We'd never been to Lyttelton until a couple of years ago. At school we'd all learnt it was Christchurch's port, but that didn't mean you had to visit. Now everyone knows it's at the epicentre of Christchurch's earthquake. The reason I did eventually visit Lyttelton was to catch up with Johannes van Kan and Jo Grams. It's a fabulous little town, with a nice traditional pub (you walk down the corridor to the bathroom, just like the old days), lots of local music, good restaurants, great coffee, a beautiful setting. And in centre of the town the original, often funky, sometimes beautiful, apparently To View More >>

If there really are 3.5 trillion photos, which are the important ones? The ones that get picked, printed and presented. Presented in a magazine, a book, a frame, an album. But who does the picking? If it's social photography and the photographer's doing the choosing, which images will make the cut? The perfect shots. The ones that tell the story. The ones that fit in the book. And inevitably, the ones that make the photographer look good. Hundreds and thousands of photographs get discarded because they're imperfect or don't suit our purposes. But those "rejects" could tell a different story, and To View More >>

I know how to type, have a good grasp of English, know how to spell – but that doesn’t mean I could or would or should try to write the next John Grisham. Having a pen doesn’t make me a writer. Having a camera doesn’t make me a photographer. Having a computer doesn’t make me a designer… To be a designer takes talent, knowledge and practice. You need to understand balance, beauty, symmetry, asymmetry, flow, pace, shape, unity and contrast. Being a great visual story teller requires all those qualities. It also requires the understanding that that’s what you’re doing - telling a To View More >>

[caption id="attachment_7050" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="Musée 10x7 dark tan; photography and page layout design by Johannes van Kan"][/caption] If you read my Musée story recently, you’ll recall it ended with a cliff-hanger … but it turned out well. You may remember we’d made an album featuring Christian [Oth's] images, but he'd never seen it. We were nervous. Well we finally did catch up, and he loved it. Then Johannes [van Kan’s] album of Virginia and Richard’s wedding won at WPPI. You can view his complete album on Youtube (no audio) or Vimeo (recommended: this is the To View More >>

Click here for Part 1. Who are those people ... the ones staring back at you thinking, 'What does he/she want us to do?' More importantly, how do they see the unfolding of their day? Is it a fairy tale? Is it some kind of weird reality show? Is it a 'performance'? Is it the beginning of something amazing? Is it a huge party? Is it something their mother planned? Is it theirs? That's the thing. We, as the image makers, also become the storytellers.  We create the vocabulary for describing the unfolding of the day. If we don't photograph something, will it still be remembered in ten years time? To View More >>