FotoFreo 2010 e-Newsletter

Issue 4: November 2010

FotoFreo 2010 Programme Launch

On Wednesday evening the 4th of November FotoFreo launched the Festival Programme for FotoFreo 2010: The City of Fremantle Festival of Photography. The celebratory event attracted over 200 guests to hear what is in store next year and see a pop-up exhibition giving a preview of the 100+ Fringe photographers who will show across Fremantle and Perth. A report on the event is available on the FotoFreo website.

Announced on the evening were scholarships to be offered by FotoFreo with the support of the Department of Culture & the Arts for three Western Australian photographers to attend the Magnum Workshops FotoFreo 2010. An Australian first and an exciting new dimension to the festival, are three five-day workshops being offered by Magnum Photos led by three world-class photographers including Trent Parke. Details of how to apply will be distributed soon.

The 2010 exhibtion programme is now online. Details of Incite: Stirring Thoughts About Photography the FotoFreo 2010 discussion programme coming soon!

The FotoFreo 2010 programme launch was supported by Nikon Australia Pty Ltd and Fishbone Wines.

FotoFreo 2010 Fringe Update

The FotoFreo Fringe 2010 has received a record number of submissions and we are now finalising close to 100 exhibitions across Fremantle and Perth.

The Fringe is only possible thanks to the generosity and cooperation of our venue owners and managers. Local businesses joining our long list of venues include:

University Club, UWA, Maya Indian Restaurant, Choux Cafe, Dancing Goat, Fremantle Chamber of Commerce, Cabin Fever Creative Space, Shanghai Tea Gardens, Aldas Gallery Space, Mosarts Gallery, Central Park Foyer, King Street Gallery, Studio Red Dust, Merenda Gallery, Breaks Cafe, Source Gallery, Wild Poppy, ABC cafe, Kidogo and the Queen Street Gallery.

A welcome addition to the Fringe committee is Gitte Eyres who has set about creating a new hub in Swanbourne. There are also a number of collective groups appearing on our map in North Fremantle, King Street and Northbridge - watch this space!

Jack Pam FotoFreo 2010 Panel Member

As part of FotoFreo 2010's Incite programme will be a panel discussion on Making It: Photography at the Heart of Today's Culture, the momentum is with those who just do it! Forget the funding applications, the gallery systems, the editors and publishers…. this is about taking art into your own hands and getting it out onto the street. And whatever your method, if it’s transitory, transgressing or downright illegal, OR you’re under 30, you’ll capture it on camera. So how good is the work that’s coming from this change? Who’s seeing it and who cares? Panel member Jack Pam was in town for the FotoFreo 2010 launch and to work on a documentary for the ABC on Hijacked which was exhibited at FotoFreo 2008 and we had the chance to interview him about his career and thoughts on FotoFreo. Jack is a photographer, film maker, designer and curator from Western Australia who lives in Melbourne. He has had considerable success publishing and exhibiting his work nationally and overseas. Co-Founder and Art Director for Staple Magazine, a Western Australian skate photography magazine he is also the Creative Director of mapfilms: a collective of experiemental video producers and is establishing a photography collective in Melbourne.

Many of the projects Jack has worked on to date have been alongside his 9-5 job and more or less a labour of love. We wondered what motivated Jack who grew up in the most isolated city in the world with a reputation for Tall Poppy Syndrome. He told us that he simply loves what he's doing and is excited by the prospect of working for himself. "It's easy, you just have to work hard". Jack loves meeting and working with so many passionate and intelligent people who also help him to push himself. Part of the idea behind the photography collective that he is establishing in Melbourne is "friends helping friends" and developing a local network to help others in the industry become more commercially viable, removing some of the competitive attitude and replacing it with a more collaborative ideology.

Staple Magazine is one of Jack's projects undertaken with Morgan Campbell, also originally from Fremantle now living in Melbourne. Together the duo have put together a nationally distributed magazine on Western Australian skateboarding and photography. Begun with a budget of nothing but an idea, Jack and Morgan Campbell knew there were great photographers in WA who just didn't have an outlet to publish their work. Funded by a limited number of ads to cover printing costs, Staple now provides one platform for WA skateboarders and photographers to be recognised nationally.

"Not all projects happen" said Jack, "you just have to keep working and looking for other avenues to promote yourself."

A Fremantle local at heart, Jack is a big FotoFreo fan and looking forward to joining the Making it: Photography at the Heart of Today's Culture panel in March next year. Taking advantage of his invitation to the event, Jack is putting together yet another project as a response to some of the exciting photography he has come across on the web. He's going to publish this photography locally as Project 11:30 - keep your eyes peeled during opening week of FotoFreo 2010!

FotoFreo 2010 Sponsor Spotlight - NIKON Australia

FotoFreo is very happy to welcome back NIKON Australia Pty Ltd as a key sponsor for the 2010 festival.

Having supported the festival in 2008 and helped us launch the 2010 programme NIKON will again underpin the FotoFreo 2010 Volunteer Programme. In addition, NIKON is providing us with several high end cameras for documenting festival events as well as bringing the Nikon-Walkley Press Photography Awards to the Western Australian Museum for FotoFreo 2010.

To keep up to date, subscribe to the FotoFreo e-mail newsletter.