AAA at Laneway 2017

This year I had the pleasure of being on the official photographers crew for Laneway Festival, below are a few of my favourite photos from the fun-filled day.

Hope you enjoy x

In Review - January

Having photographed 25 bands in the space of 4 weeks, January has proved to be an exceptional month of music in Brisbane. It was only when I was finishing my editing of Holy Holy that I realised just how much live music I had seen in such a small amount of time and I felt the need to summarise it all because it was fantastic!

Also I even created a lil playlist you can listen to if you want to hear the bands that i'm talking about and photographed!

I welcomed in the New Year at what I think is the most magical and lovely place ever, Woodford Folk Festival. I watched the last sun of the year go down, I embraced my friends in an amphitheatre of thousands at midnight and then spent the early hours of the morning dancing away to Tijuana Cartel. It was pure magic, there was no way this year could have gone badly with that start!

With the novelty of the New Year worn off the party then continued when I got to photograph the co-headlining tour of Bootleg Rascal and Boo Seeka, two bands that really flew up on my radar towards the end of 2015. They both totally exceeded my expectations and Boo Seeka in particular were so captivating that I must have looked like an idiot staring so intently at them wondering how those incredible voices could be real.

January has always been an exciting month for me with Big Day Out touring the country and Soundwave, Future Music and Laneway closely following but this year the festival circuit took a huge hit with most of those now not existing. Fortunately this year was the first year that FOMO was introduced to Brisbane and with such a killer line up it definitely filled that gap.

With headliners including RL Grime, Flight Facilities, Jamie XX and Skepta I was pretty darn excited to shoot it (and witness it as they are some of my favourite bands!).

One of my favourite moments was when Jamie XX reached the end of his set and began to play Loud Places. Everyone was on the hill having a boogie and out of nowhere it started to sprinkle with rain and it felt like pure bliss. 

Um, I photographed Fatboy Slim?

It's been a week and i'm still in total disbelief. I literally have the coolest job ever because I get to stand metres away from my idols and capture them at their happiest and doing what they love.

Like how have I even gotten to this point?

I think this gig means so much to me now (and will continue to in the future) because he was one of the first artists I remember listening to with my parents. To think that he played such a huge role in my music tastes when I was growing up and now I can say i've photographed him, it's just the absolute coolest!

Since i'm already walking down memory lane it made sense that two days after Fatboy Slim I got to photograph Hot Chip at the Tivoli, another band that played a huge part in my music tastes when I was growing up.

I made a vow that i'd photograph three songs of Hot Chip and go home (since it was a huge week already) and then as soon as they graced the stage I realised that i'd be an absolute idiot if I left and I instead grooved on till the very end.

The photos I ended up taking on the night made me a little disappointed just because the lights were either all blue or all red and that really doesn't look that nice in photos. But instead of being all mopey I went back to my old friend Photoshop and started to play around like I did when I was learning and I ended up with the photos below. I'm actually so proud of how they turned out and it makes me happy because there some of my favourite photos I have in my archives.

And finally we've reached the last gig that I photographed for the month of January, Holy Holy. I've been a fan of this band for months now and after missing them at Splendour and never actually seeing them live, I was really happy to finish off my excellent month by seeing them.

It really felt like an intimate gig. 15 minutes before the band were due to start they started to come on stage and fine tune their instruments and stare off into the crowd and it felt nice to know that they are human and probably have nerves before gigs and that seeing a crowd is still an exciting thing.

They ended up playing a fantastic set and it was so beautiful to finally hear their album in the flesh. The lighting was heavenly and although there was no photography pit for me to stand in, the crowd let me run around and take photos which I am so thankful for as it allowed me to get the below snaps.

And finally, that's it! 

So many experiences, so many memories and so many god damn catchy songs stuck in my head. 

Hoped you enjoyed my stories!

The Creases at the Foundry

Local legends the Creases played a gig at the Valley on Saturday night and I went along for Four Thousand to take a few snaps.

It was by far the best performance i've ever seen the Creasies play and their supports were incredible as well. What a gosh darn lovely night!

And then here's a few pretty faces who were spotted at the gig!

More of the social photos can be seen here.

AAA at Splendour 2015

When I was in College studying photography we not only had to learn the technical aspects of photography but also research where we would like to go with it once we had graduated. So for months I spent all of my time researching Music photography and going to very small gigs and thinking that I had made it. It was excellent. But for our very last assessment we had to do a little "Five Year Plan" to pinpoint what our goals were and how we would achieve them. My highest goal was Splendour in the Grass and I never thought I would ever go, let alone shoot it.

Fast forward a few months and i'm being asked by a lovely human if I want to be one of the Official Splendour in the Grass Photographers - cue an ugly crying Bianca at work. So after a few meeting with our girl gang of photographers, googling "How to Camp" and buying all of the necessary items, we were on our way. 

We drove down to Splendour the day before it started to get a briefing and figure out logistically how we would survive the next few days. I was lucky enough to be doing the whole thing with my gal pal Savannah and we very quickly realised how great we were at camping and also bond over how excited we were and all of the emotions.

Our brief was to capture "the atmosphere of Splendour" and looking back it was the best thing that I could have done. I got to talk to people running little shops, completely surprise groups of people by asking if I could take photos of them and also stand in front of thousands of people and photograph the crowd in all of its glory.

It was just really lovely to step away from the hustle and bustle of music photography (running to and from stages all day, not wanting to miss a thing) and instead talk to people and hear what they're excited about and see their silly tents and talk to them about their outfits.

The location was also incredible. I don't know how but it didn't even feel like I was in Australia. It felt like we had been transported to some incredible country with the best food and happy people and just all round good vibes. No one really cared if they didn't look perfect or if they didn't know someone, it was just a friendly environment and everyone I met was lovely.

Looking back I can only remember three main things.

1. Rain. So, much, rain. Mud absolutely everywhere, not being able to take off my gumboots. But in saying that it really made the festival excellent. Every night we'd go back to our tent and fall asleep to the sound of rain, we'd wake up to find people playing in the mud. Including this guy who got a bit to close for comfort after a mud fight.

2. How god damn good the Artists were. Originally I bought tickets to go to this Splendour for the very first time, just because the line-up was so good that I couldn't possibly miss it! Put it was such an excellent array of artists and everyone was so wonderful to watch.

Here are a few snaps of my favourite artists from the weekend. 

3. Experiencing the entire thing with all of my friends.

It was such a magical weekend to be a part of but the best thing was that each of these excellent moments was shared with some of my favourite people. From dancing and running around side of stage to Florence and the Machine with Sav, to being absolutely drenched during Mark Ronson and all of my friend photographers giving up all hopes of getting a photo and dancing instead and completely laughing at ourselves, packing up our tent and realising we left half of the tent begs underneath the tarp which we then slept on without realising.

It was just such a positive and happy environment to be in and those memories will never leave me.

Looking back I think Splendour was the most excellent / emotional / incredible / exhausting / muddy weekend i've ever endured. Just being able to walk out of our room and be introduced to Mark Ronson and Kevin Parker, watch my favourite acts from side of stage, laugh and cry about how muddy it was and also laugh and cry about how proud we were of our photos - it was just totally surreal. Just so thankful to have played a little part on the Splendour family.

And to wrap it all up, one of my images was used as the cover for the Splendour email sent to all of the visitors. What an absolute icing on the cake moment. Until next year!

Flower Crown Workshop

Last week as I was mindlessly wasting time on Facebook, I scrolled past a flyer for a "Flower Crown Workshop" in my suburb and without thinking booked myself a spot. It was only a few days after booking that I realised that it would be my very first workshop outside of College and Work and it both terrified and excited me that I would be learning a new skill!

I ended up driving into my suburb to attend this workshop only to find that it had been set up on my favourite little corner in Sandgate with cute little tables (each with personalised name cards at each seat, super adorable) with classic songs playing, baked goods scattered on tables and of course, flowers absolutely everywhere!

We all got our seats and after a few seconds I realised that all of the lovely people there knew each other and they were all in some way good friends, relatives or locals (and all very accepting of little old me who didn't think to bring someone along for the ride). The positive energy was infectious and after a power drink of tea we prepped ourselves for the hard work ahead.

Renae from Wallflower quickly showed us the ropes and out of nowhere I found myself creating little bunches of flowers which soon turned into a large pile which would be made into a lovely crown. I've always been fascinated by Florists and how people can somehow take a bunch of flowers and create this incredible arrangement, but Renae helped me to realise that things aren't created all at one time, they're made up of tiny and well executed steps!
 

After close to two hours of listening to the likes of Frank Sinatra, eating snacks and sipping on tea we finally began to assemble our flower crowns which proved to be a lot more simple then I had first predicted. Once the first crown was finished we quickly picked up the pace excited to see what ours would look like as well!

All in all it was a super lovely afternoon and it was a bonus that by the end of it we all had a pretty thing to go home with.

Also here's a cheesy little group shot outside of Atrium.

- B

Xavier Rudd at the Tivoli

Recently I got asked to photograph Xavier Rudd and the United Nations for AAA Backstage at the Tivoli. I'd never seen Xavier Rudd live before but being a fan of his music (and knowing that i'd also be seeing him at Bluesfest) I was pretty excited to see their set.

I really enjoyed taking photos that night because the light show and the gig were both amazing to witness. What was even more exciting was a few weeks later getting a call from Xavier Rudd's management and hearing that they loved the photos so much they wanted to use some in interviews that are soon to be published!

Until then, here are a few photos I took on the night.

Graduate Collection - Benji Lhaochareonwong

A while ago Benji asked me if i'd like to photograph her Fashion Graduate Collection for her final QUT Assessment. I agreed to do it thinking that it'd be something quite small but upon seeing her collection I was totally blown away with how talented she was.

After hearing about how many hours she spent on each garment, how she had to use hammers and hand sew massive amounts of her garments I was in awe of what i'd be able to shoot. We ended up using two beautiful models and the idea was that they were sisters and there was a large juxtaposition of how "scary" their garments looked but how innocent they truly were.

Here are a few photos from the day.

Designs were by Benji Lhaochareonwong for the Tenfold Exhibition the models were the lovely Jenny and Issy which Emma helped to Style and I photographed.

Also here's a shot of another design that Benji created a while back which I really loved.