Lennox Head - October 2024
08/10/24
As mentioned in my last blog post, I have been at Lennox Head in The Northern Rivers for the last week. I had a couple of projects in the area, the first being a music video shoot for Stu Cupid which you can read about in my previous blog post, the other being some documentary film making in Lismore for Northern Tablelands Land Care, something I won’t really be able to go into detail about until next year.
Once these project’s were wrapped I was free to spend my time as I saw fit, so of course I spent a lot of time just walking around taking photos. I don’t think there was any day where the weather was ideal but if I only went out to take photos when conditions were perfect I don’t think I would get a lot of photography done. My walk Tuesday afternoon probably proved to be the most interesting in terms of sights, I don’t often shoot for pleasure on my R8 or with my 18-135mm but it seemed like the right choice at the time. I didn’t really get any shots that I love, but I feel like some of what I did capture was… okay.
09/10/24
Wednesday prooved to be a pretty terrible day when it comes to not just conditions for photography, but enjoying the fact I was staying at the beach as a whole. On the flip side, the conditions allowed me to get back to my photography roots a little bit. I think a lot of us once we starting doing photography for a living can forget how important it can be to just document our day to day lives. Sometimes it’s the little moments in life that end up being most important, not the big epic vista’s, and that’s something I want to start focusing on more in my work. I hope these images capture the feeling of a dreary wet afternoon.
10/10/24 - Lennox Head: Morning
Thursday prooved to be a very big day, I had a quick walk over to the beach before the day really started and managed to get a few shots I really liked. These days I really do feel a lot more comfortable shooting with a 50mm or 24mm prime then I do with a telescopic lens and I think that comfort shows through my compositions. The weather conditions were incredibly moody which I also appreciate shooting early in the morning.
10/10/24 - Mullumbimby
Our first task for Thursday was to head to Mullumbimby to pick a replacement wedding ring for the one I lost at the Oporto in Tamworth… once that was out of the way we decided to do a blocky in town, I had been wanting to give Street Photography a go in Mullumbimby for quite some time and I managed to get a few shots I liked. I also picked up a photobook focused on the work of David Moore in New England, in particular around Armidale and Walcha (and all black and white photography no less). Published in 1992 it was really interesting seeing so many familiar locations looking so different to what I am used too. I am half tempted to try and recreate some of the photos with how the locations look now.
10/10/24 - Lennox Head: Afternoon
After a quick trip to Lismore for a Christmas photoshoot (infront of the lens, not behind, mixing things up a little) it was back to Lennox Head. The moody conditions had barely changed from the morning. I managed to get a few sneaky street style shots as well as a couple of my grandmother that I was happy with.
10/10/24 - Lennox Head: Evening
Wrapping up the day on Thursday was a visit from my parents for the night. It again acted as a good reminder of why its important to document your life, and the lives of those around you. Was the lighting good? No. Was I able to put together interesting compositions? No. But these fleeting moments are easy to forget so capturing them has immense value and I think working out that key distinction between personal photography and commercial photography gets incredibly difficult the longer you work professionally. It’s all too easy to overthink things and miss these critical points in time.
11/10/24
Friday was my last day at Lennox Head and the sun had finally returned. I waited until mid afternoon to go for a walk, and after seeing so much wildlife on Tuesday I decided to bring my 70 - 300mm. This turned out to be a poor choice as I saw almost no wildlife and ill be damned if I can compose an image at 300mm, atleast, not yet. It was a nice walk though so I can’t really complain. Its about the journey, not the destination as they say.
12/10/24
Saturday morning was time to go home, but not before one final photo of my grandmother through the car window as we drove out of the driveway, a complete fluke and my favorite photo from the trip, and really, this is what this particular blog is all about.
My grandmother is 92, she is virtually blind, she is mostly deaf and frequently in pain. I don’t know how much time she has left on this earth. A lot of the photos I took of her during this trip (something you can catch glimpses of in some of the photos above) feel sad, tired, and lonely, and I think that’s okay, im not interesting in capturing people feeling anything other than how they are feeling in the moment.
But to have the chance to capture those rare fleeting glimpses of genuine joy, I think that’s pretty special, and if this is the last photo of her that I ever get to take, well, im glad this is how it came out, technical imperfections and all.
