-jonfen-photographs-

Shadi’s like a Melody.

jonfen — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 10:12:59 +0000

(na-na-na-naa-nananana) Everday, Shadi is like a melody, a perfect pitch melody. And word on the street is, she’s releasing a new album. I’ve know Shadi since we were little ankle biters, and she’s been living Brisbane ever since I moved here (she even sang at my wedding). Sadly a couple of weeks ago she moved from Brisbane to somewhere in the big bad world of North America. So just before she left we met up to do some photos, it just so happened she needed some promo pics, and I needed a creative project. Most of her released music is inspired or based on the Baha’i Writings, which I think gives it a lot of depth. If you want to check her music out it’s just a few clicks away: http://www.shaditolouiwallace.com/

With much further ado. Let me present to you. My take of:

Shadi.

Done-skis.

Phlog #2

jonfen — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 11:15:52 +0000

Here we are again. Just a quick one. I’ve been playing with a new app called LemeLeme on my iPhong. A little slow and crashes sometimes. I’m not gonna lie it’s made me want to through my phone against the wall a few times. Some good filters though.

I’ve been experimenting with black and white of late. These are some of my experiments.

Fat Freddys Drop. Great music.

..::Sam + Andrea::..

jonfen — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:28:44 +0000

All weddings are a story, I am honoured to be the one to share Sam and Andrea’s, I know it’s a total cliche but sometimes there is no other way. These two are both incredible people who had an intimate story in a beach house, which is tres cool! So you get to know these guys a little bit Sam is Persian and Andrea is Colombian, what a mix! (their little Perlombians are going to rule world someday, I can feel it in my bones). There were some real heartfelt moments during this wedding and even though they were they were either being shared in Farsi or Spanish, the emotions that were displayed were enough to know that these guys have a lot to give, not just to each other, but to the world.

Usually wedding photographers hunt in packs of two, sometimes three (if you’re lucky). On this day, I was flying solo. I have to say I felt the nerves at first, but they made me feel at ease and it was a great time with a welcome learning experience. Thanks guys for trusting me =)

Sam, you’re my mate. Andrea, you’re my mate too. Everyone else, I hope you enjoy my take on their story (you’re also my mates).

Phlog #1

jonfen — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 08:47:04 +0000

Blog(noun) : web log

Phlog(noun) : phone blog : phone web log

So as you may have already deduced, I have nerded it up hard and discovered that I can write posts from my phone using a WordPress app. Thank you innernets. The word phlog is not to be confused with the more common flog, which is ironically the last thing I am capable of.

The way I see it the purpose of my phlogging is to keep these blog gears greased. Let’s be honest, this baby just ain’t purring. There are a bunch of posts that I want to make that I need my bigger phone, the skype hosting laptop, to do but in lieu of those I figure I can keep things moving with some short bursts. Most of the photos I’ll phlog all over your screens will be taken spon-taan-eous-ly with my phone using Hipstamatic or the ye olde trusty phonearoid.

Thank you for listening to my silence, can’t wait to phlog you next time.

Roozbeh and Yalda get Engaged

jonfen — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 06:13:39 +0000

Let me tell you a story. A couple of months ago I was asked to take some photos of Roozbeh and Yalda’s engagement party. I said “Why not take some couple photos before-hand??” And so we did. Pretty simple story really, but it doesn’t finish there. So I grabbed my gear, my wife, and an umbrella (just in case) and off we went. I’m still pretty new to the whole ‘being 1st shooter’ gig, but these two made the whole process really easy, you can see how much they enjoy being around each other in the pictures. All I had to do was tell them where to stand while they continued enjoying being together, even if it was standing on a ledge or in some bushes… juuusst kidding, they didn’t stand in any bushes.

This party was a full on Persian party, the music, the dancing, and if you’ve ever been introduced to ‘the kel’ you don’t need me to tell you twice that this twas a night of zealous jubilation. It was a free flowing night, one minute people were standing around talking, the next minute dancing, then eating, then dancing with some talking, and then some dancing, eating and talking, and when that all got too much we all sat down. Maybe not quite, but you get the picture. Speaking of pictures, enough speaking and more pictures!

The photo above has brought to you by the letter ‘S’. S for Soad.

Adieu.

Polaroid 600SE

jonfen — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 11:37:39 +0000

Soad’s parents recently moved overseas and thus the “Great Pack of 2010″ ensued. Which meant the cleaning out of old stuff, basically it was a nostalgic treasure hunt. Taking a trip down memory lane remembering why you didn’t throw that thing out all those years ago, refusing to throw it out again, and then promising yourself you’ll definitely use it this time. To get to the point, during this treasure hunt my father in-law found his old Poloroid 600SE, which is a fully manual instant camera he had back in the 80′s while he was living in Africa. If you really want to nerd it up about the camera I direct your attention here: http://www.camerapedia.org/wiki/Polaroid_600/600_SE, I’ve put a photo of it at the bottom of this post. Due to the shear beastiness of this camera, my father in-law offered it to me. Talk about generous! I am still pretty stoked, who would of thought? So I sourced some expired B+W Polaroid film from ebay (100ISO, my first mistake, should have gone 3200ISO to keep up those shutter speeds)

So, this isn’t exactly the easiest camera to take photos with. Not to mention the rangefinder focusing mechanism isn’t working, and I bought film you’re supposed to use when it’s quite sunny. I have also discovered how hard it is to take a photo on a fully manual camera without any kind of light meter. Have I mentioned the focus doesn’t work? The only way to focus is to guess how far away your subject is and hope for the best. Anyway enough diddly-daddling, here are the scans of my first few shots. I think what I like most about these pictures is that they’ve taught me a lesson in humility. As far as technique goes, these shots score pretty low. Let’s just call it artistic vision and move along, hehe. Sir Manual Camera Polaroid 600SE, you may have won the battle… and the war… and I don’t really have an exit strategy. So I’m just gonna keep on shooting anyway.

Yeah, that’s right… Square compostion, waddup?

Take cares, brown bears

Ps. I also recently acquired another film camera, this one is from the 70′s. Pictures will be coming to a cinema near you, and by cinema I mean blog post.

Acre in Galilee

jonfen — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 12:48:42 +0000

Acre is the oldest city in Israel. It can be found in northern Israel in the Western Galilee. There are two parts to Acre, the old city and the new city. The whole city of Acre (the old part anyway) used to be a prison city. This is where Baha’u'llah was imprisoned for years and years, He was actually in a prison within the prison city. In those times (1868ish) the state of the Citadel that Baha’u'llah was kept was much poorer than it is today. Anecdotally, the moat surrounding the prison was said to have birds unable to fly over it because of the stench. This didn’t stop pilgrims coming to see Baha’u'llah while He was there, and now years later there I was, just a little less stench (it didn’t smell at all). There are quite a few places in the city considered to be Holy Places for Baha’i's. I’m not going to name all of them, the city in general is of great significance to me. I hope you enjoy the pictures. I’ll get round to posting more from the trip soon (hopefully).

^ this is my brother in-law, who was volunteering there at the time. Ps. He’s a champ. ^

^ This is the roof of Abdu’llah Pasha, the cabin on the left was built for Abdu’l-Baha so He could have peace and quiet.

Floundra Caloundra

jonfen — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 09:49:00 +0000

About a year ago, I got married. About a year ago, my wife got married too. Coincidence? I think NOT, we totally got married together. To celebrate we thought “hey, lets blow this brisbane joint and go as far away as we can”, so we went as far as the wallet would take us, to the sunny sunshine coast – which, for the record, wasn’t so sunny. Who named the place anyway? Certainly wasn’t a meteorologist. In my experience I would call it ‘the cold windy and wet coast’. Soad ended up getting a cold on the trip, regardless she wanted to spend some good quality time learning to use a dSLR. Maybe one day when she wants to learn how to blog and photoshop you’ll see the fruits that ensued.

I post-processed these a little differently to how I usually do. Felt like doing something different, stretch that brain of mine in new ways. Anyway… Have a good one

Above: Our room with a view!!

Wellington Point

jonfen — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:57:48 +0000

Today I find myself akin to a chunk of lead and floor-ridden. I’ve managed to do something, on the weekend, to my back and I’ve discovered a new human experience I call UNCOMFORTYWHERE. UNCOM – for uncomfortable, FORTY – for pain of forty thousand daggers, and WHERE – for everywhere. So while I’m working through the uncomfortywhere (been to the physio and going back soon) I’ve also been working through some photos that I took a while ago at Wellington Point pier. I have to tell you this was the first sunrise and, so far, the last sunrise I’ve seen for a long time.

I have to tell you, waking up a couple of hours before sunrise really is not my cup of coffee – I don’t drink coffee – and I’m pretty sure it’s a crime against humanity to be awake at that hour. The sunrise that day wasn’t so great, but I had great company from my mate Tim, who instigated this whole affair (trust me I thought long and hard about how committed to the friendship I was when he asked me to wake up so early) and I also actually really enjoyed getting up and experiencing something new. So Tim, my friendship testing friend =P, thank you. Hopefully my perspective of the point provides something new for you (Wellington Point has been photographed to death through the eons by Brisbane photographers before me).

Ron Mueck at GoMA

jonfen — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 05:33:04 +0000

Ron Mueck is, for lack of a crazier word, fantasmagifted. His sculptures are described as hyper-real and hyper-real they are. I really admire his ability to evoke curiousity and intrigue for his work, which I think is largely contributed to by his manipulation of scale. As an artist he doesn’t give artist talks, which is interesting. He never gives anything away about his art. If I recall correctly one thing that he has said is that his work is best viewed alone, to allow the viewer to properly connect with the sculpture. Doing this, I think, allows the viewer to try and understand the emotion that is evoked without feeling pressure to see it from someone elses eyes, I like that about his art.

If you haven’t seen his exhibition yet, then GO AND SEE IT. DO IT!

I love this photo below. The sculpture looks like two old ladies talking about someone, I noticed a few times that people would be talking about the two old ladies in the same way that they were talking about someone else.

No matter how long I tried, I could never get into this guys line of vision. He always seemed to be peering around me.

This was the line when we were leaving. SO glad we went early.

Adieu.