art + photography by Helen McLean

I’ve been labeled, according to The Age this Saturday morning.

Photo taken from The Age website.

I was excited to see the article “Dress Circles” and the photograph of the mob clad in 1950s gear. As I read on, I see that I even fit into a sub-group called “Neo Classic”. Not “Classic” or “Psychobilly”. Interesting.

Watch the special multimedia presentation: Fashion tribes of Melbourne - Rockabilly.

View other fashion tribes.

When I say I like “Valiant Pacers” - I don’t mean the ones with the crappy vinyl roofs that grand-dad should be driving, I don’t mean the 4-door versions that are probably more convenient for the family to get into and I don’t even mean the ones that are some unattractive metallic colour more suited to your toe nails where no-one can see.

I mean this:

A red interior - all the better!

This is what I fell in love with when I first saw the Valiant Pacer. And it has got to be white - oh yes, the funk-mobeel.

What an awesome night, meeting a load of RedBubblers for the first time! It was a horribly rainy night, roads flooded and fallen trees blocking streets. If it wasn’t for my weather chart savvy husband who said “the worst is over” - I was going to stay home instead of going out.

The theme was “Christmas, wear something tacky and silly”. So I put on my black + white polka dot dress, frilly petticoat complete with huge red bow on the back. I knew at least Jo would have worn something tacky too.

Did anyone else look Christmassy? Did anyone else look remotely tacky?

NO!

Oh for heaven’s sake. Well, can’t say I didn’t make an entrance!

Photos by Mark German:

A very wet night in Melbourne.

Yours Truly, looking very cheesy.

Photos by Hien Nguyen and his bloody D3 (I want one!):

Chatting away with Adrian (Spacey) Carmody.

Getting the diaries out and organising the next photo shoots with Jo.

Mark German showing me a photo he just took of me.

I was invited to be a special guest on Photogeek.tv to talk about my art + photography. I went into the Big Trousers studio for the live recording and in the future (I’ll be doing more of these, it was fun!) I will be doing it via Skype in the comfort of my own studio.

Visit http://photogeek.tv/Pages/2007/10/25/photogeek-week-26/ to listen!!! Below is a rundown of what was discussed:

“
We talk with Helen about her career that covers art and design, web design, photography and now modeling.

We talk to Helen about her various areas of interest and ponder the lessons learned from different disciplines. As a model does it give a better understanding of how to shoot another model?

Helen mentions Simple Viewer as a WordPress plugin for photographers to display images.

We discuss with Helen the lack of women in the photography industry in Australia.

We talk a little about wedding photography.

Helen talks about the inspiration for her photographic and illustrative art being 50’s cheesecake glamour images.

Helen talks about WordPress as a CMS system for web creation in relation to Blogger. Phil mentions a favourite plugin for WordPress that is an eCommerce system from Instinct.
“

We had the privilege to have a Hot Lap with Dick Johnson in a Mazda RX8! My husband kissed the ground after his 2 laps with Dick, and after my 2 laps I understood why!!! Far out! Before entering the first corner, I couldn’t look… I gazed down at my feet… and then thought “gotta look, gotta look - he’s a professional, just look!!”. Woo, what an experience!

And here are some photo opportunities we couldn’t pass!

Our boy wearing my pass on the winner’s podium!

The boys with Dick Johnson.