My new default publicity shot accompanied by my new default publicity shot credit. (Photo: Gareth Watkins / Lilburn Trust / Wallace Arts Trust)
A couple of months ago, I was photographed by Gareth Watkins. Gareth is a photographer, media producer and a work colleague of mine (by day he’s a studio engineer at Radio New Zealand).
He had asked me to be part of Composer 015 – a project to photograph and interview 15 New Zealand composers aged from their mid-20s to their early 90s! It’s currently a work in progress, supported by the Lilburn Trust and the Wallace Arts Trust. I believe that once the photos are compiled, they’ll be published in book form… I think that’s right? I should probably know.
Anyway, the pictures went up on the web yesterday and I’m really happy with them! I did veto four that you won’t see – one really looked like my criminal mugshot, and in another I was smiling but squinting a bit too tightly.
We did the photographs at Gareth’s house in Mt Cook, Wellington and in the grounds of the National War Memorial. Gareth by no means objects to smiley photographs, but it’s clear to see he leans towards capturing a neutral expression. (That is the viewpoint of an uninformed photography neophyte, but I can see it in other composers in the series: Alex Taylor; Claire Cowan; Jack Body; Lyell Cresswell; Samuel Holloway.)
An objective of mine was to get plenty of good publicity shots, so I came out very happy – a very real preoccupation since I’ve always felt subconscious about holding a smile on cue.
The full collection of 24 photos is here, and on that same page you can also listen to audio of me talking about composing or some such. Here are my favourite shots:
