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(gentle music)
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I met Allie because she was part of a crew
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that did some work with the ABC,
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and I was just immediately drawn to her,
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and just
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as part of the project,
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she took some photographs of me here,
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and they were just so beautiful that I just thought,
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wow she's got real talent.
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And yeah, she just stood out,
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and she has beautiful presence.
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You've taken my photograph quite a few times now,
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and they're all quite different,
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and
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I think that
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one of the things that makes you a really great photographer
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is that you are able to connect with people.
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And I feel a special connection with you.
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That's why I keep coming back to you,
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and saying can we do something else?
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Can we do something else?
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And saying, oh, I've got this great dress.
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What can we do with it?
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Yeah.
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So that you said with the dress,
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what movement do you think this dress should make?
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And I just thought, oh, it should be very sculptural,
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it should be bending backwards,
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and I could just do it.
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But in real life, I would never do it, (laughing)
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never do that,
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but I could just do it,
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and not feel strange or ridiculous.
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And it made a beautiful arc in the photograph.
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Yes, yeah.
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(gentle music)
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Well, we had this dress from Romance Was Born
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so that was what started it.
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And Patricia
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suggested the colour and the art direction combination
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of using the back room
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with all of the moulds in the back.
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But I knew that we didn't want her
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just standing there looking at the camera,
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or even soul gazing,
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which we've done some great portraits
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where we've had that.
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We wanted to show the movement of the dress,
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but also some of my favourite portraits of artists
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are of them really in their studio.
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And so the first time I came here,
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and every time I come here,
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I'm just struck by the the magical world,
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and the team,
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and you just sort of wanna believe
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that Patricia is rocking around the studio, you know,
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like this, that she is.
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So to me, she is,
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she's this magical, incredibly kind,
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very,
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the energy that she has within her,
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it almost, it just glows out of her, you know?
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And so I wanted to capture all of that.
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Yeah, portraiture to me is very interesting.
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What I'm interested in is
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not the mask that someone would would show,
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but I honestly,
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we never know where we gonna go
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with my portraiture work,
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it's always an adventure,
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and it's just up to the bravery of the subject, really
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to see what comes out,
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I can hold space,
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because I'm really excited that they're even up for that.
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And so to make a picture,
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and things like that,
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that's really fun for me.
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(gentle music)
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That's why that picture,
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I'm really so in love with,
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because it's got so many dimensions to it.
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It's a great picture.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I think what I like
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in my work is what excites me as someone's receptivity.
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So receptivity
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could be defined as the willingness to
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receive whatever's coming in.
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And so many humans, they have filters for, you know,
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how much they're gonna let in,
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how much they're gonna show.
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And it's very scary for people to open up
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in vulnerably in front of the camera.
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My experience is that the best photos of people
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are when they are
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in a natural state of vulnerability and receptivity.
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So then how do we get them
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to that point in front of the camera?
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(gentle music)
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I've worked for around 30 years
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with ideas to do with what we find natural and artificial.
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And that's been a fantastic area for me to dwell in,
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because it encompasses so much.
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And recently
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it's had a lot to do with
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the kind of climate
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emergency and crisis.
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But fundamentally, my work is really about care.
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And a lot of it has to do with how we relate to difference.
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And I hope that
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when people come to my work,
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there is a dynamic that happens
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that it's not just, you know,
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something that they consume and walk on.
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There is something that they find,
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sort of engaging, confronting, challenging,
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and different, new,
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and people are drawn to that,
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but in a kind of way that they're not unsure about.
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Maybe they're pushed away because of it,
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and then they might come back in,
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because they've connected on an emotional level.
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So emotional connections are really important to me.
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And these are embodied things.
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Just think about them.
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They involve the heart.
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It's not their brain, it's mind,
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it's the way you relate to things.
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A work like this, which echoes a bit
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the photograph we made,
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'cause it's just as kind of improbable.
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In fact, it's impossible
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to be able to do this kind of yoga pose.
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If this work is about
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the kinds of identities we might need to have
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to be able to
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embrace
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new ideas around how we engage with nature,
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and what that might look like.
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And we can see this young person here
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being able to have the fortitude
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to be able to hold up this new ecology.
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But unlike Atlas, who had to hold up the world,
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it wasn't punitive.
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They're doing it because they're choosing to do that.
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They want to create a new way of supporting,
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and a new understanding of how we can relate to nature,
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and what is nature
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for us.
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And the idea here is that it's a kind of blended
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concept to
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nature and technology,
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and new life.
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That's really interesting.
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And I'm lucky to have watched Patricia
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do that inside an art's practise.
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I think it's incredible work and art that she makes.
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So
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I am
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exploring similar themes,
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but from the point, the view of snapshotting really,
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and of observing the reality as it's unfolding
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rather than sitting in making something from,
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I'm capturing it live.
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So that's my practise.
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Great.
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(laughing)
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Thanks.
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(gentle music)