Lessons from a Lifetime Behind the Lens with Julie Millowick (EP229)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sam. Well, g' day, everybody and welcome back to the Camera Life podcast. It is Thursday 5th November, and I hope you're all well and safe and you may have noticed that Justin is still away and we're joined today by co host Jim. Jim, great to have you back on the show, mate. [00:00:40] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks, Greg. Thanks for having [00:00:42] Speaker A: me. Good to have you here and fortuitous, because today's guest is Julie Millerwick. Julie's an Australian photojournalist and commercial photographer with an astonishing history and body of work. Julie, welcome to the podcast. [00:00:58] Speaker C: Thank you. It's great to be here. [00:01:01] Speaker A: Yeah. So good to have you. Now, as I indicated, Jim, you've got a bit of a relationship with Julie. You've known Julie for a while now and worked out great that you were going to be here co hosting this morning. Guys, what is this relationship that you have? How do you know each other and tell us about that journey? [00:01:22] Speaker B: Well, Julie was mine. Sorry, you go, Julie. [00:01:28] Speaker C: Go on, Jim. [00:01:30] Speaker B: All right, so Julie was my university lecturer. It feels like a long time ago now. [00:01:38] Speaker A: Yeah, [00:01:39] Speaker B: but [00:01:39] Speaker A: because you're getting old. [00:01:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I am. [00:01:44] Speaker A: And so that was for photographic studies, obviously. [00:01:47] Speaker B: Further. Yeah, Photojournalist, I think. [00:01:49] Speaker A: Photojournalism, yeah. Wow. And Julie, what sort [00:01:53] Speaker B: of. [00:01:54] Speaker A: What sort of a student. What sort of a student was Jim? We all want to know. The dirt is there. [00:01:58] Speaker C: Well, [00:01:59] Speaker A: did you think, oh, this place is not going to make it. [00:02:02] Speaker C: Jim was actually doing majoring in graphic design and. And I was. I was teaching photography as an elective to graphic design students just once a week for a couple of hours or something. And Jim was the standout student. Absolutely standout. And this was first semester, first year. I can remember this clearly. And I can remember where you used to sit in the mat lab gym. We used to sit right over on that side near the window. Anyway, there was this star performer there in the Mac Lab, Latrobe Graphic Design. I was from Latrobe Photography, but I went in once a week to do an elective and at the end of that first semester, I think it was, Jim left graphic design and came in and majored in photography. So we poached him and. And he continued to be an absolutely standout student. And you want to take over, Jim, or do you want me to keep talking? [00:03:13] Speaker B: No, you keep going. I [00:03:14] Speaker A: think he's enjoying the praise, Julia. Yeah, he's liking this. [00:03:19] Speaker C: Well, I'm not quite sure of the sequence of this, but I know that Jim, like a lot of students, was working part time at the supermarket and I Think we're now in third year. And I had a really big job coming up in Toowoomba. It was part of a series of jobs that I was doing for Don Small Goods kr. I think they were owned by KR then. And I'd been all over the place and all over Australia working on this. And I had an assistant who came with me and we were usually away for about five to seven days and it was full on, was really hard work, started early, you know, worked, worked all day in the factory or the abattoir or whatever. And then we'd come back and we do all this processing at night, which was quite complicated. I mean, the processing was straightforward as far as the image went, but it was quite complicated by the image identification because we were photographing groups of people all the time and was very important because this was an acknowledgment of the importance of these people, how important they were. And so we had to get all these names. And of course the marketing manager was there who was facilitating this whole thing, but we had to get the names of these people right because this was an acknowledgement of all of their work that they had done for the company. So poor Jim was in charge of all those names. Poor person. And I used to be fitting in and out from my motel room, helping him or supervising him, but I can. I could. And anyway, I was doing these jobs and they were. And they were great. And. And my assistant couldn't come to Toowoomba. He had to go into hospital or something. And I thought, God, who am I going to get? You know, I need someone I can really rely on so that I can concentrate on what I'm doing and I know. And I need someone who can really manage off camera flash really well because sometimes we had mobile studio lighting, you know, with those big, huge batteries that were like car batteries carrying around. But most of the time we use off camera flash Ms. And. And so you walked around. Sorry about the top of my head there. Okay, so you walked around with a big. With a unit like this and sometimes carrying two connected, of course, with a radio transmitter and you had these battery packs on your shoulders. And I needed somebody so that I could be over here photographing whatever and my assistant could be over here holding the flash and I could trust them, her to know where, exactly where I wanted that flash to be. I thought, God, who am I going to get? And I thought, Jim. And I can remember phoning you, Jim. And you were actually at work at the supermarket. And I said, hey, can you can you. Can you help me with this? And I can remember telling you how much I was going to pay you and you said, can you say that again? Because it was a bit more than your supermarket pay, I think. Anyway, Jim came with me and it was great. We had a great time and we ended up, like all of the places that we went to with one of these books that all these people who worked in the factory received. So it was really lovely job and Jim was great. He was fantastic. And if I. If I can, I want to say, if I'm allowed to, I want to say how that job came about, because I'm a great believer. Well, it was just part of my core philosophy. I've always got a personal project going, sometimes two or three. And how this big job came about, and it was huge. It was a big budget job, as I said, it was all over Australia. How that came about was in 2004, I realized that the Khalsamain Bacon Factory, which is a very, very large employer here in Khalsamain, it was coming up for their centenary. And I thought, wouldn't it be great to get into the factory and photograph all those people and make a huge display right through the town of Castlemaine? I'm talking huge banners here acknowledging the importance of, one, the bacon factory, and two, the incredible work that all those people have done for years, decades, some of them. So I made a pitch and nothing happened. And then, so 2004, so their centenary was in 2005, and the custom main state festival was in 2005. So I spoke to the director about it and she went along and she made the pitch and they said yes. And so I didn't get paid. I didn't want to get paid. I had an assistant, of course, whom I paid, and we went, sorry, everybody. Sorry about my little coughing. I've got asthma at the moment, which lots of people have, because the thunderstorm asthma is out there. And I'm sorry. Anyway, we went. We were there for a couple of weeks in. In the Castle man factory and. And it was great. We made all these. All these photographs and they ended up as really huge banners right through the town. Big, big canvas banners that were just everywhere. They were never huge and it was just fabulous. [00:09:40] Speaker A: I've [00:09:41] Speaker C: got [00:09:41] Speaker A: some photos here I'll just bring up while you're talking about it. [00:09:43] Speaker C: Okay. [00:09:46] Speaker A: Apologies for the scaling [00:09:52] Speaker C: those. Those banners there, Ron. Yeah, so you can see we've. We were everywhere in that factory. Plus we went out to where the sort of nursery was, where they bred where they bred the pigs. It was a fantastic job. And you can see I'm really trying to acknowledge the importance of the people in these photographs. I want to, when I'm photographing people, I want to communicate with them, I want to collaborate with them. I don't just want to stand there and make a photograph. I want it to be a two way, two way collaboration. And I hope, I hope that's happened. [00:10:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's, that's very, very clear, especially in this series of images. You know, it's people centric. It's. There's still context, there's still. They're not straight up headshots. There's a lot of context behind every single photo. I'm really interested to, to know how you, how you dealt with going to, to such a place. You know, they're not renowned for having the greatest working conditions, let alone the fact that you're dealing with, you know, animal products. Was that confronting for you at all or for you, Jim? How did that go for you? [00:11:20] Speaker B: You go, Julie [00:11:22] Speaker A: or you go for it? [00:11:23] Speaker C: Yeah, okay. Okay. Well, it was really back to my childhood for me because my dad was a drover and I saw all that kind of thing happen all the time and [00:11:43] Speaker A: so [00:11:44] Speaker C: I sort of grew up with it. But these places that we went to, particularly Toowoomba because it had an export license, so, you know, everything was, was very strongly, sorry, monitored by the government, you know, government health officials. But yes, I know what, I know what you're asking. And particularly Toowoomba and Castle Main where they brought animals in. I was okay. I felt, I felt sorry for the animals, but I was okay and. And you were okay, weren't you, Jim? [00:12:32] Speaker B: Yeah, it was. So Toowoomba we photographed from, from the truck. We started at the truck, the animals coming in and we left at the truck leaving and we started with the truck coming in and that was quite confronting. The first shot was fine, but it was the second shot that once they're in so was sort of straight into it for us. [00:12:54] Speaker A: Yeah, [00:12:55] Speaker C: yeah, [00:12:57] Speaker A: yep, fair enough. [00:12:58] Speaker C: Yeah. And. Yeah, go on, Jim. [00:13:03] Speaker B: No, [00:13:05] Speaker C: and there was an incident in Toowoomba, wasn't there, where the marketing woman who was, who was employing me, employing us, a very lovely woman and she was with us all the time, particularly checking all the names etc, where she fainted, didn't she? [00:13:26] Speaker B: Oh yeah, in the awful [00:13:27] Speaker C: room. [00:13:28] Speaker B: And [00:13:28] Speaker C: you, you, you sort of. Sorry, you sort of carried, carried her out. Do you remember that, Jim? [00:13:36] Speaker B: That [00:13:37] Speaker A: sounds like [00:13:37] Speaker C: it was, it was, it was very confronting. Yeah, [00:13:40] Speaker A: yeah. [00:13:41] Speaker B: Man, [00:13:41] Speaker A: yeah, [00:13:41] Speaker B: and it was hot. It was a hot room, that one. [00:13:44] Speaker C: Yeah, [00:13:44] Speaker A: yeah. And was it just heat that caused it or was. Was she okay? [00:13:49] Speaker B: I think so, yeah. I think it was just, it was a hot working room. [00:13:53] Speaker C: It was very confronting situation in that, in that particular room. Yeah, we weren't going to, but, but, but what I want to say about, about the personal project is that I did that, that, you know, that centenary for the, for the custom bacon factory working at the Bayco. You know, you'd say to people, particularly high school students or whatever, what are you doing for the holidays? Oh, working at the Baco. So those, so those photographs for the centenary of the Bay Company, it was purely a personal project and no money changed hands except for me paying my assistant. So that was 2004 and they were exhibited 2005, which was the actual centenary and then it was probably 2008. I can't really remember when we did these. So it was, let's say it's three or four years later I get this phone call and I'm asked to quote on this amazing job, you know, five, seven days at each location around, let's say there's seven locations, I can't really remember now around Australia and it was all from a personal project. And I think it's really important for photographers to be very mindful of that. And if you're interested in something, nobody's going to pay you to do it, but just go and do it because you want to, because you never know where it's going to lead, of course, but do it because you want to. Yeah, [00:15:34] Speaker A: yeah, no, I, I think that's great advice. And you know, even if people do need financial support with those sorts of things, there are ways around that. You know, lots of local governments have grants, state governments have grants. You know, there are opportunities to, to get some funding on projects but I, I do see how those personal projects can lead to paid gigs, especially for a commercial photographer, industrial photographer. And just on that note, how do you define the difference between commercial and industrial photography? [00:16:07] Speaker C: Okay, well I would have called myself when I was running the business in Melbourne a commercial industrial photographer and actually would have called myself a corporate industrial photographer. So let's think of one of my. Sorry, of one of my main clients, main Nicholas, who were fantastic. Tom Valenta is in charge of marketing and they are main Nicholas owned so much so one minute I'd be down at say Leviton to, at a chemical, big chemical refinery place and, and I'd be photographing a six axle tanker that you Know, full of chemicals that's just driven down from Sydney and we've got like 20 minutes to do the photograph, which is. Which we're going to light. And I would call that industrial. [00:17:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. [00:17:13] Speaker C: And then they might have me photographing their brand new. I can remember this shot. It was when. Was when computers were coming, were becoming more common and we went, we went out somewhere to, to a huge place where they had, you know, a massive computer set up. [00:17:36] Speaker A: Yep. [00:17:37] Speaker C: I think that's more sort of corporate. And if I think of the Victorian Arts Centre, now called Art Center Melbourne, and I work, I would have like two, three, four jobs with them a week. If I'm, if, if I'm doing what I did for two or three years called progress shots, where every six weeks I would go down there to the construction. It was a construction site. And so the concert hall is over here, the round one. And the theatre's building is here. That's the one with the spire which was still being built. And I would go there, sign in, put my hard hat on and go around and photograph these same sites that I'd photographed six weeks before. And it was a construction site. It was dangerous. You know, you had to play by the rules. [00:18:29] Speaker A: Yeah, [00:18:29] Speaker C: I'd call that industrial. And then the concert hall, which is the round flat one, was the first one to be completed and I would go down there three and four times. Three, four, five times a week, photographing performances. I'd call it commercial. [00:18:50] Speaker A: No, it's a good way to define it. Yeah, really interesting. Look, before we proceed with any more questions, I will say good morning to some folks in the chat. So thank you to everyone that is watching. If you haven't already, please make sure you give this episode a like. It helps us out that a lot. And if you're new here, welcome. This is the Camera Life podcast. Subscribe cost you nothing. Tickle the bell icon and that way you will get notifications in your time zone whenever we have a podcast coming up. But let's say good day to some people in the chat. First off, Lucinda, bright and early. Hey, friends. Hey, Lucinda. Hope you're well. Rodney Nicholson. Morning all. Looking forward to this, but off to the dentist. We'll watch back later. Good luck with the dentist. Philip Johnson's in the chat. Morning all. Paul's here. Who else we got? We've got. Greg Stubbings has joined. Morning everyone. Looking forward to Julie's story. Lisa Leach has joined us. Good morning. Robert VARNA from the U.S. i always get this wrong. I think he's in. Yeah, he's in the States. We'll leave it at that. I don't. Yeah, east coast photography. Good morning, shooters from Sunny Foster. Be with you for the first half of the show and then off to shoot a nude calendar shoot. Sadly, it's a bunch of 70 year old men for a charity fund. Look, you know, you just take what you can get, really, when it comes to new, new charity shoots. Elena. All right, that's enough pumping of Jim's tires. Yeah, no dirt. I'm very disappointed. There was no dirt on Jim. Brian Maxwell Carr. Brian Carr. G'. Day. Howdy, folks. Great to see you, Julie. A legend indeed. And we'll get, we'll, we'll get down to your relationship with Brian and a few other photographers in a moment. Lisa Leach. Jim hides his light under a bushel. So lovely to hear your beginnings in your craft. What a fabulous mentor Julie would have been. And from Jason, G'. Day. Hi all. We haven't seen you for a while. Great to have you back, Julie. As is our way sometimes here on the Camera Live podcast, we'd like to find out what a photographer's origin story is. You know, where did it, where did it begin for you? Were you an artistic child growing up? Did you have artistic family around you or perhaps a mentor in your life that encouraged you to be creative and eventually obviously a photographer? Where did all of that start for you? [00:21:19] Speaker C: Well, I don't think it started in my childhood. I spent my entire childhood and a lot of my life since then on the back of a horse. You know, I'd go out with the drovers and in school holidays and after school was fantastic. I loved it. And I did all that horsey stuff one day, events and show jumping and so forth like lots of other kids. So it didn't start there for me. I think it started when I was living in Washington, D.C. i was working at our embassy there on the corner of 16th street in Massachusetts Avenue. So 16th Street. If you kept going straight down 16th street, you bang straight into the White House. And I was right, right in the middle of GC, the embassy. And I lived very, very close to it on the corner of 16th and R. And I was there for Nixon's first term, you could say roughly. And images were coming out of Vietnam because the Vietnam War was absolutely raging at that point. And it was photographs that we really hadn't seen before because everything was censored until that point. And we were shocked because nobody was at that point. Society wasn't desensitized to terrible, shocking images. But. And we were shocked. And the anti Vietnam War movement was very strong. And the big moratoriums would happen in Washington D.C. because that's where the power base was. People would bus in from all over America. And of course I walked in them and, and I felt like a lot of people my age, I mean, I was 21, incredible compassion. Well, for everybody involved in that war. Civilians, kids, you know, military like everybody. And particularly for the conscripts who average age 19 and they couldn't vote until they were 21. I mean, it was just so unfair. It was just so horrible. It was just shocking. And you know, compounding that with these photographs coming in, you know, nicot little cam running down the road with the napalm burns, Eddie Adams, General Loan executing the Viet Cong suspect in broad daylight in downtown Saigon. And they really affected me. And, and I knew that I wanted to pick up a camera and save the world like these photographers were doing. Of course, I didn't save the world, but photography changed me. And, and, and, and that was my, that, that was my thing where my life changed from, from being like whatever. My life was sort of normal and going to work and being interested in this and the other thing to being. I want to be a photographer. And one of those photographs that. I'd say the photograph that most stays with me from that time is the photograph that the student newspaper photographer at Kent State University made. John Philo. He won the Pulitzer with it that year. He made it in May 1970 of the student protest on Kent State University where the National Guard opened fire on a peaceful protest, unarmed students. And in space of 13 seconds, they shot 67 rounds from M1 Firearms. That is military firearms. And four students were killed immediately and eight others were wounded. Some of those kids, because they were kids, they were like me, 19 and 20, weren't even protesting. It was lunchtime and they were, they were walking, you know, between classes. [00:26:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:24] Speaker C: So they just fired randomly. John Philo, who was actually in the dark room at the, at the time, heard the shots and picked up, picked up his camera when tearing out. And when he got out there, there was a young student, Jeffrey Miller, lying, lying on a sort of edge of the. They were, they were on the football level, just lying on the edge, concreted area on the edge of the football oval. And he was dead. He was killed instantly. Shot through the head, through the mouth. And John Filo only had a few frames left on this roll of film. And he made the photograph of this poor dead person just lying there. And he was alone. You see, people were stunned. They were absolutely in shock. And people just kind of didn't know what was happening initially and then what to do. And then people sort of came to and started doing first aid and all that kind of thing. And, and, and John Philo saw a young, a young woman, she's 14 year old actually. She was a runaway. And she, she ran up to, up to Jeffrey's body. She knelt down and then she went like this sort of calling, calling for help. And John Philo made, made that photograph. [00:28:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:02] Speaker C: Wow. And he, he, he finished a roll of film and, and he left very soon after he saw the National Guard cutting the, the telephone wires. So he knew that they were going to control whatever information was getting out. So he jumped into his red VW. Before he did that, he put his roll of film in the hubcap of the car and he drove out. This is a Penn State, Ohio, which was about five hours away from where I was. And he drove out to his hometown, so he was in Pennsylvania. And he went to his local newspaper, process the film, and they sent it out on the wire. I didn't see that photograph until the next day. But, but I was, but we were all very aware of the demonstration that was happening at Kent State. It was happening because Nixon and his Secretary of State Kissinger had invaded. They called it an incursion into Cambodia without any approval from Congress or anything. Sound familiar? Sounds very [00:29:12] Speaker A: familiar, yeah. [00:29:14] Speaker C: Yeah. And that's what the protest was about. And anyway, John Filo tore back the film was process went out on the wire and I saw it the next day. But the afternoon before, on the day that it happened, the secretary, because I was working as a secretary at the Australian embassy, she came, she'd been somewhere where there was a radio or newspaper or something like that, and she came. And I can remember her walking to my office. I can remember where I was standing. I can remember that minute so clearly right now. And she said, I've shot them. And that John Philo's photograph for me is the one that keeps coming back to me of all those photographs from Vietnam and that time, that's the one that keeps coming back to me. [00:30:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:09] Speaker C: And [00:30:09] Speaker A: was that a, was that a defining experience in your desire to become a photojournalist? [00:30:16] Speaker C: I mean, I bought a cat. I had got a camera by then, and I was taking the most hopeless photographs, actually. They were okay, but they were boring. You know, they were of the snow and squirrels and, you know, all that stuff. And yet I was surrounded by like when I went to the supermarket from my apartment on 16th and R, I had to walk past the Black Panthers. Okay. Whom I liked. I loved them. I thought they were great. They did really, really great things for those people in Washington D.C. which was predominantly black population. And they were absolutely great breakfast programs, you know, everything. Did I photograph them? No, I did not. You know, because I just didn't have those skills. I didn't have that confidence. I talked to them, but I didn't photograph them. So pathetic. But, you know, I got there at the end. [00:31:19] Speaker A: Yeah. And you know, it's. Photographing people can be intimidating, especially when you're first starting out, you know, knowing how to communicate, how to engage, how to, you know, get that best look from them. Yeah, that's really interesting, Julie. Sorry. No, no, you go on. I was going to ask about your return, so, please. [00:31:42] Speaker C: Well, I came back to Australia, first of all. I backpacked around Europe, you know, the youth hostel thing. And then I came back to Australia and I started doing a photography course at night after I was still working as a secretary for the. At General Mattish Homes. Gmh. And. And I started doing photography course at night. And then I. I said, I have a dark cream in my mum's laundry. And. And I just couldn't stop photographing. I was photographing all the time. And I was on my way, I suppose. Yeah, [00:32:22] Speaker A: yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, reflecting on your experience, but both going to, you know, doing night courses in photography and then becoming a photography educator yourself, reflecting on that. Do you see that there's elements missing from today's photography education that baffles you or, you know, makes no sense that they're not teaching these, these things anymore. Is there anything that sort of comes to mind about that? [00:32:55] Speaker C: Well, one of my most vivid memories of Hurran, where I ended up, was that every two weeks we had an assignment. And the assignments were incredibly varied and they happened every two weeks. Whereas now, as I understand it, I mean, I haven't been in teaching since 2014, but we actually were not allowed to do that. We weren't allowed to. To place the students under that kind of pressure. You know, I think we had three assignments a semester and the folio. Whereas at Prahn you had assignments every two weeks and your folio. And also the lectures were three hours, they were full on, and we would have two a day. So was fantastic. We were. I'll put it this way, we were under pressure all the time. We were under pressure all the time. And, and it was great. I loved It. Some people didn't, but I loved it. And, and, and I think it's so important if you're going to be a photographer to, to understand that. That you really do have to meet deadlines and you. [00:34:16] Speaker A: Yeah, [00:34:16] Speaker C: you have to, you know, you have to be doing it all the time. It's not just some sort of leisure thing. Yeah, [00:34:22] Speaker A: yep. And I guess especially as a photojournalist, you know, you predominantly having to work in real time and get. Get content out or to your editor or whoever it may be as quickly as possible. And that. Yeah, that quick turnaround of assignments obviously would help teach people what it's like to. To move at a pace that makes sure you meet the client brief by the deadline, whatever that may be. Yeah, I think that's. I think that's really interesting. And so back in those days when you were studying at Prahran, which is just around the corner from me here. [00:34:58] Speaker C: Oh, really? Great. [00:34:59] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm in South Yarra. Yeah. And I've heard a lot of people talk about Prahran as a bit of a hub for photographers. You know, we went and saw the Rennie Ellis exhibition last year with the Bright Festival Photography Group, and a lot of his work and the documentary was around, you know, his studio in Prahran and learning in Prahran and photographing the fringe people in Prahran, as was his way. You know, what. What was it like back then? You know, coming in a seat, coming in a city to study and did you move to Prahran to live? Did this become a base for you? Or were you sort of. [00:35:37] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, one. Amazingly, I got in. I mean, how did I manage that? But anyway, I did. I can. I. I can remember when I showed Ethel, Ethel Smith my folio. I had these. I had these photographs, which actually up on my Instagram page, of a foal being born. And the foal actually didn't. Wasn't really going to make it. It did, but. But I was. I was. I was watching this mayor for the. For the absent owner. So I'd get in my little red Volkswagen and. And I'd drive to this paddock where the mayor was and. And I do that first thing in the morning, like 6 o' clock or something very quickly before I went to work, come back from work and then I do it. I do it then. And then I do it about 10:30 at night. Anyway, I went up six o' clock in the morning and. And the foal, actually two foals had been. Had. Had been Born, the, the one that was still alive was not in very good shape and the, the mayor was, you know, and licking it and so forth and was bad. And I made photographs of it very quickly. I didn't know what I was doing because like I'm going to, and I'm going to a night, a night class in photography. So I didn't really know very much but anyway I made photographs of it then very quickly jumped in my car, drove to the nearest house, no Internet, no, no mobile phones or anything, which was also a horse property, and phoned, got them to phone my father, my dad, because I really, it was more than I could handle. And, and, and I went back and I kept photographing all through, all through that day as this, as, you know, dad, milk, the mayor and you know, the, the cholesterol and, and then the milk was, you know, I literally poured down this false throat and it got worse and I photographed it getting worse. And then I was asked to do a job which was go to the egg store in the nearest town and get a calf teat that they use for calves so that we could get more milk into it. So I did not do anything to endanger the foal and then I photographed it right through to when it could stand up and then I photographed it through the week and I took that along in my entrance folio as well as all sorts of other stuff. And Athel said to me, this is a photo essay. You've done a photo essay. I didn't know what a photo essay was and so I got in and I shifted over from South Australia, regional South Australia to Pran and started living in St Kilda. It was amazing and it was amazing to be in that class, in that environment. Andrew was there, Andrew Chapman was in my ear. [00:38:56] Speaker A: Yep, yep. [00:38:57] Speaker C: And, and it was just the most incredible experience and I'm so grateful for it. I'm so grateful to those lecturers. Paul Cox, Brian Gracie, John Cato, my hero. Ethel Smith, Derek Lee. I'm so grateful to them. It was just the most extraordinary environment. And I'll tell you what else happened to me there in those first couple of weeks. The technician Andy Lyle gave me one on one classes in his own private darkroom. I think he did this with Lynette Singh too, who was also a mature age student. I think I was 24 by then and he taught me how to print. I could already print, but terrible. And anyway he taught me how to print and I really took to it and by the end of the year I was working as A printer in the darkroom of Smith Cato Bar, Ethel Smith John Kato Peter Bar in the parasync of Collins Street. On I was job sharing with another student who was ahead of me, Stephen Lewesky. And that skill, that printing skill has served me very, very well and you know, and I love it. I just love working in the darkroom. On my very first morning at Smith Cotto Bar when I was on a two week trial going, you know, all nervous and everything and my first job was 250 prints of Malcolm Fraser. This is fiber based paper. 250 prints of Malcolm Fraser by 11 o'. Clock. And the two ladies in what was called the finishing room I think you know who tried it on those huge big drum glazers, really hot, you know, you burn your hand on them. I think their deadline was about 12:30 and they kept coming into the darkroom with you know, a little tray, little 10 by 8 tray and they'd take out 10 prints at a time and then they go out and dry them, they'd come back in. So that was a baptism by fire [00:41:20] Speaker B: let [00:41:20] Speaker C: me tell you. And I used, I was using a very beautiful enlarger Bessler. I loved it but anyway I passed, I got past it and then much later, much later in my, in my career, one of my clients, Colin Kay from Silver K Gallery, I used to do artwork documentation for him in Armidale. He bought these original Beatles negatives and some of them are the Rolling Stones too, but mainly Beatles from the photographer Deja Hoffman in the, in the uk and he photographed the Beatles right from the start when they were kind of just starting out and he had all those really famous photographs in the cabin, you know, jumping up in the air in their beetle suits in the, in the studio. Colin bought all of those negatives and, and they were terrible, I mean probably exposed most of the time. But you all understand this. Those people just before talking about getting workout they would do a job, come back, process the film and they would put the negatives when they were wet into the enlarger. So you know they were all scratched and all that kind of thing. Not that that was my problem, it was retouch's problem but, but it was very interesting to be a part of that kind of history. And, and anyway I was down there doing a job and Colin told me that you know, he bought these negatives and he'd said to Dejo who was in Hospital in NHS ward with about 20 other people at the time and in fact he passed away and he and Mrs. Hoffman still lived in a council flat. And he said to, to dare. If I had met you 20 years ago, I would have made you a very rich man. And he bought, he bought the necks and he said to me, I want you to print them. And I think they're about 120 and they were 1620s and2024, you know, 50 by 60 centimeter. And. And he had bought original DJO prints and they were our control prints and, and I had to print exactly as Dijo had printed or the printer. And he said to me, I want you to print them because I don't trust anybody with these negatives. And I said, look, I can't. Look, we've got a fantastic printer and I trust him completely and I can't do it. I can't. I was a freelance and had all those overheads. I'm in the middle of the city in a studio in Goldie, in Goldie Place. Incredibly handy for BHP and everybody. And I said, I can't do it. And anyway, in the end I did do it because he paid me my photography rate. And so I would go in when the darkroom was not being used, usually on a weekend with an assistant because, you know, you'd have the trays lined out 20 by 24 trays because they had to be archivally processed on top of all of that. So I think you had seven trays and you needed somebody to work the trays while you were on the, on the enlarger and so that, so that person really had to handle. Know how to handle paper because this is 20 by 50 by 60 centimeter paper, wet. [00:45:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:04] Speaker C: Fiber. A nightmare. And you know, you had to get it through these seven trays and because we used to print in runs of 4, 10, that sort of thing. And it was fantastic work and I brought that job with me when I shifted up here into the country. And when we shifted here, builder had already made the dark room that could cope, you know, with seven 20 by 20 foot js. So Paran did that for me, albeit the technician that Paran did that for me and that stayed with me all of my life and was very, very, very helpful to say, to say the least, apart from being introduced how to make a proper print. That was great. Yeah, [00:45:51] Speaker A: yeah, [00:45:52] Speaker C: yeah. And was a great time. [00:45:56] Speaker A: Yeah, that's amazing. It's really interesting to hear about. You know, I, I studied film photography as well. I did a year at Brighton Bay Secondary College before it was [00:46:06] Speaker C: really. [00:46:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I did a folio prep year because I Ended up studying industrial design. But I went to Brighton Bay and did everything. Pottery, [00:46:15] Speaker C: illustration. [00:46:16] Speaker A: Great [00:46:16] Speaker C: reputation. And you [00:46:18] Speaker A: meet [00:46:18] Speaker C: people all the time who've been there. Yeah, [00:46:21] Speaker A: yeah, yeah. And then, you know, it, sadly the school's gone well and truly gone. Probably turned into a block of concrete houses. So, you know, always fascinated when people choose to start film photography now for the first time. [00:46:39] Speaker C: Yeah, [00:46:40] Speaker A: you know, our regular co host, Justin, you know, he's just picked up film photography more recently and is exploring that a little bit more and we're seeing it more and more now where people are actually leaning back into film and. But I'm more interested to hear from you about your experience in going from film to digital. When that digital age transitioned, how did that, how did that impact you? How did you handle that, that side of it? [00:47:08] Speaker C: I fought it. I didn't want to do it. Fought it. And of course, you know, I'd get a job and I didn't have any choice, I had to do it. But in my own personal work I kept using film for quite a while. So through to 2010, something like that. [00:47:28] Speaker A: But [00:47:28] Speaker C: I was during the millennium drought, which of course Map Group worked on. Brian Carr here worked on as well. And I started. And that was either a 10 or a 12 year drought, depending on where you were in Australia. And for me here in central Victoria, it was a 10 year drought and, and you know, Matt, groups sort of were all over Australia photographing that over that, over that long period. And I, and I, and I concentrated on South Australia, this region here, Central Victoria and New South Wales, that end of New South Wales, South Australian end of New South Wales. And I did it with film. I did it with film usually, usually black and white. But then I had to change. I really had to change. And I reckon that I changed about, about February 2007 and I did not want to. But then of course I changed. I loved it, absolutely loved it. So there we are. [00:48:38] Speaker A: So what was it about that, that swap that eventually that hooked you, what was it that you loved? [00:48:46] Speaker C: I suppose the immediacy of it, which is such a luxury after, you know, because I've been in film since 1973, that was an incredible luxury. And yeah, I think it was the immediacy. Yeah, [00:49:04] Speaker A: yeah, yeah, no, that's fair. I always like to ask that question of guests that have had to make that transition because often, you know, I remember talking to Jason Lau, one of our earlier guests on the podcast and he. [00:49:16] Speaker C: Oh yeah, [00:49:16] Speaker A: he, he was keen for it. He, he jumped to digital but ended up Going back to film because it just wasn't. It wasn't ready, it wasn't cooked properly. The images weren't. And the processes and the systems and the cameras themselves were all very clunky compared to that. [00:49:31] Speaker C: That's right. [00:49:32] Speaker A: Familiarity of using film, you know, when. Especially when you've been doing it for, you know, potentially decades, that. Yeah, it's quite a. It's quite a different transition, you know. [00:49:42] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:49:44] Speaker A: By the [00:49:45] Speaker C: time I came to it. [00:49:47] Speaker A: Yeah, go on. [00:49:49] Speaker C: So I'm sorry. By the time I came to it, I think lots of things have been ironed out because I can, I can remember Andrew, of course, you know, because of his, his particular client base had to, had to change very early on and, and, you know, and we'd talk and you know, these problems and about the quality and all that kind of thing. But I think all that had been ironed out by the time I came along. By the time I came to it. So, so, so, so I started the drought. The drought project on film. And then I, then I. The last half of my drought project is, is digital. Yeah. If we, if we look at the. Could we look at the photographs which I think are called. Oh, photographing. I think it's called photographing my son. But in, in the middle of that. [00:50:48] Speaker A: Let [00:50:49] Speaker C: me [00:50:49] Speaker A: just have a look. I'll bring up this page and then you can see what I'm seeing. You can tell me which one you want to see. My son. Just bring that up. These are the ones you're referring to? [00:51:09] Speaker C: Yeah. The. Continuing drought has gone out of sequence. Okay. That's, that's my last image of the, of the, of a series that I called Drought, Continuing Drought. And it's of, it's of the old historic reservoir which is 600 meters from my front gate. That's the last [00:51:39] Speaker A: image. [00:51:39] Speaker C: It would be great if we could get the first image. It's a sequence of about 7, please. But let's, but that, let's start here. This isn't the drought, but let's start here. Okay. When we shifted here, 1988, in this post gold rush country, which is, you know, wrecked, it's been completely and totally raped by, by mining since the, since the gold rush, which, you know, which became mechanized deep lead mining. Very, very destructive stuff. Anyway, [00:52:19] Speaker A: yeah, [00:52:19] Speaker C: this, this, this Muller Cape with my little boy on it who was about. Who was three at the time, is just outside there on my eastern boundary. And I photographed him. And these were, these were not family snaps. These are quite serious photographs. [00:52:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:52:44] Speaker C: You know, I Asked him to go a bit higher, I asked him to look at me, all that kind of thing. These were serious photographs just kind of diverging off here, but from the drought. But we're coming back to it. And I made those and, and they, they were in my, in my archive. They weren't in the family album. [00:53:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:53:06] Speaker C: So could we see the next photograph, whatever that happens to be, please? [00:53:11] Speaker A: That's a close up of it. [00:53:12] Speaker C: Yeah, [00:53:16] Speaker A: there's another, this one. [00:53:20] Speaker C: Ah, there we are. So. So that's him, the same person on the same mullock heap. About 35 years later, I think. And that's also a very serious photograph. And, and that's me doing my personal project thing, which in this case happens to be this kind of sequence of Christian and the Malik heap. So it's not, it's not family album stuff. Okay, what have you got next there, please? [00:53:57] Speaker A: Next we've got in the [00:53:58] Speaker C: car. Yeah. Okay, so this is, this is Christian in one of his. In one of his old trucks. And we're driving into the forest, which is directly across the road. 75,000 hectares of crown land across the road. And we're driving in because we heard all kinds of heavy machinery happening during the day. And we go in and you can see the forest has been obliterated. And what they did in sort of pockets of about three acres, one acre, one to three acres, they chopped down most of the trees to try and stimulate the trees that were left to grow how they would have been before white settlement happened. And they were all chopped down for the mining. And so when they grew again, they all grew at the same time. And it's all this uniform regrowth and it's very scrubby. So that was this. [00:55:01] Speaker A: Yep. [00:55:02] Speaker C: Environmental thing that they were doing. So I photographed him then. But this is about the environment. This is about what's happening to that environment. It's not about Christian. Christian just happens to be an important part of it. Okay. Yeah. And this is, this is another. We've just been doing a photograph for drought. Continuing drought, which I hope we actually get to. And, and, and so, you know, we'd finished and it was, it was black and white and, and, and I made this image of him. I had somebody holding, holding the mitts. Flash over to the left layer. [00:55:46] Speaker A: Yep. [00:55:46] Speaker C: Which is how I made that photograph. So I exposed for the flash, the, the exposure there is for the flash. And then I underexposed everything else. So once again, that's not a photograph for the album. What we've got next. Okay, well, this is part of drought, continuing drought. And it's film. And we're sort of. This is 2005 from memory and. And I'm still using film. So this. So this project that I did with Christian over a period from 2002, 2003 to about 2009, I think every. Every year, every 18 months, we'd go up to. To Crocodile Reservoir where Christian spent a great part of his childhood because it was full of water then. And so it was very important to us and we actually loved it. And then the drought came along, and this is what happened to it. It's happening all over Australia, of course. And I can remember when we started the drought project for Map Group, I can remember Andrew standing up and saying, and we don't want photographs of dams with cracked earth, right? We're going to move beyond that. So of course I'll say I start photographing dams of cracked earth. But, but, but this series was always in the same spot. We were always on that. On that little J.T. sometimes his side, the camera would be sometimes that side. And, and always I had a mets somewhere. Mets flash somewhere coming in. And. And it was. It was a great. It was a great series, despite the fact that it had dried up cracked earth. And. And I think it was. It was one of my favorite series that I've done with my son or with anybody. I think it's a really strong series. I'm wondering if you could find. Find another couple from that series, please. This. This is Phil. We are here. [00:58:14] Speaker A: I've got this panorama shot. [00:58:16] Speaker C: Yeah, we're on a drought trip, right? We. We're traveling through South Australia and Christian's driving me on this drought trip. And it started raining. So, you know, we're in the lower mid north of South Australia here. So once again, this is not about Christian. This is about the project that I'm working on. But Christian's in it, and Christian's really important in it. Yes. Okay. What else have you got there? Okay, this is the second image from that. From that series. And once again, it's film. And it's veronica. It's my bronica 645, my favorite camera that I used all the time. It's Veronica645. It's pouring with rain. And. And it's the second photograph from that series. Drought. Continuing drought. And. And it's. It was. It was almost dark, actually, when we made this photograph. Pouring with rain. And. And in fact, the Met stopped working because of. Because it got wet and I had to send it down to Gerard to get it repaired. But anyway, we got these shots and you can actually see the rain in them. And I called it the Day the Drought Broke. But in fact, the millennium drought all the way through kept fooling us. You know, it would be heavy rain and often flooding and then the next three years there would be nothing. So I had to. I had to amend this title to the Day We Thought the Drought Broke. But anyway, that's Christian Amelia's film Veronica 605. So that's number two in the series. Oh, here we are. This is the day the drought broke. What date was that? I've got the exact [01:00:06] Speaker B: November 2010. [01:00:07] Speaker C: Thank you. Yes. And. And we were out in another one of his little. What's this one? Land Cruiser. And, and can you go to the next photograph? With any luck, it'll be another Land Cruiser photo and we can see what's happening. [01:00:24] Speaker A: No, no. [01:00:25] Speaker C: Okay, go back, please. Ah, this is the first one. This is the first one we did for drought. Continuing drought. And, and you can see crop res still has some water in it, but. But the drought is kicking in. And when that drought started kicking in, that little jetty that we're standing on appeared. It had been underwater probably since, you know, gold rush times when they heightened wall. And it was just amazing. So, you know, this jetty appeared and I couldn't stop photographing it. And when I decided to do this series, we, we started there and we. And we stayed there. So that, that's the first one. And amazingly, that's 35 millimeter film. And I don't. I can't remember why I used that because I was so stuck with and loved my Bronica 645. But anyway, there we are. So that, that's the first one. And, and look, you can tell that's film. It's so beautiful those times. Beautiful grain across it. Lovely. [01:01:29] Speaker A: For those of [01:01:30] Speaker C: you [01:01:30] Speaker A: watching along it, the Internet doesn't do justice, but there's just this beautiful fine grain right throughout the frame. It's lovely. [01:01:42] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:01:43] Speaker A: Julia, I'm really keen to know a little bit more about your artistic choices to optimize off camera flash as much as possible, even for outdoor shoots. What is it about that look that. That's so compelling for you? [01:01:58] Speaker C: Well, it just gives me a bit more control. And I've used off camera flash well since 1976. I think I changed from, you know, flash on camera. You know, you go out to do it to, to do a job and you'd have flash on camera, you know, thing flash here Bring the camera up. And then Rick Wallace, who I shared the studio with, unfortunately, Rick died very young. He trained it. He trained at rmit. And. And he. He said to me, julie, you have to get this flash off camera. And he used to hassle that all the time with the flash. You know, you'd have a long. A long squiggly cord along. Squiggly cord. Long squiggly cord. Right. Which you plug into. In into the camera. See this bar here? That's usually the bar. Sorry about. Top of my head. That's usually the bar that sits underneath the camera. Sits underneath the camera like that. You plug that in, screw that into the tripod mount, and then. And then the flash itself sits up here. I took those bars off. Richard didn't, but. But I did. I took those. Those bars off and I stuck them down the side. I attached them to the side of the mitts like that so that I could hold it. Right. I can hold it. And then I've got my camera in the other hand and I can stretch it out like that. So this is. That's on, you know, basic. Basic jobs like Andrew talked about when he talked with you about using flash and balancing it with available art and stuff. So it just gives you a little bit more control about where that light's going to come from. And in that Drought series, of course, you know, it was way off camera, and it was on its own little tripod and it had a radio receiver. And I love it because I can control the light. I love it. You know the one we saw a little bit before of Christian standing on the. It was color Christian standing on the jetty with the. With the black dog. You know, I am controlling that light, so I can make that photograph be whatever I want it to be. And I love it. And also, Jim, do you remember when you assisted me on that job for the quarry? It was nighttime, and we were at a quarry at Newbridge. This is a working quarry. There's trucks happening. It's all happening. And it was pitch black. And Jim and I had to make it happen. And Jim was just amazing. He was absolutely incredible. And he was away, right away from me. With the Metzas, did you use. Were you holding two Metzas or one? Anyway, it doesn't matter. [01:05:24] Speaker B: I don't remember. [01:05:26] Speaker C: But he was doing the crucial stuff of illumination and being bossed around by me, which is always terrifying. And, And. And of course, he was. He was great. And we got those shots, and they were. And they were good. And that's. That's off camera flash. You know how. [01:05:43] Speaker A: Yeah, [01:05:44] Speaker C: it's interesting [01:05:45] Speaker A: because. Sorry, Julie. [01:05:48] Speaker C: No, go on. [01:05:49] Speaker A: I was just gonna say it's really interesting knowing that, you know, Jim did those jobs with you and, and know. And obviously was educated by you as well that he has such a, a strong connection with use of off camera flash in, in his work that he does now, you know, his weddings and. [01:06:06] Speaker C: He does, [01:06:08] Speaker A: he [01:06:08] Speaker C: does, yes. [01:06:09] Speaker A: Yeah, [01:06:10] Speaker C: that's great to see. Yeah, he does great work. [01:06:12] Speaker A: Yeah, you can learn, I think is, is the takeaway from this. [01:06:16] Speaker B: Yeah, [01:06:17] Speaker C: that's right. Yeah. [01:06:18] Speaker B: Eventually. [01:06:20] Speaker A: Eventually, yeah, it'll sink in. It will, [01:06:22] Speaker C: yeah. [01:06:25] Speaker A: Amazing. And so. Yeah, go on. [01:06:28] Speaker C: I'm just saying with that, with that series of the drought. Continuing drought, which is a very nice little, you know, 5, 6, 7 image sequence. You can see, you know, film, film film, digital, digital, digital. You can see it. Y. It's all good, it's all good. You just, you just work with what you've got. And, and I'm still using flash. I use it all the time. You know, I do, I do, I do pro bono work for the little newspaper down, down the road here, which I, which, which I love and you know, I'm still using, I'm still using flash and addicted to it. I am. Yeah. [01:07:11] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:07:12] Speaker C: And of course a lot of, a lot of people hate it. Yeah. [01:07:16] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm not a fan but I, I was never formally beyond that film school that year at. Sorry at Brighton Bay. I, I've received no formal photography training and I think it shows in my work. Comment here from Lucinda. It almost seems like Julie taught Justin everything he knows. I think it's. I'm starting to piece together some, some gaps here, Julie, in my knowledge of gym, which is lovely, you know, because he's a quiet achiever. He doesn't like to boast of himself. [01:07:46] Speaker C: Yes, he was a mustache student. [01:07:49] Speaker A: Oh, there you go. Super, super nerd. I love it, I love it. That's very cool. So, you know, today you're still, you're still undertaking jobs. What, what, what fills your days lately? You know, what, what sort of mix of work are you doing? Personal and you know, and the corporate or industrial, is that still happening for you? [01:08:15] Speaker C: No, the corporate industrial doesn't. Doesn't happen. I was doing, I was doing that, that kind of work right up until February 23, 2023, when. I never actually really spoken about this before, but I was in a car park and car had all the big huge pelican cases in it or packed, you know, that had been those cases that, that Jim had to lug around all over the place through airports and things. And so I'm on my way to a job and I collapsed in the car park and my life kind of collapsed with it. Because when they eventually got a diagnosis, which did not happen very quickly, but especially it was. Worked it out, I've got this neurological condition and I mean, it's incurable, like all neurological conditions. Probably it's not going to get better. And, and it's. What happens in my brain is that, you know, I'm here like this, I'm sitting down, I'm fine. And this was before, this was before they found out what it was. So I had 14 months of being very difficult. I would stand up and, and instead of my, my brain working out that now I'm standing up, my, my, my blood pressure reading has to keep the same as it is when I'm sitting down. No, it couldn't do that. And my blood pressure would drop 40 points and so I would black out. And I have 14 months of that. It was just absolute hell. And I gave clients away left, right and center. And I couldn't take photographs. Actually, that's not true, but I couldn't take photographs as I had always made them. [01:10:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:10:49] Speaker C: And, but now for, you know, a year or something, now I'm on, I'm on, I'm on medication, so I can regain some part of normality in, in every part of my life. I mean, I can walk around the house without having to grab hold of everything, for example. And, and I can go off and do shots here. Sorry. And, and, and, and so that was a huge challenge. It was very depressing, it was very horrible. And, and, and it's still quite restricting, but it's a thousand times better than it was since I, since I got this. I'm now a great believer of second opinions. So what I started doing when I, when I, you know, wasn't feeling so sick all the time, because this is, this is not conducive to good health, this condition. When you're, when your blood pressure's dropping right down to. Well, my average blood pressure was 62 over 44, and it's supposed to be 120 over 80. So it was pretty bad. What I started doing was this. I was reading in the Guardian one day an article about how microplastics had been found for the first time in the fluid around fallopian tubes. I mean, we'd all read articles already about microplastics being everywhere, you know, like everywhere but anyway, it's the first time I'd found them there. And when I read that article, I immediately had this memory of my mum coming home. You know, I'm very old, right, so we're talking 1950s here of my mum coming back from the shop with her basket and her string bag. And instead of coming back from, you know, the groceries as it was then, with everything in paper bags or wrapped up in paper with string, she came back with plastic bag. And this was amazing. And, and, and all the mothers treasured these plastic bags and they, and they washed them, they rewashed them, you know, to use again. And I could, I had this memory of them pegged on the line, you know, and you go to somebody's place after school, school, and their mum would have them pegged on, pegged on the line as well. So sitting out on the patio with a little fake washing line strung up, I started replicating my mother's plastic bags on the line. [01:13:44] Speaker B: And [01:13:45] Speaker C: of course I was using flash and I had four of them. This is one of them. It's still got the peg on the end actually. And I tried to make photographs that actually related or, you know, referred to this article about microplastics in the fluid around fallopian tubes. [01:14:09] Speaker A: Yep. [01:14:10] Speaker C: Hey, Jim, or whatever, whoever can you, can you find personal project plastic? Plastic? [01:14:16] Speaker A: I can, please. [01:14:17] Speaker C: I've [01:14:17] Speaker A: got it here. [01:14:18] Speaker C: Good on you. Okay, so I started photographing these bags. This is, this is pegged on, on the line. And what else have you got there, Jim, please? [01:14:31] Speaker A: I've got, I've got a whole range of them. [01:14:33] Speaker C: Oh, goody. And yeah, okay, that's actually the last one. If you go to the next one might be the first one. Can you go? No. [01:14:45] Speaker B: Some reason, Greg, yours is coming up out of order. [01:14:48] Speaker A: Yeah, [01:14:49] Speaker C: it doesn't [01:14:49] Speaker A: matter. [01:14:50] Speaker C: It doesn't matter. Oh, [01:14:53] Speaker A: let me try that. [01:14:54] Speaker B: There you go. [01:14:55] Speaker C: Oh, yes, this is the one I want. So this is the four, this is the four plastic bags, right? These, these bags sitting out there on the, on the patio with, with flash. I just always used one flash and sometimes I gelled it and, and as you can see, I'm underexposing the background quite dramatically. And those little, those little dot things is, is, is, is a tree, a locut tree actually with sunlight dappled light falling onto it. So I balanced my light to those, hoping that they, you know, kind of look like something in, in your body. And look, I didn't really have a clue, but anyway, that they're the sort of photographs that I made first up, ones like that. [01:15:51] Speaker A: Yep. [01:15:52] Speaker C: And. And that. That. And that was that. And, you know, they were related to this story about. About being inside your body. I showed it to my gp. You know, I'm sure he thought it was a bit of a joke, but. But he very nicely said that he thought it looked vascular. Yeah, I was about to say that. [01:16:16] Speaker A: I was about to say that. Yeah. Because whether, especially on that bag on the right hand side, I just can get in a bit closer. I don't know that I can. You can see here, it's almost like a lung. It's almost like an X ray of a lung with all of these larger and smaller vessels and the same on the left. [01:16:36] Speaker C: Oh, thank you. [01:16:38] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I definitely see that. That was the first. When I first opened this image, I first thought that. I thought, oh, wow, it looks vascular. It looks like there's veins and arteries. Yeah. [01:16:48] Speaker C: Oh, good. And there was actually a finalist this year, 26, isn't it this year in the Winyard prize, which is big thrill. And so I would spend, you know, several hours a day out there on the. On the patio making these images. And I just love doing it because I was. I was making photos, you know, they weren't really the photos that I thought I'd be making at this. At this point, but anyway, I was making them, so I was just loving it. So. What else have you got there, please? Yeah, that's just one on the line. [01:17:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:17:27] Speaker C: You know, which is part of the. So initially I. I called the photographs pegged. You know, they've got this section, so. But then as I started reading more about. About microplastics and. And plastics in general, particularly plastic bags, I read more and more about. About what an absolute disaster they are in water, particularly the sea, you know, and that's another one from Pegged. And I realized that some of my images by that time. Here's one. Some of the images by that time actually looked. Could look. Could be interpreted as a plastic bag in the ocean, which. Which a turtle would. Would consume, which they do. And then they die because they think it's. It's either algae or jellyfish. And. And so I really got stuck into that kind of train of thought. And. And so I'm still out on the patio. Yep. And so what's the next one, please? [01:18:47] Speaker A: Just on this one, quickly, Julie, have you put like a red food coloring or some red cordial in [01:18:52] Speaker C: there? Well, yes, actually, just [01:18:53] Speaker A: to tint it a little [01:18:54] Speaker C: bit. Yeah, it's from the freezer I had. I had Frozen, some chopped up plums. You know how you get a, get a load of stuff and then you don't get anything. And, and when I emptied them out after they've been frozen and I, and I tried to, to wash the bags that was stained and so I thought, oh, well, I'll see what they look like. They were still. There was still this, you know, the plastic bags you get from the supermarket at the fruit and veggie section. But so I, so I used it and I thought, oh, well, that, because, you know, [01:19:33] Speaker A: and the odd drop of that sort of cherry color, it just changes the whole mood of it. It makes it even, even more like something that's organic. [01:19:45] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:19:45] Speaker A: You know. Yeah. [01:19:50] Speaker C: And you can see I'm using. [01:19:51] Speaker A: This is the one. [01:19:53] Speaker C: Yeah. So. So then, so then one day it was raining and it was raining too much for me to sit out there. I mean, it's not. No bother for me, but, but I am very aware that, that, that flash units don't like getting wet and, and I've got, and I've got plastic all over them, of course. But anyway, I thought I'll put the, put the flash outside the kitchen window underneath this little awning so it can be safe. And I will sit in the kitchen and I got a little dummy line there and, and I'll put, put the plastic bags on that and see what happens. This is what happened because I had light from the flash spilling onto the window, which was absolutely filthy, as you can see. I get, I got all that, all that dirt and stuff, scratches on everything. And then, and then I've got the bags and I thought, ah, that looks like it's underwater. [01:20:54] Speaker A: It really does [01:20:55] Speaker C: in the water. So I kept, yeah. So I kept doing that though. In this photo, those bags are out of focus and I focused on the window. I've got, you can see the [01:21:07] Speaker A: droplets. The droplets are sharp. Yeah, [01:21:10] Speaker C: yeah, yeah, because, because, because they're on the window. Yeah. [01:21:13] Speaker A: Yep. [01:21:14] Speaker C: So. And shot [01:21:17] Speaker B: that with a Fuji. [01:21:18] Speaker C: Julie. What? [01:21:20] Speaker B: You shot that with a Fuji? [01:21:23] Speaker C: It is a fuge. A Fuji, yes. [01:21:27] Speaker B: Greg's a big Fuji guy. [01:21:29] Speaker A: I am. [01:21:33] Speaker C: When this thing happened to me and I, and I really couldn't take photographs and, and I really couldn't hold a camera or anything. Andrew kept, Chapman kept badgering me. He's relentless, you know, Andrew, he just kept badgering me all the time to, to get a little, a little Fuji. And he said, you know, because I was using a walking stick at the time and, and he said, you'll be able to hold it in one hand, you know, you have your stick so you won't fall over. In the other hand. Anyway, in the end I, I caved in like we all do to Andrew and I bought a little Expo, Fuji Expo too. And, and you know, it's out there and, and that's, that's very observant of you, Jim. That's, that's what, that's what I was using. Yeah. So. So once again, it's off camera flash and stuff. So I'm just trying to make those best. Yeah, [01:22:30] Speaker A: yeah. And look, I love this. I think, you know, if you told me that this was shot Underwater, I would 100 believe it. There's something about the flow of the bag, the way that it's opening slightly, the way that there's a heavier, so it looks heavier at the top because there's more white. And then in the back right hand corner where you've got some of that light spilling through, it looks like the surface of water sort of in the background. [01:22:56] Speaker C: Yeah, that's what I was hoping. Yeah. Good. [01:23:00] Speaker A: Oh, there you go. Well done. No, it's, it's lovely. [01:23:03] Speaker C: Yeah. And [01:23:04] Speaker A: it's almost like those, you know, you see those. Some images where very, you know, conservation minded images where they'll replace objects that are threatened with objects that are, that are destroying the environment. It, it's such a powerful image. I really love it because it looks like some sort of sea creature, like a jellyfish of some sort. But there's no sign of life in it. It's almost just adrift. I think it's lovely. I really do. [01:23:32] Speaker C: Thank you. [01:23:32] Speaker A: Should print that large. [01:23:36] Speaker C: Okay. What else? Yeah, [01:23:39] Speaker A: and this one too. [01:23:39] Speaker C: And it's the same, it's the same spot. Yeah. There's two bags there. [01:23:44] Speaker A: Yep. [01:23:44] Speaker C: And what else you got there? [01:23:47] Speaker A: What else we got coming through? This one's a bit more of a close up. [01:23:50] Speaker C: Yeah. So, so that, you know, that could be a jelly part of a jellyfish as well. It could be going back to the, you know, the more vascular type image. I mean I'm just, I'm just photographing and lighting and gelling and just experimenting all the time. [01:24:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:24:16] Speaker C: And really it saved, it saved my life. This one, this one was a finalist in the, in the Mullins Conceptual Photography Award. Yeah, I was quite, I was really excited to be included in that because I always, you know, because my work was always too literal to even consider entering. And so that's another, you know, plastic bag, plastic bag one. Yeah. And so, you know, photography, once you, once you have photography in your life, it's this friend, this is friend that you have in your life forever. And, and you know, when it's really tough, it's really tough, as all our lives are from time to time, your, your little friend, photography is there. [01:25:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:25:15] Speaker C: And, and you can do whatever you want with it. [01:25:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:25:22] Speaker C: To help you. And it will help you and it will bring you, quite possibly, depending on what you're doing, some kind of solace and at the very least it will bring that, you know, activate that connection you have and you know, you will be able to get your brain somewhere from being very sad to, to being creative and, and photography does that and it does it all the time. And so we, we're all very privileged to have photography in our life. Yeah. [01:26:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I wholeheartedly agree. And you know, and often when I've shared my personal journey, I've talked about how photography has saved me mostly for myself. And, and it's interesting here, you know, you, before we went on to the next image, you said that this series saved you. I imagine it was a terrific relief to discover that despite what had happened, despite what you'd endured and what you were still coming to terms with, you still had the opportunity to make art, to create images like you said to, [01:26:42] Speaker C: to [01:26:43] Speaker A: pick up your friend once again. Talk to us a little bit about the, that, that sort of reawakening for you and, and what came next. [01:26:55] Speaker C: Well, you know, it was a very tough time and, and you know, in that first 14 months before they could work out what it was, you know, my darling gp, he was, he was so supportive and, and he just trying, trying kind of everything and to help me and, and it was still really, really tough. And you know, sometimes I was so unstable I would actually have to crawl from the bedroom to the kitchen where I had a. So every, every room in the house has a, has a kind of high stool in it so I can sit down and do the washing up or whatever. [01:27:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:27:42] Speaker C: And because I can't stand up and do it. I mean, can now, but not then. And, and you know, photography, like everything was going from my life, everything because, because all my mental energy and my physical energy, I suppose, but definitely my mental energy was, was concentrated on, on doing, being just being a basic person again to, you know, to do basic things like clean your teeth and heat something up in the microwave or whatever. And of course, you know, people, people were really wonderful to me and, and brought me food and, and we're really great and I'm very, very grateful that that Core, my very core, which is photography. I mean, photography is the core of my life and has been since 1973. [01:28:43] Speaker A: Yeah, [01:28:43] Speaker C: I couldn't. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. And, you know, and Andrew. Lovely. Lovely Andrew stepped, you know, stepped in and really, you know, encouraged me to get the Fuji and so forth, which I did eventually. And. And. And reading that. That article in the Guardian. In the Guardian. So I read the article in the Guardian and I immediately have the visual. [01:29:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:29:14] Speaker C: Of. Of the washing bags hanging on. On the line. And then I. The next thing was, I immediately thought, I'm going to do that. I'll do that. And so after 14 months, you know, something was just triggered in my. Because, like, nothing had changed physically, but something was triggered in my brain that I could. That I could do it. I can. You can do this, and I could do it. And it was great, you know, and I. I got. I got my. Because we don't. We don't buy plastic stuff anymore in plastic. I mean, and I got my son to specifically get four bags, just four from. From the supermarket, fruit and veggie. And he did that. And. And. And I started. And it was great. [01:30:09] Speaker A: Yeah, [01:30:09] Speaker C: it was just great. [01:30:11] Speaker A: Well, you know, as I say, the proof is in the pudding. And the images, the collection of images with the plastic bags, Julie, are just. They're just sublime. You know, there's this. There's an ethereal quality to them. There's. You know, it's. It raises questions about where is this. Where is this happening? You know, is this. Like I said, some of these look like they are underwater because you've replicated that look and feel of plastic slowly, you know, gliding through the ocean. So what. I'm conscious of time, and I. And I don't want to take up too much of your time. I'm very conscious of that. But could you talk to us a little bit about some of the work that you're doing currently, some of the projects you've got on the burner? What can we look forward to seeing from you next? [01:30:57] Speaker C: Well, I'm doing two things. I'm doing a personal project and I'm doing a commercial project. The personal project is driving up by myself. God, it's great taking photographs by myself instead of having somebody with me. [01:31:18] Speaker A: No offense, [01:31:18] Speaker C: Jim. [01:31:19] Speaker A: No offense. It's not your fault, Jim. You're not the cause of that. [01:31:24] Speaker C: I'm going up to Mount Alexander now called Liangenook, which was. Which was absolutely obliterated, of course, through the Ravenswood Harcourt Phones. And I have been, I mean, that's, you know, I don't know, 12 minutes that way because I go through Faraday, and I've been photographing up there for years, years and years and years, including the, the abandoned quarries up there for the state library. And, and I love it up there. It's so different to, you know, this harsh post gold rush area around here. It's so different. You know, bracken and green and all that kind of thing. And I mean, I love this too. And, and it actually took me four months and three days before I asked somebody to drive, to drive me up there, because I just did not have the mindset to face what I knew I would be facing. [01:32:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:32:21] Speaker C: And so Janet drove me up and I photographed from the car and sitting in the car, you know, I made, I made Julia Miller documentary photos as I've been making for a very long time, and that was with the Fuji. And I also had in the car the Nikon D850, which I had been using for plastic. And the way I've been using them for plastic was doing multiple exposures. Which, which, that, which. Which one of those plastic ones was the Mullins one? Actually was plastic. Was multiple exposures. [01:33:04] Speaker A: Yep. [01:33:05] Speaker C: Anyway, I just, you know, put that one in and, and I did the Fuji stuff and the current stuff and, and then I picked that up and I was doing the same kind of doco things and I was still on multiple exposure after five exposures, you know, something, and then it stops busy. And I looked at the photograph. I really liked it, really liked it. And I thought, I'm going to do. I'm going to do a project up here with, you know, this multiple exposure, because that's a very fractured landscape up there now. I mean, it was terrible and, and, and, and I've. And I really wanted to move beyond the documentary, which I've done all my life. And I really wanted to do something that took the image somewhere else. And this gave me a kind of answer or an avenue to explore. So I came back and processed it and I showed it to my son, and he really liked it. And it was agreed that I could drive up myself to Liangunnuk to make photographs. But I was not allowed to get out of the car unless I had somebody with me. So off I went. And I would go sometimes daily, sometimes every two or three days. And if there were parks, people doing work, I would actually stop the car near them. I wore a bright red hoodie so I could be seen if I was collapsed on the ground or something and, and I'd be quite reasonably close to them, but not annoyingly close, and I would get out and I would walk, you know, 10 or 20 steps and make photographs and I get back in the car. But I also made photographs, of course, from the car, which is what my parameters were, and I used the car. Have we, have we got any of those available? The Angeno fractured landscape. Yep, I've got the whole [01:35:09] Speaker A: folder. Hang on. [01:35:11] Speaker C: Oh, goody. [01:35:12] Speaker B: They've. They've gated all the quarries, Julie. I don't know if you've been up there recently. [01:35:17] Speaker C: They have, [01:35:18] Speaker B: yeah. Unfortunately [01:35:19] Speaker C: you [01:35:20] Speaker B: can still walk past them, but [01:35:24] Speaker C: you can drive past them. [01:35:25] Speaker B: Yeah, you definitely could get a bike in there. [01:35:29] Speaker C: And you know, I'm so glad I photographed those quarries when I did because in that, you know, that main one, I think it's generally the cranes were still up where there is a. Cut them down now. And, and I'm told I haven't seen this, but I'm told that a lot of those beautiful, you know, what would you call them, cliff faces, where they cut the granite from, have got graffiti on them. [01:35:54] Speaker B: I was, I was there not long ago. Yeah, it's pretty sad because. Yeah, those, they were. There was a bit of a time capture those places. [01:36:04] Speaker C: Yeah, they were. So thank goodness. That's another thing about, about photography, isn't it? Thank God I photographed them when they, you know, like eight years, six years ago, whatever it was, when they were pristine and. [01:36:17] Speaker A: Yeah, [01:36:17] Speaker C: yeah. Anyway, well, [01:36:19] Speaker A: that aligns with my motto, Julie, which is, you know, to photograph what is before it becomes what was. [01:36:24] Speaker C: Right, that's right. So this is the first photograph that I took from the car window actually, when Janet drove me up. And. And it's what you would expect. Yep. And so what else have we got here? And. And these are ones made just a little bit, a little bit later. As you can see, the regrowth is. Is happening. These are. These are Fuji. All the straight ones are Fuji. So. Yeah, so these are what I call context photos. They're just really doco photos. But. Yep, [01:37:02] Speaker A: yeah, yep. [01:37:05] Speaker C: And yeah, keep going. [01:37:07] Speaker B: It's crazy. The destruction that. The fire. Yeah, [01:37:10] Speaker C: yeah, [01:37:13] Speaker B: yeah, [01:37:14] Speaker A: yeah. The regrowth. How. How [01:37:17] Speaker C: incredible. [01:37:18] Speaker A: Yeah, [01:37:19] Speaker C: it's incredible. Yeah, [01:37:22] Speaker A: that's amazing. [01:37:26] Speaker C: And. And this is where I've got out of the car and. But the car is right there. This is a car. This I'm in. I'm parked in the car park for the dog rocks walk, you know, which is all signposted and everything. And, and Somebody I contacted everybody that I knew who worked with Wood, Roger McKinley and Simon Jebel and said, did you. Did you make this? And they didn't know. It wasn't. Wasn't there. So I'm just assuming because it was right next to the car park that maybe kids have made it. And I got out of the car and set up my flash. Of course, I'm now using speed lights. It's just one. And I had it over here on a little. My $39 tripod, a little very light stand that I seated on talking to me here. And so I could place emphasis on this little igloo thing that somebody has made so that, you know, you are. Your attention is drawn to that. That's what I'm doing here with lighting. And so I call this one something like. Lianguna, a moment of play in a fractured landscape, because that's what this series is called, a fractured landscape. So you can see the regrowth happening there. You can see trees that are never going to regrow, and you've got this little sense of play happening again. So. Yeah. What else you got there, Jim? Or whoever? Okay, so here's me in the car and photographing from the car. So. So I often use the car. That particular car shape, you know, and the side mirror and. Yeah. So hopefully we'll get to that. Oh, here we are. Here's a multi exposure. [01:39:26] Speaker A: Yep. [01:39:29] Speaker C: This is taken, you know, just before nightfall, actually, so. So maybe if we look at a few more of these so that you can get a sense of what I'm doing. And that's regrowth, obviously. [01:39:45] Speaker A: Oh, wow. I love this. [01:39:47] Speaker C: Yeah. So. [01:39:48] Speaker A: Oh, there's so. Yeah, [01:39:51] Speaker B: there's so much. [01:39:51] Speaker C: So you have to be. Yeah. Thank you. You have to be on your toes doing this. You know, you have to. You have to work out what it's going to. Because. Because it layers it in the camera, [01:40:05] Speaker B: you [01:40:06] Speaker C: know, like. Like this is what you get in the. In the camera. And you just have to keep thinking, now, if I do that and then this, you know, is it going to work? Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. [01:40:24] Speaker B: Julie, when you're doing a multiple exposure like these, do you ever do one and then reshoot, say, the same sequence if you say if it was close, Say if you were trying to line up the trees in that kind of. In a certain spot or something like that? [01:40:44] Speaker C: I do reshoot. Yeah. Because I'll look at it. Is that. Is that what you mean? [01:40:50] Speaker B: Yeah, like, as in, say you might pick out five. Five images that you're gonna like make into one multiple exposure. Are you sort of shooting it and then going, oh, that's not quite right, and then reshooting those. That same sequence? [01:41:08] Speaker C: I do, [01:41:09] Speaker B: yeah, [01:41:10] Speaker C: I do, [01:41:10] Speaker A: yeah, [01:41:11] Speaker C: yeah. Because you're really working with the unknown here. And. And you just have to make it work. And, and that. And that. That might mean that you. That you do the five images several times before the layer, you know, and then you see the layered one and you maybe got it right. And with that. Yeah, go on with that. With that last one, we looked at the blue in that. In. In any of the. My images where you see the. See blue. What I've done there is. Oh, yeah, that one, maybe not. Can you go back? [01:41:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I can go back. This one? [01:41:55] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:41:56] Speaker A: There's more blue in this one. Yeah, [01:41:57] Speaker C: yeah. What, what I do there is if the sky is blue, which it quite often isn't, because you. Although it will be now because of. Because of the weather. But often I was dealing. Not sometimes missed up there, but. But sometimes what they call low cloud, fog, you know, and. And the visibility would be like five cars only in front of you, and you just. And the Bendigo airport would be closed and all that kind of thing. And you just have to wait, sit it out. But sometimes the sky was blue. And what I would do then to get this effect here is I would be making the images and somewhere in there, in that five images, I would just go like this and photograph the blue sky. And that's how I get the blue in there. These are all my trade secrets. And so I've learned that doing this stuff that I have to think of things like that. Yeah, because it's going to happen, the layering. And if you haven't got it right, well, as Jim just said, you do it again. [01:43:11] Speaker A: And it's such a great way by including a frame of a blue sky or even just a, you know, a sunset sky that's got oranges and reds in it. It adds a mood to the overall stack of images. Once, you know, once you combine. Once they combine in camera, I really love that. I really need to play around with. With multiple exposure on my camera. It's something I keep meaning to do and it's interesting. I just keep kind of putting it aside. Now, Julie, just before we move into final questions, I just want to read a couple of comments that have come through in the chat. So Rodney, who's an old sea dog, he says, I've seen bags underwater and this is so realistic. Going back to your [01:43:53] Speaker C: Great. [01:43:55] Speaker A: And then from Brian Carr. So true photography is like microplastics in your system. It never leaves you. The difference is, though, that it's beneficial and sustaining, which is very [01:44:07] Speaker C: true. Thank you, Brian. Yeah. [01:44:11] Speaker A: Glenn Lavender, who's. I think Glenn's currently overseas running a tour, maybe Bangladesh. I'm going to say. I hope you're well, mate. And then a comment from Glenn. The new what is will become what was too. So photograph the changes. Yeah, absolutely. [01:44:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:44:29] Speaker A: And it looks like Justin's finally gotten out of bed. Must be hard for some. What is it? It's quarter to 11 and he's just getting. He's in Indonesia at the moment, so we can forgive him for that. Good morning. Just woke up. I hope everyone is going well. Yep, we're all good here. Thanks, Jay. Jim's got the spare lucky straps, credit card. Going to go out for lunch later. It'll be fine, don't you worry. Matt's here. G', day, Matt. Thanks for jumping on. And Glyn's just confirmed. Yep. Bangladesh. So Glyn's over in Bangladesh running a workshop tour with a group of folks, so. Yeah, well done, Julie. We've only got a few minutes left and we always like to ask a couple of sort of final questions from our guests. One of the ones that I want to ask you is, you know, people recommended you for this spot on. On the Camera Life podcast today. If you were to pass the baton to someone else to sit where you sit today to be interviewed by us, who would that be? [01:45:34] Speaker C: Brendan McCarthy. [01:45:36] Speaker A: Brendan McCarthy. [01:45:39] Speaker C: You would work with Brendan at the. [01:45:42] Speaker B: I've worked with Brendan for a long time, yeah. [01:45:44] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, Brendan has been with Fairfax for a very long time. Well, I mean, he's not now, but. And he's right. He's one of Walkley and. Yeah, [01:45:53] Speaker A: but does he have an OAM like you? I don't think he has an oam, Julie. He might have a Walkley, but I don't think he has an OAM like you. [01:46:03] Speaker C: Oam? No, he doesn't. Maybe it's coming and he's one of the photographers working on this book with me. [01:46:11] Speaker A: Yeah, [01:46:11] Speaker C: Julie Half. Julie Half would be lovely to interview. You've worked with Julie at the Avatar, [01:46:16] Speaker B: Julie. [01:46:17] Speaker C: So. So. So Julie half, Brendan McCarthy, of course. Andrew. Oh, [01:46:23] Speaker A: we've had Andrew on. Yeah, we've got him. [01:46:24] Speaker C: Yeah, [01:46:25] Speaker A: we did a long interview with Andrew. [01:46:28] Speaker C: Yeah, it doesn't surprise me. Yeah. [01:46:32] Speaker A: He's got so many stories to tell and he tells them so eloquently. He takes you on a [01:46:36] Speaker C: Journey. [01:46:37] Speaker A: Yeah, [01:46:38] Speaker C: yeah, [01:46:40] Speaker A: now, sorry, Justin's just come back with one Happy Meal only for you Jim. And, and to, from Justin to Glenn. Oh, I can't wait to see more photos from Bangladesh, Glenn. So yeah, we're all looking forward to that. I think some have started to come through on his socials. He's usually pretty quick at putting some up. So, so anyone that follows Glyn, you've probably already seen some of his latest work. Jim, do you have any final questions before we just have one little conversation about gear? [01:47:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Julie, I feel like you've done a lot of work very close to home and what would be your advice to photographers? Because I feel like a lot of us probably go, it's just my backyard, it's just, you know, it's just the park over the road or the bush over the road. Like what's your advice for people to maybe get out there and do those maybe personal projects or projects to just get shooting. [01:47:43] Speaker C: Well, you're right. I've always photographed in the house, my family out there. That exhibition that you came down and saw at Castleman Art museum, that was 37 year documentation of out there and also in here about you know, the post gold rush impact on everything. I just, I just photograph, I just photographed everything because I just love it and, and, and it's interesting. Might be horrible what's in front of you but it's interesting and it really needs to be photographed and I, I literally just can't stop myself. You know I like on that 37 year documentation of the post gold rush impact I'd always be, you know, I'd be driving back from somewhere and, and I'd see something so go get in, get flesh usually or I'd be up early in the morning specifically to go into, into there to photograph. Mine shafts is bloody, thousands of them, sorry about that word or monarch heaps or you know, just the regrowth that's really struggling and, and invariably I use the flash often gelled but you know, because I, you know, I want you to look at something and I can do that really, really easily with, with, with, with lighting and I've always done it, always done it and when we shifted up here I was working on see a lot of photographers who work commercially or whatever you want to call it because of the pressure of that work and that probably happened to me for several years too. You just can't do personal work because you're just under so much pressure and you know, you, and you're working all hours of the night and Day particularly, particularly me because I did a lot of photographs at night. Trucks and ships and things. And so, you know, you, you drop the film into, into the little drop thing at the lab, color lab at three o' clock in the morning, go home and then, then come back into the studio at 9 o' clock because you had an executive portrait to do or something. So I understand that, I understand that a lot of, a lot of people working commercially just kind of don't have time for their personal projects, but I make time and I think it's to do with this thing of photography helping you or enriching you. Simply. Photography enriches your life quite simple. Whether it's, whether it's a commercial job or whether you're photographing out there for a reason, like some of the photographs that you've seen here or the drought or whatever, whatever you're doing. Photography enriches your life. And for me, you know, like I've spent years photographing washing. And you know, one of those images was a finalist in the Bowness a few years back. And you know, people go washing, but it's like a plastic bag. You make it, you make it how you see it, you know, and, and that's, that's the really important thing about, about converting this, this domestic environment, for example, or a pedestrian, what's the so called pedestrian environment into something that, that is the way you see it. And, and it doesn't matter if it's something that, that people dismiss like washing on a line. Photograph it how you see it, you know, and if people are going to dismiss it because it's washing, then so what, you know [01:51:58] Speaker B: is, is also a time stamp, you know, like, like lots of famous photographs at the time. Maybe it wasn't that important. But [01:52:09] Speaker C: you [01:52:09] Speaker B: know, you look back now and, and you see that, you see the cars or the clothes on and it's [01:52:14] Speaker A: a [01:52:14] Speaker B: timestamp of, of, of when that was made. [01:52:18] Speaker C: Yeah, [01:52:19] Speaker A: yeah, [01:52:19] Speaker C: that's right. [01:52:20] Speaker A: And there's something, there's something very, I'm not sure what the word is, but often you see in, in cinematic movies that there'll often be shots of washing lines [01:52:29] Speaker B: and [01:52:29] Speaker A: how they use that to, to, yeah. Create a sense of maybe a time in, you know, a place in time. There's something about it, there's something very kind of connecting about that. But, but I get it. Other people would say, oh, it's just washing, you know. [01:52:44] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:52:45] Speaker A: Without seeing the art that's within it. Now, Julie, you mentioned earlier you made a very, very smart decision and picked up a Fujifilm camera. Are you still. Also, Are you still using the. The D850 or have you moved into the realm? [01:53:01] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I'm still using the D850 and the D810. [01:53:08] Speaker A: Nice. [01:53:08] Speaker C: Yeah, definitely. That little Fuji has become my. You know, every time I get into the car, I always have a camera in there. For years, I used to have the D700, you know, kicking around on the floor and I got a lot of good photographs because it was always just there. But whenever I get in the car now it's the Fuji going to the [01:53:31] Speaker A: dance [01:53:32] Speaker C: or whatever. I've got the Fuji. [01:53:34] Speaker A: Got it out. That's great. What's your go to lens on the Fuji on the X Pro 2? [01:53:39] Speaker C: Well, Andrew's probably horrified about this. Well, I've got. I've got a prime 18 and a prime 32, but I've used it at the moment. I've been using a 16 to. What would that be? 45, maybe Zoom. Anyway, that's what I'm using. [01:53:59] Speaker A: Like the kit lens. 16 to 55. There's that one. Yeah. [01:54:03] Speaker C: Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I bought it. I bought it new from Fuji. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, it's a great. It's a great little lens and it's very. It's very handy for. For getting stuff. So, [01:54:19] Speaker A: yeah, [01:54:19] Speaker C: I'm using it. But. But yes, I'm still. I'm still in love with Nikon. Sorry. I'm still in love with nick and the D850. [01:54:28] Speaker A: Okay. We all make mistakes, as I like to say, Julie. And, you know, do you see yourself crossing into the mirrorless realm or you more than satisfied with the DSLR technology? [01:54:42] Speaker C: I wouldn't mind shifting to mirrorless. Nikon mirrorless, but I just can't afford it. Well, [01:54:48] Speaker A: Jim's got. Jim's got a couple. He can lend you one of his. That'll be fine. All right, last question. And usually Justin would be here to ask this, but I'll ask it in his place. Imagine that there is, finally, there's a zombie apocalypse. Things didn't go as. As well as we hoped they would over in the States. And there's a zombie apocalypse and you get to grab one camera and one lens only to document the end of the world. What would be. And it can be any camera that you've either owned or not owned in the past. You know, a coveted camera. What would it be? What would you grab to document the end of the world? [01:55:26] Speaker C: The D850. Definitely. And that zoom lens I've got, which I've used so much particularly for performance photography. Low light. What is that? I think it's about 24 to an 80, something like that. Beautiful lens. That'd be it. Yeah, [01:55:46] Speaker A: yeah, [01:55:47] Speaker C: sorry. The little Fuji would stay home. Sorry. [01:55:49] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine. [01:55:53] Speaker B: Knock anyone on the head with a. With a Fuji. [01:55:55] Speaker A: No, no, you can't. That's very, very true. Well, Julie, look, that. That neatly brings us to the end of today's episode of the Camera Live podcast. Just on behalf of myself, obviously, and Jim and Justin, thank you so much for your time and for sharing with us just a small glimpse into the absolutely impressive body of work that you've created over your career, both professionally and personally. So thank you so much for joining and also thank you for giving us a little bit more insight into Jim and explaining why he is the way he is. So we appreciate that too. [01:56:30] Speaker C: Okay, thank you. [01:56:32] Speaker A: No worries. Do you have any [01:56:33] Speaker B: exhibitions or anything coming up, Julie? [01:56:35] Speaker A: Yeah, is there anything else coming up that you want to plug? [01:56:39] Speaker C: No, I just had an exhibition of washing during the Cross the Main State festival. I don't think I've got another exhibition coming up. No, sorry. [01:56:51] Speaker A: Yep, that's fine, that's fine. Well, look, we'll drop links to your website and your socials. They'll be in the show notes for anyone that's watching now live with us or down the track. If you come across this episode of the Camera Life podcast and you've watched it and you've liked what you've seen, please give this episode a like drop a comment. Let us know if you've got any questions. We read all the comments and we endeavor to get back to everybody and. Yeah, and if you are new here, well, welcome. This is the Camera Live podcast. We go live twice a week, every Thursday morning, 9am Australian Eastern Daylight Time at the moment, so basically Melbourne time, we have our interview with amazing Australian and international photographers to learn a lot about their craft, where it began for them and what makes them tick. And then every Monday evening we have our random photography show at 7:30pm we cover industry news, we cover product launches, what we've been up to with our own photography. Plus we get to look at your images. You can send in your images to the cameralifeuckystraps.com and we will bring them up on a Monday night show live and we'll talk about them and talk to them and show them to your community. So like I said earlier, don't forget to subscribe. It doesn't cost you anything. And if you tickle the bell, you'll get notified whenever we've got an episode coming up in your time zone. Julie, thank you so much once again. It's been an absolute pleasure. Wishing you all the best on your continued journey and obviously on your continued recovery. And we look forward to seeing what's around the corner for you. So thank you very much. [01:58:24] Speaker C: Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for thinking of me. Thank you. [01:58:28] Speaker A: It's lovely [01:58:29] Speaker C: to see you again, Jim. [01:58:30] Speaker B: Yeah, likewise. [01:58:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Sweet reunion. Just before we go, a couple of quick comments from the chat. Philip Johnson. Thanks, gents. Special thanks to Julie from the Boss. Thanks, Julie. Lucinda's been with us the whole way. Great chat. And Greg Stubbings. Thanks, Julie. Great show, everybody. Thank you to everyone that's been watching and commenting, asking questions and. And discussing today's episode of the Camera Life podcast. We'll see you on Monday evening. I will be joined by Joel Alston. Justin's still away. Joel's going to join us to host Monday night's episode of the Camera Life podcast. But until then, be safe, everybody. Bye, Julie. Bye, Jim. Thanks, guys. And we'll see you next time. Thanks, everyone. [01:59:16] Speaker C: Okay, thank you. Bye.