Ben Lomond

Its 5:45pm, a time in the tassie newsroom where photographers are filing their pictures from a days work and journo’s are putting the final polish on their stories and for some still writing into the night.

But for reporter Chris Clarke and I we were just finding out about going up to Ben Lomond for the start of the snow season. I’d started at 9 and Chris well, he would have been there 30min before me to get a head start. With our shifts due to finish at 6. 

But... The final phone call comes in letting us stay at Rover Ski Club overnight, Chris and I make the dash around the office collecting camera gear, phone chargers and laptops. We also steal the editor’s Subaru and Chris nervously sits beside me whilst I’m tasked to drive us up the mountain. Chris had also never seen snow (he was excited to say the least) and for me this was just another awesome experience working in Tassie.

We were told that we needed something for tomorrow’s paper. So deadline was in like in 3 and a half hours. With travel time of about an hour to get up the mountain via getting as much warm gear from home as possible.

We get up the mountain in once piece, a few swear words but we made it.. Its pitch black and there are a group of people unloading their car, we quickly convince them to be in a photo and setup a shot of them unloading their car with huge frosty smiles and bam, I’m done plus I still need to send off some pictures from earlier in the day.

We setup in the lodge and Chris begins to file his stories from the day plus cook, I’ve been tasked to the vegetables (smart really) and trying to stay quiet whilst we both finish our work and eat. Final calls are made to the night news editor to check the content and we are done. By this time the group have almost left and headed to bed. We stick around and chat till around midnight.

Oh thats right, we agreed we’d get up around 5am for the sunrise. 

Thermals on and we head outside waiting for the sun to light up the snow covered mountain. Gloves would have been handy and proper snow gear. But its perfect otherwise. We got a stack of pics and returned inside for breakfast, also safely prepared by Master Chef Chris. Before adventuring outside to meet the locals and families that had came up for the day.  

By mid afternoon we were filing and needing to get down the mountain before dark. We arrived back in Launceston fairly late. I dont know about Chris but I headed to bed around 10 exhausted, but no sleep in, back on deck at 9am sharp to do it all over again. 

The Lock Up

When your told you'll be in a lockup for a few hours, you naturally think dark room, dripping water and a concrete bed..??

But actually it was the opposite, I was lucky to be sent down to Hobart for the Tasmanian Budget, where journalists and photographers are 'locked up' from 9:30 - 3pm - phone and internet devices confiscated, no leaving the top floor while you read and start to write stories about the budget papers..

Lucky for me I shot the budget rally outside Parliament before entering the dungeon, nice food actually and a serious mood, as 60 odd journalists from many media organisations absorb the numbers and well scripted words. 

The Treasurer and State Premier's press conference begins.. my responsibility, the emotion, hands, nervousness and sweat, up close and moody - oh and the two of them side by side spreading cheer and hope, 

Questions are yelled as they stroll out - press conference done the rush to return to the tables, before I knew it it was time to leave and dash for Parliament - the Treasurer to now deliver his speech to both sides of power - my mission to get reactions and body language from the room. 

Now to file madly on an old laptop that's battery life is close to death... 

I sat in Parliament for half and hour, kicked out, sat in a coffee shop, closed at 5:40, dashed back to the car park found a power point, security moved me on, went to McDonalds, no power point (WHAT!?), drove 20min to the next one and bam! One power point near the toilets - quickly filed 70 images, now the drive back to Launceston.

What a big day! To be an observer all day waiting for that right gesture and those reactions..  

AFL at Aurora Stadium

The siren sounds and boom the first bounce and I think I just reamed off 9 frames nervously...

Armed with my trusty Nikon D700 and a Nikon 400mm which I'd never used I sat on the boundary line of Aurora Stadium, Launceston to shoot Hawthorn V North Melbourne .. Just 12 months ago I was itching to shoot AFL!

Everyone would be sitting on the couch watching the game giving the umpire what for and I'd be playing spot the photographer on the boundary line. I was interested..How the images were taken and where from.. I was no Pat Scala of The Age (now Getty Images) or Michael Klein of the Herald Sun who do this every weekend,

I was shooting AFL footy! I filled two memory cards in a game of footy, with some ripper shots and PLENTY of duds, praying that I had enough and that this game wasn't my last..

- If you don't know the player.. you need his number, so you've got to wait for him to turn around, to match name and number.

I thought at this stage maybe focusing on the game not the photographers might have been a game changer for me,

Filing in the press box, I was slow, I was under the pump, deadlines creeping up on me, assignment filed now the slow drive through traffic, pondering how it will all look tomorrow...

Flinders Island

I left the newsroom at 6pm but I couldn’t stop thinking about the early start tomorrow where I was boarding a light plane to an island I never knew existed. 

Was it going to be like.. those crazy political visits where I need to be in front all the time.. shooting everything and anything that happens… being strictly focused on any expressions or hand movements that might offer a different photo… 

Was I over thinking it again?

Actually it was not this at all, well it was great, except the fact that I had lost sleep thinking about this light plane. I had never done the light plane transport thing and didn’t really like big ones! Did I mention that I was in a space probably no larger than half my bedroom with a pilot, a pollie, a journo, a nice media advisor and a guy in a suit.

We arrived on Flinders Island, a place with only a couple of towns, you can have a beach to yourself and a population of approx 800 people.  (I'm happy to be corrected) There it was.. our hire car and the reality we all had to cram into this old sedan.

God I loved it, driving around with Labour Health Minister Michelle O’Byrne and her people, at the start it was intimidating.. why because I was a young news photographer in Tassie for only a few days, I didn’t know them or there policies and promises .. these people were all dressed and ready for business.

But I knew I had to relax get to know them, talk, be human and have fun! 

After all the official visits to the hospital, school and the local butcher who sells wallaby burgers we had a quick look at the beaches before jumping back on the plane, a placeworth exploring again for sure.  Im so lucky to sent to an island, to photograph the health minister, have lunch on the beach and experiencing something others wouldn’t for work.

Swanny

I got in on a Sunday and started work on the Monday, no rest for the wicked.. 

A brand new Nikon in hand, an ipad and bag full of lenses and of course a few trusty cold speedlights, I was handed my job sheet and reminded how all this gear once was once used by a guy called Swanny,  Who was he, what was his story and why did he have this reputation for being a lovely guy with a good sense of humour who took amazing pictures.. sounds like I have big shoes to fill.

Day one pressure was on, I was introduced to my new journo friends, who would soon learn of my skills as a singer on work road trips. 

Launceston City, had a nice ring to it, until you realise your going the wrong, way up a one way street.. Something I was going to need to learn very quickly,  

I had my pick-up line ‘I’ve only been here for a week’ over used in the first two weeks (behind the camera not in front of the bar)… I was stretching it out till I had to photograph the mayor for the second time.. caught out, but welcomed to his city. 

The locals were the first with the two headed jokes, the mainland jokes and getting people to smile down here is easy! Front page in the first week and talks of a road trip to Hobart, plane trip to some island and an game of AFL at Auroa Stadium where trams use to operate from.. 

Walking down the stairs at the end of the day and I was smiling, Tasmania is truly amazing there are so many opportunities down here, it is truly a secret, one I look forward to sharing 

#newstog

Seeing an advertisement on Instagram for a news photographer was odd, but I really didn’t have an option to think twice..

Only a month was left on my contract with the Border Mail, a Fairfax newspaper based in Wodonga on the New South Wales - Victorian border. 

A town only an hour and a half from home.. It was a shock to be working along side photographers; I looked up to while studying. Being able to ask question after question each day for 12 months to 6 photographers who knew their stuff. 

Thinking about it now I owe them soo much. Four and a half thousand filed images, a hand full of front pages and experiences you couldn’t pay for along with a nervous smile to think what was next? Did I have it easy? 5min from work, I knew the area and towns we covered, I had a place to stay.. I was sorted!

I flew across to Tasmania for a few days to check it out and to find a place to to call home, wowzers what a state!

A secret really.. Black berries on every road, rivers, beaches, waterfalls, mountains, apparently snow and rumours of two heads and that it rained sideways. I knew that I had found a blank canvas, one to be soon explored and photographed.

Got myself onto the Spirit, the Daewoo loaded with more camera gear than anything else, apparently a smooth ride across Bass Strait in to Devonport at 6am – My trusty GPS which was turned off at the pier not sure where it was completely confused once I arrived on the Island.