How new is NOT now

 

John Gollings

March 5 – April 1

A John Gollings, OAM, photographic exhibition of ancient architectural marvels. 

There is the architecture of form, the architecture of detail and decoration on a prosaic base, and sometimes a combination.

All can give pleasure but the form is the most important definition of architecture.

And no version is of much worth if it self destructs. Herein is the paradox, what is new is gratuitous shape-making with fragile materials like glass, metal, and concrete, a lifespan determined by economics and an aesthetic of immediate gratification rather than timeless verity.

This exhibition is of some of the world’s most exciting ancient buildings using nothing but brick, stone, and timber where the new is NOT now!

Exhibition opening times:

March 5 – April 1

Thursday/ Friday 1-6 pm

Saturday/ Sunday 11-4 pm

 

Masterclass:

Saturday, March 20

9 am – 1 pm 

BOOK HERE

Leading Australian architecture photographer John Gollings, will teach a masterclass and present a lecture at The Maud Street Photo Gallery as part of his exhibition, How new is NOT now; a showcase of some of the world’s most exciting ancient buildings.

The exhibition is a part of the Asia Pacific Architectural Forum being held in Brisbane, from March 13-26. https://asiapacificarchitecturefestival.com/

John Gollings will share his personal secrets to his stunning architectural photography. In the Masterclass, you will learn the techniques, tips, and tricks on how to take impressive architectural photographs, and you will have the opportunity to see John working on a location, up close and first hand.

You will learn how to find the best angles, how to make the best use of the available light and shadows to capture the very essence of the structure.

Masterclass booking is essential, only 20 tickets available.

John Gollings biography

My mother maintained that I was three months premature at birth but I think she was three months late getting married! So much for the social mores of the forties!

By nine years I was a photographer.

By twenty-three I had left Architecture at Melbourne University and was offered an assisting job in a small creative boutique called Orpin and Bourne. Kevin Orpin, an energetic autodidact, taught me design and marketing while Bob Bourne, ex London swinging 60’s taught me lighting. Never add a second light till you have exhausted the first one!

I was to assist Peter Gough, who in turn was Norman Parkinson’s assistant back in London. He tired of me after three months and the studio decided to launch me as a photographer in my own right. My folio was eclectic but I was offered a job reshooting a Marlboro cigarette campaign when a week-long shoot by a famous photographer didn’t satisfy the art director. For $250 for a day’s work, my career was launched and the agency got three billboards.

Remarkably I picked up a succession of big national accounts. Remember I was an untrained nerd who loved the technology and had sleepless nights before a shoot, petrified of not knowing what to do.

A brilliant art director, Barton Gole, taught me everything about what made a photograph really work, it was always the outtake, the shot I took intuitively but thought a failure. Eccentric cropping, wrong exposure, and maybe blurred or out of focus. He had to wit to choose one and produce amazing ads that sold products and won awards.

I stumbled through the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s shooting fashion and advertising, amongst Get Wrecked on Great Keppel, Dunk Island, Sportsgirl, Levante Hosiery, bri nylon, Sitmar cruises, Jag, Prue Acton, Air Lanka, Air Nauru, Oberoi hotels, Hyatt hotels, etc. Many of these travel accounts got me to exotic locations which enabled my personal projects.

Along the way, I was mentored by some remarkable photographers like Ezra Stoller, Ansel Adams, Wolfgang Sievers, Mark Strizic, David Moore, and Max Dupain.

Meanwhile, I discovered dead cities and started my own projects in New Guinea, India, Cambodia, western China, Indonesia, Turkey, and Libya.

This urban documentation has become an obsession with return visits annually to various sites. None of it has had much exposure, it’s been hard to find a publisher. In some ways, I’m better known in India where whole museums have been built to house my work on the Vijayanagara Empire.

With the growing realization that an old fashion photo has no immediate value, I started to concentrate on architecture photography exclusively from the 80s on. I’m proud of an archive of significant buildings across Southeast Asia. All of it is archived and digitized on a massive server.

I was an early adopter of digital capture and post-production, which enables me to control both the image and the architecture.

In 2010 I was the co-creative director with Ivan Rijavec of the Australian pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. I had discovered a way to make hyper stereo images from a helicopter at night using a single camera. The documentation of cities and mining pits in large-scale 3D projection attracted a lot of attention with 95,000 attendees.

It’s been a different trajectory ever since! I’m trying to be more experimental and expressive now, serious still photography has been liberated by video and social media.

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