During the week, I decided to attend the Gertrude Street Projection Festival in the Melbourne inner-city suburb of Fitzroy.

I first attended this intriguing event in 2009, and was suitably impressed to make a return visit in 2010. The free festival, which runs for a week every July, provides an opportunity for artists to utilise the shops and buildings in Gertrude Street as a ‘projection screen’ upon which their electronic artworks can be presented for all to enjoy.

It works like this: An artist sets-up a projector or projectors from which emanates a light show. Projections range from those presented on a small screen in a shop window to small projections on trees or footpaths right up to elaborate patters over entire buildings. They can be animated, or static. It seems that the traders get right behind the festival each year, which adds to its charm.

There are so many impressive works which in 2010 have been contributed by 23 artists. The enjoyable part of the Gertrude Street Projection festival is that projections can be found in the most obscure of places, so the visitor has to be really observant so as not to miss anything.

Street projection is a democratic art form; projections can be enjoyed by children, parents and grandparents alike. The varied presentations can be appreciated for their simple luminescent beauty or the complex but subtle metaphors hidden in some of the more complicated pieces.

One of my favourite works in this year’s Festival was Ménage à Trois, by Nick Azidis. His work involved projecting a series of patterns over the Builders’ Arms Hotel from an upstairs shop window on the opposite side of the street which had the effect of draping the entire pub in luminescent patterns that were changed each day. His work is simple, but bold and eye-catching and it is his style of wallpapering whole buildings with light that I appreciate the most at the Festival. Fellow artist Kit Webster also illustrated an entire building with animated projections that rearranged like a deck of cards thrown across a table top. The effect was stunning, and it’s a pity that this treatment isn’t applied to more buildings.

I happened to be photographing Ménage à Trois when Nick Azidis introduced himself to me. He’d been setting up his display when he saw me set-up my tripod outside the Builders’ Arms Hotel and was curious to see what I was up to. After a friendly chat about the various aspects of projection art Nick Azidis kindly agreed to answer some of my questions for The Grapevine.

How long have you been projecting images onto buildings?
It all started when I lived in the city of Melbourne in 1992. Constant temptation, being surrounded by colossal buildings, set the inner spark.

What is the creative process from inspiration to execution?
Responding to the projection site and transforming it into an object of beauty that will inspire or provoke a new and different way of thinking, for a short moment in time.

How did you come across the Gertrude Street festival and how long  have you been participating?
This is the second year I’ve been involved with the Gertrude Street Projection Festival. In 2009, I was introduced to the co-founders of the festival, by a good friend of mine that I have worked on many show with over years, Olaf Myer (Technical Director for the GSPF).

Are you a full-time artist, or do you have a ‘day job’?
Always a struggle to find that balance from week to week. I do have a casual job in the television industry and most of my spare time is spent doing pre-production for commissioned projection work.

Is there a projectionist ‘community’ in Melbourne, or is it an individualistic pursuit?
Yes! The Projection art community has been growing every year in Melbourne, especially now with the Gertrude Street Projection festival on the calendar.
I find it interesting and always exciting working and collaborating with other projection artists. It can often lead to mysterious and unknown outcomes, which I like.

Do you  have artistic influences?
Yes. With projections, some of the things that inspire and influence me include architecture, photography and repetitive background patterns and motifs. I’m also influenced by symbols; logos; trademarks; geometrical and optical art; Chinese lattice designs; traditional Japanese stencils; silk fabric designs; textures; traditional Islamic designs and Aboriginal art.

You mentioned that you have some commissioned works? Where can we  see those?
Alumbra (Shed 14, Docklands) : 14 Kodak slide projection installation
The Lounge (Swanston Street, Melbourne) :11 Kodak slide and moving projection installation
La Di Da (Little Bourke Street, Melbourne) : 8  Kodak slide projection installation
Red Bennies (Chapel Street, South Yarra): 5 Kodak slide projection installation

^{Image: Nick Azidis}

Melbourne’s famous Rialto Observation Deck will close at the end of the month, costing 30 people their jobs and our city it’s finest viewing point.

I am sorry to see the loss of this marvellous local attraction. Aside from its spectacular views and excellent facilities, I also enjoyed the peace and tranquillity that could be found on the breezy Melbourne 360° viewing platform.

The Rialto Observation Deck was opened in 1994. Back then, Jeff Kennett was Premier, Victoria was recovering from a terrible recession and the Rialto was the nation’s tallest building.

After it’s opening, the Observation Deck immediately became a hit with locals and visitors alike. From the 55th floor of the Rialto Tower, one could see right across Melbourne’s metropolitan area as far as Mount Dandenong and across Port Phillip Bay.

However, in 2006 the Rialto was superseded in height by the Eureka Tower, which  opened an observation deck on their 88th floor; 33 floors above the Rialto’s. And whilst I felt the Eureka Skydeck was a much poorer facility, it seems many people disagreed with me.

In some ways, it came as no surprise when the Rialto’s owners announced that the facility would be closed down. They gave no particular reason for closure, but I am guessing it may have been in part because of competition from the Eureka Tower. A classy restaurant will replace the observation deck when the building is redeveloped in 2010.

ABC1′s Stateline programme has a nice video tribute to the Rialto Observation Deck, which you can view here.

This week, I visited the Rialto Observation Deck for one last time. Here are some photos of the occasion:

Today, I was delighted to receive my brand new copy of Government, Politics, Power and Policy in Australia by Dennis Woodward, Andrew Parkin and John Summers.

The book is of particular interest not only for the subject matter, but because it features one of my photographs on the cover!

Mine is a preview copy, as the book is still yet to be released. Having purchased a previous edition of this same text many years ago, I am quite confident that it will be well-received by academics and students alike. I certainly found the book to be very engaging and informative at a time when I was seeking to understand Australia’s system of parliamentary democracy.

The cover shot is one that I took on a holiday to Canberra in 2006. The photo has been one of my most successful on Flickr, with 41 comments and 37 favourites. Pearson sought to purchase a licence for the image via Photologium, and I was only too happy to supply it to them.  The image is not only featured on the cover, but the chapter pages and related marketing material.

Government, Politics, Power and Policy in Australia (ISBN 9781442508736) will soon be available at most bookshops, and is published by Pearson Education Australia. More info from the publishers here.

I’ve recently been rediscovering the joys of film photography.

Inspired by the multitude of users on Flickr and a desire to try something different in photography, I decided it was time to give film a go.  I’d used film before, but stopped in 2004 when I purchased my first digital camera. In those days, film was the only option for photography and since I’d been a child I’d persisted with Kodak Gold 100. Only once did I try another film, and that was in 1996 when I sampled a roll of Ilford FP4 Plus (ISO 125).

Things have changed since the film era. Not only has digital photography revolutionised the art of photography, but the internet has come along too and for some reason there’s not half as much satisfaction in placing my photos in an album as sharing them online.

A few months ago I purchased an Epson Perfection V500 slide-scanner. The V500 functions both as a normal flatbed document scanner and photographic scanner for slides and negatives. I wanted a slide scanner so I could upload my analogue photos.

I then had to choose some film. After shopping around, I decided to settle on Fujifilm Velvia 50. Designed for vivid daylight photos, this low-speed film is apparently popular for the rich photographs it produces.

With a roll of film in hand, I pulled my Canon EOS 500N out of the cupboard, dusted it off, loaded a roll of film and went shooting.

The first realisation was that I was unable to review my photos. Sure, I knew this already, but the habit of consulting the rear of the camera to review the shot is hard to break! The second realisation was that I’d be waiting weeks to get my photos back. I took my time finishing my roll of 36 exposures on account of the cost. Because I had no real idea of how many photos would even expose properly, I wanted to use the roll of film as best I could. I finally finished the film last week and had the slides mounted at Vanbar in Carlton. When I received my box of slides, I was pleasantly surprised.

My favourite shot was one that I took in the Cowan Gallery at the State Library of Victoria. The Velvia 50 brought out the rich red of the walls and the mounting of my Tamron 11-22mm lens on the EOS 500N body caused a complimentary vignetting which framed the photo beautifully. The Epson slide-scanner reproduced the colours from the slide accurately.

I also had some nice exposures of Rupertswood Mansion in Sunbury, which I took on my visit in September:

Whilst Velvia 50 is very good outdoors, it tends to colour distort at long exposures or under fluoresent lighting, developing a green tinge. This photo of the Baillieu Library at the University of Melbourne highlights this perfectly.

Perhaps one of the more challenging parts of the whole process was not the photography, but the scanning. The Perfection V500 is a powerful piece of equipment and indeed the scanning resolution is phenomenal. Using a series of customised templates that rest on the flatbed scanner, every slide is in focus. However, I had considerable trouble preventing the software from automatically cropping my slides.

Unfortunately the scanner doesn’t come with any manual and their electronic guide was initially confusing. Each time I would specify the size of the image I wanted to scan (by selecting the area) then would set the resolution and the slide size, but it would simply revert back to its preferred size and crop it anyway.

I eventually figured out the source of the problem. For anyone using the Epson Scan software programme, here’s the simple resolution:

(1) Using the drop-down menu, choose “Professional Mode” (if you haven’t alread)

(2) Under the “Preview” button, untick the “Thumbnail” checkbox. This way, full control is maintained over the scanned images.

Now that I have the scanning sorted out, it’s now time to try out all the different films:

What I have in my camera currently: Fujifilm Velvia 100

What I have sitting in my fridge: Ilford PANF+50, Ilford Delta 3200

What I am keen to try: Fujifilm Velvia 100F, Fujifilm Provia 400F, Ilford SFX 200, Fujifilm T64, Fujifilm Sensia 100, Kodak Ektachrome E100VS and more…. there are just so many to try!

Last July, I launched a website called Photologium.com as a sales point for my photographs. At the time I was really unsure whether the site would be a success or a failure, given the sheer number of keen photographers online who are willing to licence or sell their images.

Ten months later I can report that the site has met all expectations, with several of my photos having been published since the site’s launch! I thought I’d document just some of the photos that I’d had published this year.

My first major sale since the launch of Photologium.com was to the Japanese-language edition of the Singapore Airlines inflight magazine SilverKris. The magazine’s editors were compiling a piece about Melbourne, one of Singapore Airlines’ key destinations, when the publishers sought an image that I’d taken of the “bubble” skybridge at the Melbourne Central Shopping Centre. My photo was published in the September/October 2007 edition of SilverKris which was distributed free to Singapore Airlines’ passengers in Japan.

Following SilverKris came a request from the International Dark Sky Association in the USA, who wanted a photo that I’d taken of the neon signs in Tokyo for an article about LED billboard advertising. My photo of the Ginza Neon signs was published in the Spring 2008 edition of Nightscape, which you can download for free from the IDSA website.

A few weeks later, I was approached by the National Trust of Australia (Victoria) to provide a copy of my photo of the Block Arcade in Melbourne for their publication Walking Melbourne: A Guide to the Historic and Architectural Landmarks of Central Melbourne. This book has just been published and is available from the National Trust. This is a lovely book that documents the historic buildings around Melbourne, with a photo and description about the history of each.

With the publication of Walking Melbourne came another request, this time from the Anglican Church’s media wing. The Melbourne Anglican were writing an article on the deliberations from the 2020 Summit in Canberra, which required an image of Parliament House for accompaniment. My Parliament House photo featured prominently on page 4 of the May 2008 edition of the newspaper.

Aside from publications, my work has also been used for advertising. My photograph of the Chadstone Shopping Centre recently appeared in the Emma Page Jewellery “High Achievers Programme” catalogue and another advertising commission is on the way.

Despite all these, perhaps the most significant publication is a new book from the National Museum of Australia‘s publications unit, titled Making Sense of Place (ISBN 9781 87694 451 3). The book is jointly edited by Frank Vanclay, Matthew Higgins and Adam Blackshaw and my photo appears on page 246 beside the introduction to a chapter on “affordable places”. The book contains a selection of papers presented at the Senses of Place conference held in Hobart in 2006.

It really is so rewarding to find my work published in such prominent places, and very humbling at the same time to receive payment for my work.

Photography is such an enjoyable hobby for me. With The Photologium website and my photography both flourishing at the moment, I look forward to producing more photographs that others can enjoy as much as I do.