1000 Portrait Project

Portrait 611/1000: Nic.

Nic is one of the many brilliant and talented and kind photographers I had the privilege of meeting in 2022.

She is the smiley face, the wonderful brain and the camera-adept eyes behind Fox & Kin wedding and elopement photography. The photos Nic takes are gorgeous, glowing and heartfelt. It always baffles me, looking at the work of so many Australian wedding photographers, how they can make countless photos of weddings and elopements and ceremonies and make not a single one look the same - while also making all of the photos clearly *theirs*. I feel like I could clock one of Nic's photos a mile out, both from the lovely colour schemes but also the amount of joy just bursting off the screen. This caption has taken about ten times longer to write than I thought it would, because I keep falling down a rabbit hole of admiring her work.

I met Nic at the beautiful fever dream that was Snap Hoedown 2021 - a meet up of roughly 40 wedding photo and video folk for some networking, a lot of workshops and talking biz, but also an immense amount of honest conversation about the industry, about workloads, about art and what we can all do a bit better. Nic was a brilliant part of that conversation, especially about how we can make sure wedding photos are approachable for every couple out there - particularly ones that don't often see themselves represented in magazines or blogs or in snazzy pics on Insta.

Her website (which is ace) sums her approach up perfectly - all love is equal and all love should be documented equally.

But I didn't get the chance to photograph Nic at Hoedown - the beautiful and terrible thing about being at a little winter camp with 40 folks is that your time is often filled up. Thankfully, a spot opened up in the project juuuuust in time for her visiting Melby at the end of 2022, at an end of year party / gathering / UV dancefloor party for wedding vendors of all kinds. Before the night got underway, we took some quick portraits to fit her into the project.

Now you've read a bit about this, please go check out her work on Insta at .

Thank you so much for being part of this, my friend. Stoked to have met you.

Portraits 607 + 708/1000: Shane and Phillip.

I had the pleasure of meeting these two quite a few years back now. Myself and my friend - also named Jesse - great name, great guy - organised a bachelor party for a close pal about to tie the knot. We opted for a few days at the beach, a visit to some nice places, some golf and a few little beers along the way.

The thing with these kind of parties is that you have to quickly break the ice with a whole bunch of folks who may not know each other super well. Jesse and I opted to set up a trivia night about the groom-to-be, but to rig all of the answers to be absolutely unguessable answers that would embarass him publicly. A little bonding over humiliation. Worked like a treat.

This was completely unnecessary of course - when you're inviting folks to celebrate something like this, you usually invite the good eggs, and Shane and Phillip were absolutely two of those. So it was all a fun and easy few days of hanging out, eating well and talking absolute nonsense - with maybe too many golf balls sent perilously close to people's homes from a driving range that warned you....not to do that. Potential crimes aside, it was a great weekend with a great bunch of people.

When the big day came around a month or so later (time is a flat circle and I'm running this whole project from memory alone, so do bear with me), we got ready and all travelled in together. I brought a little film camera with me to document some of the early parts of the day. Before we hit the road, I took these quick portraits of Shane and Phillip on film for the project - which I sprung on them and they very kindly agreed to be part of this little ditty.

I've bumped into them once or twice in the intervening years, but I love these portraits as a quick little moment in time were I got to know these folks before we all travelled on our merry way. Some genuinely nice little memories, encapsulated in a quick "oi can I grab a portrait of you really quick?", which is mostly what this project has been and has become.

Thank you so much for being part of this, Shane and Phillip - hope you've been well!

Portrait 604/1000: Nikki.

Nikki is my last portrait from the State Library Victoria Fellowship announcement I had the pleasure of photographing - and is, of course, one of the many vibrant and talented folks whose projects were supported by the library!

Nikki received a fellowship for their project, Six days on a leaky boat, which was a stage musical centred on a Chinese-Vietnamese refugee family beginning lives as new Australians after receiving citizenship. It explores the trauma of displacement and opening yourself to new experiences, and used the experiences and memories from friends and family to create the narrative.

Nikki is a writer, filmmaker and a classically trained pianist, who works on projects that combine genre with telling the stories of the Australian migrant experience.

Like the other folks I got to photograph that morning in the city, Nikki was great to work with and I'm stoked to have so many talented people in this little project.

Thanks for being in this, Nikki! Lovely to meet you!