FotoFreo 2010 e-Newsletter
Issue 5: December 2009
Magnum Photos Workshops 2010 Dates Confirmed & Scholarship Information
The Magnum Photos Workshops FotoFreo 2010 will take place from 15th to 19th of March 2010 and will be held at the beautiful and historic Fremantle Arts Centre, a vibrant arts organisation in the centre of Fremantle that runs exhibitions, workshops, residencies and events. The workshops have been scheduled so that participants can also attend the exhibitions and events of FotoFreo 2010.
Australia’s only Magnum Photos member, Trent Parke, is confirmed as one of the tutors with the two remaining photographers to be confirmed later this month.
FotoFreo is offering three scholarships to photographers residing in Western Australia for the Magnum Photos Workshops FotoFreo 2010. The scholarships will cover the tuition cost of the five-day workshops. Applicants will be asked to submit 10 images with a narrative, a statement about the images and a biography. Applications will be judged on technical merit, the ability to construct a narrative and the perceived benefit to the applicant’s career. This initiative is supported by funding from the Department of Culture and the Arts, WA.
Applications for the workshops and scholarships will open on 15 January 2010.
For further information contact Amelia Twiss.
Exhibition Focus
This week FotoFreo have been very lucky to have had some exhibition heart-to-hearts with two of the 2010 programme’s exciting local photographers. Brad Rimmer, with an extensive photographic history will be exhibiting at the Fremantle Prison and Claire Martin, an emerging photographer who is exhibiting as part of the women in photojournalism exhibitions to be shown at the Moores Building Contemporary Art Gallery.
Brad Rimmer, SILENCE the west australian wheatbealt
Goomalling Dowerin Road Summer 2005-06
SILENCE the west australian wheatbelt
© Brad Rimmer
Brad Rimmer’s project SILENCE the west australian wheatbelt is a deeply personal reflection on his life growing up in the wheat belt of Western Australia, which he left at 18. The dynamics of the wheatbelt have changed – where there were once many small farms supporting towns, there are now bigger farms and fewer towns. The subjects in Brad’s photos are often young adults at the point where they are faced with the decision to stay in the community or leave because of the lack of opportunities for them. SILENCE also contemplates the lives of those older than Brad who stayed on.
The exhibition explores the hidden undercurrent in these isolated farming communities of things left unsaid. Things everyone knew, but didn’t talk about - suicide of young men in the area, local indigenous history and issues for women living in these communities. The rate of suicide between 18 – 25 year olds in the wheatbelt is one of the highest in Australia “Men in the country don’t discuss things” Brad told us. He talks about the secrets of indigenous culture in the area – the existence of reserves in Kellerberrin up until the 1970s and his discovery of local culture deliberately hidden from white Australian’s to keep it safe. And the isolation of women in the farming populations, their difficulties and discontentment living in tiny, far away communities.
Photographing SILENCE was challenging particularly trying to find subjects for his portraits. This meant hours of patiently wandering around the small, quiet towns hoping to come across someone, often without success. He also had to deal with changing attitudes to photography over the period of the project. Thanks to the encouragement of Susan Bright, Robert Pledge and Sydney publisher Gianni Frinzi, who insisted that SILENCE should be published, Brad Rimmer applied for and was awarded a Department of Culture & the Arts Visual Art and Craft Mid-Career Fellowship. The book is to be launched coinciding with an exhibition at the Fremantle Prison Gallery at FotoFreo 2010.
During the same period that Brad Rimmer was undertaking this project (2005 -2009) he has been photographing a similar situation in Beijing – migrants from the countryside who have moved to the city. Brad encountered limitations connecting with this project due to the language barrier preventing him from getting to know the people he was photographing. In contrast, the success of the SILENCE project is to some extent due to Brad’s personal connection to the places he has been photographing. Without that connection and without Brad’s natural ability to gain the trust of the people he has photographed he would not have been able to produce such a sensitive and evocative body of work.
SILENCE the west australian wheatbelt by Brad Rimmer is set to become a project of significance in West Australian photographic history as a defining reflection on one aspect of the state’s cultural identity.
You can see a preview of SILENCE the west australian wheatbelt along with more of Brad Rimmer’s work HERE.
“Slab City has been created by a small but committed squatter’s community. It lies in the Colorado Desert in South Eastern California and takes its name from the concrete slabs that remain from an abandoned World War II base. It is a truly horrific and romantic landscape that commands residents to possess the same balance of beauty and beast.” © Claire Martin
Claire Martin first heard of Slab City when she was on a trip photographing landscapes of a 50s resort town destroyed by flooding of the Saltan Sea in California. Having studied social work, with an interest in disadvantaged groups and encouraged by the success of her project The Downtown East Side focusing on a poverty stricken community in Vancouver, Claire took her tent and moved in to Slab City.
Carol and Gary Slab City
© Claire Martin
She quickly made friends with the locals thanks to her interest in and willingness to relate to those living there. Claire wanted to understand why these people chose to live in such an impoverished, harsh environment and the situations that drove them there. She found the residents to be very content with their way of life built around a strong community structure.
People like Charlie who had inherited $10,000 and only wanted to make art so he moved in to Slab City. Charlie makes ‘folk junk art’ out of things he finds in the area that people have dumped. He doesn’t sell his work but makes a living from trading a little on the stock market and has a wifi connection in his squat.
And a couple Carol and Gary - Carol moved to Slab City after her son was shot dead in her arms under suspicious circumstances. Her inability to cope with the situation coupled with the fact that she became a suspect in the murder case drove her to Slab City, where she could live unhindered by society and drown her sorrows with other misfits who were trying to rebuild lives of their own. Gary moved there five years after visiting the area and meeting Carol. He returned to live in the hope that Carol would return his affections. With a history of his own; Gary had been in jail more times than he can count, they came together with a comprehension of the hardship of life.
Almost everyone living in Slab City is an addict of some type, running away from society because they don’t want to assimilate. They feel they have found freedom, but from an outsider’s view they have mental illness and are destitute. In comparison to her subjects in The Downtown East Side who wanted to move on from their situation the residents of Slab City are content to be living there, it’s their choice to belong to this alternative neighbourhood..
In Slab City Claire found a community of people who understood each other.
Slab City will be showing at the Moores Building Contemporary Art Gallery alongside emerging female documentary photgoraphers Jean Chung (Korea) and Viviane Dalles (France).
For a preview of Slab City and to see more of Claire’s work click HERE.
© Craig Cooper
Bookings will open very shortly for FotoFreo 2010's wide range of technical workshops. David Woolley will run a workshop on Hollywood Portrait Lighting and demonstrate the approaches taken when looking to photograph and capture the essence of a Hollywood style portrait.
Craig Cooper will focus on Photographing Children using natural light and simple equipment at the Fremantle Arts Centre.
Brett Dorron will share his intimate approach to photographing and working with nude figures in and out of the studio. Learn how to light, pose and communicate with your model, and to put them at ease. Then take the opportunity to practice these techniques in the studio under Brett’s creative direction.
Information on other workshops and bookings coming soon.
Bookings are now open for the FotoFreo Safari 2010 - join Australians Greg Hocking & Dale Neill together with Singaporean photo expert, Tan Lip Seng, to explore the photographic wonders of south Western Australia. This five day luxury coach tour takes you to the photographic jewels of the real Australia.
Sponsor Spotlight
Community Newspapers
FotoFreo is delighted to confirm our ongoing relationship with Community News for FotoFreo 2010. Community News provided invaluable publicity support for FotoFreo 2008 and we are pleased to build on this relationship in 2010. Every week over 785,000 people read their local community newspaper. Collectively, the Community Newspaper Group’s seventeen local papers cover the entire Perth metropolitan area from Yanchep and Two Rocks in the north, Mandurah in the south and east to Northam, Toodyay and York. Your local Community Newspaper provides you with up-to-date news and information on what's happening in your local council, at your local shopping centre or in your street. Read your Community Newspaper for news about FotoFreo 2010!
Camera Electronic 
We are also very happy to confirm support for FotoFreo 2010 from Camera Electronic who have been with us since the very first festival. "Camera Electronic is very proud to be one of Foto Freo’s original sponsors, and every year since. Indeed we take great pleasure in supporting Western Australian photography." Camera Electronic Sales and Service is a “one stop shop” offering a full range of services for everything photographic. You can find novelty, beginner, enthusiast, and pro gear all on display. If you need service or repair they have a full workshop and trained technicians. Camera Electronic's knowledgeable sales staff are photographers themselves and are dedicated to helping you find the right photographic gear whether it be film or digital cameras and lenses, tripods, location or studio lighting, camera bags or even one of the latest compact cameras. You can visit their large showroom at 230 Stirling St Perth (near Bulwer St). Alternately, call 08 9328 4405 or visit the Camera Electronic website.
The Camera Recycle Project
The Camera Recycle Project puts cameras and related technology in the hands of disadvantaged young Western Australians and they need your donations. Collection points include Joondalup Youth Support Services and Perth Centre for Photography.
To keep up to date, subscribe to the FotoFreo e-mail newsletter.
