The Bondi Gate Keeper, Michael Sweet

Portrait Photo of Michael Sweet Bondi 1/14 (Paul Evan Green +61412189771)

Michael Sweet is the Gate Keeper of Bondi. Year in and year out, day or night, Summer or Winter, he is stationed at one of two places along O’Brien Street. He is the first person we all see as we drive into Bondi from Old South Head Road.

His father was Polish and his mother Hungarian. Dad was an academic and mum a music teacher. His parents emmigrated to Australia after the Second World War.

He is a friendly and happy soul who enjoys company and conversation.

When I asked him why he sat in those two places he answered that they were the places he felt most safe.

Portrait Photo of Michael Sweet Bondi 1/14 (Paul Evan Green +61412189771 pgphoto@bigpond.net.au)

Selected  photos can be viewed or purchased from my website at

www.paulgreenphotovideoart.com

Artist in 2 of her 3 personae. Meet Gretel Pinniger and her Alter Ego Madam Lash.

I’ve known Gretel Pinniger for many years. These are 2 portraits I took of her one night at Florida House, Palm Beach in 1996.

Gretel Pinniger is a Sydney eccentric Artist. She grew up as a shy child who had been educated by nuns and almost became one herself. She is also know as Madame Lash, a stage name she invented while working as a stripper at the Paradise Club in Sydney's Kings Cross while studying fashion design during the 1970's. She became interested in S&M and worked as a dominatrix in the basement of her home in Forbes St Darlinghurst. Later she had the first shop in Sydney to supply and design high fashion leather bondage gear. She has a love for Opera and in particular the music of Richard Wagner. she now paints 4 dimensional holograms in oil paint. (Paul Evan Green)

The first is Gretel as Gretel and the second is her alter ego Madam Lash.

Gretel Pinniger is a Sydney eccentric Artist. She grew up as a shy child who had been educated by nuns and almost became one herself. She is also know as Madame Lash, a stage name she invented while working as a stripper at the Paradise Club in Sydney's Kings Cross while studying fashion design during the 1970's. She became interested in S&M and worked as a dominatrix in the basement of her home in Forbes St Darlinghurst. Later she had the first shop in Sydney to supply and design high fashion leather bondage gear. She has a love for Opera and in particular the music of Richard Wagner. she now paints 4 dimensional holograms in oil paint. (Paul Evan Green)

Gretel’s manifesto on Art will give you more of an idea about who she is:

Manifesto on Art

I believe that True Art comes only from the highest impulse within ourselves, which we must seek and find by a process involving Faith, Focus, Discipline and constant Practise. For me this is so exhilarating, blissful and such Fun, my dedicated wish is to share my views with as many people as possible.

I look to the example of the Greatest Masters of Art and Music to find what I seek to bring to the practise of Art. In company with them, I am concerned with only the most exalted subjects – Religious and Spiritual themes and Portraits of only the most highly vibrational individuals, usually themselves Musicians and Artists of all kinds and other people I admire as being well advanced on the path to human enlightenment. I celebrate their art and personal qualities with my own abilities, in the belief that I will leave behind me each time, a work which will give pleasure to many generations through contemplating what I do. I hope that they may know this person or this state as I do, through my art. Therefore for me ‘art’ concerned with misery, squalor and inhumanity, or portraits of unenlightened people or losers, suicides or murderers are not for me.

Although I have been painting for over 25 years, with new focus in the last 3 years, I have so far, never sold and hardly ever parted with any of my paintings. They are painted from the pure delight of doing so, and my belief that, that painting should exist.

I intend my works to be placed only in major public places where they may live after me, eg. Opera Houses and Galleries. The others stay with me and are to be incorporated into my larger ‘Works in Progress’, ‘The Kirk’ Cleveland St, Surry Hills and ‘Florida House’ Florida Rd, Palm Beach, both of these being large old stone buildings, now being transformed into live in Art Works where I seek to attract under my roof the energies of any and all like minded Art and Fun-Lovers on the basis of “The better you look, the better I look, the better we’ll all look”.

Gretel Pinniger,
a.k.a. Malame Lash and now
The Immaculate Lash

These photos were taken with a Rolleicord Twin Lens  camera which had a 75mm Carl Zeiss f3.5 Tessar Lens. This camera was manufactured from 1933 till 1976.

rolleicord1

The Tessar is a famous photographic lens design conceived by physicist Paul Rudolph in 1902 while he worked at the Zeiss optical company and patented by Zeiss; the lens type is usually known as the Zeiss Tessar.

A Tessar comprises four elements in three groups, one positive crown glass element at the front, one negative flint glass element at the center and a negative plano-concave flint glass element cemented with a positive convex crown glass element at the rear. He named the result “Tessar”, from the Greek word τέσσερα (téssera, four) to indicate a four-element design.

I bought this camera from Grace’s Camera Bargains in Victoria St Potts Point in Sydney in around 1993. I adapted it with a Prism Finder from a Mamiya c330 which was fun. I don’t know where the camera is now.

I used this camera for a number of other photos at that time including my “Bondi Rock” photowhere I painted the surface of the rock with light over a one hour exposure at night.

Bondi Rock,Sandstone,Photography of Bondi landscape by Paul Green,image Used as Ad for Kodak Tri-x film, Rolleicord camera (Paul Evan Green)

Selected  photos can be viewed or purchased from my website at

www.paulgreenphotovideoart.com

Approaching 25 years as a freelance photographer

Photography of Sydney by Paul Green, Anzac Day Parade George St Sydney,Black and White, Brass band and poster in background, (Paul Evan Green)

I’m not very good at maths so it took me a while to subtract 1989 from 2014. How things have changed in that time. My main camera through the 1990’s and turn of the century was the Sinar P. My kit consisted of 75mm Schneider Super Angulon, 90mm Schneider Angulon, 150mm Rodenstock, 240mm Rodenstock, and 480mm Apo Rodagon lenses, 6×9, 5×4 & 10×8 Backs. Price entry level for photography was a whole different ball game. There were long days and nights in the darkroom processing film and completing Black & White print orders as well as astronomical monthly lab bills. I always say that I bought Mr Kodak 3 houses but also 1 each for Messes Fuji, Agfa, Ilford and Polaroid. Back then my bread and butter was doing big jobs for Artists, Museums and private galleries. I still do this kind of work but the jobs and budgets have shrunk. Throughout the years I have never stopped doing my own photography. Some of my personal work can be seen on my website at www.paulgreenphotovideoart.com

Travel, Vienna 2012_3 photos by ©paulegreen, architecture, paulgreenphotovideoart.com, shop window, street collage series, street photography, ©paulegreenstreet collage, vienna (Paul Evan Green)

Recently exhibited images 12/13 ©paulegreen contact paul@paulgreenphotovideoart.com Bondi Beach Sydney, Zdunska Wola Poland, Vienna Austria,Late Autumn,Early Winter Vienna (Paul Evan Green)

I’ve been traveling and working in Europe for the last 15 months and recently returned to Sydney. During that time away I was concentrating on a number of commissioned jobs and exploring some personal themes. Initially I went to work with Australian Artist Mike Parr to document his large scale retrospective and new performance piece at the Kunsthalle in Vienna, Austria. I also completed a book of Art, Food, Culture, Agriculture and Archeology of the Roman region of Lunigiana  in North West Italy. This will be my 3rd book about this part of Italy. The first 2 were “Soffritto” & “Lucio’s Ligurian Kitchen” of which both  were very successful.

Italy, Food, Travel, Architecture, Art, seafood salad (Paul Evan Green)

Ciccio Cookbook Lunigiana Italy, Ristorante capannina ciccio, Liguria and Ristorante Ciccio Marina Tuscany, Owner Mario Guelfi. Fish and seafood restaurant, (Paul Evan Green)

Ciccio Cookbook Lunigiana Italy, Ristorante capannina ciccio, Liguria and Ristorante Ciccio Marina Tuscany, Owner Mario Guelfi. Fish and seafood restaurant, (Paul Evan Green)

Most interesting for me was the work I completed in my European Ancestral home of Poland. This is where my Hassidic Polish great grand parents lived and I was fortunate to visit their home towns. I photographed extensively and produced some very interesting and contemplative photographs on my first visit during the Winter of 2012.

Krakow Poland Main Square (Paul Evan Green)

Chevra Kadisha,Lodz Jewish Cemetery,Lodz Jewish Cemetery,Lodz,Poland Autumn-winter 2012,photography by Paul Green,paul@paulgreenphotovideoart.com ,Lodz Jewish Cemetery,radegast station,Lodz Ghetto,litzmannstadt Ghetto,Łódź,Holocaust,transport lists,nazi,communism (Paul Evan Green)

Lodz Ghetto Wall,Lodz,Poland Autumn-winter 2012,photography by Paul Green,paul@paulgreenphotovideoart.com ,Lodz Jewish Cemetery,radegast station,Lodz Ghetto,litzmannstadt Ghetto,Łódź,Holocaust,transport lists,nazi,communism (Paul Evan Green)

Lodz Jewish Cemetery,Poland Autumn-winter 2012,photography by Paul Green,paul@paulgreenphotovideoart.com ,Lodz Jewish Cemetery,radegast station,Lodz Ghetto,litzmannstadt Ghetto,Łódź,Holocaust,transport lists,nazi,communism (Paul Evan Green)

In the Summer of 2013 I returned to Poland to collaborate With Judy Menczel & Fay Sussman on a documentary film about contemporary Polish/Jewish relations, Klezmer Music, & Yiddish language.  http://www.documentaryaustralia.com.au/films/details/1667/fays-journey. The film has full tax deductability status and we are looking for financial support for this very interesting and important doco.

Throughout the time in Europe my home was in Wien or Vienna. Vienna is a quiet and small city with a long and multi faceted history. I find it  a wonderful canvas for street photography and I love certain aspects of the cultural life and food there. Mostly I am able to get work on large projects done there. I find it very easy to focus on a task  and not be distracted. I am returning with some very interesting ideas for photography and a new body of work.

jewish themes, paul@paulgreenphotovideoart.com, paulgreenphotovideoart.com, restitution, street collage series, street photography, travel photography, ©paulegreen (Paul Evan Green)

Die Angewandte, angels, grafitti, jewish themes, paul@paulgreenphotovideoart.com, paulgreenphotovideoart.com, plakatiren verboten, shop window, signage, street collage series, street photography, travel photography, tree, ©paulegreen (Paul Evan Green)

Since returning to Australia I have been working on editing the Poland film,  documentation of a Kaldor Public Art Project with Slovenian artist Roman Ondak, and my continued involvement with Artists Mike Parr and Ken Unsworth.

Australian Artist,Ken Unsworth AM,Photo,Paul Green,Performance Art,Painting, Sculpture,Venice Biennale,Sydney,Melbourne,Australia, Art Gallery of NSW, National Gallery of Australia,"A Ringing Glass (Rilke) An Event to Honour Elisabeth Unsworth,Toy pianos, music, Art,Toyland fever (Paul Evan Green)

The first thing I did on my return was to go to my storeroom and get out my Hasselblad camera. I’ve been using this camera almost exclusively for all my personal photography in Sydney over the past 3 years or so. I’ve been getting through roll after roll of 120 Black & White  film. I’m looking forward to a big scanning session at Silverpixel studios. This camera and its Carl Zeiss lenses is the benchmark in German optics and will replace my canon 5dMk111 on my return to Europe.

I’ve been really fortunate to have done so much magazine work in Italy during 2013. I’ve teamed up with a wonderful journalista,Paola Ciana who has had many years of experience as fashion editor for big Italian women’s mags. She made the switch to writing and photographing beautiful houses. So far we’ve been published in magazines such as Velvet, Io Donna, La Repubblica, Marie Claire Maison and Elle Decor. This has been a wonderful learning experience and has given me access to some magnificent Italian homes and interesting people. Also it has had a slightly demystifying effect for me on the Women’s Magazine market.

Italy, Food, Travel, Architecture, Art (Paul Evan Green)

Italy, Food, Travel, Architecture, Art (Paul Evan Green)

Italy, Food, Travel, Architecture, Art (Paul Evan Green)

Italy, Food, Travel, Architecture, Art (Paul Evan Green)

Italy, Food, Travel, Architecture, Art (Paul Evan Green)

Italy, Food, Travel, Architecture, Art (Paul Evan Green)

Art Studio Switzerland, Food, Travel, Architecture, Art (Paul Evan Green)

Switzerland, Food, Travel, Architecture, Art,Art Studio Furniture (Paul Evan Green)

Chestnuts Switzerland, Food, Travel, Architecture, Art,Magazine story,Chestnuts Switzerland, Food, Travel, Architecture, Art, Contact Paola Ciana paociana@alice.it (Paul Evan Green)

So to my new business plan: I’ve set up my website as a resource library where interesting  images can be uploaded and sold either in print form or as a digital download.  I’m hoping to improve the SEO capabilities so I can make a significant number of sales through the site but hope that people will take a look if there’s a need for a gift or need to find images for magazine stories and books. I’m still available for freelance  photography, film and writing work and will be living between Europe and Australia in the foreseeable future. Every blog or business advice I’ve read about the pursuit of a fulfilling and successful career in photography recommends that you follow your own interests and speak with your own voice. This I have always done and continue to do. Photography is a tough gig and there is no job like it when it comes to great rewards of time spent.

Please take a few moments to look at some of the photos from my website………… http://www.paulgreenphotovideoart.com/