From Paris, Texas to Melbourne, Australia

2 Totally Different Types Of Photography

Shadow Box is now available on the print shop!

Housekeeping

Happy Friday!

I’ve had an awesome week and I hope you have too!

I’ve been approached to host a photo walk as part of a local festival and yesterday I had a phone call about a possible studio space opportunity via the local arts council here on the Gold Coast. How exciting!

I’m really starting to see the last three years of showing up and dedicating time to my photography practice, both physically and online, pay off.

If you have an inkling to do something for you or your creativity take this as your sign to DO IT!

Don’t hide away like I did for so long, making so many excuses as to why it won’t be worth it. Get your work out there, submit, chat with people, start taking steps towards that next project and DO THE THING!

If you need help, you can get my 52 content ideas here which is the perfect place to start sharing your artist journey, ideas, and creativity online and the best bit - it’s totally TREND FREE! No tik tok dance routines or trending audio required, just you, your story and what makes you unique, but in content form.

I watched this video from my fav street photographer Faizal Westcott and if you have ever pondered the notion of “style” then it will be a video you enjoy. If you don’t like Faizal you are a total monster…I get people not liking my harsh Aussie accent and valley girl inflections, I really do, but Faizal is gentle, kind, talented and makes great videos. Give it a watch and let me, or him, know what you think.

If you don’t read Wesley’s substack newlsletter do you even newsletter? It’s THE BEST!

Wesley is a wealth of knowledge and has years of photoing to back it up. He is the perfect combo of pro and personal and appeals to anyone who appreciates the visual arts.

So check out his newsletter PROCESS and his latest guide on photography projects/prompts (workbook) if you feel you need to shake things up a bit and get inspired this would be a great pick up!

You can also catch my latest YouTube video below. I attempt to go through my entire camera collection but fail to show all of it because i won too many. You can decide if this is awesome or unhealthy and let me know in the comments!

Okay I have lot’s of things I could bang on about, what’s new there, but I’ll get to my main topic below. If you are here and aren’t yet subscribed, hit the button so you don’t miss out on all things Lucy Lumen!

Looking at the two extremes of my work

I’m a pretty extreme person. I like to be doing something, or not doing it at all.

I go hard on a style and I have been known to flog things, so it’s really obvious that X thing, is MY THING.

I love to shoot and not think and generally my work happens in a split second and without much thought. I know what I want, I know what I like and I’ve set myself up gear wise to make that process seamless, easy and fast.

That, at the core, is how I shoot and when I produce work that I really enjoy.

On the total other end of the spectrum there is work I create that takes immense time, planning and considerations, that not only include gear, but also lighting, props, end use of content and also narrative and story.

A moment where worlds collided and my recent personal project was mixed with a perfume product shoot.

This is normally done for client work but is something I like to do when I’m in front of the camera (maybe because then I don’t have to do all the technical side so I’m happy to opt for something more involved haha) and it’s something we did recently for a personal project.

The Paris Texas Leica Project was born out of my love for the iconic film but also as a way to use our big boy FujiGW690 aka The Texas Leica.

This is an idea we have been sitting on for a while now and I find if an idea floats around for too long it ends up loosing it’s sparkle and sometimes doesn’t get brought to life.

This idea was too meaningful to me to let that happen, so we pulled the trigger on it and made a little reel in partnership with Squarespace which you can see here.

A little more about this project is on my blog too so if you are interested head over there and have a read.

This project required such a different energy to my usual work and was a much slower process.

It really is chalk and cheese shooting 35mm in comparison to 120 and I definitely don’t have the patience for medium format film 90% of the time.

The detail, texture, and cinematic quality of these images though…It’s pretty lush!

For portraits medium format is so very special and I’m glad we got to take our time and produce this project to share with you all.

Prints of this work are available on my Darkroom shop under the Lucy On Film Collection.

And then there is this image…

One I really enjoy, but it couldn’t be further from the intentionally lit, cinematic portraits Lux took, right?!

Being able to dip a toe in both pools as a creative is really important to me. It keeps things fresh and fun and allows me to hone other skills and work in ways I can’t with my solo walk around style work.

I have to say that the streets of Melbourne inspired me a lot and I think if I lived in a city I would find myself getting into street photography pretty heavily.

I was very chuffed to find this scene and if I had to show you work that I felt represented what I like to find and photograph, this would be it.

Simple but interesting and a little bit off in some way…

So I invite you to explore the degrees of your photography!

Do you have one style that you solidly stick to or do you flip flop?

Do you enjoy different genres or do you find it distracting?

All I know is that I am so obsessed with images, still and moving.