California Dreaming

My Photo scholarship 2010 entry

Australia | Tuesday, August 17, 2010 | 5 photos

I recently visited the US of A, or at least Los Angeles. I had gone to do an acting workshop. In 2002 I co-starred alongside Eric Bana in 'The Nugget'. More recently I have been working as traffic reporter and helicopter news camera operator for channel 10 Sydney, via the Australian Traffic Network. I went to LA to open myself to the experience of it. Well into my thirties, I didn't want to one day wish I had done it.

While operating the camera in the chopper I noticed this beautiful synergy that would sometimes happen between myself and the pilot. I would speak of the shot I was trying to achieve and he would fly in a way that facilitated my being able to capture it as I had envisaged. I realise the concept of filming traffic may seem boring to most, but for me it became about the framing, movement and subsequent beauty of the shot.

Having arrived in LA from a Sydney winter, I wished to spend as much time as I could in the warmth and sunshine by the beach. That is where these photos are taken. Santa Monica Beach, Venice beach and Route 1 or The Pacific Highway. Perfect warm days with vibrant blue skies. All taken on my shitty $100 camera with no digital editing or cropping, because I don't know how to do that, but I love these photos.

In 2009, I made my first short documentary called "A Day in the Dirt". It was shot in about thirty-six hours and has screened at a festival in LA and one in Wales, as well as a couple of small ones in Melbourne. Absolutely unbelievable to me. It's about the Nymagee Outback Music Festival. 'Where the hell is Nymagee?' Exactly! Around twenty people live there. What I know about me is that I love the rawness and the adrenalin that comes from being in the 'moment'.

I hope that there is something for you in these pictures.