Amy Feldtmann

Dior in Melbourne

To celebrate 70 years of the House of Dior, Melbourne’s National Gallery of Victoria is currently exhibiting The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture.

This exclusive exhibition includes more than 140 garments designed by Christian Dior Couture between 1947 and 2017 featuring works by the seven designers who have worked for the fashion house: Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, Raf Simons and Maria Grazia Chiuri.

The exhibition is beautiful, it is filled with dresses you may love to wear, or may never imagine being able to wear but can’t deny they are pieces of art.

The detail is as important as the essential is. When it is inadequate, it destroys the whole outfit ~ Christian Dior

Christian Dior fashion dresses shoes — Best foot forward

Don’t buy much but make sure that what you buy is good ~ Christian Dior

In a machine age, dressmaking is one of the last refuges of the human, the personal, the inimitable ~ Christian Dior

You can wear black at any time. You can wear it at any age. You may wear it for almost any occasion; a ‘little black frock’ is essential to a woman’s wardrobe ~ Christian Dior

NYC in black and white

Black and white photographs I took in the New York Summer of 2013. The city is an assault on the senses — bringing it back to black and white quietens, but also sharpens it.

Springtime in St Kilda

Photographs taken on a Spring Sunday in St Kilda, Melbourne.

Look back at David Hockney at NGV

I came across these photos on the weekend; photos taken at the ‘Current’ exhibition at NGV of David Hockney’s work. David Hockney is now 79 years old, and although his brights are as bright as ever, he has adapted to the times, and worked with electronic ‘brushes’ on iPads and iPhones. It is a lesson to keep on reinventing, or keeping pace with the technology.

David Hockney 'Current' exhibition at National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne — iPhone art, David Hockney ‘Current’ exhibition at National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

And the Gold Walkley goes to, Andrew Quilty

*Some may find an image at the bottom of this post distressing.

Earlier this year a friend asked me who my favourite photojournalist was. My immediate reply was, ‘Well, if I could take photos like any photojournalist, it would be to take them like Andrew Quilty. He is my favourite’.

On Friday 2 December, the Walkley Awards were held in Brisbane — these are the most prestigious awards of the Australian media industry, and the Gold Walkley, as the highest and most prestigious award, is the final award given on the night.

This year the Gold Walkley was awarded to Andrew Quilty. He joins the ranks of some of Australia’s most talented journalists and news teams who have broken and reported on stories that changed Australians and Australia. Andrew is the first photojournalist to receive the Gold Walkley award, and it is his sixth award across various categories since moving to Afghanistan in 2013.

He was awarded for work across Australia’s ABC and SBS networks, which was driving by his startling work for Foreign Policy magazine — ‘The Man on the Operating Table’, a man who died in a U.S. strike on a Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. The man was Baynazar Mohammad Nazar.

A photographer, Andrew not only took photos of the aftermath of the strike on the hospital, he also sought out to meet the family of the man on the table to learn more about his story. He found the family, learned the story of Nazar, and had their permission to tell the world. This search for the story is perhaps why he described himself during his acceptance speech as ‘a writer trapped in a photographer’s body.

Baynazar Mohammad Nazar was a husband and a father of four — and a patient killed during the attack on the MSF hospital in Kunduz. Photo by Andrew Quilty.

Earlier in the year when I told my friend that Quilty was my favourite, I also told them that ‘The Man on the Operating Table’ was one of the strongest photos I had ever seen. It is shocking, haunting, and absolutely justifies the cliché that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’.

Andrew’s website is andrewquilty.com and he regularly posts photographs, especially from Afghanistan, to Instagram.

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