Scott Calvin

I grew up in the Manning, went travelling and ended up in Perth and lived there for about eight years then returned to Taree. I have worked in portrait studios, photographed weddings, many magazine shoots, and have work as a photographer for the Manning River Times.

My friends all put in and bought me a camera for my 21st birthday but I wasn’t very interested in it and put it straight into the cupboard! It wasn’t until a year later when I was getting ready to go on a seven month trip through Asia, Turkey and Nepal that I dug the camera out again.

It became the best tool to record the journey and explain the experience in a visual way. The camera allowed me to show a country and the emotion of the experience. Through my photographs I got to keep moments and show friends and family which was really cool. From then on I was obsessed.

I went on to work for seven months on a tall ship in Queensland and naturally took photos and the people around me wanted copies. I was also always sent out in the passenger dinghy to get shots of the beautiful tall ship in full sail. From then on photography was how I lived.

My new love is video which I shoot on my normal digital SLR camera. Because I already understood the camera and the settings, I found it easy to get a good image but had to learn a whole new set of techniques to capture moving subjects with sound. And again wow! What a powerful media.

I’ve worked on music videos using these techniques as well as short movies which are mainly developed to be seen on the Manning River Times Facebook page. You can manoeuvre this size camera to get really different perspectives and the quality is great, I would call it more entertainment but I think that is what our audience wants.

I have been teaching for over 30 years. I have taught photography to multimedia, fashion and art students at TAFE, and have created courses in the local community colleges. I am still teaching when I can and it has been fantastic.

I took a number of students to New Zealand a few years ago and we went to the Weta Studios and saw how big the movie industry was there. I realised the importance of new technologies like green screen, so from there my teaching changed.

We purchased a green screen and learnt how to use it which was a lot of fun. I would say many schools are still teaching black and white film developing but we need to teach students this new digital world so they can be prepared for this new type of industry. It is much more creative and exciting.