A Catalyst 40 Years Ago … “Australian Sports Photo of the Year” …

… blimey … FORTY years ago as a young pup I was awarded my first photo prize as the (highly unexpected) winner of the “Australian Sports Photo of the Year” !

Sponsored by Kodak and Adidas in 1985, it was the inaugural edition of the awards celebrating Australia’s best sports images with a very large cash prize, a weeks holiday on the Gold Coast and photo product for the lucky winner … me ! 🙂 . 

The announcement and prize presentation was televised from Melbourne as a part of the “Australian Sports Star of the Year” awards. I had to buy a suit and tie (and SHOES) to attend 😉 !

It was a massive shock to win, especially as the other two finalists were staff photographers from the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age (who weren’t too pleased that a little ‘nobody’ from tiny Cairns had pipped ‘em ).

The winning pic (below) of gun Cairns skier Steve Hook mid slalom on Trinity Inlet Cairns was made on film with a Nikon FM2 and a squeeze focus Novoflex 200mm lens. (I was long a big fan of the squeezey focus Novoflex glass … 200, 400 & 600mm.)

My win was a catalyst for lots of interest from the news media and picture editors … and, in effect, was the precursor to the expansion of my photography into more challenging and rewarding press work and photojournalism. 

This image was a feature of my 2017/2018 exhibition “A Photographer’s Life – Part One” and also features in my hard cover large format collectors book “A Photographer’s Life – Part One & Part Two” available here.

Many Thanks to Steve Hook, brother Howard and the others of the Cairns waterski fraternity of the time. Big Thanks also to John Croucher of the Cairns Yacht Club who nagged me incessantly to enter into a photo prize for the first time.

(Nb … if you fancy water skiing on Trinity Inlet in this day and age the crocodiles would make short work of you !)

Image © Brian Cassey @brian_cassey … Kodak/adidas Australian Sports Photo of the Year 1985

The Final Frame … Nikon F2 and AFP400TX …

Well that brought back memories …

Back when shooting film and you have one frame left on your roll of thirty six … and something too good to miss presents itself.

Thanks to Renato Repetto‘s excellent AFP400TX project (#AFP400TX, @AFP400TX – see my earlier post) I recently got to revisit that long forgotten scenario. As explained earlier the project aims to get a manual everything Nikon F2 loaded with just one 36 frame roll of Tri-X film into the hands of selected photographers around Australia … and from the resulting images compile capital city exhibitions and a book.

An admirable project that I’m very pleased to be a part of.

I took my turn with the beautiful F2 a couple of weeks ago. Renato has just received my processed images back from the project sponsors Rewind Photo Lab in NSW … and has allowed me to use one image to show you guys what’s going on. (The rest are a secret until the project culmination.)

Prior to making this particular image I had already shot a variety of scenarios and carefully used 35 of the precious 36 frames on the roll. Then I met Geoff …

… and Geoff had a story to tell.

An accomplished musician, Geoff Tozer has been told he is dying. He has been diagnosed with bowel, bladder, bone and advanced spinal cancer. But … he says … “I’m too busy to die”. Geoff told me he’s a friend of Rolling Stones Bill Wyman and accomplished in Wyman’s musicality. He is set to work on the soundtrack of a new movie on the short life of Stones member Brian Jones … possibly alongside musician legends Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Mick Fleetwood.

So … with just that one frame left on my project roll of film I was feeling a bit of pressure when I lined up the image and pressed the shutter to make Geoff’s portrait.

It was with some relief that I received the scanned image (below) from Renato last eve !

The AFP400TX Nikon F2 camera is now winging it’s way down to Victoria for Melbourne photographers Michael Coyne, Jesse Marlow, Tracey Nearmy, Barat Ali Batoor and Andrew Chapman to make their contribution.

Image © Brian Cassey

AFP400TX Project - "Too Busy To Die" by Brian Cassey Cairns Australia