I’m excited to say that I’ll be heading back to Phoot Camp 2012, a photographic creative retreat held in a different location every year. This time it’s being held in upstate New York!  The image above was shot for my self portrait application.  Here are all the beautiful faces of the other photographers that I’ll be joining:

pictorymag.com/showcases/phoot-camp-2012-roster/

Last year, I was lucky enough to be invited back to join 30 incredibly talented photographers at Phoot Camp. Taking place in Marfa, Texas, the road trip there was an amazing part of the journey and spending time with an RV full of keen photographers was definitely a highlight. Check out the story of Phoot Camp 2011 here:

pictorymag.com/showcases/close-encounters-phoot-kind/

I’ve put together a few of my favourite shots from last year below, and you can see more here:

marklobo.com.au/phootcamp2011

And finally, one of my favourite videos from Paul Octavious, the faces of Phoot Camp 2011:

I recently photographed Australian Rugby League legend, Darren Lockyer on a shoot for Wish Magazine, a publication available through “The Australian” newspaper focusing on “The best of Everything”. The story looks at Darren in his new role as HEAT Architecture Ambassador and was photographed in the lobby of Santos place, designed by Brisbane Architecture firm, Donovan Hill.  It was a big shoot for me and really wanted to come out with a few solid images that the publication could use. I even ended up scouting the location twice, just to make sure I could fill the space with the right light and had access to everything I needed on the day!  I was thrilled to see that the hard work payed off and that the selected image was used as a full page spread!

Here are a few images from the shoot and the publication:

You can read his thoughts on his experience with dreads and hair as a social object, here.

I worked with hair dresser, Jules Tognini of AKA Togninis, on a series of looks for Hair Expo Australia in June last year.  Here are some of the final images from the shoot.  Editing by the awesomely talented Lynda Evans of Designedly.

I worked with the great team at Big Fish once again to produce a series of images for their client, Go Health.  It was a fun shoot which involved a lot of moving of excercise equipment, taking over the spin room on location.  I’m really happy with the final artwork and the use of colour is delicious.  Here are a few of the images from the shoot:

I was invited back to attend Phoot Camp 2011 which saw 30 photographers road tripping from all around the United States towards Marfa, Texas.  This was from a stop at the beautiful White Sands, New Mexico.  Neil Berrett puts his body on the line for the sake of photography. Thanks Neil!

I photographed (and devoured) some of the most delicious dishes from Marriott Brisbane’s new restaurant, Motion bar and Grill. Delicious.

The saying “The best camera is the one that’s with you.” was put to the test, leaving my “big camera” at home and challenging myself with just my iPhone. As a result, I fell in love with Instagram.

This was one of the coolest projects I got to work on this year for Made In The Now.  Not only did I get to design and shoot the image for the shirt, but I was also lucky enough to be involved in it’s earlier stages with the t-shirt and model photography.

A huge mile stone for me was launching Von Vintage and it’s online store.  It was a side passion project that had me shooting on film again and intentionally slowing down my photographic process.  I had some great fun exhibiting this work.

I got involved with photographing a poster for Rise, a fundraiser for the Brisbane flood recovery efforts. I love the way it turned out and was happy to hear that the event raised over $10,000 for The Premier’s Disaster Relief Appeal.

One of my favourite shots that came from my visit to Japan was from Yamanakako, an area near Mt. Fuji where we used to visit every summer.  The crisp air greeted me with a flood of incredible memories from my childhood.

I was invited to climb Brisbane’s Story Bridge and bring my camera gear with me, giving me a refreshing and almost calming perspective of the city.

I felt the immense positivity that surrounded the “Together Brisbane” Campaign and was thrilled to see images that I shot for the campaign on billboards, bus shelters and even on the ground.

I shot some of my favourite photos at White Sands, this is the last photograph I shot there. It was a great afternoon. Cody had just captured a lightning strike on his instax, Nate Bolt started a really fun series and Neil did some epic dune jumping. It was no doubt one of the most beautiful highlights of the road trip.

And lucky last is a 3D image of Daniel Seung Lee, from a project I started called “Ghetto Stereo“. Using two disposable cameras side by side, I created a “Ghetto” stereoscopic 3D camera. I’m currently working on a new series using a “quadra lens” system.

Have a safe silly season everyone, and I hope to hear from you in the New Year!

Over the last few months, I’ve been working with Brand Development Agency, Underbrand on the photography for the new restaurant, Motion Bar and Grill at The Marriott, Brisbane. I had previously worked with Underbrand on projects such as the photography for Jam Jar and as always, was a pleasure to work with a team of highly motivated visual perfectionists!

Here are a few of the final images and artwork that resulted from the shoot. As a lover of nice wood grain, I’m thrilled that we were able to tie all the shots together with such a nice brown tone and texture.  You can see more of my shots on the Motion Bar and Grill website.

Over two years ago, I found an old Brownie box camera which sparked the idea to create an ongoing series of work.  I decided that I wanted to preserve inspiring vintage design and aesthetics by shooting a timeless series, all shot on vintage film cameras.  Since then, I’ve spent hours keeping an eye out for beautiful, once loved keepsakes to capture forever.  A countless number of rolls of film ran through cameras that barely worked, and film got fogged in X-ray machines, but I eventually landed with my true vintage camera love, the Hasselblad, which I used to shoot this series.  Finally, this weekend I’m putting the Von Vintage series up on the walls of Urban Grind, a great coffee shop that also hosted my previous BNE project series.  The coffee is the best, and so is the company so head in there and check out the prints!  I’ll be heading in there a few times throughout the next few weeks so if you are keen for a coffee and a chat, just email me and we’ll tee it up!

The Details:

Urban Grind, 121 Latrobe Terrace, Paddington
November 27th until December 23rd 2011
v@vonvintage.com

Von the web:

www.vonvintage.com
Facebook
Twitter
Tumblr

Instagram is an iPhone app that seems to have divided a lot of photographers. It’s a social application, that allows users to instantly share their images across different digital platforms, as well as within the vast community of Instagram users itself. Some love it for it’s faux vintage filters, and others hate it for exactly that same reason.

I personally love that it encourages me to look deeper into the aesthetics of the everyday things that surround me, an invaluable exercise for photographers.  I also love that using the photo’s geolocation data, I can see what others have previously photographed, and experience someone else’s perspective of the same location that I stand.

As a professional photographer, somewhat addicted to this form of “iPhoneography” I was recently interviewed in the weekend paper about my view on this style of photography. You can find me on Instagram under the name “@MarkLobo” and “@VonVintage“.

For those interested in iPhonography, be sure to check out 1197.is this weekend. It’s the first ever mobile and iPhone photography conference and can be streamed online.

Fulfilling a brief within 4 hours of receiving it is rarely something I have to do, but that’s exactly what a new designer goes through every day on Made In The Now. This morning, I was that designer…well photographer. The idea behind Made In The Now, is to challenge a new designer with a brief based on a news article written that day, voted in by the public. With that article in mind, the designer creates a limited edition T-shirt, which is only available for 24 hours. As a photographer, I wanted to shoot something specific and not have to rely on a back catalog. Luckily, the article voted in didn’t have me struggling as much as it would for some of it’s candidates! I was to photograph and design a shirt based on an article about animals and their relationship with increasing brain activity. This is what I came up with. The shirt is only available for 24 hours, so if you want it, get in quick!  http://www.madeinthenow.com/shirt/51.html:

I was actually also the photographer for these t-shirt models too…so meta.