Tajette O'Halloran

- Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your photography?

- I was first introduced with photography in high school like most people and fell in love with that and had a real connection to the process and working in the darkroom. But I just let it go cause I never really thought of it as something that I could pursue as an actual job or in a serious way. So I just let that go and then dabbled in lots of different film, did a film course and worked as a location scout. And when I worked as a location scout, I was required to buy my own stills camera. And so, yeah, I bought that camera and then just started taking photos of friends when I was living in Melbourne, and it just organically grew from there. And I have to admit, I felt pretty lost in what I was doing with my photography. Even though I loved it, I didn't really have a clear direction about what I wanted to do with it or where I was going. And then in 2013, no 2014, I just started this series on a road trip up from Melbourne, up to my hometown, cold in Australia, and yeah, I just started taking self portraits and photos of my family and setting up, constructing these different realities based that small town suburban life. And it was quite confronting, heading home for Christmas as it always is. And yeah, I was just starting that series, it was the most personal work that I'd ever made and it just clicked into something that changed my practise from there on, and it changed the way I viewed my work, it made me more considered in everything that I was doing, it made me question things it made me be more focused and less flippant in how I was creating my work. Yeah, so that's still an ongoing series. And then when I became a mother, that was my saviour. When I felt so isolated from the world and my life turned upside down and I was like, photography for me was something that I could hold onto, my identity as someone other than a mother of a baby, and that was of a really comforting way actually of getting through the days of that early motherhood. And, then that just continued, documenting my children and experimenting with film again, from the high school days and having that freedom and no pressure to make mistakes and explore that, working with the unpredictability of film. So yeah, those are the kinds of aspects, I think are the most prominent aspects of my photographic practise.

- Yeah.

- Was there anything I didn't cover that you thought?

- No, that's awesome. Yeah, 'cause it's sort of your photo, it's this little windows into private worlds as well, so it's interesting. Those personal stories sometimes are the ones that people really connect with because of that.

- Yeah.

- So you found your fate as sort of a documentary photographer and portrait photographer as well, I guess, telling people stories, would you say?

- Yeah, and I guess in Australia, series is more of a conceptual documentary series, as I'm not really documenting people's lives but I'm revisiting my own life through other people and constructing these scenes and things, but yeah.

- Awesome. So, tell us about your finalist work in the Living Memory series, say Leaving Melbourne.

- Leaving Melbourne, that image was taken on our first stop, as we had just packed up our life and left Melbourne at the end of, it was the 20th of December in 2020. After a really intense year, I think we'd spent nine months in lockdown, and my partner and I had dabbled with the idea of moving up north, or just working out where we wanted to be, where we wanted to put our roots and raise our kids. But we were just in indecision mode for a really long time. And then I think halfway through the year in 2020, I think it was between lockdown one and two, we decided to kind of, we made that decision to make the move and so we spent the last half the year just planning that and tying up loose ends and finding a house and packing up. Yeah, that image was taken in Lakes Entrance. I think it was about four and a half hours out of Melbourne. There was a level of excitement, but it was also just this really heavy feeling of sadness about leaving the place where we'd had our babies and all of our friends and just what an amazing city Melbourne is, and so I was just filled with this excitement, but also this feeling of uncertainty, I think and are we making the right decision and that image was taken as soon as we walked into our little cabin in the Caravan Park and my son just jumped up and I got out my camera and just started taking some photos and he jumped up on the chair and looked in the mirror. I really love it because he's got those wounds on him which I felt were quite representative of how we were all feeling after being a bit battered and worn. Yeah.

- Yeah, It's beautiful, like the little light as well. I've stayed in cabins like that, and it's that drawer of how it's sort of almost in like a cupboard, so you're like on your own little stage, and kids are just like

- I know, I know.

- It's so beautiful and moody. And I really like, as all this face being in shadow, it's a portrait that says so much without the body posture, the lighting, the winds, as you said, like that scrape bowing back.

- Yeah, and his hair tasselled down his back-

- Yeah.

- and then they're really sterile, there's all this emotives, and stuff going on with him and him looking at himself and this real personal moment. And then there's just this sterile environment that he's in.

- Yeah.

- I felt was a nice contrast.

- Yeah. That's very personal for you as well, bringing your son in your story, you sort of captured what you were all feeling, I guess at that time, this transition and heading into the unknown.

- Exactly, yeah.

- So, what do you think being selected in the prize will mean for your photographic career or practise being part of and triple pay in Living Memory?

- I was super excited when I found out that I was a finalist. I remembered quite a few years ago, my brother-in-law and his wife and my sister-in-law, I guess, we were living in Canberra, and we went to the National Portrait Gallery, and I remember saying to them, "I will have something hanging here one day."

- Oh yes!

- I was like, "Oh my God! It's happened." I'm hanging in that gallery. So, that was a little tick box moment for me and just having my work, firstly in the gallery and then secondly in this prize, was just a really really nice moment of validation of my work. And, I don't know, I think it's just a really great achievement and it's something, I don't know, sorry.

- We'll say hey.

- Yeah. I'm hoping people being able to come into the gallery and being able to connect with the work, and yeah.

- Yeah, so, we're meant to be reopening in a couple of weeks.

- Oh, so you haven't been open?

- No. So we've been shut shut down. Yeah, so we've been in shutdown here for, I think it's just over two months now.

- Oh wow!

- And that's why we've extended the exhibition. So we've extended it through to January just so people can enjoy it.

- Yeah.

- We're emerging. So, it'll be really nice to see people in the gallery again, looking at the works.

- Yeah.

- So with lockdowns and all the changes going on, how do you think lockdowns have affected your practise and the way you approach photography? Has it had an effect on you?

- Uh, definitely. The lockdowns have definitely had a huge impact on the work that I've been able to create. I think normally by now we would have taken lots of trips around and I would have been returning back to Melbourne on and off for work, and in those moments, that's where I document my life and document what's happening and what's happening around me. And so, not having that freedom and that ability to move around and experience different environments in different places. Everything as well as it has for everyone has just become so insular and concentrated in your own small environment. So, I've gone through stages where I have not picked up my camera at all, felt really uninspired and just moved away from taking photos. And then, I've had little spurts of inspiration. As I was talking to before about me in Australia Series, a lot of that work is set in Lismore in New South Wales and that's in the next LGA from us. So, I haven't really been able to go there and scout and cast people in the location. So, that put a hold on all of that work and then I've spent a lot of time, not a lot, but I've gone through stages where I've taken lots of photos of my family.

- Yeah.

- And I think they're sick of me.

- I think every photography is the same. Have you turned the camera on yourself yet?

- I have a little.

- Yeah.

- Yeah. Nothing groundbreaking going on there, but yeah, I use myself when I'm scouting locations-

- Yeah.

- sometimes I use myself to put a subject in there so I can feel out the composition and everything, but yeah.

- What about you were saying sort of scouting for people. So, how does that process work? Like do you see a face or someone, or do you use models? And I guess that's affected moving from Melbourne where you can draw on such a vast network of people that are in the arts community to a smaller community.

- Finding subjects has been a real challenge actually. And not only because I'm in a smaller environment, but for some reason it feels more confronting, I don't know, asking people to be part of this work, being so close to home, I don't know. And not only that, is that people wearing masks, it's been really difficult to gauge people and being able to see people, 'cause a lot of the time I'm just stopping people on the street, or seeing someone and being like, "Hey, how would you feel about, "blah, blah, blah?" And then getting their email and sending them a whole bunch of information to see if they'd be interested in being in the work. And yeah, the mask aspect has been pretty difficult. I just did a shoot on Sunday afternoon actually, and I just went out on a whim, I was just like, "I'm so sick of not doing any work." And I already had a woman lined up for the work and it was just gonna be her, and then I was like, "Oh no, I need some teenagers to be part of it." And so I went down to the local shop and I was like, "Do you know any teenagers?" This look and she was like, "There's a couple of boys "that live a couple of doors up." I was like, "Great!" Went and knocked on the door. The mother was home and I'm like, "Would your kids be interested "in being at this time, Sunday, "like this afternoon?" And she was like, "Oh, I don't know." I was like, "I'll send you through some photos." And then they turned up, and they were great. I was like, "Oh this could go so wrong."

- [Interviewer] Yeah.

- It was just one of those moments. And then I texted a WhatsApp group and was like, "Does anyone have an old car I can borrow?"

- [Interviewer] It's actually cool.

- It's just like acting on those little inspirations and seeing what happens.

- [Interviewer] Yeah.

- I mean, sometimes it doesn't come together and sometimes it just works. So it's just a bit of free-falling and seeing what you get.

- It's nice in smaller community sometimes as well, that people will go out of their way and it's like, "Oh, Joe, three houses over has a cow."

- Exactly. Exactly. I'll just quickly tell you that the car that I borrowed, I went to get it and she was gonna drive across, and ended up being across the road from the location, there was like stars aligning, the battery won't start and I was like, "Don't worry about it." And then she went to get NRMA and I'm like, "This is small town life."

- Yeah.

- They're just, people are just so-

- And the NRMA is her brother anyway.

- Totally

- So funny.

- Yeah and I was just like, "I'll give you a six pack of beers."

- Currency of small towns. So one question we get asked a bit about final lesson is usually from aspiring photographers is like, can you tell us a bit about your selected equipment that you like to use? Cameras, editing.

- Sure. I'm such a non-technical photographer. I'm not anyone who like keeps up to date with all the new gear and things that are coming out. I've got a Canon 5D which I occasionally use. And then more recently I have a Sony, oh God, what is it? I've got a Sony 7S III, or some, I don't know, A7 III, I don't know what it's called. I've got a Pentax film camera. I have a Polaroid 600, old thing. And I edit with Lightroom and Photoshop. And then I've got a scanner that I recently purchased and it's like been a game changer for me to just being able to process my own work at home and scan work and have that whole, that process to look forward to. I had a darkroom in Melbourne just in our laundry, and I'm missing that a lot. It was a nice experiment last year during lockdown. And in terms of lenses, I've got a 50 mil, a 35 mil, a 24 to 70 and that's probably it.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- You've got quite of a collection there.

- I know, compared to most photographers.

- Yeah. But what about, do you have any tips for aspiring photographers out there?

- In terms of creating work, the big tip I think would be, don't look at what you think you should be doing or what work you should be producing based on what other people are doing. And I think it's so important to just find something that means something to you, because if it means something to you, it just automatically translates, I think, to the viewer, and we've all fallen into that trap of feeling like you had to be making a certain work or this is what people are gonna like, and it took me a while, but I just learned that I just have to make work that is close to me and something that I'm proud of and something that means something because if it doesn't mean something to you, it's not gonna mean something to the viewer.

- [Interviewer] Yeah.

- And I think we all have stories, interesting stories that can be told and be of interest to people, so, a lot of the times I think people feel like they need to look out and go to different communities and document this and sometimes just looking smaller and looking around your immediate surroundings and the people that are immediately around you, can sometimes bring out the most compelling stories.

- Yeah, perfect. So that genuine, it always shines through. Are you being genuine?

- Yeah.

- What about photographers or artists in general, that inspire you or that you look up to?

- So many. I'm part of a photography collective, Oculi.

- Yeah.

- And I'm just surrounded by so many amazing and wonderful photography just in that collective. And then looking out, I think some of my big inspirations would be Carol Jones, I have her book, and just anytime I'm feeling a bit uninspired, I look through her book and I'm like, "Oh! Okay, now."

- [Interviewer] Amazing?

- Yeah. Raphaella Rosella, she is an Australian photographer doing just heartbreaking and beautiful work in mainly indigenous communities. And then Bill Henson, of course, the who's who of photography. And he's just next level and blows my mind. Tracy Moffitt, her work is very inspiring to me. Trent Parke. These are all Australian photographers.

- [Interviewer] Yeah, I saw.

- Yeah. I could go wider, but I probably wouldn't stop.

- Yeah, it was nice in the judging, just listening to Bill talk, I was just writing down all these, every second, sentence was like this profound gem, that was just set off hand, and I'm like, "Goddamit! "My pencil's going, I'm running out of line."

- I know, he's just the most articulate man.

- Yeah, with what he does and what he thinks.

- Yeah, and he's been super wonderful, helped me out a little bit too, just like writing me reference letters when I was setting up my doctrine in Melbourne, I'd call him and be like, "Bill."

- Yeah he is so lovely and helpful.

- He was like, "What do you wanna set up "a darkroom for?" So he's super supportive too, which is wonderful.

- Yeah. He's supportive of the arts. I think he really enjoyed judging this 'cause the amount of entries as well, if it's 3000, so some of the prizes, you judge a few hundred or into 200, so it's like, "Oh my God!" Like he looked at every single one and read every single artist statement, like ringing and it's incredible.

- Yeah.

- What about arts in general? Like painters or sort of your works have got a painterly sort of quality or a cinematic quality to them as well?

- Yeah. I don't know if I could rattle off a bunch of painters' names. I'm not sure. I definitely appreciate painters and going to different exhibitions, but I wouldn't really-be able to say if anyone's really-

- Inspired?

- consciously inspired my work.

- What about, can you remember the first photo you ever took?

- It would have been terrible. It was probably a still on, like a old music video that I took or something. I actually can't remember.

- As a teenager or?

- Oh, oh no. Yeah the first photos I would have taken probably would have been of my then boyfriend when I was like 14 or 15 years old.

- [Interviewer] Yeah.

- Yeah.

- So cool. Can you remember them,

- Yeah.

- the photographs?

- Yeah. Super special actually.

- Yeah. There's such little windows, like you go through that thing of going like, "How embarrassing?" And then when you look back, they're just such treasured little pockets.

- Yeah. And actually my work back then, not as embarrassing as when I started out in my late twenties.

- Yeah. It's that child's eye, how kids approach drawing and painting, its

- Yeah.

- just put it there.

- Yeah and also I think when things age as well, they have like some credit to them or something.

- Nostalgia and the fading golden ages of memory sometimes scrap in.

- Yeah, exactly.

- Yeah. What about dream subject? If you could get anyone in front of your camera.

- Yeah. I don't know.

- Right now you're like anyone without a mask.

- Yeah. Although here's quite a few people that I've seen around that I've lost my courage to ask them to be part of this work, but no one really comes to mind. I mean, I'm always like scouting and I've got like a mood board of like different people that I see on Instagram. And I've got a vision board, but no big names or anything that you would know or that would mean anything to anyone else. So, yeah, I'm not sure.

- What about, have you got any shout outs or thank yous that you wanna put out there to anything?

- Sure. Well, I would. I'm so thankful for the National Portrait Gallery and to the judges who judged this incredibly. I imagine the challenging job of going through all these incredible photos. And I'm super grateful for my family for putting up with me and my camera, and especially to my son who has just been a huge source of inspiration for me from the time that he was born and for the last six and a half years. So, my son Harlow, yeah.

- Beautiful. What about, last one, is your parting words of wisdom. So, it can be photography, life, whatever you want.

- Coming in so that they kill at 9:30 in the morning

- Oh God! My parting words of wisdom would be give yourself some time away from social media.

- Good one.

- And still enjoy life, and not be consumed with everyone else and just go inside and see what comes. Yeah.