profile: photographer john veage

7/27/2019 Profile: photographer John Veage

1/5April/May0924 | digital photography + design

J O H N V E A G E

r o e

John Veage is an old-school local news

photographer.Locals stop him in the

street to comment on his work.

Hes won countless photographyawards and published three books.

He speaks to FranMolloyabout his work.

John Veage is happy to describe himself as a Shire boy.

Most of Veages life has been spent in the Sutherland Shire,

in the south of Sydney, and there are few parts of the

beachside area that this prolific photographer hasnt shot

in his long career in local news.

Hes an official photographer for both the Australian

Surf Life Saving Association and Cycling Australia and in his


2/5digital photography + design | 25April/May09

The three amigos: This is one of my favourite pictures.Its probably about fifteen years old now. Its just three blokesgoing for a swim, at dawn.These are three blokes that swimevery day at the beach.It was foggy and I had a long lens.Its just so simple, theres nothing in it, but it tells a story.

full-time job, as Chief Photographer for Fairfax Community

Newspapers, he heads up a group of around twenty

editorial photographers; but his daily work still involves

shooting pictures in his local area.

Veage has published three books of his photographs so

far [Southern focus (2003),Southern Colour (2004) and

Southern Surf (2006)], with another planned for next year.


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J O H N V E A G Er o e

Surfer: Im in the water forthis shot. I think I wasactually sitting on asurfboard at the time.I was in a pretty safe spot;I was in a big channel.Thats out at Shark Island,a reef off Cronulla. Its abit of a classic surf shot,people look twice at it.Its just a dramatic picture.

On leaving school (Kirrawee High, in his beloved

Shire) Veage trained as a teacher mostly because he

wanted to go surfing every day and meet lots of girls,

he now says.

But he fell into his current career when a former

housemate, then Australian Press Photographer of the

Year, Paul Sargent,needed a hand shooting the 1981

Australian Surf Lifesaving Titles.

Veage had never picked up a camera before, but

was soon hooked,and signed up for a full industry

apprenticeship with Sargent, who had left News

Limited to freelance.

Veage completed a four-year course in photo-

graphy at Sydney TAFE in Ultimo also the training

ground for most newspaper photography cadets in

Sydney at the time.

Sargent and Veage landed regular work as

freelance photographers for a local newspaper,

the weekly Sutherland Shire Pictorial News, starting

Veages lifelong career shooting local news and

sports pictures.

Thewinner: I took this atthe Australian Surf LifeSaving Titles atScarborough Beach inWA in 2007.I ts been amagazine cover, a posterand so on, it really tells

the whole story.The guyis Daniel McLellan fromCronulla, hes making acomeback after havingsome problems, anywayhe was pretty happy withthe race. Its the AustralianSurf Belt race, competingto be named the best surfswimmer in the country.Youve got to know thesport to take thesepictures, to be able topredict things. I followedhim into the water, with a

wide lens; if I had a longlens that picture wouldnthave been as dramatic.I also got a little bit luckywith that wave coming inbehind him at the end.

He credits the Pictorials tough, old-style newspaper

editor, Ian Badham,for his training, harder than anything

hes inflicted on his own trainees, he adds.

He wouldnt let me have a motor drive until I

could wind on really fast by hand; I couldnt shoot

more than six frames, so I had to get the shot right;

kids these days would just freak out,he laughs.

Veage started with the classic press photographers

kit of the day,the Nikon SE2, and shot all his work as

black-and-white negatives or colour transparencies.

He started to develop his own style, favouring a

wide lens and silhouetted images, often delivering

work that fell outside the straight editorial shooting

typical of the time.

The classic late-eighties shot was fill the frame,

bloke thumbs-up, with his can of coke, the good-on-

you type,Veage recalls.

By 1987,Veage had been recruited as a staff

photographer for the flagship Fairfax local paper, the

bi-weekly St George and Sutherland Leader.

The mantra was still fill the frame, but Veage was

developing a loyal local following for his classicsilhouette shots.

If I gave them enough shots, if I was smart about

it, they would run the occasional one, people would

like it so theyd let me take more of them.

Veage says that the best thing about being a local

newspaper photographer is the constant feedback.

If I take a good picture now, tomorrow, when I

walk down the street, seriously fifty people will say

to me, that was a good picture or maybe, what were

you thinking!

Veage says that living and working in the local area

is key to his success.

People still ring me up at home, it might be

midnight and some person I dont know rings me to

say theres been a car accident!

Instant feedback is key to giving his audience what

they want, he adds. Shooting for a magazine,

photographs are run months later; but his feedback

can be days or even hours.


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5/528 | digital photography + design April/May09

J O H N V E A G Er o e

I know what type of picture people like because

they tell me. Some of the pictures I like, the general

public dont like.But Im working for them, Ive got to

feed my audience.

Some photos he knows wont appeal to the

general audience these are often the ones he keeps

back for his books, he adds.

Up at dawn every day for the last thirty years,

camera in hand, many of his photographs are

thoughtful images of local scenes that most locals

dont see.

Veages employers support his other work with

the Surf Life Saving Association and Cycling Australia,provided it doesnt interfere with his regular news

work; so he often uses his holidays to work for other

clients.

Hes been shooting digital for a long time.With a

weekly turn-around, Fairfax suburban newspapers

were the first colour newspapers in Australia, and to

feed the colour-hungry machine,in 1997, the

company imported the first digital news camera in

Australia, from Associated Press in the US.

There was no screen on the back, it was an F90

body with this huge house brick underneath it.

And the pictures were about ten centimetres wide

and very average.

By 1999, all his photographers were shooting digital;

and the team had moved from Nikon to Canon.

These days, Veage uses a Canon EOS-1D Mark I II.

And though the standard press kit includes mostly

zoom lenses (16-35mm, 35-70mm and 70-200mm),

Veage isnt keen on them.

The problem with a zoom lens is that the

perspective doesnt change, you get the perspective

at the widest angle, so with a 70-200, youll still only

get the 70mm perspective at 200, it just moves it

closer to you. It limits you.

His favourite lenses include a straight 20mm, and

a straight 300mm f2.8 telephoto.I use that 300mm

every day, I love it. I must be the only one in the

world that uses one but I think its fantastic.

Hes also keen on his 600mm F4 telephoto.

My style is very simple, I like to isolate things. Ill often

drop the depth of field. When youre honing in on

one thing you havent got that distortion that youget with a zoom.

Portraiture is a huge part of his job and thats

where the local community angle can really shine.

Building rapport is a crucial part of the job. If you cant

talk to the people you cant take their picture, he says.

Veage is often asked to mentor less experienced staff.

I always say to my photographers, if youve got ten

minutes to do a job, then spend five minutes talking

to the person and thinking about it, then take the

picture. Dont start taking pictures and take a hundred

before you work out what you want.We dont want

100 pictures, we want one good picture and its better

to think for five minutes before you take a picture.

Veage admits that his work has occupied pretty

much every day of his life for the last quarter of a

century; but it doesnt feel like work.

My ideal day involves taking a picture. I guess

I work every day of my life, even when Im not

officially working. Its just what I love to do.

ABOVE:Ridinguphill:This picture won theBritish Women in SportPhotographic Award for2008, its Nicole Cooke,who was a dual Olympic

gold medallist in Beijing.Im the officialphotographer for theAustralian CyclingFederation and I took thisone in Geelong last year.Pretty dramatic.

If youve got ten minutes to do a job ...spend five minutes talking

to the person and thinking about it, then take the picture.

PREVIOUS PAGE:Local ladat Towra Point:This is a personal picture,a guy I know.Hesoriginally from NewGuinea, and I just askedhim if I could take hispicture. Everywhere I go,I see pictures and Iremember them and thengo back to places fordifferent things.I really like this type ofportraiture, its a big part

of my job. Environmentalportraiture is my favouritepart of working. I donthave any interest instudio work at all.Its much more aboutstorytelling.

profile: photographer john veage

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