Future Classic present photo exhibition

How did you link up with Future Classic? In early 2010 I photographed a large series of portraits at Fashion Week in Sydney. It was a documentary project that had a stylised look. Nathan and Jay contacted me because they liked this approach and thought it would be an interesting concept to document the artists they would work with over a twelve month or so period and turn the results into an event. Is this your first project to involve music in this way? Yes, I don’t normally work within the music industry at all. I just took my normal approach to studying character in interesting light - I did not try to make “music photographs” and I think that is a point of difference for the images. I was keen to take on the project though because I knew I would have access to subjects with a diversity of faces, personality and style. How did the artists generally react to the project? They were generally really keen. Some of the artists were not used to being photographed individually and I think that was a good acknowledgement for them to be looked at as an individual. Some artists are photographed a lot and I think the fact that this was not disposable photography, that it was part of a larger series with a bit of a lifespan got them excited. Did you take the same approach with each artist? Some people are easy in front of the camera and they know how to give something, and some needed just to be made to feel natural until I found a moment. One person came in and told me how they would be photographed, so I just let them take the lead. That in itself created a tension, and that can make a picture, so I ran with whatever approach would give the image a bit of personality. Tell us about how the exhibition will be curated. There are images that are studies and others were selected to convey how it felt to be with that artist. I wanted people to look good but I also wanted to flesh out their public persona. Jay, the designer from Future Classic had some great ideas about how to make the installation something that you could explore rather than a linear row of pictures on a wall. We were inspired by street posters, salon style hanging and fluro pink. Did you find the artists' personalities aligned with their music? I was definitely interested in that as I researched their music before photographing them. Some of the less confident artists produce the sexiest, funkiest tunes. They all embodied their music in some way, and I guess in the time I spent with them I was trying to work out exactly how. Maybe the fans will get a sense of my experience of that from the images.