20 years since construction the Museum of Tropical Queensland was in need of some tender loving care. Steel works on the roof were replaced along with a new curved ceiling, new galleries and refurbishment to the entrance and shop. I was commissioned by Counterpoint Architecture and Qbuild to capture these images. Thankfully I was blessed with some good weather and plenty of time to scout the location and make several trips at various times of the day for photography.
Some architecture "quickies" done while waiting for a portrait client. This is the Mater Hospital in Townsville plus a new building under construction at Margaret Mary's. All done with favourite 24mm tilt shift lens and processed with customised VSCO Ektar.
I have the honour of creating a library of images for the Catholic Education Office in Townsville. I'll visit all 32 schools in the Townsville Diocese to capture images of the kids and all aspects of the various Catholic Schools in Townsville and regional QLD. Over the next several weeks I'll shoot about 35,000 images and deliver approximately 6,000 to the Office. I'll do a blog post soon of some of my favourite school images but for now here are some images from my road trip to the schools in Western QLD - Charters Towers, Hughenden and Winton. It's my 4th time out there and a drive that I absolutely love. It's also the first time I've seen grass near Winton. Problem been that following the rain all the fly's hatch out and they were a total nightmare - my tropical strength roll on Aeroguard was completely useless. Within seconds after stepping out of the car you were attacked by dozens of them wanting to get into your nose, mouth and ears.At one stage while doing bit of a "psychogeography" walk around Winton a gentleman drove up in his 4x4 and asked if I wanted to look at the racecourse. In true psychogeography fashion I thought well why not as there could be some good photographic possibilities out there. He showed me his race winning ponies, the local dam and so forth. As we neared the stables I noticed a massive cattle prod next to where I was sitting. I suddenly thought that this is way too "Wolf Creek" for my liking and kindly asked if he could return me back to town. He of course obliged and I was safely delivered back to the corner he picked me up from - "thanks mate that was interesting"
All these images were processed with the recently released VSCO film pack 5 which is dedicated to create the look of archetypal colour negative emulsions from days gone by.
I've had plenty of time recently to kill between shoots out at James Cook University in Townsville. What better way to spend the time than trying to come to terms with the architecture of many of the original buildings out there. We are all familiar with the term "Sandstone Universities" - well for my money the original JCU must be described as a "Concrete University" or "Besser Block University". Of course things architecture wise have changed considerably in recent years with a new crop of buildings - SoCA, ATSIP, Education Central and the Clinical Practice Building. The Cairns campus has also received an architectural makeover with the recently finished and extraordinary Cairns Institute.Back to the original JCU buildings which seem totally out of place in the tropical environment. These days it's all about sustainability, sympathy to the environment and the intended use of the facility. These buildings which at first I thought were terribly ugly and presented a very cold, austere and institutional look I have recently become quite fond of. I enjoy the fact that they would seem to be prime examples of "Brutalist Architecture" with a nod towards the work of Le Corbusier. No need to travel overseas to view some iconic architectural styles - its all right here in sunny Nth Queensland.
