LightVision

What better time than winter to dream about the seaside? It’s at the core of Wildlight’s identity as we’re reminded with this edition’s focus on our shimmering shores. The beach still evokes the strong emotions it did in the mid-80s when Wildlight started, as evidenced by Rennie Ellis’ Life’s a Beach library additions. It reveals that prior to the present era of slip, slop, slap*, the yarn mills of the Pearl River Delta got little joy from the Aussie beachwear sector because there wasn’t all that much going on. For once, enjoy this imbalance of trade that saw a lot of people down under soaking up the sun at maximum exposure.

*modern-day UV protection

Short Back and Slides - Our Quarter Century

Wildlight Photo Agency is celebrating it’s 25th anniversary in 2010. Look forward to stories and images of our history in coming LightVision editions. Wildlight has been the standard bearer for real Australian photography over the years, realised in our amazing library exceeding 30,000 top of the line images from 50 great photographers located in every corner of the country. We invite you to share memories of your own association with Wildlight since 1985, by posting a comment on the LightVision blog.  Whether the good old days were long ago or last week, we’d like to hear from you so we can all share your recollections.

No Collars or Cuffs and Little in Between

Enjoy a bonanza of more than 400 iconic archive photos from Rennie Ellis, the late Melbourne photojournalist and renowned master of the Australian outdoor idiom, whose work occupies a whole chapter in the annals of Australian photography. In this new collection, you can relive the Australian shoreline at its colourful best with the sunny disposition of Rennie’s lens revelling in images of people, places and events. You’ll find plenty of party-ready eskies and idyllic beach cricket matches, confronting fronts and sandy rears, that will be as memorable as the time you first remember seeing them. We promise.

Think Big With Environmental Graphics

The built environment becomes all the more grand when decorated with big pictures from the Wildlight library that astound and delight. Firms all over Australia have found a place in their breakout areas, corridors, staff canteens, client waiting areas and meeting rooms to put images of Australia front and centre. Hang Australia up on your walls with Wildlight graphics that boast the high resolution needed to enlarge the image size massively without losing a single pixel of detail. Click here to see how companies are tapping the power of the big Australian picture to release the poetic emotion of our majestic land.

Reflecting on Earlier Visions

We’ve scanned in the third edition of the original lightVision magazine with Robert Besanko’s no-country-bumpkin cover, dating from the dawning days of 1978, to remind you what the photographic scene was like way back when. Although it pre-dates Wildlight, some of the players are still around, like our partner and intrepid technical guru Jean-Marc Le Péchoux, who was at the editorial and publishing helm of this earlier industry publication.  Find out what subjects were on the minds and retinas of our industry associates in those days (like sneakers and photographic equipment auctions and garden nudes) and take a moment to reflect that as much as things change, they somehow remain the same. Reassuring isn’t it!

Photographer Central

Water Magic Exhibition in Sydney

As we write, Richard Woldendorp has just descened after a weeklong aerial photoshoot over the magnificent Western Australian coast gathering spectacular new bird’s eye matierial. You won’t have to wait long to see the results, which will be on show at a new exhibition entitled ‘Water Magic” at the Boutwell Draper Gallery, 82-84 George Street, Redfern in Sydney from 26 August to 18 September, 2010.

Penny Tweedie photo to become a Rolf Harris artwork

Wildlight photogapher Penny Tweedie, long a chronichler of the indigenous Australian landscape, is having her picture ‘Christmas Sunrise’ transformed into an oil on canvas by noted Australian born artist Rolf Harris, CBE, AM

The work (shown here before its final iteration) will appear in Harris’ A Life in Art show at the Clarendon Fine Art gallery in London’s Mayfair from 2 to 19 July 2010, after which it will go on nationwide tour of Britain.

News from the Rennie Ellis Archive

Apart from the collection that incorporates our current Life’s a Beach retrospective, which has recently been acquired by the State Library of Victoria, you can catch two great exhibitions of Rennie Ellis’s work in Sydney and Adelaide:

Up the Cross: Rennie Ellis and Wesley Stacey Until 8 August 2010

Museum of Sydney

Cnr Phillip & Albert Streets, Sydney

Rennie Ellis and fellow photographer Wesley Stacey spent the summer of 1970-71 in Kings Cross, getting to know the locals and delving behind the scenes. Together they captured the sights, sounds and pulsating rhythms of life on the streets, in the clubs and residences of Sydney’s infamous red light district. It was the ’summer of love’ and the Cross was as much a magnet for long-haired pilgrims and avant-garde artists as it was for US servicemen on leave from Vietnam. This exhibition of their photos reveals moments of joy and pathos, the surface glitter and what was going on backstage, providing a fascinating portrait of life ‘up the Cross’ at a unique moment in time.

Candid Camera Australian Photography 1950s – 1970s Until 1 August 2010

Art Gallery of South Australia

North Terrace, Adelaide South Australia

A survey of Australian documentary photography from the 1950s to the 1970s, Candid Camera comprises more than eighty photographs by renowned Australian photographers, including Max Dupain, David Moore, Jeff Carter, Robert McFarlane, Mervyn Bishop, Rennie Ellis, Carol Jerrems and Roger Scott.

Head On Portrait Prize 2010

This portrait of Hugo and Ernst earned Wildlight’s Andrew Stephenson a runner-up spot in the Australan Centre for Photography show judged in Sydney in June.

Sushine Coast School of Photography in Yandina, Queensland

Running for almost a year now with over 200 sudents, Colin Beard reports that the school is planning an ‘In the Footsteps of Saint Francis’ exhibition in central Brisbane at Westpac soon. Check here for more details.

We’ve been very privileged to participate in a new book compiled by filmmaker and photographer, John Ogden. With a working title Portraits from a Land Without People, it’s sure to stir the pot. Oggy has researched hundreds of thousands of images of aboriginal Australians dating back to 1847. The book comprises 300 powerful images which describe a pictorial history of Aboriginal Australians. Wildlight is proud to have contributed seven images to the book by David Moore, Penny Tweedie and Carolyn Johns. The book is scheduled to be released in February 2009, with proceeds flowing to the Jimmy Little Foundation, to help improve kidney health in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. To see a multimedia slideshow and interview with Oggy by the Sydney Morning Herald, then click here. I’ve been trying to get John Ogden to join the Wildlight library for a year now, but he seems to be distracted by this book…good luck Oggy!

Here’s a cute exhibition by photographer Mayu Kanamori called The Island of the Ancients. It’s an exploration of the largest percentage of centenarians in the world, on the tiny and seldom talked bout Mediterranean island of Sardinia. How do these people manage to live up to three times longer than the rest of us? Find out the secrets in the accompanying book, published by Murdock Books. Mayu’s sensitive portraits can be seen at Customs House Library, Sydney until the 28th September.  The exhibition has been put together by Sandy Edwards, herself an accomplished photojournalist, through her new photography project venture, ARTHERE.

New light source

G’day lightseeker, it’s been a while and there’s plenty happening at Wildlight. I’m excited to say that this is the first edition of LightVision–a must see news feed from the editor’s desk at Wildlight. It’s a terrific news source to learn more about Wildlight’s great Australian content, find out more about the people at Wildlight, our talented photographers, read our opinions and find out where to see Australian visual art. We’ll also have discussions on copyright and licencing, and hilarious promotions, interviews and updates on the whereabouts of our photographers. Because its dynamic, you can keep coming back to LightVision by subscribing to an RSS feed. Just click here to stay focused.

Featured collection

We know you’re always looking for new stuff, so we’re giving you an instant replay of some of the most recent additions to our library. There’s a big mix because our photographers have been active around Australia, committed to providing up-to-date content of Australian people and places. Here’s a mid-year sample covering the Gold Coast, RF and RM images of Melbourne and a great spread from the still warm North Coast of NSW. And just in today, amazing shots of the Illawarra, including the spectacular cliff hugging bridge along the coastline above Woolongong. Click here to see the collection now

Meet the team

There are actually real people behind the brand, Andrew, Jean-Marc and Ernst, the pug. Yes we really are ‘two and a dog’. Young fathers, except Ernst, who’s had the chop! We work in Redfern - the Paris end of course. Jean-Marc, he’s the Frenchman writing lines of code to make the whole show work, he has been busy virtualising our business so we can spend more time on the road meeting you. Meet the team now.

Exhibitions and new books

Wildlight photographer, Richard Woldendorp, has just released another quality hardcover book, Abstract Earth: a view from above, coinciding with a new exhibition at the S.H Ervin Gallery at Observatory Hill, Sydney. I went to the opening and the images were breathtaking. The unique abstract perspective afforded from the air caused many observers to guess several times before understanding the subject of the images. The exhibition runs until 3 August. Next month you’ll find out how you can win a complimentary signed copy of Richard’s book, which sells for $49.95.

Burning question
Does licence duration really matter for brochures and annual reports? I received a call from a corporate graphic designer here in Sydney who had this burning question which has been unanswered for so long. The question came at a good time as we are soon to begin the process of simplifying our licence calculator; do I hear a collective sigh of relief? He felt that the total print run was more important, and that the duration was an unrealistic component in the licence. We had recently licenced a package of nine Richard Woldendorp aerials for a corporate brochure. He felt that after the initial mailout, the finished product sat in the client foyer for an indefinite time or in a box under Wendy’s desk, slowly collecting stiletto heel damage. I have to agree with him, it’s unrealistic and unenforceable to track the licence beyond a one or two-year period. Is the end-user going to pulp the brochures just because the magic time period has expired? Are we all that organised that we send a Google calendar reminder to ourselves? Then what happens when a person leaves the company? You can see, and most probably agree that having a fixed time period for brochures and DM in general is unrealistic and should be removed from the licence.
Have you got a questions about licencing which has been bugging you? Email me.

Get in step with our Walk on the Wildside promo.

To take advantage of this once in a lifetime offer, just purchase a licence worth more than $7 before the 17th of July and you could walk down Oxford Street–darlo or paddo end, no matter–with ERNST the Pug. As you’ve undoubtedly read in Our Team, he’s a ‘deal clincher’, but out of the office he’s a chick magnet and man puller. He’ll make sure you’re the center of attention, he pulls old and young, guys and girls. Act now and we’ll even wash him before the big day! You’ll be striking up a conversation with the person of your dreams before Ernst sniffs his first pole! He’s deaf as a post and completely motivated by food, so carry a dried pig’s ear in your pocket for his undivded attention.

I’ve been receiving email newsletters ( I don’t remember subscribing) from DooneyStudio, it’s the site of successful young Australian painter and photographer Hazel Dooney. She’s been receiving quite a bit of press lately, due to the boldness and confrontational subject of her artworks. Anyway, I’ve enjoyed receiving her communications, check out here recent work here - it’s punk, meets feminist, meets graphic psychological self-discovery. She has a photography exhibition opening at MARS Gallery in Port Melbourne on the 29th July to 24th August, coinciding with the Melbourne Art Fair. Innocents And Demons will extrapolate on her paintings, with studies of young women in her first photographic exhibition.

What’s interesting to us, is some news that she has licenced six of her images to a niche Australian condom manufacturer, Legends Rubbers, to be printed onto tin packaging. Each tin package will have an image of Hazel’s, containing six rubbers. That’s a pretty unique image usage, which has prompted me to probe into our records to see what the most intriguing usage for a Wildlight image is. I’ll post it soon…