IBIS MUSIC PHOTOGRAPHY
Queen Street Stories
Hi. I'm Tim. I've been capturing in photos in Queensland's main street since 2007 a small part of the story of Queensland's street arts: pop up stages, buskers, bars, hotels, theatres, cafes, record stores & shops, library stages, parades, special events.. 2018 this photo of Australian musician Tones And I (2020 biggest act globally streaming services i.e. Spotify, 2019 ARIA awards incl. best female artist). My story with music tho, goes back a few decades.
1980 I played my first Queen Street gig marching in the South Brisbane Federal Band as part of Warana* (Brisbane Festival). There was no 'mall', just a street with old buildings lining our route from Fortitude Valley, up Queen Street, over Victoria Bridge to South Brisbane (no Southbank til '89 with formation of Southbank Corporation).
1983 I played lead trumpet in a stage band Queen Street main stage, 1 year after our mall opened. I remember it as an 'easy gig' - musicians over the years have said the same about their mall gigs. 80s-90s I kept playing and teaching music.. 1998 I took a break from music to deal with my health.
2007 my photography began. After almost a decade away from the scene, and having returned to my childhood church to write and play church music - no longer playing the band scene, I bought a camera and in odd spare moments returned to the CBD to document part of our Southeast Queensland street arts. Many musicians have ancillary roles in music: management, production, live sound.. mine has been street music photography.
Here in our Queen Street, I've photographed during a global pandemic, storms, heatwaves, windy days blowing musicians' merch stands over. I've seen music programmes and musicians come and go.. lived thru eras of our music. I've shot for musicians with disabilities, buskers, local & touring acts - more than 2000 Queen Street gigs. That number grows: I get invites from musicians, am out walking and bump into people & ibis birds, hence the name of this enterprise which I am also archiving in nla.gov.au/trove linked to my flickr.com/photos/ibismusicphotography.
*www.slq.qld.gov.au/blog/wonderful-warana-queenslands-own-spring-festival
Sandro Abate
drummer, 2020
Sandro Abate
Drummer 2020
Sandro's home made PVC pipes are one of the most distinctive sounds I've heard in our mall, whose acoustic can be a bit cavernous with it's high rise buildings and shops lining the mottled grey pavement.
I missed Sandro when COVID hit and the busking stopped.. he came back a bit later in 2020 but put the pipes away to play in West End jam bands instead. I caught up with Sandro in 2022 one of those gigs.. he still has these magical, colourful pipes.
Rocking Horse Records began life in Edward Street 1975 then moved to Adelaide St where I would visit 1980s. Recent years the store located off Queen Street Mall has hosted instore gigs.. August 2019 a 5pm show for ARIA nominees Holy Holy, main members / songwriters being Timothy Carroll and Oscar Dawson. The store was packed, which is typical of many other record store shoots I've done in southeast QLD recently - the resurgence of these stores in 2010s and vinyl records now outselling CDs (!) is a nostalgia trip that I almost am reluctant to take, except for photoshoots.
Post Office Square, Queen Street Oct 2021
I love Riff Raff Radical Marching Band (Brisbane).. takes me back to my Queen Street brass band days of early 1980s. There are Riff Raff bands in other Australian capital cities - one of the coolest things to join the political scene recently.
This Queen Street gig to protest large thermal coal QLD mining development. We can extract metals from the ground for brass instruments - but will the earth's climate change too much if we keep extracting and burning too many fossil fuels?
FÉTE DE LA MUSIQUE
Deena (Jaguar Jonze) at Féte de la Musique June 2014.. this programme which began in France in 1981 and still continues in countries around the world was celebrated in inner Brisbane from late 2000s until around 2014.. sadly it hasn't happened in Queen Street in recent years - you'd see acts who don't usually perform on the street for this special annual celebration of music. Altho, Deena was a regular for Ibis Music Photography at that time, and went on to create another project, called..
Rio Rhythmics Carnival 2018
Sometimes during each year (a bit less during COVID pandemic 2020-22) Queen Street hosts larger special events such as Rio Rhythmics Carnaval Parade and Party, Sunday 25 March 2018. The parade started in Post Office Square opposite Bribane's GPO and ended up at a large drop in stage at Reddacliff Place up the top of Queen Street.
I like the big gigs - I still make them a priority. Maybe tho as I get older I'm as happy photographing for buskers as the big stages, corporate or government events. With decades of street photography I've done there are perhaps enough stories to tell.
Katia Demeester
Wintergarden, Queen Street 2013
When I started music photography 2007 my first camera was a $AU79 Kodak 8megapixel compact.. not great. I've never had much money for cameras and have had to scrimp and save.. $AU320 for a new Nikon D5100 APS-C sensor mostly plastic camera online in 2012 - $250 for an old Nikon 50 1.2 AI-S manual lens.. which in this nighttime mall photo I love because it approximates the shallow depth of field (foreground + background out of focus softly blurred) of larger sensor more expensive systems. I didn't have money for photo editing software either in 2013 - this was an early free version of photoshop I found online (I've managed to upgrade now and subscribe to Adobe software).
The Nymphs
Queen & Albert Streets, 2013
I like this 2013 photo for a few reasons.. Melbourne vocal quartet The Nymphs (love Melbourne musicians), and their dashing red outfits, the man passing by - his attire, small blue hat, white socks.. other passers by, corporate logos, shops.. The Nymphs sound engineer reading a novel (with many acoustic smaller groups, particularly on an outdoor stage with not too many difficult harmonics to deal with, what else to do once you've done a soundcheck but read, chat to passers by, or listen to the music?)... that classic mottled grey Brisbane CBD concrete, little Christmas trees behind the stage, unattractive rubbish bin..
Queen Street, Myer Centre 2013
Sunshine coast singer-songwriter Emily Newton (Fieu) being photographed here 2013 in Queen Street by Bob McGahan. Bob's work, whether dance, music, fashion, or just fun, is an important catalogue of southeast QLD street life in the early part of our 21st century. Bob began a year before I did, and he's here with his original street camera the Nikon D700 - one of the best portrait cameras at that time. Few of us involved in street music had gear as good in 2007. The work of these local street photographers matters, and deserves to be part of a QLD State Library archive and National Library collection.
Queen Street, Christmas 2008
Opera Queensland celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2021.. I wasn't on opera fan at high school student back in 1980 - my music teacher would put on an opera record in class, then fall asleep in a comfy chair with a blissful smile on his face.. I'd never seen someone so happy. OK he loved opera, and not surprisingly, left teaching end of 1980 to be one of the first directors of Opera QLD. Turns out opera is AMAZING when you hear it live - better than a recording. The power of live music cannot be overstated - the physicality of a powerful live performance.. opera is that.
Friday afternoon, March 13, just before COVID-19 QLD music industry 2020 shutdown.. wierd day.. wondered if there'd be any music here on Queen Street main stage the following week (which there wasn't, not until a few months' later). And.. I wondered if this was the end of an era of street music too - if when we returned from lockdown it would be a different industry, and different street music scene, less of the larger groups like local favourites irish folk band Murphy's Pigs, and more of the solo/duo acts... for a while anyway. Murphy's pigs have played a Friday night in the mall 2021, I don't really go in for these Friday night gigs so much now - I'm often somewhere else in regional southeast QLD like the new Nicholas Street Stage, Ipswich.
Redacliff Place 2021
Brisbane Square Library top of Queen Street September 2021 host to Brisbane Pride Choir. A favourite gig of theirs according to their committee president Kelly. I agree. It's a favourite place of mine (amongst many other CBD locations) to charge the laptop and edit photos after Queen street photoshoots. I first saw Brisbane Pride Choir in rehearsal at a church I was volunteering to clean in 2005 - a modern progressive choir practising in one of Brisbane's oldest inner city buildings.
Redacliff Place 2021
Brisbane Square Library top of Queen Street September 2021 host to Brisbane Pride Choir. A favourite gig of theirs according to their committee president Kelly. I agree. It's a favourite place of mine (amongst many other CBD locations) to charge the laptop and edit photos after Queen street photoshoots. I first saw Brisbane Pride Choir in rehearsal at a church I was volunteering to clean in 2005 - a modern progressive choir practising in one of Brisbane's oldest inner city buildings.
Finabah, Redacliff Place 29 Nov 2009
Finabah, on the lineup for Stuff The Stocking Christmas celebrations, Redacliff Place .. from a concert photographer stance, "available light" at night = stage lighting + artificial street lighting. Note: 2009 incandescent PAR lighting on this Brisbane stage. Soon after, most stage lighting converted to LED - both are pretty harsh on a stage like this given close proximity of lights to stage performers, but.. LED more so! I had to adjust, coming into music photography 2007, that soon after concert photography became harder in respect to intensity of light, but easier in terms of colour range.
Wintergarden August 2022
One of the best Queen Street gigs I've photographed: Vanessa Amorosi, Kate Cebrano and a host of local Brisbane acts to celebrate 40th anniversary of the founding of the Queen Street Mall
Seems like a minute eh? 15 years of mall photography, like old days for me revisiting this Wintergarden music stage. I welcome new people as photographers here.. I've had my busiest years as a photographer in the 2010s, and now it's just a few gigs here and there for me.
Redacliff Place Oct 2021
Brisbane Square Library top of Queen Street on a Sunday featuring Brisbane's foremost exponents of Argentinian tango, vocalist Solange Lipcin with guitar-vocal Diez Cuerdas.
Solange has used my photos extensively, particularly from other events, e.g. park music festivals.
Liz Young is interesting to talk to re: tango, violin, church music - subjects of interest to us both, and Liz has been doing brilliant work with her childrens' music programme Lizzieland since 2020.
Flavio Correa
My eighth photo shoot for Brazilian guitarist and guitar teacher Flavio Correa since I first met this him at a gig not long after he arrived in Australia late 2010s.
"No words can express my feelings when I am playing the guitar. This is my life."
- Flavio's photo caption on his guitar page, 23 January 2022.
Yes, street music in Brisbane CBD from mid-2021 has decreased during COVID pandemic. Yes, the music will pick up again.. don't know when, as I take this photo Jan 2022 with only a small crowd around Queen Street's main stage. but.. our Queen street music will grow. Yes, the shift to recorded/online music sales has accelerated during COVID. Brisbane geographically is huge, and there will always be brilliant new musicians like Flavio arriving. Southeast Queensland's large music education system always producing new talent. That can only grow. And our outdoors culture, markets, street cafes.. Olympics 2032.
Flavio's nylon string jazz-pop-latin guitar style reminds me a little of Grammy award winning guitarist Earl Klugh, who made this nylon string jazz guitar style famous 1970s. This nylon string jazz-pop style stands out from many other guitarists I photograph - Flavio's new band FOUR BRAZIL in 2021 brilliant, one of the best Australian latin bands I've heard. I hope I get to see them again in 2022. We'll see.
Music is living in the moment.. I never really know what today will reveal when I step outside my front door, cycle to the train station (feel a bit like New York Times fashion photographer Bill Cunningham on the streets - if only I were that class of great photographer - I am not!). Music reflects the rhythms and mood of each day - musicians plan a gig and a tour, but who knows really. COVID has more than any era I've lived through, taught me just to live each day, enjoy each opportunity to listen to live music.
I expect to be surprised with music - that was the music of J.S. Bach - you can't play more than 2 bars of Bach's music without something interesting happening. That's street music too and street audiences - so too with Flavio and his music, an unmistakable sound.
The Pacific Belles
Melbourne Andrews Sisters styled vocal trio The Pacific Belles, December 2021 gig Myer Centre, Queen Street. I first did photography for this group a year prior at Eat Street Northshore after the Belles had moved from Victoria to work in southeast QLD during the COVID pandemic. Today's Christmas 2021 'Spotlight Series' show was in the Elizabeth Street level foodcourt of The Myer Centre, one level above the Queen Street bus station. The upper section of the Queen Street mall was opened in 1988, around the time old Brisbane buildings were demolished to make way for this new centre.
One of those old Brisbane buildings which no longer exists housed a tiny record store with 2nd hand vinyl. I spent my Friday afternoons last year of high school 1984 catching the bus into Queen Street, and 1984-85 a good deal of my spare pocket change put into buying most of my record collection - 30 Miles Davis albums, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Led Zepplin, British 70s prog. rock, my first Sex Pistols record, and much more besides. The Australian owner brought in some great stock. An old British guy, one of the record sales workers there also a 4ZZZ DJ, used to look at my school uniform and advise "Don't buy records! Tape off the radio!!"
Buildings located on this site before 1988 construction of The Myer Centre included the Hotel Carlton (1885), New York Hotel (1860), Newspaper House, from which the Brisbane Telegraph was first published, and the Barry and Roberts department store. Myer Centre usage has changed somewhat over the years - 1990s the basement area hosted "The Funkyard", a music venue with 'alt.rock' of the era, featuring touring bands such as Dark Carnival.
The Pacific Belles have gigged on The Gold Coast and in Brisbane mostly since moving here. The family vibe of Myer Centre food court is the sort of venue I've photographed quite a few times for Andrews Sisters - styled vocal trios and their backing bands, or today, backing tracks the Belles have sung their beautiful harmonies over.
