Browsing through the thick folder containing films which can only manifest fine views under sunlight, and photographs of beautifully decorated houses, malls, banks, to the ones of sea waves, trees, portraits of people, Paul Robinson seems at ease and contented.
Paul Robinson, looking through all the films he has taken over the years
From Buddhist temple in Japan, High Court in Australia, to Macao City Square and the night scene of California, the films are labelled with time and place in detail, carefully arranged in order. As for the photographs for real estate, there are a lot more, from the original copy of the image to the actual brochure or catalogue page produced later, Paul keep them like treasure.
Paul’s films under the sun
Photography has always been an indispensable part of Paul Robinson’s life, and always will be. This 62-year-old Tasmanian has been doing photography for the last 40 years, and his enthusiasm is growing as time goes by.
At age 20, Paul was called up for national service in the army for two years. “I spent nearly a year in Vietnam. In Vietnam, or perhaps when I was in the army, I took up photography,” he explains.
He worked for Telstra for 21 years until about 1990. “I actually resigned from Telstra because I’d been doing some wedding and portrait photography part-time. And I thought if I am never gonna do photography full time, then what’s the time?”
Since then, Paul has been a real estate photographer. But the fact is he hasn’t got any formal training in photography, except the studying of fine art in his late teens, if that counts. Mentioning that, he says with laughter: “It’s interesting because I’m only now just making enquires to go and do a degree in photography.”
“I would go and see photographic exhibitions, which give me a good idea about what’s going on in terms of print, and things that would be photographed. I’ve got a photographic library of over 300 books, so I sort of taught myself a bit about that as well. Sort of over the years… you’d pick up things as things got along.”
Paul tries to put into practice things like dealing with composition and colour and lighting. “The result of that is I try to get mood into photographs.”
He lifts his finger and points at one of the many pictures hanging in his lovely home. “As you see that one up there of Hong Kong, it’s got a lot of mood in it.” It does. The image he refers to features the skyline of Hong Kong, obscured by the mist and rosy clouds. The light is dim but soft, yet the outlines of building of various shapes are distinct. It captures the bright and shadow, getting you to appreciate the unique perspective.
Another big step on Paul’s photography path is the founding of the Caulfield Photographic Society. “While I was at the Essendon Camera Club, people at my local church were interested in photograph, and they put a little bit pressure on me to form a photography club in the church, which I did and that started in 1980.”
“It was not an easy task, he recalls. “The years then were harder because we were trying to build the club up, initially 17-18 and then the number decreased significantly.”
To get the club members back up, Paul and Jean-Philippe Weibel, who is from Switzerland and joined the club since the beginning, decided to run a photography course. “We ended up with about a dozen of people signed up, and that helped with our finances.”
Now, the Caulfield Photographic Club has nearly 40 members. “When digital photography became more popular since the early 1990s, particularly since the year 2000, the photography club members increased,” Paul says.
For photography clubs around in Melbourne, some of them are really big. Essendon has about 90 members; Melbourne Camera Club has close to 200, Frankston Camera Club has got about 120. There are about 60 camera clubs in Victoria, and of the 60 clubs, Caulfield is one of the smaller ones. “But we also have some talented photographers, some of them are semi-professional, and some of them are like myself, do photography full time,” Paul says.
Paul describes himself as practising Christian, being supportive, analytical, free to do things his way, and a teacher, even though he jokes about not having any qualifications in it.
“I try to do things for people … there was a famous saying by Jimmy Carter, the former American president, where he liked to do as much as he can for as many people as he can as often as he can, while I thought that was in fact a pretty reasonable sort of approach to life. And that’s where I am in a lot of ways, but I guess where he focused politically, I am focused photographically.”
Recalling a fun photograph, Paul finds that happens spontaneously. “I was doing some photographs out in front of a… it look a bit like a steam engine… They had a, like a jazz band, made of all sorts of nationalities, playing around. They’re all young people, but I was just trying to take a photograph of them. And all of a sudden, they all went into this funny sort of pose, so you know, bang, I got the shot. And they all changed, it was that quick, you know. Those sorts of funny things happen often, it’s interesting.”
The Waves — By Paul Robinson
Paul thinks to be a good photographer, one must have a good understanding of the medium of photography, and that of aesthetics. He says, “I know from myself that I would probably never stop learning photography, and I’ve been learning it for forty years. It’s a life-long process.”
Having written two books on photography, Film to Digital and Judging Photographs, Paul’s goals now will be to continue writing and photography. And the other thing is to do a degree course in photography.
Modestly dressed in a plain coloured striped shirt and a black hat, Paul says with a hint of smile: “In fact… I’m gonna go tonight and teach the class. Tonight the topic I am covering is dealing with motion, how to capture that on camera, dealing with basic composition and dealing with basic colour.”
Yeah, just like that, Paul Robinson will throw himself into the world of photography once more, and also refresh the bonding with it once more, or say, all along.
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