This film, also known as 50D (50 ASA, daylight balanced) is the same kind of film that Christopher Nolan used on Dunkirk and that Tarantino shot Once Upon a Time in Hollywood on.
Read MorePhotographer in Melbourne, Australia
More Kodak Aerochrome
While I was in Australia I shot a couple of rolls of Kodak Aerochrome, a discontinued false colour infrared film that I’ve mentioned in a previous post. I’ve played around with this film a bit and have decided to mostly photograph landscapes with it after playing around in Shanghai’s urban environment as well as Sanya and the mountains of Zhejiang and even doing a little street photography with it.
Read MoreLatest on my China border series
For the past year or so I’ve embarked on project to document China’s fourteen land borders. So far, I’ve photographed four of them and I plan to travel from Shanghai to Nanning later this month to cover China’s border with Vietnam.
Read MoreInterview with Abbas the late, great Magnum photographer
Ode to the Olympus mju II
The Olympus mju II wasn't my first and P&S, but the one with which I have my most enduring relationship. I’ve had my little black mju II since 2003. I bought it when I was preparing for a trip to Sierra Leone, my first serious project as a photographer. I walked into Camera House in Melbourne, Australia and told the shop assistant I was looking for a good P&S…
Read MorePaper Tigers Exhibition at Head On Festival, Sydney, May 2020
Blog update from Shanghai photographer Dave Tacon
Read MoreKodak Aerochrome →
Musings on Kodak Aerochrome false colour infrared film
Read MoreShanghai: Decadence with Chinese Characteristics at Head On, Sydney, May 2020
Shanghai: Decadence with Chinese Characteristics at Head On, Sydney, May 2020.
Read MoreForeign Press Association Awards, London
It’s actually been a good couple of weeks in terms of accolades. Last week I found out I had been named a co-winner of the Foreign Press Association Award for Tourism/Travel of the Year along with the journalist Margaret Simons for a story in the Weekend Guardian Magazine in the UK.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/mar/02/children-sex-tourists-leave-behind-fathers-visited-philippines
The feature was on the children left behind by sex tourists in Angeles City, in the Philippines. I’ve travelled from Shanghai once or twice each year since 2015 to photograph this story. It’s become a long term project for both Margaret and myself. Along the way, we've also won a Walkley Award and a Quill Award from the Melbourne Press Club for our work.
More importantly, along with others we’ve been able to establish a small charity to support some of the children we have photographed and written about.
As more than a million people read this latest story in its first weekend of publication, Margaret received quite a few requests by Guardian readers who offered either one off or ongoing financial support for the children and their families. In short, it has made a huge difference to these people.
Look out for an update on the story in the Weekend Guardian Magazine towards the end of this year.
If you like my work, you can also see more at www.davetacon.com.
Source: https://www.fpalondon.org
EPSON International Pano Awards
It has been a hell of a long time since I updated this website. I’ve decided to shift my focus from www.davetacon.com to this one since I’m practically invisible to anyone searching for a photographer in Shanghai. I figure that the remedy is to update my blog frequently, so hear goes:
I had some good news this morning. This image, Fake Forest, shot in Chongqing, picked up the Special Prize for Highest Scoring Film Capture at the EPSON International Pano Awards, which had close to 5,000 entries from 1,258 photographers from 72 countries. Admittedly, few of them would be shooting film these days, but I’ll take it.
https://thepanoawards.com/2019-winners-gallery/
It wasn’t shot in Shanghai, but in Chongqing, with a Hasselblad Xpan camera, a nifty thing that shoots almost two 35mm frames side by side in panoramic mode. It was also shot on Agfafilm Vista 400, which, like the Xpan, has been discontinued. This film was made by Fujifilm in Japan and as far as I can tell it’s Superia 400 X-Tra in a different box and canister. It used to be the cheapest good film I could find at only around US$2.60 per roll. It’s quite saturated so I dragged the saturation down a little. Otherwise, it’s a straight Imacon film scan, so it kind of sits oddly with some of the images in the winners’ gallery, some of which have some pretty heavy post production.
I came across the image when I was wandering about a new luxury residential development as I tried to make my way to the Yangtze River, which I’ve been shooting a project on for the last few years.
I’d been shooting at a decomissioned power station prior to this. Chongqing really does have to be one of the best places to photograph in China. It’s such a crazy city, developing at breakneck speed. It used to be part of Sichuan Province, but it just got too big. Around 35 million people live here.
Anyway, I had to wait a while for these guys to get back to work laying plumbing as they were a bit startled by a foreigner appearing out of nowhere. I shot this frame and another as one of the workers exited the door. I’d say it’s certainly in the best five photos I’ve shot since shifting to Shanghai in 2012.
Read MoreCover story in West Weekend Magazine
During my recent trip to New York City I had the pleasure interviewing and photographing Australian Victoria's Secret model Bridget Malcolm. It came out today as the cover story of West Weekend Magazine in Australia.
Read MoreBack in Shanghai
I'm currently back in Shanghai and available for assignment after a my most recent trip to Sri Lanka (for Feast Magazine), France (for Visa pour l'image and the Walkley Magazine) and the US (for New York Fashion Week and assignments for The Australian, Feast and West Weekend Magazine).
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