I have undertaken portrait assignments and done a lot of interior, architecture and product photography.
Living Cuba Band outside the Caravelle Hotel Saigon where they regularly perform
I have really enjoyed working with the vibrant and musical Cuban community who bring next level entertainment to Saigon’s bars, clubs and events.
Victoria Queen Singer/songwriter from Cuba
Music Videos
Victoria Queen is a wonderful collaborator and we continue to live and work together in a creative bubble.
A video we made of an original song about the birth of our son Mateo by Victoria Queen
A video we made of Drakes’s song “Hotline Bling” filmed on the streets of Saigon. Victoria Queen TV
One of my first and most enjoyable jobs here was to produce a catalogue for Memoria Art, Vintage Deco. They make beautiful home-wares using old maps and poster art from the French Colonial period in Indo-China.
Through Saigon Photo Walk I have been involved in organizing 2 photography exhibitions. This is a wonderful community of Street and Portrait photography enthusiasts. There is such a vibrant street life here in Vietnam and people are friendly and approachable.
Aerial photo of Starlight Bridge in District 7 of Ho Chi Minh City Exhibited at Saigon Photo Walk Exhibition in 2020Aerial photo of Thu Thiem Bridge and Ho Chi Minh City Skyline Exhibited at Saigon Photo Walk Exhibition in 2020
Corporate Videos
The higher end commercial work has given me the greatest opportunity to see how this manufacturing powerhouse that is Vietnam works.
Kerryn Haig of Saigon Equator has been a great support and is involved with design, marketing and large-scale manufacturing and export of beautiful furniture and home-wares.
A reflection on my first three days in Cuba 12th, 13th,14th September 2017
I was supposed to arrive in Havana on the 9th September at 8pm but so did Hurricane Irma. After 2 days in Zurich waiting for a flight I was transferred to Frankfurt where I waited to hear whether there would be a flight to Cuba that day but no.. the Cuban airports were closed. The biggest problem for the airlines was evacuating tourists from the resort area of Valadero which had been hit hard by Irma.
The near empty Condor flight from Frankfurt to Valadero and then Havana took off and a small group of Cuban and Italian passengers proceeded to get very very drunk, loud and boisterous, boasting and demonstrating their portable sound systems.
The deal with this flight was that we passengers would get off the in Valadero to allow evacuated passengers to get on in Valadero and Havana . We would have to travel by collective car or taxi about 120km.
Side elevation of Teatro Nacional from roof of Hotel Inglaterra
12th September
First problem: The luggage didn’t get taken off the flight in Valadero. We waited and waited and waited but due to inefficiencies by the airline and a very lazy and poor effort by airport staff it was explained to us that we could collect our luggage at terminal 3 in Havana the following day.
So passengers started congregating in the carpark of the Valadero airport trying to negotiate transport to Havana. By this time is was around 2am. A long queue for changing money also had to be waited out. There was no way any Cuban driver was going to accept Euros. Fares started to blow out from the normal amount of 80CUC to around 400CUC . Cuban taxi drivers are very good at assessment of supply and demand. Along with a European couple I negotiated a fare of 100CUC and the long dark night drive to Havana began.
Yailin (Centre Performing with her group “Vocal Renacer”)
My main reason (my only reason) for coming to Cuba was to visit my girlfriend Yailin. We hadn’t seen each other for 3 months and I wanted to see her after all the delays. I had booked a hotel room in Old Havana from the 9th September to 14th September but it had remained empty until my arrival at 6 am in 13th September. I wanted a place to stay in the event that I arrived before the hurricane but also a safe place for Yalin and her mother to stay if something happened to their house in the hurricane.
View from the roof of Hotel Raquel over Old Havana
Hotel Raquel in Old Havana is a beautiful old building and is a Jewish themed hotel. We stayed in the Abraham room number 101. There is a mezuzzah on each door and a small Judaica section in the lobby shop.
Jacob Room Hotel Raquel
13th September
Having paid for 4 nights in Hotel Raquel for 2 people without being there I asked the reception if I could have breakfast. I had checked in a 6am and they said because I had checked in early that breakfast wasn’t available and I would have to pay extra.
In disgust I left the hotel to do get a decent breakfast at my favorite café in Old Havana, El Café.
From Parque central I went into battle to find a Taxi to drive me to the airport to retrieve my luggage. Once again the dutch auction system began. Starting at 60CUC I found a driver who was prepared to do the 2 way trip for 30CUC.
I found the lost luggage department at terminal 3 and proceeded to wait, and wait, and wait, and wait. The one commodity that has no value in Cuba is a person’s time. It seems the electricity and computer system were not working but eventually after about 3 hours I was able to look for my luggage. I looked everywhere but couldn’t find it. I was taken to a woman inside the airport who told me the flight hadn’t come to terminal 3 it had come to terminal 2. So I went in my taxi to see if my luck would be better at terminal 2.
After a short time I found my luggage and returned to Raquel and to see Yailin for the first time in 3 months which was beautiful.
14th September
We arrived at our apartment in Central Havana. It’s a nice place in a street busy with human activity. There is an abattoir, many congregations of children playing, people of all ages sitting in the doorways passing that thing that has no value. I feel conspicuous when I walk around and even though I try to blend in Yailin tells me it is not possible. I am and will forever be a tourist in this place.
I was walking around the city trying to find AAA batteries. I went to Obispo, San Rafael and Galliano Streets but didn’t have any luck. Things we take for granted are impossible to find here. The Cubans are creative, intelligent and imaginative in the way they deal with everyday obstacles. While looking at for batteries I met an American tourist named Bernardo. He was visiting from Pennsylvania with his daughter and spoke Spanish fluently.
He offered to buy me a coffee and asked if I knew of a good place. I took him to another favorite, Café Archangel in Concordia St. It was after I had finished my coffee that I realised I had been separated from my wallet. Welcome to Fucking Cuba!
Hotel Racquel is a nice building but never stay there especially if you don’t like cold showers and appalling food. If you would like to hear Yailin’s songs please check out the links below and like her fb page:
I’ve just returned from a trip to Poland where I was working on a documentary film about a young couple getting married. He is a Fijian Indian Hindu and she a Polish Catholic.
It was a relief for me to be working in Poland about a theme unrelated to the decimated Polish Jewish community and its culture that had been my focus on previous trips.
In Sydney over the summer, I had bumped into my friend Rita who worked in Martin Smith’s bookshop in Bondi years ago. Rita is also from a Polish, Jewish background and had recently visited her hometown. She was working in Oscar and Friends bookshop in Double Bay when I went in to pick up the book I had ordered.
I had ordered Murray Bails’ book “The Voyage”. Bail’s is a book about an Australian who goes to Vienna to sell his revolutionary new concert grand piano. The story is loosely based on the Stuart Concert Grand Piano from Australia. It was a good read and I empathised a lot with the central character who like me didn’t speak German and had problems being taken seriously in the old establishment of Vienna, a major centre of music, art and culture.
During our long conversation, interrupted many times by people buying books I kept going back to the shelves and picked out a biography of Leonard Cohen, by Sylvie Simmons. I wasn’t sure about the choice but Rita said she’d heard it was a good one and I took her word.
Last year in the late summer I had been in Poland and had wanted to see Leonard Cohen perform in Lodz but it never materialized.
Lodz is the town of my paternal grandmother’s family and once had a very large Jewish community.
I had seen his Sydney concert a few years ago and I knew his music and a bit of trivia about him but I took this biography with me on the long train journey from Vienna to Katowice and then to Lubliniec and was making very good progress and enjoying finding out more about the life and career of this great artist and poet.
The sister in law of the bride turned out to be a big Leonard Cohen fan and had been to the concert I hadn’t been to but it surprised me that Leonard Cohen could be so popular in Poland.
It turns out that there is a Polish comedian, writer and radio personality called Maciej Zembaty who had translated and performed over 60 Leonard Cohen songs since the 1970’s. Zembaty had been imprisoned by the regime in 1981 for organising a festival of songs on the regime’s banned list.
Zembaty’s Polish version of Cohen’s Partisan Song had become the unofficial anthem of the Solidarity movement.
I’ve included some links to Leonard Cohen documentaries online.
A reflection on my first three days in Cuba 12th, 13th,14th September 2017
