy a little camera, little black and white, very rudimentary, but you could also attach your Game Boy with the camera to a Nintendo made printer and you could print these little pixelated. I think they were eight bit. I might be wrong. Bruce Moyle will correct me if he's. If I'm not. It's a 256 by 224 resolution, four shade grayscale palette. And basically with the Game Boy you could go around with your gaming device and you could take photos, kind of like what you do with a mobile phone now. And this company is looking to emulate that for nostalgia's sake. So yeah, that's. That one.
[01:01:34] Speaker D: Looks pretty cool.
[01:01:35] Speaker A: I think it's all right.
Next bit of news.
[01:01:39] Speaker C: My cannons are better.
[01:01:42] Speaker A: Great. Are they?
Are they?
Next one.
While we're on the topic of toys and nerdism, a photographer brings action figures to life as cinematic masterpieces.
So this is an article on Petapixel. It's just one of an emerging collective of people that use scale figurines typically from popular, you know, from pop culture. Star wars is a big one here, but people do it with all sorts of anime figurines and, and the like, and they create these scenes using the figurines. And there's, there's a couple that I follow on Instagram. One of them is called Sergeant Bananas.
And, and he, he creates scenes and he'll use real fire, he'll use fireworks to create explosions, he'll use a smoke machine, he'll use misting devices and he'll create, create these little miniature sound stages almost to create these, these kind of replicas of, you know, Star wars kind of scenes with toys. And I've actually done a similar thing. Years ago I wrote an article for Shock Kit. I wrote two. One was about Lego photography and the other one was more specific about a general, just about toy photography.
And if you're looking, if you know if you've laid up for some reason, you can't get out and shoot what you want to shoot. Or maybe winter's not your time to go out and about.
It's a really fun genre because you don't need a lot of gear. You've probably already got the gear you need.
And if you've got some, you know, some figurines or you order a couple off Amazon, you can create these little sort of scenes and create your own little mini dioramas with, with special effects and lighting effects and all sorts of things.
Anyway, I thought it was worth sharing because it's, you know, it's a little bit of fun and it's a genre that, you know, doesn't get a lot of publicity.
You know, toy photography. For fun, here's an Alien vs. Predator one and more of more of the Star Wars.
[01:03:47] Speaker D: Cool.
[01:03:47] Speaker C: Nice.
I've never. I've never tried it. The closest I've got is, you know, driving around little rock crawlers with my nephews and I film them down low and it looks R2D2.
Yeah.
[01:04:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:04:12] Speaker C: I've never gotten too excited about the toy. Toy photography. It is very cool, though, when it looks. They make it look so real and.
[01:04:20] Speaker A: Yeah, you've been photographing your little remote control cars, haven't you?
[01:04:23] Speaker C: No, I haven't. I would actually like to do it properly one day. I've just been doing it with my phone just because we're just playing around, having a bit of fun. But one day I'm like, I might, I might try and do a photo that looks cool with this, I think, because they look pretty fun.
[01:04:39] Speaker A: Yeah, why not?
Next bit of news.
So we've been talking a lot recently about film. We had our analog show last Monday night. If you haven't seen that, go back and watch it, please.
Joined by three either current film shooters or past film shooters to talk about why we shoot film in the digital age. And the reason why we scheduled that show is that one, we don't want film photography to be seen as a dying art. But two brands are doing more and more incremental increases in supporting analog photography. So last week we talked about how Leica just released a new monochrome film.
There was a Chinese company and I can't remember their name off the top of my head. They also just released a new 35 millimeter film.
And today on Petapixel, they reported that they don't know whether it's a glitch, like an error on the website, but it looks like Fujifilm reintroducing two previously retired film stocks.
So for anyone that that isn't aware, Fujifilm have been making film for decades and decades and a lot of their film stock that they used to have, they've retired, especially when digital was introduced and, you know, the film age kind of almost came to a complete end.
But according to this article, Fuji Film, Fuji color, superior extra 400 and Fuji color Pro 400h making a comeback.
These products appeared on Fujifilm's film website, complete with all the specs and information about the, the style of film and the shooting and, you know, the outcomes that you get from it. So still waiting to be seen whether this is actually legit or if it was just actually a website glitch that republished an old page. So we're still waiting for an outcome on that one. But if it's true, pretty exciting to see a legacy brand like Fujifilm reintroduce something that retired because of low demand.
If this is reintroduced, then it speaks of the growing demand of film photography and maybe Fujifilm making yet another brave step in that market.
Yeah, sorry Jim, I mentioned Fujifilm several times there.
[01:07:01] Speaker C: You know, it's interesting.
Check this out.
I just found this while I was tidying it up. Is it going to focus? Come on, just take over. There it is.
[01:07:13] Speaker A: Canon.
[01:07:15] Speaker C: Oh, it is.
[01:07:17] Speaker A: Where'd you find that?
[01:07:18] Speaker C: Hiding in my office, not in the fridge. So we'll see what it's like. But it is the superior extra 400.
Oh, so I'll save that.
[01:07:30] Speaker A: I wonder how many 40 degree days that survived rainy day.
[01:07:32] Speaker C: Yeah, look, I think it'll make it better. It doesn't matter. Yeah.
[01:07:37] Speaker A: Whilst we're on the topic of film, I want to jump to the next one.
Yet another article that came out last couple of days. Kona Color 200 is a new negative film available in cartridge and bulk rolls.
So we've seen examples in the past of brands putting out, you know, short batches or runs of repurposed film. This company's gone the extra mile and they're actually offering, you know, a canister of film that you can actually use and, and load it onto your own spools and, and go from there.
So yet another sign that film is not dead.
No.
[01:08:18] Speaker D: Cool, that's interesting.
[01:08:21] Speaker C: No, and especially with Leica with. Yeah, with everything happening, it's making a comeback.
[01:08:28] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. Speaking of Leica and film cameras. Sloppy segue, Justin. Thank you.
Next little bit of news this week. Was that a Leica 0 series number 112 from 1923 auction for 7.2 million euros. Which is about 4 bucks 85 Australian dollars.
Unless I got my math wrong.
[01:08:51] Speaker C: Slightly different. Holy moly. What would that be? 11 million Australian. More.
[01:08:56] Speaker A: Second most expensive camera ever sold.
Hang on, let me ask. Hey Siri, what's 7.2 million euros in Australian dollars?
[01:09:06] Speaker B: 7,200,000 is 12,928. 752.14.
[01:09:14] Speaker A: Do you guys hear that?
[01:09:15] Speaker C: Yeah.
Wow.
[01:09:17] Speaker A: So almost 13 million Australian dollars.
[01:09:19] Speaker C: Yeah, that was a couple million off. Dang, that's.
That's an expensive camera. I bet it's got great micro contrast and 3D pop though.
[01:09:29] Speaker A: Has it got Ibis?
The images aren't loading for whatever reason. But. But I mean look at it. It's a lot of money for a beat up old camera. Seriously, you know, the least they could have done is cleaned it up a little.
[01:09:40] Speaker C: It's not history.
[01:09:43] Speaker A: Yeah, says you.
[01:09:44] Speaker D: Yeah, it's a very expensive piece of history.
[01:09:46] Speaker A: Did you see it comes with the receipt.
[01:09:48] Speaker C: They also released a new edition. They love releasing new editions of the.
What was it? Of the M11, M6 something. But it was like the one millionth camera that they've made.
[01:10:03] Speaker A: Oh really? I didn't edition.
[01:10:04] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:10:07] Speaker D: Bruce said the red dot tax is real.
[01:10:11] Speaker C: Yeah, red dot tax on that one doesn't even have a red dot.
It's pre rendered.
[01:10:19] Speaker D: It's probably fallen off.
[01:10:21] Speaker C: Nasty.
[01:10:22] Speaker A: And on 29 June Leica celebrated their 100th year from 1925 to 2025, which is pretty huge.
Like a camera. I haven't shared it with you guys.
[01:10:34] Speaker D: Sorry.
They what?
[01:10:37] Speaker A: 100 years of Leica.
[01:10:39] Speaker D: Didn't you say that Cameron from was from 1923?
[01:10:43] Speaker A: I don't make the rules, Jim. I just read the news.
[01:10:45] Speaker C: Don't look too closely. Jim, about.
[01:10:47] Speaker A: Hang on, what did I say?
[01:10:48] Speaker C: Every. Everything we say on this show is.
[01:10:50] Speaker A: It was from 1923. Why is this only.
[01:10:55] Speaker C: I'm not someone just 13 million.
[01:10:59] Speaker D: I'm no mathematician but hey, you're right.
[01:11:02] Speaker A: It did say 1923 and this is 100 years from 1925. I'm sure they've been around longer than that.
[01:11:07] Speaker C: Actually.
[01:11:12] Speaker A: 100 years of the 35 millimeter film camera.
Galica M11. 100 years. They're bringing out a special edition. Surprise, surprise.
Yeah. Anyway, enough about that.
[01:11:24] Speaker C: That's great.
[01:11:27] Speaker A: What else? Just very quickly. We haven't touched on this one for a few weeks but I'll just jump in here quickly. So soon? Sony's USA price hikes hit today. That was on the 29th. What's today 30th.
And there was a list of some of the price increases. So a Sony A9 Mark III will jump from 5999 up to 6399. So that's like a 400 jump.
That's pretty significant.
[01:11:59] Speaker D: US.
[01:12:00] Speaker A: That's US dollars. Yeah, yeah.
[01:12:01] Speaker C: Which is less than 10.
You know it's all in how you frame it.
[01:12:07] Speaker D: I wouldn't stress for that one. For the Sony FF6 has basically gone up 10.
[01:12:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:12:13] Speaker C: Less than 10.
[01:12:15] Speaker A: Whatever mathematicians on this show, I swear to God.
And one more, one more quick little news grab while we're on the subject of film. It's not a film camera but the echo lens digital film camera. It doesn't have a screen. Looks a lot like a hybrid Leica Fuji X100 I would imagine. It's probably plastic fantastic.
[01:12:38] Speaker C: Watch this space. You will see more of these coming over the next year.
[01:12:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:12:44] Speaker C: As they. You'll be able to jump on AliExpress and get 12 of these for 10 bucks each within the next.
[01:12:53] Speaker D: Is Lucky bringing one out.
[01:12:58] Speaker A: We haven't announced that yet.
[01:12:59] Speaker C: No, we're not releasing a.
A faux film.
I think this one's got a winder, Greg. Correct. Like a, not a, not a thumb lever. Like a.
[01:13:09] Speaker A: It's got, it's got an old school winder on the back.
[01:13:11] Speaker C: Yeah. Like a. What do you call those ones off the disposables type of water. Yeah. Like a friction thumb. Frictiony type disc.
[01:13:20] Speaker D: I wonder if you can turn it off.
[01:13:23] Speaker C: Turn what off? No, you cannot.
[01:13:26] Speaker D: So imagine if you're taking like for no reason. You've just got to keep whining for no reason at all.
[01:13:31] Speaker C: It's about the feel, Jim. It's about the feel. It'll make you more creative.
Nick Fletcher's here. Don't panic. He's here now.
[01:13:38] Speaker A: Oh good. We've been talking about you.
[01:13:40] Speaker C: Yeah. You got some really positive comments on your show. You should go and check them out.
[01:13:45] Speaker A: Yeah. You got a real fan club going there.
[01:13:47] Speaker C: Yeah, I've got. I've got one or two more bits I'm used just before we go to the next segment. Yeah, let's do this one is first.
How do you pronounce. How do you pronounce that strange phone brand. That means you don't have a proper phone.
[01:14:09] Speaker A: Yeah, something like that.
[01:14:11] Speaker C: Anyway, they have unveiled smart glasses to rival Ray Ban metas. So they're basically the same and they've got that look.
Yeah. And the, you know, like that. Yeah. He's like, I'm gonna make you do something with my AI glasses.
[01:14:30] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:14:30] Speaker C: He's like, but yeah, they're the same kind of thing. 12 megapixel ultra wide camera, you know, POV recording and similar sorts of art. Says it's got more than double the runtime of Meta's smart glasses.
Although I think Meta just released new smart glasses with Oakley that have more than that. So whatever. It's the same. Same. All I'm saying is this stuff's coming.
[01:14:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:14:57] Speaker C: People are jumping in. It's not just a weird thing that Meta did anymore. Like this is going to become a segment and once they figure it out, which is going to take a few more years, all you fools will be wearing these.
[01:15:09] Speaker A: Well, it's interesting.
[01:15:11] Speaker D: Like AI he does probably the left side of his head doesn't look correct.
[01:15:16] Speaker A: No, the eyes.
[01:15:19] Speaker C: If he hears this podcast, he's gonna cry.
[01:15:23] Speaker A: World's greatest photographer.
[01:15:27] Speaker D: Okay, maybe it's just angle, but yeah.
[01:15:29] Speaker A: Maybe he's just really attractive and he's just got really great skin.
Who knows? I'm not saying that I find him really attractive. I just mean, you know, he's clearly. They've chosen whatever. Anyway.
Yeah. Editor said, don't you dare.
We saw when we spoke to Lucinda Goodwin a couple weeks ago how she uses them and I, I found that really inspiring. Like she just basically rather than, you know, like we've seen Justin shoot video where he'll go around, he's taking shots and he's got his, his GoPro or his little.
What's that little camera. You've got the insta pocket 3 osmo pocket 3 mounted on that weird little thing that you made so it records you doing that. You can just use the glasses and you can upload it straight to your phone and you know, and she's, she's put it to really good use. Amazing use.
[01:16:19] Speaker C: Vertical only is a bit of a hold up for me, but I'm interested to give them a try. Need some decent light. Bruce says he saw someone using the Meta ones on a referee and an MMA live stream and it was really good. See, so you could actually get the ref view. That would be actually. That's pretty cool. When they dive in and tear them off each other. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool. Love the pocket three. The pocket three is great. Great.
[01:16:44] Speaker A: Well, I wonder, I wonder if they'll add them to like, you know, like afl and the cricket and you know, like they brought in the third umpire. Isn't that what they. When they do the. Can we Go to the video screen thing and they mic up the umpire. Sometimes depending on the match. Maybe that's the next step.
Pair of Ray Bans on them and you get like a really close up view of the action.
[01:17:07] Speaker D: It'll. It'll happen, probably.
[01:17:10] Speaker C: Next piece of news. Next piece of news. Hang on, I've lost my sharing.
Hold the phone. This is a very important one.
The Canon R1 hits the fastest readout speed we've seen on sensors.
I basically skimmed this article, so don't stress it. Just believe what I say.
It is 50% faster than the next fastest consumer mirrorless camera without a rolling shutter, which is the A1 mark 2, I believe. Where is that?
Yes, it has achieved a readout speed of 4.1 milliseconds. That's nearly 50% faster than the Sony A1 Mark 2 at the same resolution and frame rate.
Astonishing.
[01:17:53] Speaker A: Don't Sony make the Canon sensors?
[01:17:55] Speaker C: Take that, everyone. Yeah, and then Canon make it better into a camera.
Basically. It said it's even a little quicker than the C400, which hit 9.5 milliseconds. This is essentially all with.
No, no, no, no. C400.
I mean, still pretty fast. Yeah, it might not be as fast as like some crazy $100,000 camera, but faster than the C400.
Bruce.
Anyway, importantly, it's really, really fast. Canon is great.
The R1's beautiful. I think this has nothing to do with photography. It's purely video testing that they did.
But let's just roll with it anyway.
And finally, Petapixel reports The Panasonic Lumix GM5 is the greatest digital camera ever made.
And they are wrong.
And that's all.
[01:18:55] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:18:56] Speaker C: The bold strategy on that article, but I, you know, I wonder how much.
[01:19:00] Speaker D: They all paid for that.
[01:19:02] Speaker C: It's an old camera. I think it's just. It's what Greg would refer to as. What do you call them, Greg? A puff piece. It's a. It's like a.
[01:19:09] Speaker A: Their opinion.
[01:19:11] Speaker C: It's just a filler camera. It's a camera that Chris Nichols, the guy like, the guy that does the reviews, he really likes it. It's just one of his favorite cameras of all time. Yeah, but he's wrong.
Bruce says. Agreed. Wrong. And Brandon waits says the R1 is only nine grand. It's a bargain, isn't it?
[01:19:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:19:31] Speaker C: Worth that for that speed.
Okay.
Anything else?
[01:19:38] Speaker A: No, no. I want to see what's in the boxes.
[01:19:40] Speaker C: Okay. You want to see?
[01:19:41] Speaker D: We're getting through this episode. Look at us go.
[01:19:43] Speaker C: Yeah, I know.
Well, We've got to get to the last segment today. We actually really do.
All right, all right.
[01:19:49] Speaker A: What's in the box?
[01:19:52] Speaker C: What's in the box?
[01:20:00] Speaker D: You normally shake things a bit more viciously.
[01:20:05] Speaker C: There's another one here too.
All right, I got a lot of boxes. Let's get the boring one out of the way first.
Be like, I shouldn't. Hang on, I need to make my screen bigger.
No, no.
[01:20:21] Speaker D: Just.
[01:20:21] Speaker C: Yes.
[01:20:22] Speaker A: No. Oh, man. No, I can't move. I'm stuck.
[01:20:25] Speaker C: Don't move your head.
[01:20:27] Speaker D: I'll try to get in the middle.
[01:20:28] Speaker C: This one's even. It's got my name.
[01:20:36] Speaker A: Sorry.
[01:20:41] Speaker C: I'm glad Bruce got it. What's in that box?
All right.
[01:20:55] Speaker A: Oh, it's a box within a box.
Oh, what have we got here?
[01:21:02] Speaker C: Box number one. This one's a little off topic, but I've been waiting for this. The RF 20 millimeter 1.4.
[01:21:10] Speaker D: I thought that was going to be another Canon 50 mil lens or something.
They just bought a new one out.
[01:21:18] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I had the 1.2 and the 1.4, but the 1.6 really hits the spot.
[01:21:28] Speaker A: Wow, it's a lot of box for a little lens. Yeah, that's compensating for something.
Oh.
[01:21:37] Speaker D: Fancy.
[01:21:37] Speaker A: So tell us about this purchase. Why did you go down this path?
[01:21:41] Speaker C: Well, I used to shoot a lot with the Nikon 20 millimeter 1.8 and I've very much enjoyed it. Jim shoots with it a lot. We've used them for Astro.
It's. I've traveled with it, used it in Tokyo. It's a great low light lens and this is even Greater because it's 1.4, not 1.8 and I think, oops, that sounded like it had something in it. Still, I think this. So now I've got this and the 50 mil, which are. They're twins, you know, the 51.4, the 21.4, they're exactly the same size.
Let me just confirm that.
They seem the same.
[01:22:28] Speaker D: Are they? Oh, yeah, yeah.
[01:22:30] Speaker A: They look pretty close.
[01:22:31] Speaker C: Yeah, identical ones.
This one's about 15 grams heavier and these two lenses would be a great kit to wander around with anyway. But what they give me now that I've got the 28 to 72.8 and the 16 to 28 2.8 is between these two lenses and those two lenses, I've got really great compact kits for a two lens solution. So I could take the 20mm 1.4 and they're 20, 28 to 72.8 and have a prime And a zoom that covers a good focal range. Or I could go the other way around and carry the wide and the 50, the 16 to 28 2.8 and the 50 mil as a prime for when light gets low, depending on what I'm doing.
Perfect. Perfect.
[01:23:29] Speaker A: Nice.
[01:23:30] Speaker C: Or I could just take these two.
[01:23:32] Speaker A: Congratulations. New lens days.
[01:23:34] Speaker D: Or the zooms next.
[01:23:36] Speaker C: Actually, no. So we'll do this one last. If anyone can guess what camera is in this box by the time I finish opening the other box.
So you have to be watching live to win this competition.
I will buy you one of these cameras.
You have to guess exactly what it is before I open this box.
[01:24:00] Speaker D: Can I guess?
[01:24:02] Speaker C: No, I don't think you told me.
Okay, okay. You can guess.
So can you.
[01:24:09] Speaker A: Greg, what do you reckon it is?
[01:24:11] Speaker D: I got no idea.
[01:24:12] Speaker A: I reckon you got the X half.
[01:24:13] Speaker C: And while we do that, we're going to open this box.
[01:24:18] Speaker D: It's a film camera of some description, surely.
[01:24:23] Speaker C: It's Definitely not an X half.
[01:24:26] Speaker D: Brendan White said Pentax K1000.
[01:24:29] Speaker C: Oh, that's a great guess, but wrong.
Almost cut my hand off.
[01:24:39] Speaker D: Is it like a cannon or is it way fancier and like a Leica?
[01:24:46] Speaker C: I'm not giving you any clues.
[01:24:47] Speaker A: He wouldn't have shaken a Leica box like that.
[01:24:50] Speaker C: Yes, he would.
You don't know me well enough.
Another good guess from Rodney Brock's Brownie.
Wrong.
Good guess, though.
[01:25:02] Speaker D: Does it work?
[01:25:04] Speaker C: I haven't opened it yet.
[01:25:06] Speaker A: Bruce says a lomo. Diana.
[01:25:09] Speaker C: Good guess.
Wrong.
[01:25:16] Speaker D: It looked pretty light.
[01:25:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:25:20] Speaker D: Do you have a Canon film camera? Justin, you did buy one, didn't you?
[01:25:26] Speaker A: Yeah, he did buy one recently.
[01:25:27] Speaker C: Yeah, man.
[01:25:29] Speaker D: Yeah. Okay.
[01:25:30] Speaker C: EOS1N. If anyone's selling a 1V, please contact me.
[01:25:37] Speaker A: Paul says, Is it a trip 35?
[01:25:38] Speaker C: Olympus trip 35. Good guess. It is not a trip 35. All right. Finally getting into this first box.
[01:25:44] Speaker A: It's about time.
[01:25:46] Speaker D: Yeah. Wasting the Internet.
[01:25:48] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[01:25:49] Speaker A: How much this is costing me an hour?
[01:25:53] Speaker D: Too much.
[01:25:55] Speaker C: All right, what do we got in the box?
We've got. Just start off slow and steady. Kodak Gold Fancy.
[01:26:06] Speaker D: If it's an Olympus OM1, it is.
[01:26:08] Speaker C: Not an Olympus OM1. Good guess.
[01:26:10] Speaker D: And Rodney Nicholson Polaroid.
[01:26:14] Speaker C: That look, you can't really guess all Polaroids ever made.
We need a model. But.
[01:26:19] Speaker A: But you might be onto something there, won't you?
[01:26:21] Speaker C: It is not a Polaroid of any type.
[01:26:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:26:25] Speaker C: All right. What else we got? We've got Fuji 400.
[01:26:29] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:26:31] Speaker C: We've got Kodak 400T Max.
[01:26:38] Speaker A: Oh, nice.
[01:26:45] Speaker C: Ilford Delta 400 Professional.
Because that's what I am.
[01:26:55] Speaker D: 3.
[01:26:56] Speaker C: I wish it was a Leica M3. A Lei Chia. It's the cheap brand.
Two Ektar 100s.
Can you see if the Monday's last Monday show had an effect on me at all?
[01:27:15] Speaker A: Not at all.
[01:27:17] Speaker C: Two Delta 1 hundreds.
[01:27:19] Speaker D: Just in time for end of financial year.
[01:27:24] Speaker C: Ilford XP2 Super 100. If I'm. Come on. Focus cannon. If I'm remembering correctly, I think this is the one that you use color processing on. I can't remember. I was trying to learn about film.
Any guesses on that camera?
[01:27:39] Speaker A: Yeah, there's.
Brendan reckons it's an Olympus Mid you2.
[01:27:45] Speaker C: It is not. Good guess though.
[01:27:48] Speaker A: That's a good guess.
[01:27:50] Speaker C: Whatever Joe was offloading, Joel was selling. Joel hadn't.
Joel had an X Pro 3 for sale for $1300.
I messaged him 7 minutes, 17 minutes after it went up and I said, have you typoed that price? He was like, nah, but it must be cheap because it's already sold.
I said I would have bought it and I would have paid more than that for it.
[01:28:18] Speaker A: Double.
[01:28:19] Speaker C: Yeah. What else we got? We've got the Greg's favorite. Come on.
Fuji Macross 102.
As you can see, I'm trying to find my favorite black and white film, something with high contrast. I'm thinking it's going to be the Delta, the Ilford Delta, but we'll see.
We've also got the Ilford Ortho plus 80.
Give that a test out.
So get into the fun stuff now. What's in the. I don't even know what's in there.
[01:28:52] Speaker D: Oh, that's a Minolta X700.
[01:28:54] Speaker C: It is not a Minolta X700 Portra 400. Just because I needed some more.
Put that away.
We got.
[01:29:06] Speaker D: Are you gonna put these in the fridge?
[01:29:08] Speaker C: EKTA E100. I'm gonna ask John Yumena tomorrow whether you actually do need to store them in the fridge or if that's just an old, old filmer's tale.
This will be my first slide film. Transparency film, I think.
So I'll probably muck that up.
And finally, Sinister Double X negative. Yeah. No, it's not the one. It's not the 800T one that I wanted it. This is black and white and this I've never heard of for Ferrania.
I don't know. What is it? Chat P30 sounded good. The description sounded good.
Anyway, that's it.
[01:29:53] Speaker A: So where'd you get all of these? From.
[01:29:55] Speaker C: I ordered those from Walken's House of Film because they had the ones that I wanted in stock. I had a look at around. I don't know who's good to buy film off these days. If anyone has any recommendations.
I mean, I tell you what, they arrived really, really fast, so it's good.
[01:30:11] Speaker A: I've been getting a lot of social media posts, probably because we talk about film photography so often.
My camera, my phone's just sitting there.
But I get a lot of social media posts from a couple of different new film labs.
Can't remember what they are, so they're not that effective.
[01:30:25] Speaker C: Last chance. Last chance, anyone? Bruce was the closest, by the way.
I'm not going to say.
I'm not going to say which Bruce, which. Which one of his comments, but he was the closest.
[01:30:34] Speaker A: All right.
[01:30:35] Speaker D: Had a lot of comments.
[01:30:38] Speaker A: That's an Olympus. It's a pen.
Is it an Olympus pen?
[01:30:44] Speaker C: It is not Contacts, man. I wish.
Nope.
All right.
The camera is.
[01:30:57] Speaker D: You've really dragged this out.
[01:31:01] Speaker C: Hey.
Lomo sprocket rocket.
[01:31:06] Speaker A: Oh.
[01:31:09] Speaker C: Have you seen these things?
[01:31:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I haven't seen the Sprocket rocket, but I've seen a bunch of other Lomo stuff.
[01:31:15] Speaker C: It's.
It exposes across like a pano across the whole film, including to the sprocket. So it's like if you loaded 35 into a medium format back.
Yeah, Bruce. Damn, you were close when you said Holger. I was like, oh, no, he's onto me.
[01:31:36] Speaker A: So how many frames does it take at once?
[01:31:40] Speaker C: What do you mean? Takes one frame at once.
[01:31:44] Speaker A: Yeah, but how many full frame equivalents is it across the.
[01:31:48] Speaker C: Oh, I have no idea. What's that? A bit about 2. I think it does 12 off a roll or something like that. I actually don't know what the dimensions are of it.
[01:31:55] Speaker D: Must be three, then.
[01:31:57] Speaker A: Yeah, that's pretty wide.
[01:32:03] Speaker C: The unboxing experience is cool.
[01:32:07] Speaker D: Tim said, buy the man a camera close enough.
[01:32:11] Speaker C: If Bruce wants one.
Oh, look, the back doesn't even hinge off. It just falls off.
[01:32:18] Speaker A: What could go wrong with your film?
[01:32:20] Speaker C: Wow. Doesn't look very well sealed against light.
This is a frame.
[01:32:26] Speaker D: How much was it?
[01:32:28] Speaker C: All right, so if anyone wants one of these at the moment, if you want to play around with some film, you can get them on the Lomo lomography website for 69 Australian dollars. They're half price right now.
So for a bit of film fun, I was like, why not? Unfortunately, there's no way for me to attach a camera strap to this thing. What if they just glued glue some lugs to the body.
So, yeah, that's what I bought. And I'm going to put. I'm going to put a roll through that tomorrow morning, I think, and then see if we can develop it when we go on our little film excursion tomorrow afternoon to Luminar Labs.
[01:33:09] Speaker A: Do you want to tell the peeps about that? Yeah.
[01:33:11] Speaker C: Yeah. We're going to go visit finally Lumina Labs in Kyneton. And because I've got. I think I've got six rolls of films I've been waiting to develop. I've just been lazy.
And we're gonna go down there and see if we can develop them and learn a little bit more about the lab. And also look at all of John's cool cameras because I know he's got some Leicas there and I want to Leica. So I want to touch one an M6.
[01:33:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:33:37] Speaker D: I feel like he said he had two of them.
[01:33:39] Speaker C: He did say he had two of.
[01:33:40] Speaker D: Them and I said, you can borrow one.
[01:33:43] Speaker C: I think he meant like for a minute, not for like when we were there or like to take home.
But I'll try and see what he says.
But yeah, so much what. Does anyone have any suggestions? What. What film should I put through this sprocket rocket as a roll? My first roll.
[01:34:02] Speaker A: Let's start with your least expensive.
[01:34:04] Speaker C: Yeah, well, it is. So it's got two that's easy to access. It's got two aperture settings. I don't know if you should be able to see this.
Sunny and cloudy. That's not white balance, that's aperture. It changes from like 16 to something like 11.4 or something like that.
Bruce says I shot the AIPP national awards years ago with the Diana. My daughter shot my 40th on it too.
So many multi exposures.
[01:34:41] Speaker A: Nice.
[01:34:42] Speaker C: Yeah, they didn't have any of those in stock.
Exe. What was that? I just joined. Look at him.
It's. It's. It's a sprocket rocket. If that's what you. It's not. It's not an actual cool lomography sprocket rocket. It's not a proper, you know, film camera.
[01:35:01] Speaker A: How much reckon it weighs?
[01:35:03] Speaker C: Nothing. It's plastic. Maybe like a quarter of this. No, not even a quarter of that lens.
[01:35:10] Speaker A: Like 100 grams. If that.
[01:35:12] Speaker C: Yeah, if that looked like when you.
[01:35:14] Speaker D: Were throwing the box around.
[01:35:15] Speaker C: If it works, it works. Yeah. I'm excited to give it a go.
[01:35:19] Speaker A: There you go. It's already. It's already paid for itself.
[01:35:22] Speaker C: Yeah.
Fun times.
But yeah, seriously, they're literally on discount closeout sale. So it's, you know, not much more than just buying a disposable camera to have a bit of a play with.
Bruce says be careful with the sprockets. Easy to break them.
Okay, I'll be careful. I am a bit worried about winding it because it's sort of got the two winders. It's very manual, like, you literally just turn the dials. You just. You just winding the film through. Yeah. It's not. There's no, like, gears or anything in there. You're just winding it.
[01:35:55] Speaker D: Okay.
[01:35:58] Speaker C: Figure it out. What could go wrong? Nothing could go wrong.
What else? Nothing. Nothing in any other boxes. You guys got any boxes to open?
[01:36:07] Speaker A: No. Well, I've got a whole bunch of them downstairs. Got a knit, air conditioner, photography stuff. Oh, no, not yet. That's on its way. Although I am going to order a lens to go with my camera.
[01:36:21] Speaker C: I thought you said you weren't going to order a lens.
[01:36:24] Speaker A: No, I'm not getting the. The 23 millimeter pancake lens that they're promoting with the XC5. I'm actually going for a different lens this afternoon, but don't tell anyone. We'll wait for the unboxing.
[01:36:37] Speaker D: That's lucky. He's forgotten.
[01:36:43] Speaker A: I feel so valued.
[01:36:44] Speaker C: Yeah, okay. It's gone in and out of my head completely.
[01:36:48] Speaker A: Remember when we discussed my pay rise and you agreed? Anyway, let's move on to the next segment. Judge Dread.
[01:36:54] Speaker C: Yeah, Judge Dread, too. All right, another competition. This time you have a chance to win $4,000. Actually, it might even be €4,000. I don't know. But we're not giving it away. Someone else is.
Does anyone remember the original Judge Dreg Judge Dread segment?
That was a segment where we looked at this competition.
AI judged photo competition by Company XI, which has been running for a month. It has 10 hours and 51 minutes left to go.
If you'll remember, the winner gets $4,000. I think second place gets like a thousand or something like that. It is judged completely by AI and there's still time for you to enter Bruce Moyle. Oh, great. This thing.
Bruce, don't be disappointed just yet because what we're going to do, we're going to go look at the current top 20 of this competition, because as soon as you submit, you're on the leaderboard. And this is 20th.
[01:38:18] Speaker A: Fake.
[01:38:20] Speaker C: This is 19th.
[01:38:21] Speaker A: Oh, that could almost be real.
[01:38:25] Speaker C: I think it is real. Like, because I can see this closer. I think it's real.
It's not great. The eyes are soft, but. But the metal is sharp.
But the eyes are soft. So I don't know about that.
[01:38:42] Speaker D: The feel like I've seen that somewhere.
[01:38:45] Speaker C: A different version of it was on this competition when we. Because we had a quick look at these when it started like just under a month ago. And there was a different version of this guy jumping over water at sunset. But I think it was a pretty sure it was horizontal.
So it's in there. It's just massively over processed. I can't zoom in on it, but there's a lot of noise in the genes and stuff that is pushed to get that up. But anyway.
All right. More it. Apparently AI loves people smoking.
Really ranks them highly.
[01:39:21] Speaker A: That smoke is fake.
[01:39:22] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:39:25] Speaker C: How do you know?
[01:39:27] Speaker A: Because it just looks it.
[01:39:28] Speaker D: Yeah, I would agree with Greg.
[01:39:39] Speaker C: I mean, yeah, it's intense makeup.
[01:39:45] Speaker A: If it's real.
[01:39:48] Speaker C: I can't tell.
I couldn't just before we go on.
[01:39:52] Speaker A: The terms of the. Of the competition was that you can't submit AI images.
[01:39:55] Speaker C: No.
[01:39:56] Speaker A: Right.
[01:39:56] Speaker C: No, they're not. They're not allowed to be AI pictures. But they will be judged by an AI algorithm. Auto judged. But it must be a real photo. And it even says in the T's and C's that they will contact you to get the original file if you're, you know, a winner. So you can't, can't cheat and just put an AI photo in there because AI loves AI.
[01:40:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:40:23] Speaker C: All right, let's whip through some of these and get up to our top three.
All right. People fishing at sunset in Vietnam. It's got an insanely strong vignette, which looks like either and more so on the top than the incorrectly installed lens hood or the filter. Too many stacked filters, something like that. Certainly, you know, worthy of a 14th.
[01:40:49] Speaker A: They've cropped it crookedly.
[01:40:52] Speaker C: Your horizon is crooked.
[01:40:54] Speaker A: No, your. Your horizons were crooked.
Maybe bring up those photos. No, they've cropped it after they've vignetted it there.
It's really looking at color contrast. Yeah.
[01:41:07] Speaker C: Is. Is that what you think? It's. It's the AI and something somehow it would be figuring out composition or something. But anyway, so. Yeah, so we got this one.
Very, very dreary and drab and dark. Just.
[01:41:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:41:25] Speaker C: Could be a phone photo. I'm not sure.
Okay.
Where are they going?
[01:41:33] Speaker A: I don't know. That feels misplaced.
As in those people don't.
[01:41:40] Speaker C: Seem to.
[01:41:40] Speaker A: Belong in a desert.
[01:41:41] Speaker C: They might. You don't know. Maybe the desert is nearby.
[01:41:47] Speaker A: It's fake.
[01:41:48] Speaker C: Okay, there's this one again. Do you remember that one?
[01:41:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:41:53] Speaker C: Yep. The lady shocked lady in a steam room. An old steam room. I call that one.
Okay.
Where are we getting that music from?
[01:42:11] Speaker A: I don't know.
[01:42:11] Speaker C: It's coming. It's coming through my thing. I'm getting a music.
[01:42:15] Speaker D: Oh, can you.
[01:42:16] Speaker C: Can you.
[01:42:17] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:42:17] Speaker A: Is it on this website? Maybe they put a backing track.
[01:42:20] Speaker C: I think it might be.
[01:42:22] Speaker D: That's not.
[01:42:24] Speaker C: Where's it coming from?
[01:42:25] Speaker A: I don't know.
[01:42:26] Speaker D: I think Kate's watching tv.
[01:42:29] Speaker C: Oh, okay. Well, that's all right then.
That's a. That's an epic cosplay type setup.
[01:42:43] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:42:44] Speaker C: Fake background.
[01:42:48] Speaker A: I don't know. I think the foreground's fake.
[01:42:51] Speaker C: You think it's all fake?
[01:42:52] Speaker A: No. Well, I think that they've over. They've over edited the face.
[01:42:58] Speaker C: That's. That's pretty common with that sort of fantasy stuff.
[01:43:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I suppose. Yeah.
[01:43:05] Speaker C: It's a real bird.
[01:43:08] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:43:08] Speaker A: Yeah, probably.
[01:43:10] Speaker C: Okay.
[01:43:13] Speaker A: Oh, wow. It feels like a CD cover from the 80s.
[01:43:17] Speaker C: Yeah.
It's interesting.
[01:43:20] Speaker D: How many people is there? 20 people that have entered this?
[01:43:23] Speaker C: Well, I don't know. It's the top 20. Why you keep seeing Klaus's name?
[01:43:28] Speaker D: No, it's like that. Like.
I don't know. They're okay. They're not.
[01:43:36] Speaker C: That's the point I was kind of getting at. If anyone wants to throw a Hail Mary into this comp, you might get four grand. You've just got a. If you got a. An image that's going to beat these in an algorithm.
[01:43:51] Speaker D: Yeah. Beautiful portrait, but not crazy.
Yeah.
[01:43:58] Speaker C: This one's weird.
Actually saw this the other day when I was checking this, and.
[01:44:04] Speaker D: That doesn't look right.
[01:44:05] Speaker C: Something doesn't look right about it.
[01:44:09] Speaker A: I mean, it could, you know, compositionally, it's sloppy.
They've elevated the reds to bring the dress up, and as a result, they've brought the steam engines running gear up.
[01:44:20] Speaker D: Yeah, but even the guy on the right looks how he's lit. And the people behind him look muddy.
[01:44:26] Speaker C: There's something odd going on with this photo.
[01:44:28] Speaker D: And then the kid and the conductor.
[01:44:33] Speaker A: Could be a composite.
[01:44:34] Speaker D: Does anyone read?
[01:44:39] Speaker C: Apparently AI still likes spot color.
[01:44:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:44:46] Speaker C: Bold choice.
[01:44:48] Speaker D: Bruce says. I would feel dirty having your name next to company. I think if you want. Look, maybe Bruce, but, like, you know.
[01:44:58] Speaker C: Yeah, four grands. Four grams I'll take.
[01:45:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I'll sell my soul.
[01:45:06] Speaker C: Here we go.
What do you think, Jim? Give us the boudoir breakdown.
[01:45:12] Speaker D: There's a lot of lines going through her head. Like, I can count three lines going into her head.
[01:45:16] Speaker C: You're going to be careful throwing stones there, Old liney head.
[01:45:19] Speaker D: Hey, you've got a rainbow. You got a rainbow going through your head. Justin. Don't talk to me.
[01:45:25] Speaker C: My background's beautiful.
[01:45:26] Speaker A: Is it black and white except for her skin?
[01:45:29] Speaker C: No, it's just desaturated. It's like they're throwing a filter on it. It's. Yeah, it's very desaturated.
[01:45:35] Speaker D: It's still color, but it's like almost everything. Almost everything's gray. It's a weird.
[01:45:39] Speaker C: Yeah, it's weird.
It's weird.
[01:45:42] Speaker D: Nice photo.
[01:45:46] Speaker C: Another portrait.
[01:45:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:45:54] Speaker C: Heavily. Heavily processed skin.
[01:45:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:45:58] Speaker D: Yes.
[01:45:59] Speaker A: To the point where it almost looks flat.
[01:46:02] Speaker C: Mmm.
All right, we get this. So hang on. So. So at this stage, this is getting money. This is third.
At this stage, this is getting money, and then this one is getting more money.
[01:46:16] Speaker D: Mm.
[01:46:21] Speaker C: Okay.
[01:46:23] Speaker D: I think it's a good shot.
[01:46:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's a good shot, too.
[01:46:26] Speaker D: Like, it's better than the. Some of the others we've seen. Better than the train photo that was only a few clicks away.
[01:46:34] Speaker A: It's the realest looking photo so far.
[01:46:38] Speaker C: Yeah.
Yeah. Okay.
All right. And Bruce says skin blur for the win.
The one with the boat. The one with the boat is a paid for shot. Yeah. I think that's what get is getting me is like, you know, it's just. It's not real, and that's fine. But it's not a good enough photo.
[01:46:57] Speaker A: For a paid for shot.
[01:47:01] Speaker C: Yeah. With Glenn, like, you pay this guy to be in your photo.
Okay. And he'll paddle out there. So it's not like you just captured this amazing moment in a faraway land.
You paid him and he went out there and paddled around. You take his photo. But. Which is fine. But then if you're gonna do that, like, Glenn's got these ones that are just, like, epic because you pay them so you can actually put them where you want them to be in a, you know, an absolutely epic photo. And this. This doesn't have that level either. But also, AI is judging it, so it's not like it's not a bad photo at all. But I mean, this is. I think this one's getting thousands of dollars.
And then here we go. We're going to number one, the $4,000 money shot of Xi's AI judged Judge Dredd End of the World photo competition, where photography no longer matters.
Is this photo.
[01:48:02] Speaker D: Interesting?
[01:48:03] Speaker A: It's the color. It's like Bruce said, although the other one wasn't, but it was stronger contrast.
[01:48:12] Speaker D: It's a good shot, but it's not.
[01:48:16] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't know.
[01:48:21] Speaker A: I don't know.
[01:48:23] Speaker C: I'm depressed now.
I mean, I could throw something in there. I don't think I'd have anything that would beat this.
[01:48:30] Speaker A: What about the photo we created the other day?
[01:48:34] Speaker C: Do you want me to put it in?
[01:48:36] Speaker A: Yeah, but we need to. Can we update it and make it so that the man that's buried in the ground with the chickens is actually smoking? Because that might actually make us.
[01:48:44] Speaker D: Can we add that and spot.
[01:48:46] Speaker A: Spot color?
Yeah.
[01:48:48] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
Bruce is sort of saying, yeah, it's okay, but it doesn't say anything. But also, how would AI interpret photography? Saying something anyway? I guess. But it.
[01:48:59] Speaker D: Yeah, it's not going to feel.
[01:49:02] Speaker C: Yeah, but I don't know. Anyway, that's. That. We won't have to see that anymore. Who knows? Also, we might. I'll. Maybe I'll check it sometime in the next week after they actually finalize it. And the winners will be none of the people in that 20, because they'll flick them all out and they'll get.
[01:49:19] Speaker A: AI to make a photo so they don't have to give away a prize.
[01:49:22] Speaker C: Yeah, probably.
[01:49:24] Speaker D: Maybe what they do is they put, like, not the best photos in there. So then you're like, I've got a shot. So then more people enter. More people pay to enter.
[01:49:34] Speaker C: It's like the carney games where they. They have someone like, knock the cans down. Knock the cans down. You're like, oh, I could do that. And then the cans are glued there.
Refresh it and see if it's changed. All right, let me check.
[01:49:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Imagine if every time it was a whole new batch.
[01:49:57] Speaker C: Just. Just a new batch of photos.
Nah, nah. Still the same. The whole 20. Still the same. Because I can see them as thumbnails. Yeah, the top 20.
[01:50:07] Speaker A: I still say we should submit the half berry chicken man.
Just in the city.
[01:50:15] Speaker C: First place gets 4,000. Second place gets 2,000. Third place gets 1,000.
That. So the guy in the boat's getting $2,000.
[01:50:26] Speaker D: Probably cost him five bucks.
[01:50:28] Speaker C: Us.
[01:50:30] Speaker A: Oh, it's us. Okay.
[01:50:35] Speaker C: I don't know.
Seems a little bit crazy.
[01:50:38] Speaker A: A little.
A little disappointing.
[01:50:41] Speaker C: Hey, they can put. They can give away their money however they want, but.
[01:50:45] Speaker A: Yeah, but we all know that it's not really about the competition.
[01:50:48] Speaker C: No, but it's just. AI. AI judging, I guess, is only looking for the same sort of level of stuff that it would make.
[01:50:56] Speaker A: It thinks whichever half Buried Chicken man would be a winner.
[01:51:00] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I could.
I need to put my email in though.
Is there an issue?
[01:51:15] Speaker D: They're gonna. They're gonna scam you.
[01:51:17] Speaker A: Just put Jim's.
[01:51:18] Speaker C: I'll do Jim's.
Jim.
I'll just add.
[01:51:27] Speaker D: I know a lot of your emails, Justin.
[01:51:31] Speaker C: I'm just. I'm just.
[01:51:32] Speaker D: I can start signing you up for everything.
[01:51:34] Speaker C: I just can't do. I can't do it with a lucky straps email. So just let me do this. Okay? You need. It's for the show.
[01:51:41] Speaker D: Justin and Jim, email.
[01:51:42] Speaker C: It's important. It's important.
Let me just search chats for chicken.
All right.
[01:52:02] Speaker D: So does that mean I.
[01:52:03] Speaker C: Feel like Chicken man won't go. Image description. What should we. What's the description of our Chicken Man?
Do I need to show. Do I need to show it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet?
[01:52:15] Speaker A: Yeah, go on. One last look.
[01:52:17] Speaker C: One last look at image submission.
Oh, no.
Oh, Rick Nelson's done it. Rick says I entered three photos since the start and ranked 50th or worse. It's a weird concept with the photos. Good.
Like, do you think they're better than what's coming up on there? Is it some other weird ranking? This is our Chicken Man. For anyone that hasn't seen it before, AI made that for us to enter this competition.
So I'm just gonna.
[01:52:54] Speaker D: But won't it know that it's AI?
[01:52:57] Speaker C: I don't know. How does AI work? AI doesn't know. So, okay. Bruce Moore says problem is that someone that wins will try entering other comps and get crushed.
But point to the AI comp as a way to legitimize themselves but not accept human critique.
Probably.
[01:53:14] Speaker D: Sounds like all the wedding awards.
[01:53:17] Speaker C: Yeah, the fake wedding awards that are just money makers. Yes.
All right, me focus on Jim's details.
It can be a png. Of course it can.
Oh, no, it's not going to be big enough.
Must be.
Oh, no, it's just big enough.
It must be at least 1400 pixels.
And ChatGPT made that image for us at 1536 pixels, so that's quite convenient.
Rick Nelson says. I thought.
He says his images were far better than those and he thinks Chicken man will win as it's authentic to AI.
Paul says what's to stop AI training itself on poor quality AI?
[01:54:08] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. That's my biggest. That's my biggest gripe with it.
You know, all of these. When they harvest all these images or when people submit images for the culling. AI Culling software and it learns just going to keep making itself dumber.
[01:54:26] Speaker C: Can you please give me the image description for Chicken Man? Oh, no, I'll just get chatgpt. Do it anyway. Never mind.
Can you please give me a description of this portrait that would suit an exhibition?
[01:54:53] Speaker A: Brandon Waits has said. Goddamn Skynet.
If you know, you know.
[01:54:59] Speaker C: I'm just going to get our description. Oh, yeah. Rebirth in Autumn.
Rebirth in the autumn of Life.
[01:55:06] Speaker A: Yeah, let's go with that.
[01:55:07] Speaker D: In the evocative.
[01:55:09] Speaker C: Yeah. Do you want me to read it?
[01:55:10] Speaker D: Yes.
[01:55:12] Speaker C: I can't read it and have Chicken man up at the same time. Damn it.
[01:55:16] Speaker D: Make your skate the screen skinnier long.
[01:55:21] Speaker C: Okay.
In this evocative fine art portrait, an elderly man stands beneath a radiant beam of golden light that cuts through the twilight of a dusky meadow. Surrounding him are three hens, emblems of life, constancy. Constancy. Is that a word?
Emblems of life's constancy.
While a single yellow chick rises gently into the light, a visual metaphor for renewal, legacy, and the cyclical nature of existence. The subject's upward gaze captures a quiet reverence, suggesting the reflection not on what has passed, but on what continues.
With painterly textures reminiscent of baroque.
Cheers.
This image balances mortality with hope, grounding the universal theme of rebirth in the humble symbolism of the everyday.
There you go, Chicken Man.
[01:56:23] Speaker A: That's a winner.
[01:56:25] Speaker C: I'm just going to put Rebirth in the autumn of Life and then I'll just use that last line.
This image. Yeah, perfect.
Command C, Command V. Oh, this image doesn't quite fit.
[01:56:48] Speaker D: There's a lot of people hanging around for this.
[01:56:51] Speaker A: Sorry.
[01:56:52] Speaker C: Sorry, guys.
[01:56:54] Speaker D: And look, and I'm not sure why.
[01:56:58] Speaker C: They got nothing else to do or their AI bots.
[01:57:02] Speaker D: Like, I'm on the stream, so I have to stay.
[01:57:08] Speaker A: Oh, dear.
[01:57:11] Speaker C: Of every day.
[01:57:13] Speaker A: Just while Justin's doing that. I just want to remind everybody that this is the Camera Life podcast, proudly brought to you by Lucky Straps, makers of leather camera straps from Bendigo, Victoria.
Head to Luckystraps.com use code JIM, code Greg, or code Justin at checkout to get yourself a nice little, nice little discount on any Lucky Straps branded products.
And also just remember that we run two shows every week. Monday evening, 7.30pm Australian Eastern Standard Time, random photography show, which you've just witnessed here tonight. And then every Thursday morning at 9am Australian Eastern Standard Time, we interview a photographer and talk about their craft and their journey and their. And their work.
And just to give you a bit of a heads up, we've got Luke Sharkey joining us this coming Thursday, we've got Andrew Chapman joining us for a quick chat the following Monday.
Andrew actually shoots big surgeries, like transplant surgeries. He. He will be in the theater documenting them and he's going to come and join us and talk to us about that as well.
We've got guests lined up for, you know, months ahead, so make sure you like and subscribe and stick around.
How'd you go, boss?
[01:58:27] Speaker C: Submitted, Our rank was 43 of 3181.
So we beat Rick Nelson and we breach Xe because xe got ranked 493.
Sounds like maybe it's a bit of a. Yeah, bit of. Maybe a bit of a scam on the back end. I would love to know.
43. No, I'd love to know if EXE remembers what, like what you. What it said, you know, 43 of 3181. I wonder if it's going up or if it's just random or. I don't know.
[01:59:01] Speaker A: Yeah, it all feels a bit cooked to me.
[01:59:06] Speaker C: What do we got this coming here. Gareth Davies. Hi there. How are you all? We're good. How are you?
Finally. Finally caught you live. Is that the same AI contest you mentioned a couple of weeks ago? It is. We're doing a little recap on it just to see what happened, and so far it finishes in 12 hours. The winning shots are not good, not winners. But we just submitted our Chicken man, created by chat GPT and we only got 43rd, so that's still pretty good.
[01:59:37] Speaker D: So really, if you. You could redo Chicken man, re enter it and see if you get better or worse.
And then, like, look at what you changed. And then like, yeah, keep doing it until you get number one.
[01:59:52] Speaker C: Okay. XY says it is legit because he put his in and it was. There were 3180 submissions. Okay. So it is going up at each one. So the issue is we can only submit one a day, Jim.
And I've already used your email.
Of course I did.
[02:00:11] Speaker D: I'm not gonna use mine if they start emailing me.
[02:00:15] Speaker C: Why would I use mine?
[02:00:17] Speaker D: I'm gonna start forwarding them to all of your email addresses.
[02:00:22] Speaker C: You might like this software. It's probably good software.
Make more emails. I know I need to get some burners for this. This sort of. I do have multiple emails, but I don't want to give them any of mine.
Mine are useful.
Bruce Moyle. Imagine being last in this competition.
[02:00:41] Speaker D: But it's, you know, if you're last, it doesn't Necessarily mean you're the worst.
[02:00:45] Speaker C: It could potentially be the best, most creative photo in the competition. AI is just confused. It's probably one of Bruce's. I submitted a few of Bruce's. I didn't tell you.
[02:00:59] Speaker D: Actually, that's a good point from Paul. What would happen if you just revenge it with the different description, same photo, someone else.
[02:01:05] Speaker C: Yeah, resend it.
I don't think.
[02:01:09] Speaker D: Sorry, Resend it.
[02:01:10] Speaker C: You're not revenge with the same photo from someone else? I don't think it would. Yeah, I don't think it would matter.
Oh, he's saying they do Exe says they do IP lock. Really?
So you need like a.
One of those.
A vpn. What?
Wow, this is crazy.
[02:01:35] Speaker D: Anyway, Paul said tell your AI to talk to the exact AI.
[02:01:42] Speaker C: I entered this into a photo. I don't know. They've given this too much time already. But I'm just going to do this because we're here now.
I'm going to talk to ChatGPT.
[02:01:55] Speaker D: So you have to pay anything to enter, obviously.
[02:01:57] Speaker C: No, it's free. It's just an email collecting thing. Who knows if they'll actually give the money away. I hope they do.
Like, I hope if they're going to do this, they at least do the, you know, the full thing.
I entered this into a photo comp and only came 43 third.
How can we improve it to get a higher ranking?
[02:02:28] Speaker D: Did you tell the AI that it's an AI comp.
[02:02:31] Speaker C: Competition is judged by AI I don't really have to change my spelling for ChatGPT, do I? The competition is judged by AI please make a new version that will.
[02:02:53] Speaker A: Oh, excuse me. Sorry.
[02:02:54] Speaker C: Higher chance of winning.
Let's see, that's telling us why we likely ranked 43rd.
Too painterly. Abstract symbolism, lighting, contrast might be too dark and muted compared to punchier. High contrast entries.
Redundancy in elements. Multiple chickens without distinct roles may read as repetition.
This is great. All right. They're creating a new version based on this prompt. Okay.
Symbolic clarity. Chick equals rebirth. Cracked shells equals transformation. Visual simplicity. Single chick hands. Focal tree realism. Emotional human connection.
It's generating it now.
[02:03:53] Speaker D: Grant would be loving this content.
[02:03:56] Speaker C: I mean, this is.
I don't know. Is this the worst podcast episode we've done, guys? Other than, you know, the actual.
[02:04:02] Speaker D: We had an amazing start.
[02:04:06] Speaker C: Meanwhile, ChatGPT just burns half a rainforest. I'll make sure I say thank you afterwards, too. I've heard that that's also bad.
[02:04:14] Speaker D: Is it?
As in it uses more power?
[02:04:18] Speaker C: Yeah. And if the whole world Says thank you. That, you know, that has a significant impact on emissions and power usage.
And then while this is slowly doing this, is there anything else we need to talk about on tonight's show?
[02:04:36] Speaker A: No. Pretty much covered all the housekeeping stuff.
I just want to thank everyone for watching and listening along at home or at work or wherever you may be.
[02:04:49] Speaker C: It's coming. That. That.
That image is coming.
[02:04:52] Speaker A: Wow. This one looks different. Doesn't.
[02:04:56] Speaker D: Looks very fake. And I can only see not even a full nose.
[02:05:01] Speaker A: I don't know if he's still buried.
[02:05:04] Speaker C: Oh, that's nice. Brendan says this episode is definitely in the top 93. Thanks, Brendan.
[02:05:13] Speaker D: Speaking of, what are we doing for episode 100?
[02:05:15] Speaker A: Whoa, whoa.
What happened there?
Look at that. Eggshell. That's, like, beautiful.
[02:05:23] Speaker D: That's. That's significantly better than the last one, I'll give you that.
[02:05:30] Speaker C: All right, Greg, what's your email?
[02:05:34] Speaker D: You already know it.
[02:05:36] Speaker C: I need to send this to you guys. Someone else is going to have to put this up because my IP is flagged, so just going to send it to Greg.
Greg will have a burner email.
You will?
[02:05:48] Speaker A: I've only got my work one.
[02:05:50] Speaker C: It's worth. This is. It's for the. It's for the show. Come on.
[02:05:56] Speaker A: Wow.
[02:05:59] Speaker C: Chicken Man 2.0.
Who are you emailing it to?
Well, how many emails you got? You got any burners, Jim?
[02:06:08] Speaker D: I've got a banner.
[02:06:09] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[02:06:10] Speaker D: Boom.
[02:06:10] Speaker C: I'll send it to Jim. All right.
Okay. Chicken Man 2.0. I'll give you the link to the thing.
[02:06:18] Speaker D: Yeah, do that. Make it as easy for me as possible.
[02:06:21] Speaker C: Yeah, it's down the bottom of the page.
Hang on. Submit here.
Attach file.
Maybe the last one I submitted, the file name was Chat GPT Image. And then the date and time. Maybe I'll just change the file name to.
[02:06:47] Speaker D: Granddad. Granddad with Chicken.
[02:06:52] Speaker C: No, no, we had a whole name for it.
[02:06:56] Speaker D: Rick said it's for work. Greg. That's right. And Richard said
[email protected].
[02:07:05] Speaker A: That'S nice. That's.
[02:07:06] Speaker D: That's not his burner again. That's his work. That's right, Richard.
[02:07:10] Speaker A: That's the one that sends me the royalty checks every week.
[02:07:13] Speaker D: Yeah, that's.
[02:07:14] Speaker C: That's it.
Chicken man, too.
So I'll attach that.
I guess you'll also send it to mine.
[02:07:23] Speaker D: You're gonna send to my normal email, aren't you?
[02:07:25] Speaker C: Yep. Yeah, I just need to get you the description.
Rebirth in the Autumn of Life.
Sent.
All right, get on it.
Very important.
[02:07:52] Speaker D: Why are we still doing This.
[02:07:54] Speaker C: I don't know. While Jim's doing that, Greg probably needs to go to bed.
But I'm really interested to know.
[02:08:02] Speaker A: Dad, can I say up five more minutes?
[02:08:07] Speaker C: You can stay up till we see What Chicken Man 2.0 rank says.exe.exy. are you still listening? Because I need advice on my films.
[02:08:17] Speaker D: Did you email it to me, Justin?
[02:08:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[02:08:20] Speaker D: Which email?
[02:08:22] Speaker C: Sent to Jim.
Just. Yep.
[02:08:30] Speaker D: Must be a big image.
What download this is? Am I going to get a virus?
[02:08:38] Speaker C: Sounds like we're Teletubbies. Does that mean our audio's gone bad or is that just our general shows that shit?
Okay. XYZ here. Xe. What black and white film would give me the most contrast?
Like, I want high contrast. And when you read the descriptions of all black and white films, they all say that they're high contrast.
So tell me.
[02:09:06] Speaker D: I don't read German.
[02:09:09] Speaker C: Just change the. Change the language to. It's in English. You can figure this out.
Kodak 400. T max.
[02:09:19] Speaker A: That's what he says. Tmax. Kodak.
[02:09:22] Speaker C: Hang on, hang on, hang on.
Fujifilm across 100.
Ilford Delta 100.
Ilford Delta 400.
[02:09:41] Speaker D: Something fishy going on here.
[02:09:42] Speaker C: Cine still XX. It's fine, Jim. Just put your credit card information in.
Ilford Ortho plus or Ferrania P30.
Fujifilm across is technically Ilford 100. What?
They tricked me.
[02:10:10] Speaker A: Young man.
[02:10:13] Speaker C: Are you saying.
Are you saying these are the same?
[02:10:18] Speaker A: They're not the same.
Don't listen to xe. He's like 12.
[02:10:25] Speaker C: Bruce Mo says Delta 3000. Because basically more ISO is more contrast. Really?
[02:10:37] Speaker D: All right, do you want to know where we ranked?
[02:10:40] Speaker A: Yes, please.
[02:10:41] Speaker C: 114Th. We got worse. Hang on. That says 3000, 181.
But maybe it booted us out because it was an 8 because it lit the file name. Literally said ChatGPT.
Maybe.
It's possible.
Xe says yes, across is repackaged. Ilford Delta 100.
[02:11:08] Speaker D: Okay, now, what have you signed me up for?
[02:11:13] Speaker C: You'll be right.
All right, well, okay, final question. What. What's. What film should I put in my sprocket rocket first?
Anything.
[02:11:28] Speaker A: I'd go to Tmax.
[02:11:29] Speaker C: Anything. I thought. I think. I thought color would be more fun. I was actually thinking either Kodak Gold because you just, you know, burn through it.
[02:11:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[02:11:39] Speaker C: Doesn't really matter.
I don't think I should put my really expensive ectochrome reversal film in there because I don't know how to use it.
No. Fuji 400.
Anyway, Bruce says go gold. XY says T Max.
Okay. Gold or T Max.
I'll see. I'll see if I'm feeling tomorrow.
[02:12:04] Speaker D: Do both at the same time.
[02:12:05] Speaker C: You can't do that.
[02:12:07] Speaker A: There you go. Just see what happens. Yeah.
[02:12:09] Speaker D: Why can't you.
[02:12:10] Speaker C: Rodney says gold. Oh. XY says. Oh, wait, Fuji 400.
Look what else I bought. Xe, man. Come on.
Can you see the rumors are true. They're back.
Not really. I found it in my office while I was cleaning.
No way.
I found it. I don't know how old it is, but it is still. It is still good to go.
[02:12:44] Speaker A: Yeah, why not give it a shot?
All right, all right, I'm gonna call it because otherwise he'll sit here pulling off his shelf all night.
For those of you watching, those of you watching and listening along live with us right now, thank you so much for joining us tonight for the Camera Life podcast random photography show the Bellarat international photo by yet b Lee bien edition.
Yeah, I've run out of words, Jim. You got anything to say?
[02:13:19] Speaker D: Code Jim for 15 off@lucky straps.com. yeah, but yeah, thanks for watching everyone. If you're still here that good job on getting through the last half an hour.
Yeah, we started off really well with Vanessa and I feel like we've did.
[02:13:33] Speaker C: We'll get these Monday shows, we'll get them back on track. Back on track. Next week will be.
[02:13:37] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll see.
[02:13:38] Speaker C: Yeah, I'll put it. I'll put together a good show, good running sheet.
Brandon says thanks for the light entertainment, gents. Paul says good night. Rodney Nicholson says fun light.
Bruce says thanks Rxa. Good night.
[02:13:54] Speaker D: Oil.
[02:13:54] Speaker C: Oil.
I can't even talk.
Gareth accurately says could have bought an X half with all the cost of all those films. Could have. But you know, it's still a toy.
Turns into a hangout. Just needs some beer. Yeah, I've got non alcoholic beer. Does that count?
All right, shall we?
[02:14:13] Speaker A: Yeah, let's call it.
Thank you everybody. Once again this has been the Camera Life podcast random photography show. Episode 93.
What is it? 30-06-2025.
Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Justin.
We'll see you on Thursday morning everybody with with Luke Sharkey.
[02:14:32] Speaker C: Yeah, it's gonna be great.
[02:14:35] Speaker D: All right, cool. Thanks guys.
[02:14:38] Speaker C: Thanks everyone. Thanks, Rick.
[02:14:40] Speaker A: Thanks.
[02:14:41] Speaker C: See what you did there? Yeah, I see what you.
