SUN 2020 Selects

This year has led to some unique creative briefs and challenges. Here are a few of our favourite images made within a distinctly 2020 context.

Tajette O'Halloran | Troye Sivan for ElleMen Fresh China

I was visiting my parents on the hippie commune I grew up on in-between lockdowns when I received the call to shoot pop extraordinaire Troye Sivan for the cover of ElleMen Fresh in China.

I have done a lot of shoots for musicians, but I had never shot fashion before.

Here I was up on a mountain in the middle of nowhere, having Zoom calls in the dark with the clients in New York and Beijing from my Mum's tiny solar powered bush house.

Putting creative briefs together for a Gucci and Cartier styled photoshoot for one of the world's biggest pop stars under these conditions, I could not have felt more like a fraud.

It wasn't until the day before the shoot where I sat down with Troye to go over the schedule where he mentioned that he had selected me because he loved my In Australia series. This series is the furthest thing from a fashion reference and it was a big exhale moment for me. It was such a great feeling to have a body of work that is so personal and meaningful to me be a reference for a project of this scale.

Though flying back into Melbourne knowing I was heading for another lockdown and border closure was unsettling, the actual shoot was amazing! I had an incredible, supportive and talented team that pulled rabbits out of hats to make this shoot successful during a global pandemic.

CREW

Production Doone Colless at Coco Production
Stylist Sarah Banger
Props Stylist Paige Anderson
Lighting Ryan Stamatiades
Digi Op Jake Lowe 
Retoucher Abbie Muntz
HMU Nigel Stanislaus

Nicole Reed | Self Portrait

The image is a self-portrait taken in response to an instagram account called Looklook_lockdown which was created by Jo Duck to keep photographers in lockdown creating while not being able to work.

The weekly word was SMILE, and at that time Dan Andrews had just announced that Melbourne's lockdown was going to be extended, not much reason to smile at the time.

I had also considered how hard it is to convey emotions while wearing a mask. I photographed my face smiling, printed it and cut it out and stuck it crudely to a mask.

Nick Bowers (The Kitchen Creative)| Sydney Opera House Creative Studio

"2020 has transformed the world, inspiring us to reset and rethink the way we live. Antidote gives us a chance to come together as a community, reflect on what we've learned, and focus on the future we want to create." Antidote

Nick Bowers' images of clouds at ground level, taking up the urban Sydney spaces usually populated by humans, formed the perfect imagery needed for a festival calling for people to look and think again.

It was a great concept and I was confident that the design studio would see the job through to a high level of craft needed for Outdoor print executions. I was inspired by the Antidote festival line up and was proud to be involved in The Opera Houses first event out of lockdown.