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Athol Shmith, Photographer.

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Athol Shmith in his South Yarra apartment .  Paul Cox (c. 1979) Gelatin silver photograph 24.6 × 24.0 cm. Department Australian Photography, National Gallery of Victoria.  Presented through The Art Foundation of Victoria by the Shmith family, Governor, 1996 F ollowing the two recent posts by Peter Leiss on Robert Rosen and Jill Gocher.     These posts triggered my memories of the good old days when I lived next door to  Paul Cox in Punt Road, South Yarra... Paul and I became great friends. Although Paul passed away about 9 years ago,  I have not created a written tribute to him. I did make a film about those days with Paul,  "The Nude In The Window". Despite his initial nervousness about the film, Paul was very pleased with it. https://youtu.be/047V_T9OYU8 In those 1970s days Paul introduced me to many people including Athol Shmith, whom  I met only on a few occasions. I was aware of Athol's exceptional portraits. I found him  incredibly ap...
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Jill Gocher, Photographer... more from Peter Leiss.

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In September this year Peter Leiss went to Bali to film an interview with photographer  Robert Rosen and also to make a short film called   ‘BALI beyond the cliché’    (see below) While he was in Bali Peter met photographer Jill Gosher  who had also been a student  at Prahran CAE, one year later than Peter had been there. Peter sent me these notes about his meeting with Jill: Jill Gocher's interview I produced this past September as one of 22 photographers I've interviewed since 2017. All 22 were involved in the unique experiment in making an educational course in Photography, highlighting it as an art form rather than as a commercial endeavour. The Photography Course at Prahran CAE from 1966 to 1980 was a whole new approach designed to bring forth this medium as an intense personal objective. The outcome of all my interviews displays a rich and diverse expression in an Art School during a period of conservative values when some desperately wanted ...
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The Game of Life (Photography of Robert Rosen)

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Once upon a time, about 1970-ish, I met a young chap in my editing room. Monique, Luke and I were living at Punt Road, South Yarra...  Luke was only about one year old, he's now 56!!! Paul Cox had set up his photographic studio in the place next door.                                  342-344 Punt Road South Yarra                                  (Watercolour by a friend of Paul's whose name I have forgotten.                              I think it was Jean Francois? He ran the Bullfrog Restaurant in Carlton) I had set up a freelance editing room and small production house named "Filmmaker" .   I had an editing assistant named Lee Harper , a very gentle young man just out of school at Melbourne High. One day a friend of Lee named Peter ...
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"THE OFFICE PICNIC", a film by my friend Tom Cowan

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  “THE OFFICE PICNIC” … REMEMBERED A few days ago my friend Tom Cowan posted a remastered version of “The Office Picnic” on his Vimeo site. Here you can see a short trailer Tom has compiled: I asked Tom to send me some notes about the pre-production, leading to the final release of the film. From Tom: The original budget was $4000. It was intended for a script called 'Sexes' for which I applied to the Experimental Film Fund. The assessors of the fund called 'Sexes' unacceptable -  possibly too experimental. They advised me to put in any other script. So the $4000 grant was applied to a 13 page script I called THE OFFICE PICNIC .      Here's how that turned into a 75min 35mm feature film: When I went to sign the contract, Bruce Beresford was the project officer. He said $4000 was a bit slim so he applied an extra $400 as a 'contingency'. Then I set about producing what was intended to be a 25 minute drama with that $4,400.   I went to Ilford as they ...
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