A session with Stephanie Bendixsen. Just a bit of fun really and was originally aimed at providing some portfolio shots for a job interview with ABC3.

Guess it must have worked – Steph is now the cohost of Good Games on ABC.

Since picking up the gig, the four shots I posted (plus her extended collection on her flickr stream) seem to have become exceedingly popular.

Further photo after the break, or check out the full set online at flickr.

Check it out bg on black!

I was asked if I I could shoot a friend-of-a-friend’s newly formed theatre group on a cold Friday night in July. Hell yeah I wanted to have a crack at it. It did however take a while for me to realise that one of the members I’ve known for years – being one of my sister Hannah’s friends, Joanne Erskine.

Lighting, stylist, hair + makeup provided. Just be there to shoot with a few ideas based on some inspiration the group had taken from a variety of photography sources. The venue was deep in the dark caverns of NIDA.

To work with I had two small continuous lighting sources (erm, not sure what they were, I was a little distracted setting up, tearing down etc). One was used as a lightbox ~2m overhead and slight to the left, the second had barn doors attached to provide a small focused light source from behind.

This has been done more than a few times, however check the site, it works in quite well with some of their design work to date, so should be easily used on flyers and so forth.

Further photos after the break, or check out the full set online at flickr.

All bloodied up!

Shot for Cry Havoc.

To get from Skellefteå to København on my round the world ticket I had to fly from Skellefteå to Stockholm with SAS, then back Helsinki in Finland – the home of Finnair – before the final last leg to land in København in Denmark. Luckily for me I scored free accomodation thanks to a friend working for IBM who had since moved to Singapore. So after calling his mates looking after the apartment in København I got in, grabbed some grub and crashed early that evening. The next day I headed out to DONG Energy for a meeting to discuss all things regarding “smart grids” and the distribution network.

With the sun remaining up till quite late I took the opportunity to head out to the docks for some photos and a bit of sight seeing before heading back to base for a home cooked meal.

The evening was spent out with my hosts at their favourite cocktail bar for the weekly Wednesday night catch up the guys have. Many a mojito was enjoyed plus a few new drinks that I definitely cannot remember, but don’t think were bad by any means. I ended up staying till closing time and having a rather enjoyable night with a few locals. Unfortunately I was due to depart the next afternoon – otherwise I would have had a couple of tour guides for a bike ride around town that Friday!

Thursday morning, the last day I had in Denmark, was spent with a mammoth hangover (all good things and all that jazz), however undettered I headed out to explore København before grabbing my gear and moving out to the airport. Like Stockholm, København is a place that I’m going to have to revisit. The blooms in spring were stunning and the place just had such an awesome feeling to it. Hopefully that will be sooner rather than later!

More Flickr Photos from København

Jenny Soulos of Jenny’s School of Dance backstage

I can’t post the shots from this shoot unfortunately, but I can show you this one which I absolutely love. My sisters have been dancing at Jenny’s school for over twenty years and I’ve been to all but a handful of concerts. Throughout the last decade or so I’ve spent my time acting as lighting or sound technician, stage manager or runner at the annual end of year concerts. While I brought my camera in 2007 to shoot my sister’s dance, Jenny brought me back this year to shoot the show from the wings. Luckily she was more than pleased with the results that have been collated into a book and is on display at the school.

The 2008 Photographic Review Continues…

• 2008: A Photographic Review – Part I
• 2008: A Photographic Review – Part II
• 2008: A Photographic Review – Part III
• 2008: A Photographic Review – Part IV

April

April was a big shooting month, made ever easier by my close proximity to the city – about a 15 minute walk. First up was shooting for Reverb Magazine – this time it was Modest Mouse with support from Hot Hot Heat @ The Big Top over at Luna Park.

Next up saw me attending my annual anti-engineering conference – SemiPermanent. It was unreal – one of their speakers was Spencer Platt who won the 2007 World Press Photo with his photograph while covering the Isreali-Lebanon conflict of that year.

The 10th saw me shooting for EnergyAustralia at the Staff Launch of the Great Southern Oceans exhibit that they are sponsors of at Taronga Zoo. Not too much I can show of this, but it was definitely an interesting shoot.

I also was invited to celebrate the engagement of Kel (Charles’ sister) and Matt.

The 25th saw ANZAC Day once again upon us. An annual event to remember the futility of war, and those we send to them, and one I try to attend.

My final gig for April was shooting An Evening with Eels at the Enmore Theatre. This was one of the toughest shoots I’ve done with a single lamp on the piano as the light source.

May

May saw me become nearly a regular at The Annandale Hotel.

My first gig was Kate Miller-Heidke at The Annandale. Now, while I had vaguely heard of her, I didn’t know too much when I put my hand up to shoot her for The Dwarf, but boy would I be glad I did. Kate is an absolute gem to shoot – cute, quirky and knows how to perform on stage (coming from her training in opera no doubt). Her backup was the band now formed around Christopher Ernst (whom I had previously shot) – Black Market Rhythm Co.

I backed up the next day to take some shots at Tom’s Punk Rock BBQ at Brookvale.

The next weekend I was back at The Annandale to shoot Whitley. This just wasn’t my night as my batteries hadn’t charged properly, leaving me hobbling for power during Whitley’s set. I did however come out with what might well be 2008′s best shot.

The final gig for May was back across the bridge to The Big Top where it was Story of the Year performing on the last day of May.

June

June was a more subdued affair and I took an extra day off work for the long weekend to visit friends Nadine and Andrew up at Orange. In addition to the winery visits I also got a tour of the electrical installations at the mine where she works. This also saw the month of Lucky’s Photoshop Actions being released – go check them out if you don’t already have them! Nadine and Andrew’s Golden Retriever pup Mahler was so cute and playful, and their friends had an even younger Chocolate Labrador called Oscar.

Holly Throsby, performing at the Factory Theatre, was my only gig I shot for the month. A damn hard one to shoot too due to the seated arrangement.

The general geekery brought to a close the second quarter of 2008, where I also added another notch to my age-belt making me feel so much older and missing much in life in areas that cannot easily be obtained.

Looking back to Sydney’s CBD over the new Great Souther Oceans exhibit at Taronga Zoo

I was asked by work to shoot the Staff launch day for the new Great Southern Oceans exhibit at Taronga Zoo. Was a nice evening and also ran into a few friends working for the event management company. They hadn’t really though about the photographer’s light requirements with this at all.

Unfortunately I can’t show most – simply due to the fact that there are shots of children. So I’ll show the non-children shots instead.

Well, not really, but most of my friends think I am. I first joined the ranks of the twitterers over a year ago after catching word of this new Ruby on Rails application going live and having signup options. As part of a crowd of early adopters of technology, and interested to see what it was all about, I jumped on board – with my first tweet telling the twitterverse that I was at work occurring on January 17, 2007 at around lunchtime.

Continue reading after the break…

Since then I’ve twittered to various degrees about the mundane aspects of life as well as staying in touch with friends from round the globe (in addition to a great set of local folks). It’s been particularly useful to shout out to a large group of friends for assistance with problems involving javascript and/or ruby on rails (many thanks to Dimitry, Scott, Ian, Jason and Andrew) – areas where my friends from school always look at me and raise eyebrows like I’m speaking another language whenever I start talking about such technologies.

As a result of a rampant use of twitter, and that I hook it into my Facebook account to update the statuses as my last twitter announcement, my friends and acquaintances often ask of me “what the hell is twitter?!?” – and often “erm, Joel, I think you have a problem” – not quite comprehending the fact that they’re not the intended audience – but rather a side effect of my decision to limit my time directly spent on Facebook (unlike them) and instead use my other more regularly visited locations to remotely update my profile.

Part of the side effect of this, as always with me, is that my mates have decided to take the mickey out of my Twitter updates. I would have to say that these are rather amusing little ditties that a couple of witty friends of mine (namely Nick Broadbent and Steven Foster) have managed to pen while not spending either (a) 164 hours per week at work; or (b) 164 hours per week not at work (respectively).

~An Ode to Twitter~ by Joel W. Courtney

I’m on patrol and twittering
As loud as loud could be,
Nobody understands my twittered remarks
But twitter understands me.
All you duckheads tease and hassle
But soon enough you’ll see,
You’re all living in my Twitterverse
And the Grand Twittering Poobah is Me.
Nick Broadbent

~Twitter Blues~ by Joel W. Courtney

Opening the door and onto the street I stroll
I’m a graduate engineer and I’m on the patrol,
Getting coffee in the city and i need my Twitter fix.
So i start up the iPhone and get in the Twitter mix,
I update the masses, thats what they want to hear
That I’ve seen the programming of another engineer.
“Your spelling is incorrect, you glorious fool;
I can’t believe you got to graduate, you undeniable tool”
I press on the send and the update is streaming
I keep a cool head but in my pants I’m creaming.
Steven Foster

Highly tasteful as always from these two gents, but still rather amusing for those who can take a joke.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, Blog No Evil – Self Censorship and Blogging (Photo: Kevin Trotman)

I’m sure that any employee of a company who maintains an active weblog will have come across the self imposed limitations that one places on oneself when talking about the world they inhabit. Given that many of us spend between one third and a half of the hours on any given working day at our place of employment, our workplace definitely imposes itself on our life. It is thus natural to wish to discuss aspects of this part of your daily life – but the question that arises is one of what you should talk about, what you shouldn’t, where that line is and how you determined it.

I make no attempt to hide the fact that I am employed as a Graduate Engineer by EnergyAustralia. You only need to peruse the archives to discover this, or perhaps stumble upon me on any number of the social networks – both professional and non-professional – that I am part of on the world wide web. At the same time I am careful to ensure that people understand two things about me. First, my opinions are just that, my own, they are not those of my employer. Secondly I write what I feel like on this blog, there is no incentive, requirement or request for me to write about any topic form anyone (although often I will end up writing responses to questions posed by friends). Enter, now, self censorship

The Green Light, the Red Light and the Ambiguous Amber Light

There are obviously areas within ones life and work that one cannot write about on a blog. Things that one would definitely consider to be “red light” in terms of writing about would most definitely include anything that you’ve signed non-disclosure contracts on or areas where there is a requirement to maintain information in confidence. Included in this would obviously be anything that could be perceived as slanderous or without foundation.

There are also areas where many people are given the green light to proceed. There wouldn’t be too many companies who would prevent positive feedback and write ups about them by their employees. Positive stories, even from employees, enhance a companies standing and will most likely assist recruitment of the web savvy generation who do their homework in more ways than just a company’s annual report.

The there are the areas where one must make a judgement call. Not quite green, not quite red. The posts may be a critique of an area within a company, a strategy being used, or an outcome that has come about or any other post that may be perceived to paint the company in a negative shade. These are ares where issues of self censorship come to the fore. How much should one restrict what they are saying about a topic on the periphery of the company that may be used against you, or the company, in the future, even if true.

Reality, Perception and the Hypermedia

An often quoted piece of advice that I came upon when I was younger is that:

Reality is nothing, it is only perception that matters

In the current climate of the hypermedia, where standards of journalism have reached rock bottom and what passes as journalism these days fails basic checks on the validity or accuracy of a story when the aim is tabloid issue hyping, it is understandable that many companies are oversensitive about any statement that could be construed to be coming from them if it could ever be perceived to be negative. Many companies employ image consultants, spin doctors to some, whose sole task is to manage the perception of the company regardless of the reality.

Corporate Blogging, Private Blogging and Blogging Policies

The more progressive companies around the world have been taking up the use of the corporate blog in the past few years. Moving beyond the dictates of group-mail and then group-email from the leaders within companies and business units, shifting to a blogging platform allows (if wanted) feedback, even if moderated, from the audience. It is often said that companies with blogs, maintained and regularly updated and with a policy of openness, accountability and transparency have a better relationship with their customers. The change from formal speeches to more regular updates from senior executives for either internal or external audiences definitely boosts confidence if the blogs are well written and sincere. But where does that leave the private blogs that may touch on issues that criss cross the workplace? Many of these same companies have employed an internal policy regarding private blogging, some more open and relaxed than others, but definitely with the understanding that simply clamping down on can lead to web-savvy employees being driven away or underground.

Those companies who have yet to embrace what the world wide web can do for them are more likely to impose more draconian positions on their staff when it comes to commentary of life on the blogs of the world wide web. This more often than not comes from the mindset of control and hierarchy that is most commonly seen in the less agile companies, in those who have yet to take full advantage of the feedback that openness and transparency can provide.

So where does that leave me?

I work for a government owned corporation. As such, the executives are painfully aware of the companies image in the media and the community and how they are perceived. The potential for comment on topics that can potentially impact the industry, and thus the company, are definitely real for me. As a result I most definitely do temper what I publish, taking into account sensitivities regarding contracts. I also have no wish to jeopardise my position for the future. There are more topics that I’d like to speak on that are relevant to older industries, such as engineering in general and the electricity industry in particular. Many of these remain incomplete drafts at this stage as I work and rework them into polished pieces that (hopefully) will be read as intended. As to when they will be published, keep your eyes peeled as there are a couple in the works. That said, I have mentioned my work environment before, and given a solid critique of ASP.NET, which is used by some of the application developers at work for web application development.

What about you?

So I throw the question over to anyone who has managed to stumble across this paperclip in the rubbish. If you do blog, how close do you get to mentioning anything that is even vaguely related to your employment? What policies (if any) does your company have on blogging? Does your company run its own corporate blog, either on the internet or intranet?

EnergyAustralia Staff Club Masquerade Ball @ Swissotel, Sydney

The second annual EnergyAustralia Staff Club Ball was held at Swissotel last friday. Was a great night, with the theme being Masquerade.

More shots at the EA Staff Club Masquerade Ball @ Swissotel, Sydney set

We had a little incident at work today. By little, the results were that the entire 24 storey building from around midday. It turns out that a water main on level four decided to break and water gushed everywhere. The floors below were quite quickly evacuated, due to the water running with gravity. Upper floors were allowed to stay, though the lifts were not working. I decided to go have lunch with friends from the 3rd floor. When I came out there were already a couple of fire trucks waiting outside, water pouring out of the elevators (evidently the shafts are the lowest points on each floor) and also out the building onto the footpath outside.

After lunch I tried to get back in, but we were completely shut out – a full evacuation had taken place. Unfortunately my laptop was still upstairs on level 9 so I had to kill time for about 2 more hours before we met up at Hyde Park to find out if/when we could get our stuff today. Turns out we could – but only 2 people per floor… With police escort (poor buggers had to do 8 trips up and down all the way to the 24th floor).

Although I had hoped not to have to go to work tomorrow, I’ll have to arrive between 8:30am and 9am to get in… Looks like it’ll be ‘fun’ nonetheless.