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Photographing Additional Details

We're now going to spend the afternoon talking a little bit about what happens after the shoot, so talk us through you work with brian, did you tak a little bit over lunch and talk us through what he is doing now and what you guys did over over the lunch it's interesting that the shoot this morning I know a lot of people seeing this for the first time obviously and um it seems I was thinking at low show I wonder if people think it's just that easy to do you know, because this is so part of such a long process of preparation and, you know, dozens of skype calls and making sure we got the backgrounds right in the costume, right and everything and then you know, this morning you know what a lot of people don't realize is that all of that went on when it was really just having the babies here and getting them to smile that was just like, in result yeah, icing on the cake you're right and, you know, it was a great star to a calendar and I'm a little bit superstitious in this regard, you kno...

w, it's like if you get the first shot down, then the rest is going to be okay, you know? And then the the energy seems to be absorbed from image to image and um it's it's unusual for me to have a couple of images and not be able to choose really which one and so we've just gone through quickly with these babies and we do have two images and I always like to ask around things like that you know as to what people think and everyone's got their opinion um so you know, brian and I have just been a little bit of retouching time over lunch putting this together and those who do photo shop and those who were photographers and really everybody may be interested in this process because this afternoon and we don't know subject is on camera but people need to understand what's involved because the tailor separate to the lion in one of the shots I wanted to come out from behind the line in an ideal place there before it strikes this sit we're going to spend some time with tail placement and things like that yeah, but you know, I mean that's just things that we do on all the there's so much do tell it goes on with with these images and we're going to do I thought I might do a couple of prints because I think for me the culmination is when you can just pull that print out of the printer and lay it out and think, yes, yes, we're getting there we're getting there and this great so you know, a couple of shots does it feel different to you sometimes what you see on the screen then and when you see I print out it's my baby course I'm a little bit old fashioned run from the era that I am but I just love I just don't think you can beat I print you know and I was talking to dinner from ips and you know because I say absent printers and have for years and years and years you know there's a certain generation of photographer that really you just value it's a tactile and see it in you you have it in your hands and just look at it and often after shoots I take the print home and I look at them in the daylight you know, indifferent forms of light before our sit down and do the final retouch and I generally leave that until a few weeks afterwards so you can get a bit of separation from it and then sit down quietly and put it all together so let's talk further about as your as you're looking through the images because it's not like you said first first impact you know yeah I get that reaction is it the expressions that you're looking at is that the body placement is it is a little bit of everything you know you can never tell like oh I always go into the mother's room before a shoot and you look at all the babies and and you try to guess which one would which maybe it would be the, you know, the most effective and you can never tell because you're right it's the way they're where they're looking, the some of them have got that charm factor on dh some of them just have to sit there and look and they look amazing, you know? And and that's really don't you never know until the day and that's why I think it's great for everyone to actually be involved in this, right? Andi also in relation to new born babies, you know, I'm knows a lot of people that think all babies look the same, you know, and that's insane that z incredible, you know, you can have a baby cycle we called and they went from the minute they're born, they had their own character, but, you know, it's in an image it's, the way they lie, it's just the way they are and you never know until they're there so that's, what? We're going to get tomorrow that's what? I just love being in the studio, you know, for me, it's just like completion of the whole process, what we love being in your studio, so what does brian what is brian working on ryan's working on a profile for the printer because it just what the printers in and I don't want to do the print until we've got this lovely vibrant yellow from the sunflowers so way don't stress him because he's sitting there and you know probably stressing about it and I don't know you know it looks amazing honestly it looks so nice I'm really really pleased with that. So what are some of the difficult questions that have been asking some of the tricky ones for anyone who's interested in the year yeah, everything I people are always interested in in the gear a little talk a little bit yeah when I'm sitting up for areas thiss afternoon um I can specifically talked to all of that and exactly what we're doing and why? Because you know, I know the audience here is pretty broad and I don't want teo you know, I have people who aren't photographers so I'm not really you know that's not really for me so maybe if you answered some more general questions and then waken do we? This is everyone's absolutely s o a lot of people I mean, we had talked earlier about about the team we've got done over there changing the lines tail as we speak and it's just too well look exactly at the image um here and just get the tail coming out from exactly the right position I couldn't do any of this in the um days before photo shop it was uh you know it was a totally different way of shooting and now I totally embrace what we can do here right but that sears I like to keep it as real as possible so this is just a tale it was just that where the tail came out from behind the body just needs to be joined a little bit more so something we haven't yet talked about on air today is some of your philanthropic work and some of the other projects that you have going on can we talk a little bit maybe specifically about march of dimes because it's very timely march of dimes are the most amazing organization and I created an image for them in february this year before I left sydney australia and they approached me to create a special image for world prematurely day which is on november seventeen and I have created this image of guys will be able to show it yeah uh you know, over the years from one of the times that we were visiting the library were doing and I talked about you know, before the internet and everything uh voice thing so in love with the illustrations of leonardo da vinci and his enquiring mind in terms ofthe um um medical progress at that time was that four hundred years ago on dh two so I thought you know with all of the work that match of dimes in doing in terms ofthe research into white babies are born too soon so I referenced leonardo divinci and we've got this tiny little baby called alfred what a gorgeous night on guard on dh he's lying in a special molds that we had made a sculpture on dh to replicate this beautiful image of two hands and so you know, the message in it is look for hundred years on here we have little alfred babies are still being born too soon I mean it's no good time to have a premature baby and around the world every year on every just fifteen million babies born too soon on dh one million of this babies don't survive in choking in terms of the us it's it's like five hundred thousand babies a year so it's just one in nine and you know, in most cases they just don't know why and so master time to set up this and continues to set up this research centers you know where the best minds are really trying to solve that problem? So I felt like I had I had the job, you know, just to create this beautiful image of this tiny little baby who was one of thirty two weeks there's anyone I'm sorry if there's anyone here who has had a preemie baby yeah, he wasn't due to extenuating two point six pound I had a bit of a rough ride after the image was typhon and he nearly passed away twice but he's home now and it's nine ten months old and doing really well yeah thank goodness what drives you to to be involved in in such organizations look, I think I consider myself an advocate for children and you know, I've been doing this for thirty years and um and I do it because I love it and I think one of the one of the most frustrating things that I've had through my career is the photographers is that that sense off making sure that babies taken serious there's an art form no um and it's za constant battle it really is you know? I mean, people people who just sigh all babies they're so cute and photographers used to say to me eyes to photograph babies before I went on to something more important, you know? And I couldn't think of a more important subject matter, you know, to feel the love in in in a studio you know, it's it's just a totally different environment to a normal photographic studio and that's what I love about it that's what we've created over the years and and I'm very proud of that actually and my team are very proud of being involved in this world looking for the baby I was curious as to what you're doing to me doing with tyler always actually wanted to take a look at what it was that that you we're going to yes she if you want to see the tail and on the image that we're going to do show you will be printed out is some coming from a little bit away from the baby and so we just need to reshoot the tail and then we can drop it in and photoshopped this baby is quite disturbing yeah she's happy she's always happy yeah doing actually cleaned up her face before she bought her arrival kevin yes, general covered in paint and all sorts of just cool it on that yeah yeah yeah she's clint stoick and so in general thank you. You know you don't have to be oh, should we? So while we're waiting shall we head back over to the table? Yes, yes let's do that. Well, he does prentiss star so um maybe we can, um, talk to don a little bit more to so I feel like we've we've shown some of the earlier sketches but we haven't we haven't talked about this that's lion can you should and talk aboutthe head you could have longer I think that's a good idea, interesting lights my way. Not sure what the best angle is realize over here I said to do on this morning whose loving himself isn't it just a beautiful looking thing so when you go out teo to create the costume a problem outfit where the places that you go and research and how do you how do you get to this point? A lot of that I just have a look on the internet of pictures get inspiration I just particular loved this guy because he's got that kind of beautiful velvety coat on him so I pretty much based it on him s oh, my main problem was how I was gonna do the main because the obvious way is just going by for I thought no that's too easy and it's not really very comfortable with someone asked me the other day if I get all my props from I think this is your house right here co exhibition on doing really underestimates what she's doing so yeah, you really need to draw it out of it she's really good at what she does and everything that she creates has that kind of extra special dimension to it it's just like something that you couldn't find anywhere else well, can we I mean, can we get an inside look is that you would go on under her hood? What? I've actually done it I've probably done it more like the conventional while making a wig, which is like a mish um skullcap and then I've stitched different young so of different sickness is different colors to get that shaggy look that sort of just had a good look and I've just stitch him to pull them back, and then afterwards I've just basically shape them with a pair scissors as you would here captain's like that looks like that anywhere. Now on the good thing about it is the whole thing's completely stretchy, completely some of the babies is really, really if they're not comfortable, you may as well not even be doing it because you're not gonna get the shot, so they had to go on very quick close that it's almost up, they don't really realize what's happening, right? Completely self time. Yeah, um, and then the years so just a piece of fireman side, which have basically shaped and glowed into a curve put a doubt. So here, if you happen to be a craft person on dh, then I've covered it in fur low, and I've done some small stitches here to get a a bit of an interesting text you're going ripley coats the face over and then and then I've used fabric paints of transparent fabric paint justin, you know, get all the different colors that go on in there because this is pretty colorful it's, not just one, calories, got a lot of different colors within him, so that's pretty much it really nice just touch that on it's always really nice. And we filmed this on the weekend when, because donna and I don't live in the same city anymore to actually when, when dawn comes to a shirt to be able to sit and actually pull these things out of the container. Yeah, that was pretty fun to watch you, and they nearly didn't make it through, like, stood there just to actually pull him out and really see them. I've been looking at the month's kite, and we've talked and talked and talked about them and in so much detail, it's a real for you, then. Uh, yeah, it does, and it just feels really that we've actually got to the point where we're doing a shoot. So, you know, that's one of the things that I really want to emphasize here is that you know, this just so much work that goes into it. So much work and so much imagination that happens before any of this happens. This is just so the icing on the cake.