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1000 Portrait Project, Melbourne (2026)

20/03/2023

Portrait 613/1000: Sunderai.

I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Sunderai in Yarra Glen a few years ago, when this portrait was taken. I'd met her partner, Savaad, a few years beforehand, as part of local events - from memory, the Yering Sculpture Prize, the Yarra Glen Art Show and the Toolangi Sculpture Festival all had Savaad involved here and there, so I think I've taken his photo in one way or another a few times (and once specifically for this project, way back at the start).

I bumped into the pair in Yarra Glen and took their photo on the steps of the Memorial Hall, where I think they were moseying for an event (the name of this one well and truly escapes me, as I took zero notes in this six-and-a-half-year project (I k now, I know)).

I really, really love how Sunderai's wonderfully colour-coordinated outfit contrasts with the greenery of Yarra Glen, all blurred out in the background.

Sunderai's background is in childbirth education and support, having trained doulas as part of Dial a Doula in the past. Doing a bit of research for this post, I found out that Sunderai assisted the author, Jenny Overend, for the birth of their child, Bede (which was documented in Hello Baby, a book I read when I was a kid).

Our chat was very lovely but very brief, all these years ago, but I'm so happy to have taken both Savaad and Sunderai's portraits for this little project.

Thank you so much for being in it, Sunderai. I hope you're going spectacularly. ✨

20/01/2023

Portrait 612/1000: Jason.

I don't think there are many folks out in the Yarra Valley who wouldn't know Jason Ball's name. For those not across it, Jason came out in 2012 in the national media and quickly became a figurehead for challenging homophobia in sport, particularly in local and national footy.

In 2014, Yarra Glen's Football and Netball Club hosted the first Pride Cup - a footy match where the 50 metre line was painted rainbow, along with player jumpers, with a pre-match function talking about the importance of challenging homophobic attitudes and comments. Pride Cup continues, expanding into other sports, and the AFL picked up the Pride Cup in 2016 on the national level.

Jason was the Young Australian of the Year for Victoria in 2017, and while working as a journalist at the Mail News Group in Healesville, I got to see the very very tangible ripple effect of Jason's story in the community. Whenever I spoke to clubs, they mentioned the shift in behaviour that had occurred in the years since as people understood the impact and the harm, and felt more empowered to call out awful attitudes.

I'm thankful to have met Jason a few times through my work at the paper. He always had a lot of time to talk and to promote the Pride Cup, and one of my earlier front pages at the paper was a photo of Jason and a teammate holding the cup aloft (from memory, I stressed out a lot about the lighting for that photo!!).

This photo was taken when Jason came out to talk to folks at my work, for a Midsumma event in Lilydale a few years ago. At the end of his talk, I asked if I could take his portrait for this project outside, and he very generously agreed.

Thank you so much for being part of this project, Jason! I hope you're going wonderfully.

09/01/2023

Portrait 611/1000: Nic.

Nic is one of the many brilliant and talented and kind photographers I had the privilege of meeting in 2022.

She is the smiley face, the wonderful brain and the camera-adept eyes behind Fox & Kin wedding and elopement photography. The photos Nic takes are gorgeous, glowing and heartfelt. It always baffles me, looking at the work of so many Australian wedding photographers, how they can make countless photos of weddings and elopements and ceremonies and make not a single one look the same - while also making all of the photos clearly *theirs*. I feel like I could clock one of Nic's photos a mile out, both from the lovely colour schemes but also the amount of joy just bursting off the screen. This caption has taken about ten times longer to write than I thought it would, because I keep falling down a rabbit hole of admiring her work.

I met Nic at the beautiful fever dream that was Snap Hoedown 2021 - a meet up of roughly 40 wedding photo and video folk for some networking, a lot of workshops and talking biz, but also an immense amount of honest conversation about the industry, about workloads, about art and what we can all do a bit better. Nic was a brilliant part of that conversation, especially about how we can make sure wedding photos are approachable for every couple out there - particularly ones that don't often see themselves represented in magazines or blogs or in snazzy pics on Insta.

Her website (which is ace) sums her approach up perfectly - all love is equal and all love should be documented equally.

But I didn't get the chance to photograph Nic at Hoedown - the beautiful and terrible thing about being at a little winter camp with 40 folks is that your time is often filled up. Thankfully, a spot opened up in the project juuuuust in time for her visiting Melby at the end of 2022, at an end of year party / gathering / UV dancefloor party for wedding vendors of all kinds. Before the night got underway, we took some quick portraits to fit her into the project.

Now you've read a bit about this, please go check out her work on Insta at .

Thank you so much for being part of this, my friend. Stoked to have met you.

05/12/2022

Portrait 610/1000: Matthew.

Matt is someone I'm very thankful to have known for many years.

I have no recollection at all of the moment when we actually became friends - more a memory of seeing his face more and more often at events, at parties and in one-on-one conversations.

He's a fantastic skater and photographer - one whose commitment to shooting on film is something I've looked up to for a long time. But I think if you asked anyone about Matt / Boothy, the first thing that comes to mind is how kind and thoughtful he is - when you chat with him, he has so much time and so much interest and is just so nice. He's a genuine joy to be around.

I've been away for little day trips and longer stays with him and our friend group, and the photos he comes back with are always gorgeous. I'm glad to have been photographed by him more than a few times, but top of my list now I'm back in Australia is to take photos with him a whole lot more.

Matt's first photo for the project was years ago - he was sitting on our friend's decking in Templestowe in a Lost Boys shirt (one of his favourite movies). The photo is nice - and sticks in my memory because I broke one of the two cameras I brought with me *immediately* after taking his photo. Sad days. But I've taken Matt's photo so many times, I wanted to go with something more recent.

This one was taken at the start of the year, on a little beach weekend with pals. If I remember correctly, there's a photo of me and my then-new back tattoo outline against the same background that Matt took right before this.

This photo was taken using Lomography Lady Grey film (pulled one stop to 200iso). This was one of the earliest film stocks I shot with and it has a very special place in my heart - doubly so because this roll came to me from one of my best friends, who is actually just out of frame in this image.

I'm so glad to have you in the project, Matt. Thank you for being part of this. ✨

18/11/2022

Loved catching up with the Lomography folks over here in NYC about portraits and travel and the project! A nice little read with some portraits I really love!! 🥰❤️

01/11/2022

Portrait 609/1000: Michael.

I have been really excited to publish this one for a long time, and it speaks very much to the strangely prolonged journey this project has been going through.

This photo was taken on Monday the 2nd of July, 2018. I know that because it was a day that I took off work so I could install my first ever solo exhibition - a display of the first 500 portraits in this project (a few printed works, many many more on a projector display).

Michael, here, is the tech wizard who manages the lighting and audio and video and all the bits and pieces that helps make exhibitions and performances roll for Council. He does it with a smile and a whole bunch of expertise and is super easy to get on with. Which is why I was glad he was helping out with my show.

After setting up (and, from memory, hunting last-minute frames) with Jade and Amber (who are both scattered throughout this project a bit earlier), I asked Michael if I could take his portrait outside.

This photo marked the moment when my first solo exhibition became real, and I was so stoked to have a bunch of brilliant people working with me to make it happen.

It's also the photo that really solidified my favourite film stock of all time - FujiFilm Superia 1600 (now discontinued and only able to be sourced from people charging absurd amounts for it). The film renders greens so nicely and this photo, outside of the Moooroolbark Community Centre, just stops me in my tracks every time I see Michael framed by this lovely vegetation. Sometime around the time of this photo, I hunted down every last reasonably priced roll of superia I could - and I have five final rolls I'm holding close and dear for something special.

Anyway, Michael has always had a moment to stop and chat with me - from my days at the newspaper crashing gigs at his venues with my camera, to just chatting before events get rolling now I'm working with him. I'm so very happy to have him in this project, and having him at the exhibition prep on my favourite film stock is just a triple whammy of wonderful.

Thank you so much for being in this, Michael!!

01/11/2022

Portraits 607 + 708/1000: Shane and Phillip.

I had the pleasure of meeting these two quite a few years back now. Myself and my friend - also named Jesse - great name, great guy - organised a bachelor party for a close pal about to tie the knot. We opted for a few days at the beach, a visit to some nice places, some golf and a few little beers along the way.

The thing with these kind of parties is that you have to quickly break the ice with a whole bunch of folks who may not know each other super well. Jesse and I opted to set up a trivia night about the groom-to-be, but to rig all of the answers to be absolutely unguessable answers that would embarass him publicly. A little bonding over humiliation. Worked like a treat.

This was completely unnecessary of course - when you're inviting folks to celebrate something like this, you usually invite the good eggs, and Shane and Phillip were absolutely two of those. So it was all a fun and easy few days of hanging out, eating well and talking absolute nonsense - with maybe too many golf balls sent perilously close to people's homes from a driving range that warned you....not to do that. Potential crimes aside, it was a great weekend with a great bunch of people.

When the big day came around a month or so later (time is a flat circle and I'm running this whole project from memory alone, so do bear with me), we got ready and all travelled in together. I brought a little film camera with me to document some of the early parts of the day. Before we hit the road, I took these quick portraits of Shane and Phillip on film for the project - which I sprung on them and they very kindly agreed to be part of this little ditty.

I've bumped into them once or twice in the intervening years, but I love these portraits as a quick little moment in time were I got to know these folks before we all travelled on our merry way. Some genuinely nice little memories, encapsulated in a quick "oi can I grab a portrait of you really quick?", which is mostly what this project has been and has become.

Thank you so much for being part of this, Shane and Phillip - hope you've been well!

08/10/2022

Six years, six months and two days after starting, this project is complete.

I've got more than a few hundred photos to catch up on posting - and some gorgeous, vibrant, kind people to share with you through those photos - but I really wanted to post something to commemorate this.

The project started in my parents' living room on April 6, 2016. My friend Andrew sat in an arm chair while I tried to get my little off-camera flashes working for the picture. I remember the thrill of getting the first few portraits and thinking, "this is amazing - how long could this possibly take?"

Turns out, a little while.

This whole thing started out as a method to get better at taking portraits - immersing myself in it for long enough that I'll have to learn some skills, to think on the fly and adapt - while giving 1000 people a gorgeous photo of themselves. And that's absolutely been achieved. What the project turned into - what it still is - is sharing the little insights and moments and feelings you get from other people - whether you meet them for a few minutes, a few hours or much, much longer than that. And there are so many of those to come here as I catch up on posts.

I've been in different jobs, different houses and different relationships through the breadth of this project. I've made friends through the project, had subjects get in touch for me to shoot their weddings, and have been welcomed by 1000 odd people into their lives and their personal space to take a their photo. I've become a much more confident person in taking photos and through my every day life, all thanks to leaving my comfort zone well and truly behind me (sometimes).

There's easily more than 100,000 images that have been taken as part of this. Dozens of Polaroids. An upsetting pile of film negatives. A few recorded interviews. I'm hoping to share as much of these through this page, through exhibitions (if anyone will have me) and my dream is, one day, in a book.

It's now 2pm in New York. I walked from the last photos in a small daze over to get a coffee and doughnuts in Brooklyn and am typing this while the sun has a few more hours to rise back home. It's a bit surreal in a number of ways.

I'll close off this indulgent post with one last thing:

I listened to Jerome Cole Photography on Nathan Kaso's podcast Analogue Modern Radio, and he paraphrased a quote that stuck with me - which I'll paraphrase again: you don't take someone's portrait, they give it to you. The point being that our role as photographers is to make people comfortable, to help them bring themselves into an image so they can give you the best portrait of themselves. Or something like that, anyway.

Thank you to everyone who has given me their time and their portrait. This only happened thanks to all of you. ❤️

21/09/2022

Portrait 606/1000: Jo.

I've written a bit here about the importance of the people you work with - good people make bad places bearable; they make average places great and they make good places shine. People you can chat to openly, bond with, revel in the good times and sympathise about the bad times with - it's everything.

I've written a lot about good people I've worked with - I'd say there's a good few hundred people in this project, maybe more, who I've had the pleasure of working with. Either in an office day-to-day, for the short burst of work that goes into an article, for the longer preparation and executions of weddings, or just the people I've worked with to create a nice portrait.

But this isn't my good person to work with - Jo was one of the great people that my partner, Carly, worked with.

They were the kind of person Carly would talk about, her face lighting up with a smile that comes involuntarily when you're sharing a person who is important to you with other people important to you in your life (without waxing poetic for too long, that, in itself, creates a gorgeous web of Good People in your life, which slowly connects in new ways). The kind of person Carly would look forward to catching up with, travelling into the city with, or venting about a rough time at work to.

I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Jo in Croydon a few years back - we all took a walk, had a coffee, and I got to be witness to the lovely little friendship Carly and Jo shared. Before we parted ways, I asked Jo if I could take their portrait and they very kindly agreed.

It's been a while since then - a lot of these posts are stories told long after the fact - but I really love this photo and the little window it was into the nice relationships we all forge through the places we work at.

Thank you for being in this, Jo! Sorry this post has been a long time coming!

09/09/2022

Portrait 605/1000: Simon.

I met Simon very briefly for this portrait, but it's still a very lovely one. Basically, I'd bought a point and shoot little film camera years ago - a little canon AF35M - which was a heap of fun, but not something I used very much. I think it took me two years to run a single roll of film through it.

It was a gorgeous little camera though - the high pitched whirr as the flash prepared, the hum as it rolled photos along - it was brill. But the battery door was basically smashed off when I got it from my local op-shop. I'm a huge fan of the ol' tape repair (my FujiFilm Instax Mini 8 basically has stickytape for a battery door), but gravity became the enemy of my flimsy method.

I popped it up on marketplace for free / to trade for a quick portrait, and thankfully Simon responded straight away. I met him near my place and he pulled up on a motorbike - we had a quick chat, I took this portrait of him and then we parted ways; him with his new camera, me with a snazzy portrait for this project. Short, simple, sweet - as many of the little intersections of our lives are.

I eventually got that roll developed and it was fantastic. Turns out those cameras go for a pretty penny nowadays, too - when the battery door is attached, I assume. Or when you've got sturdy tape.

Anyway, Simon struck me as a good egg and I'm happy with the trade for this photo.

Thanks heaps for being in this project, Simon!

08/09/2022

Portrait 604/1000: Nikki.

Nikki is my last portrait from the State Library Victoria Fellowship announcement I had the pleasure of photographing - and is, of course, one of the many vibrant and talented folks whose projects were supported by the library!

Nikki received a fellowship for their project, Six days on a leaky boat, which was a stage musical centred on a Chinese-Vietnamese refugee family beginning lives as new Australians after receiving citizenship. It explores the trauma of displacement and opening yourself to new experiences, and used the experiences and memories from friends and family to create the narrative.

Nikki is a writer, filmmaker and a classically trained pianist, who works on projects that combine genre with telling the stories of the Australian migrant experience.

Like the other folks I got to photograph that morning in the city, Nikki was great to work with and I'm stoked to have so many talented people in this little project.

Thanks for being in this, Nikki! Lovely to meet you!

06/09/2022

Portraits 602 and 603/1000: Tim and Aya.

Tim and Aya here are the duo behind Gatherer Media, who I had the pleasure meeting quite a while back - when they received a creative fellowship from State Library Victoria.

They received a fellowship for their documentary: Poynduk - The city that never was. The documentary explored a proposal to establish a Jewish settlement in Tasmania's remote wilderness, and the tragic circumstances surrounding the death of Critchley Parker Jr (who came up with the plan).

The pair work to use archives to tell interesting stories about the past, present and future. Tim is a documentary filmmaker and broadcast journalist. His graffiti documentary, Thrill + fury: The art of the tag (2015) is taught in schools and he's produced television for the ABC Melbourne.

Aya is a digital designer, who has worked at the ABC, Channel 7, HBO and with a leading museum design company; she uses motion graphics and interactive design using archival material, and both have worked around the world. The Gatherer Media page, for example, has some gorgeous photos from their work in Venice earlier this year.

It was a pleasure getting to take their photo at the SLV Fellowship event.

Thanks so much for being in this itty bitty project, Tim and Aya!

1000 Portrait Project

20/03/2023

20/01/2023

09/01/2023

05/12/2022

18/11/2022

01/11/2022

01/11/2022

08/10/2022

21/09/2022

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