Sydney based Zena Santos has started a daily illustration blog. You can also see her final end of year animation project here.

Behind the Lens: 5 short documentaries where 5 Australian photographers from SMH share some of what they love about photography

“There are 1440 minutes in a day. In these minutes photographers capture a moment. These moments make up a day which lasts forever.”

State Library of NSW, Macquarie Street, Sydney.
3rd July – 1st August 2010. Entry is free.

Directed by Hilary Bunt + Yvette Paxinos
D.O.P Callan Green
Produced by Vashti Rosenberg

Check out more videos on Yvette Paxinos Vimeo page

by Sam Thomas out of Sydney.
Check out more projects at Behance.

MaricorMaricar cover graphic design, illustration and animation. Quite a wide variety of skill sets. Do you both have such versatility or do you each specialise in certain areas?
We’re both versatile and have experience in design, illustration and animation. Depending on the project one of us will take the lead in one aspect according to what what sort of approach we need to take. Since we have similar styles we tag team projects if one of us needs a break.

What work have you been up to lately?
We’ve just finished an animated video clip for the band Murder by Death, the song is called ‘White Noise’. The band approached us after seeing one of our animations on YouTube. Sarah Balliet (the band’s cellist) had written up a video treatment about a lone character stranded at sea surrounded by mysterious creatures and asked if we’d be interested in creating an animation around it.

We are also working on some self initiated projects, another animation this time using miniature sets that we’ll be shooting stop motion in. Our animations before have usually involved a lot of computer work, for this project we want to shoot the animation totally in camera. We’re co-directing with Michael Blanche and have rigged up a special camera set-up using a digital SLR shooting through the viewfinder of an old medium format camera to get some nice effects without having to rely on computer plug ins. We’re shooting at the moment and have learnt that maybe using a digital projector as our main light source was probably not the easiest way to do things. We’re learning a lot and enjoying it, and will definitely be creating more stop motion animations in the future.

On the illustration side of things we’ve both become obsessed with patterns (and trying to see who can draw the tiniest lines). Our new work is based on intricate patterning inspired by traditional embroidery and textiles.

How would you describe your own work?
Our work is textured, patterned and sometimes a bit whimsical.

How did you first get into designing?
In high school we both loved art class and were introduced to Photoshop and digital art. When it came to deciding what university course to apply for design seemed like the perfect fit for what we liked to do so we ended up both studying Visual Communications at the University of Technology in Sydney. After graduating we worked a few jobs in different companies before both starting work at Mathematics in 2007.

How do you find your clients, do they come to you?
We were lucky to work in a great studio that had interesting and varied clients. We left Mathematics at the end of last year but still do some freelance work for them. We’ve also found that posting our work up on online portfolio sites has helped promote us and we’ve had opportunities lead to other contacts and so forth.

Do you have a favourite artist, or artists?
Our list is long but a few that stand out are Peter Callesen and his paper art, Levi Van Veluw’s landscape portraits, Walter Martin and Paloma Muñoz and their fantastical snow globes, Marc Craste’s animations for Studio AKA, the Blackheart Gang, Pes films and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Japanese woodblock printers Hiroshige and Utamaro.

What are you reading/watching/listening to/browsing at the moment?
We’ve nearly finished watching the entire series of Battlestar Galactica, we have a habit of watching shows after they’ve finished. We like browsing through sites like yours that give an insight into other people’s creative processes and My Love For You is a Stampede of Horses, an art blog curated by Meighan O’Toole, as well as sites like Synaptic Stimuli and But Does it Float. At the moment we’re listening to old music like the Beatles, Bo Diddley and Paul Simon, a mellow soundtrack for a project that is a bit hectic at the moment.

What can we expect to see from you in the future?
We’ll be animating and illustrating, making patterns and creating creatures. We’re trying to pursue a balance between illustration and animation.

Where do you find inspiration?
We like to get away from the computer whenever we can and see some exhibitions or browse through books and catch some music shows. Traditional crafts and textiles have become our latest obsession and source of inspiration.

What advice would you have to younger designers entering the industry?
Keep experimenting and exposing yourself to inspirations outside of design. Also to be persistent and not get discouraged if you don’t get the response you want the first time round.

Links:
www.maricormaricar.com
www.maricormaricar.blogspot.com

Global Village Africa, Eskimo Joe ‘Inshalla’ artwork, Architecture in Helsinki “Like it or Not” music video and The Presets poster created whilst at Mathematics.

Rachel Dunk is a freelance digital artist based in Sydney. Her blog is also here.

What have you been up to lately?
Over the past months, I have been exploring the process of wet plate collodion photography.

Late last year, I decided to take a more organic approach to my personal work.   I wanted to step away from the over-thinking, over-retouched photographic world we live in.  It started with my “Life Aquatic” series. This is a series of various water creatures photographed in their own environment, just beautifully lit, no tricks, no retouching. It is what it is.  To this point, I was chatting with a good friend in the US that I worked with 20 years ago.  He had started doing wet plate a few years ago.  He had been bugging me to have a go. Upon exploring the process, I knew it would fit perfectly into my new direction; you can’t get more basic or organic.

What are some of the challenges of the technique?
Nerves.  Remember the feeling years ago when shooting with film and not knowing whether you had the shot or not until the film was processed?  We have gotten so used to clicking, looking at the screen and bingo, you know you’ve got the shot.  With wet plate, there are so many variables and steps.  Learning just the basics is a challenge, from flowing the collodion solution on the glass plate, handling the plate in the silver bath, getting the plate into the film holder and not to mention all the chemical mixing.  I have found through all the learning that nothing can be rushed.

How did you first get into photography?
I was given a camera as a graduation present in year twelve and bought my first darkroom for $50.  Away I went!

What are you reading/watching/listening to/browsing at the moment?
I am reading the history and conservation of glass supported photography – a bit of light reading. I’m listening to a local band called Uncle Jed and browsing eBay and the net for late 1800’s camera bits.

What can we expect to see from you in the future?
I’m in the process of setting up to do tin-type photographs.  I have sourced the tin and now learning how to Japan the tin before I can pour some plates.  I’m also on the look-out for more creatures to build on my underwater series.

(NOTE: I didn’t know what “japanning” was,…Chuck’s explanation: Japanning is what they call it when you coat the tin with a black asphaltum mixture.  This mixture is applied an then baked on to the tin.  They also use to coat the back of clear glass plates to make them positives before the invention of black glass.)

What advice would you have to younger photographers entering the industry?
Shoot, shoot, shoot for the passion and love of it.  The money is secondary!

Links:
chuckbradley.com.au

Holding site for Matt Huynh‘s soon to be relaunched folio website, to commemorate the June 1st solo exhibition ‘Asperatus’.

‘Asperatus’ showcases an entirely new illustration series for one night only in a solo show at the Skeleton Gallery, Australian Museum, on June 1st.

This post was submitted by Matt Huynh.

“I have recently been using the photographic process invented by Frederick Scott Archer in the mid 1800′s. This process is know as Wet Plate collodion, it was the start of the modern photographic process. My works are know as Black Glass Ambrotypes.”

From Photographer Chuck Bradley.

This post was submitted by Chuck Bradley.

Stereo Portrait Project Exhibition is showing at the Oh Really Gallery from May 27 – June 10.

See more of the campaign at Behance.

edit: Full credits

Client: Football Federation of Australia
Agency: Lowe Sydney
Executive Creative Director: Simon Cox
Senior Copywriter: Nathan Lennon
Senior Copywriter: Dean Hamilton
Senior Art Director: Dave Gibson
Agency Executive Producer: Lisa Brown
Photographer: Penny Clay
Designer: Justin Maller
Typographer: Luca Ionescu
Account manager: Guy Lovell
Account manager: Nathan Quailey

Some nice illustration work from Sydney based Anton Emdin.

The National Grid Gallery Sydney presents

‘A life slowed down for the observer’
Artwork by Kristy Milliken

Opening Night: Friday 7th May 2010 6pm – 9pm

Exhibition is open from 8th May until 11th June.
Gallery is open Monday-Friday 9am-5pm
Saturdays 12pm-3pm

You can read an old interview we did with Kristy here.

This post was submitted by Barrett.