Table of contents for September-October 2018 in Capture

It’s all good and well to throw superlatives around, but in this edition I’m proud to report that we are bringing you the opinions and work of some of the best photographers working today. Having said that, it’s something I strive to do for every edition. Lynsey Addario is a brilliant photojournalist. American Photo magazine described her as one of the “five most influential photographers of the last 25 years” – high praise indeed. To date, in her two-decade career, she’s covered conflict and humanitarian crises in a variety of hotspots around the globe, and her images are making a difference, to people and policy. The Pulitzer Prize-winner is also a New York Times bestseller, for her memoirs, which were published in 2015. Now, finally, after 23 years in the…

Before embarking on a career as a professional wedding photographer, ACT-based Kelly Tunney originally followed a traditional path, working as a public servant. But not for very long. Fortunately, she discovered photography, and her life’s never been the same since. Her images embody the way she relates to the world – they’re candid, honest, fearless, and warm; and they always manage to find the amazing in everyone. Tunney relishes in the agony and ecstasy of imagining and creating contrasts to play with in her images. She secretly enjoy the rush that comes with the fear of pushing boundaries as far as they can be moved. A Master of Photography, with two gold bars, Tunney is the current AIPP ACT Wedding Photographer of the Year – an accolades she’s received five…

Henri Cartier-Bresson’s ultimate camera is well-known. The photographer referred to the Leica M3 with a 50mm lens as an extension of his eye. Richard Avedon was famous for his preference for large-format cameras and for his favourite, the Deardorff 8X10. Annie Leibowitz spreads her love across a range of cameras, and even camera brands, but according to Leibowitz when she shot her seminal photo on a Polaroid – the picture of John Lennon and Yoko Ono that she took a few hours before Lennon was murdered, and which was used as the cover image of Rolling Stone in January 1981, she knew she had captured something profound. Camera technology has changed dramatically since the 1930s when Cartier-Bresson rose to fame, and even since 1992, when Avedon became the first staff…

See Australian Life (group exhibition), Hyde Park, Sydney, 13 September – 7 October. Twenty two finalist images from the annual competition will be on display in Sydney’s Hyde Park. Now in its 17th year, and organised by the City of Sydney, it tells everyday stories of Australia in all its forms, from the lives of everyday people to the rugged landscape of the outback. The winner of the $10,000 prize is announced at the opening. artandabout.com.au LEGACY+… collecting contemporary (group exhibition), Monsh Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill, VIC, until 19 September. This pop-up exhibition shows how acquisitions and donations work in concert with each other for the MGA’s collection of over 3,100 works. An important aspect of the MGA collection is supporting the work of contemporary artists. LEGACY+ focuses on…

Charles Davis With an intense passion for photography and extremely keen interest for the last nine years, it’s only been the last two years that Charles Davis has been able to turn this into a full-time occupation. A specialisation in Australian wildlife, Davis’ niche focuses on alpine wildlife. Predominantly self-taught, he has honed his photographic skills via YouTube and a network of friends who were already established professionals. Davis first got into photography when he was 21. A competitive snowboarder at the time, he was doing a great deal of travel and felt the need to capture the amazing things he was seeing. In Canada at the time, he took the opportunity to photograph bears and eagles. “It didn’t take me long to realise this was the photography I enjoyed…

Imposing limits on yourself leads to new ways of seeing and doing, and therefore more creative outcomes compared to if you didn’t impose the limitations. In his famous TED talk, artist Phil Hansen declared: “We need to first be limited in order to become limitless”. Patricia Stokes is an expert on the subject of creativity, adjunct professor of psychology at Barnard College at Columbia University, and the author of Creativity from Constraint: The Psychology of Breakthrough, and Creativity from Constraints in the Performing Arts. She explains that both limitations and creativity demand a change “in a current style or solution”. To move beyond a limitation you, need to use your creativity in order to come up with an alternative way to execute a task. To further illuminate creativity, Stokes has…

Cameras ■ Sony’s new RX100 VI camera is the first in the RX100 range to include a high magnification zoom with a ZEISS Vario-Sonnar T* 24-200mm f/2.8 – f/4.5 lens, without sacrificing the pocket-size portability, fast responsiveness, and high image quality. The camera boasts the world’s fastest AF speed (0.03 seconds) combined with 315 focal-plane phase-detection AF points covering approximately 65% of frame. Inside, you’ll find a 1.0-type stacked 20.1 megapixel Exmor RS CMOS image sensor with DRAM chip and upgraded BIONZ X image processor. High-speed continuous shooting at up to 24fps with full AF/AE tracking is possible, along with optical image stabilisation equivalent to a four-stop advantage. The RX100 VI can capture motion with 4K movie shooting with full pixel readout and no pixel binning. www.sony.com.au/electronics/cameras ■ The Leica…

In 2009, Lynsey Addario won The MacArthur Fellowship, or “Genius Grant”, a five-year grant to individuals who show exceptional creativity in their work and the prospect for still more in the future. That same year, she was part of The New York Times team that won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for her photographs in the article, Talibanistan, published in The New York Times Magazine. In 2015, American Photo magazine named her one of the five most influential photographers of the past 25 years and noted that, “Addario changed the way we saw the world’s conflicts”. She has also won the Excellence in International Reporting Award from the International Center for Journalists in Washington, DC, a Gaudium award from The Breukelein Institute in New York, and the El…

Almost 11 years in the making, major development works at Leica’s headquarters in the city of Wetzlar, 70 kilometres north of Frankfurt, have recently been completed. Stage three of the project saw the addition of a hotel, a gallery, production facilities for sister company Leitz Cine (cinema lenses), and Ernst Leitz Werkstätten, where Leica watches are assembled. Affectionately known as “The Mother Ship”, Leica’s HQ initially opened in 2014, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of Leica photography. Located on a disused military plot of land, the 27,000 square metre site boasts a state-of-the-art campus for Leica’s manufacturing and management, and now has 1,200 employees. With the total investment to date coming in at approximately €165 million, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Dr Andreas Kaufmann believes that “it’s enough”. The progress…