Week Five - Equipment

As the NMA can be shot from the Commonwealth Bridge i'll explore that option and see what i can muster at dawn, i'll need a long lens and a sturdy tripod so my camera doesn't go for a swim. I don't want the exterior shot to be like the thousand that already exist so i'm going to explore the use of the Tilt Shift. The interior shots will need a lovely wide lens but i do plan to incorporate some kind of stitching into those simply to change it up again, i may need to bounce a speedlite flash somehow for the industrial shoot. The studio shots are going to be a cohesive series themselves as i just want a single thought running through the series instead of five different elements, just something that ties together clean and neat. I'll be using the usual stuff in the studio, computers, tethering, gels, reflectors and the odd prop here and there. I'm excited to start the first process of shoot and elimination, finally have ideas down on paper instead of keeping me awake at night.

Week Four - Target Audience

The museum caters for every audience which is probably why it's brimming with people every weekend and throughout the school holiday period. This place has everything, an interactive place for the little ones, plenty of activities for the young adults and a permanent collection of the Australia that many of us have never seen but Grandma can remember vividly. That's what makes it so wildly attractive, literally everything is under the same gigantic roof which makes it so accessible and hassle free.
The exterior of the building also helps to draw visitors in as it's a very intriguing and beautiful structure, seen from the lake, busy roads and tourist walks.
I'd love to base my studio images around the early Australia that spoke of warm pastels and home made jam and the exteriors around the vivid colours that awe on the way home over the bridge.

http://www.nma.gov.au/collections/highlights/faith-bandlers-gloves

Week three - Past and Present

The museum doesn't throw their ad campaigns around nearly as much as they could but they do have a heap of supporters in their corner when it comes to general advertising and the release of new exhibitions. Design studios, the National Library, Prime, a few cafes and Tourism Australia. Collectively they touch each age audience.
NMA showcase small snippets of their exhibitions similar to what the NGA and NPG do with their paintings. They never over do it with HUGE text or a lot of it, it's really simple with the name of the exhibition and the dates running. You regularly see a small piece of the exhibition tattooed to the side of the tourism building on Northbourne, i feel that it's pretty effective as that road becomes a car park during peak hour and you're forced to look around at something else but the clock telling you you're going to be late. Parents driving to work see it and then take their kids on the weekend, people with interstate visitors have another sight to show off and the poor students have a free place to hang out and pass time. They haven't been around long enough to have a really extensive brand of advertising or a book full of advert blunders but you can see how they're progressing past cut and pasted snippets of their collections to just one representing image. Quite refreshing and greatly needed for a lot of places.

https://evolvingcomplexityii.wordpress.com

http://www.nma.gov.au/online_features/

Week Two - Background Info

The National Museum of Australia is where a collective heart beat thumps away quietly but undisputedly there. These guys opened in 2001 after the old Canberra Hospital was imploded, the building is designed around a jigsaw puzzle to represent the many stories that this land holds. The rights to design the structure were awarded to Ashton Raggatt McDougall and Robert Peck von Hartel Trethowan after they won the International Design Competition held in 1997.  It's an iconic landmark that boast beautiful post modernist themes and has firmly planted it's place in the Nations Capital. 
A really radical part of having these guys as a subject is the awesome angles of the building, it's intricacies, colour, texture and gorgeous reflections off the water surrounding.   


 

John Gollings


George Serras