I’ve been a photographer for over 45 years. After my apprenticeships in Germany I moved to Amsterdam & Copenhagen. From those early days I have a Food Still Life I cherish particularly …

 

LA022 Food Still Life

… I like to use candles in still lives, but I think it is important to use the candle-light as a light source – otherwise, why would you have a lit candle in the picture?

Afghan Butcher

After Amsterdam I travelled to India, in a Land Rover – there and back in about a year.  One of my best pictures is from Herat, Afghanistan, of a butcher.

Traffic In Downtown Kathmandu, Nepal

One more shot from that Asia trip is from Nepal, of traffic in downtown Kathmandu. The year is 1973.

Tuborg Beer

When I came back I lived in Copenhagen for five years. From that time I have my first internationally successful advertising shot, for Tuborg beer. This picture took me a week to finish. It is lit entirely by daylight – but I had that sunlight only for an hour at midday. So I cooled down a couple of dozen beers, shot about six or eight 5×7” plates, had them processed and came back to the shoot the next day – until I got that particular light. The funny thing was, a month later I was travelling on Bali and I was climbing a mountain, an active volcano. It was humid and stifling. The ground I was walking on was hot. I didn’t bring enough water and I was thirsty. And all I could think about was the dozens of bottles of ice-cold Tuborg beer I had emptied down the drain four weeks earlier!

Lempad Bali

On Bali in 1977 I took a picture of the painter I Gusti Nyoman Lempad; he was 115 years old.

Rad, Yani & Saskia Day 1

My very best shot was taken with a snap-shot camera of my two boys as they watch their sister being born. I was holding their mother with my right arm and took the picture with my left hand.

LA002 Still Life With Cockroach.jpg

Here is another favourite still life, from the series Still Lives with Critters. These are some of my first digital images and the ‘critters’ were added digitally.

FG008 Faces Saskia

When digital photography came around in the late 1990s I began PHOTOART. I really like the portraits from the Queen Victoria Building and the Strand Archade,  especially this one of Saskia, with her face half covered.

JJ 54 minutes 6-06-2012 - 10-39 AM sm 21cm

When my grandson Jackson “JJ” Jay was born and I took this picture of him at age 54 minutes, we knew we had a very special little man in our family.

Rad & Yani Kalang River

The next photo is of my two boys – Yani and Radjin – spear-fishing in the Kalang river, on the property where Saskia was born. (No fish were harmed in the production of this picture.)

BC001 Large

A tree, is a tree, is a tree … except this one, the Grand Moreton Bay Fig , also known as The Children’s Tree, in Sydney’s Botanic Garden.

JB041 Mardi Gras Fringe

Other favourite shots are from the series the Mardi Gras Fringe.

JB044. Mardi Gras Fringe

But should you ask what my favourite picture of all time is, it’s the one of Radjin and Yani at Saskia’s birth.