[Warning - This film contains nudity and references to drugs] [What A Life! Rock Photography by Tony Mott - a free exhibition until 7 February 2016. Solid Gold - Jeff Apter & Philip Morris, Metcalfe Theatre, State Library of NSW, 5th December 2015] [Dressed in a black shirt and dark jeans, grey-haired Philip Morris sits beside his interviewer Jess Apter, a bald man dressed casually] [JEFF APTER] Thank you. Before starting, I want to say I was really fortunate to be able to work with Philip on this book. [Jeff Apter holds up a coffee table book] [JEFF APTER] And it was one of the more interesting exercises, wasn't it? Because we were given a directive to come up with... Was it 200 photos? ..for this book. [PHILIP MORRIS] That's right. [JEFF APTER] And Philip's archive is so fantastic and so rich, that I think we got it down to, what, 600? [PHILIP MORRIS] Yeah. [Audience laughs] [JEFF APTER] Was it 600 to start with? It was something like that. And it's staggering, really. It's a really great document of Australian rock history at a really interesting turning point. So to get it down to this... It's begging for a second edition, by the way. There's so many great photos. So it was a real honour to be able to... to do that. It was a lot of fun. [PHILIP MORRIS] Yeah, it was. [JEFF APTER] We actually had built into our contract... Our agreement was an understanding that we would never work in a boring situation. So I think we were on a boat cruise, a couple of Christmas parties, and we were working while being at these things. It made it a lot more fun. [PHILIP MORRIS] Yeah, it was. It was good, yeah. [JEFF APTER] On our left is some archaic equipment that Phil's going to give a quick talk... I wanted to ask Phil about starting out as a photographer and who his influences... and who are the people that got him interested in photography. Maybe that's a good starting point for today. [PHILIP MORRIS] Well, my grandfather got me started in photography when I was about 13. I used to process the film in his laundry and watch the images come up. And he used to use that old bellows camera there. [Philip Morris points to the side of the stage] [JEFF APTER] Can you see that? At the back. [PHILIP MORRIS] He... I'll just grab it. [Philip stands and walks to the side of the stage and returns to his chair with an old bellows camera and a small digital camera] [He places the digital camera beside him and shows the bellows camera to the audience] [PHILIP MORRIS] So, he didn't have an enlarger, but the film - this was the 1930s version of a pocket camera. [Audience laughs] [JEFF APTER] Try taking a selfie with that. [Philip Morris holds up the digital camera] [PHILIP MORRIS] That's my pocket camera that... So, yeah, you'd have to have big pockets. But he used to shoot the Sydney Harbour Bridge when it was being built. The film was that wide, and so you didn't need to enlarge it. You could just contact print it and get quite a large print. So he didn't need an enlarger. [Philip places the bellows camera beside him] [PHILIP MORRIS] So that's what got me... that's what got me interested in photography, after watching the images coming up in the tray. [PHILIP MORRIS] It was magic. [JEFF APTER] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's interesting now that polaroids are back in. Aren't they? Polaroid...? [PHILIP MORRIS] Yeah. [JEFF APTER] So, we're going full circle in some ways. Um, the Go-Set... most of these images were taken while Phil was working for Go-Set Magazine. I assume most people here are... have a broad understanding of Go-Set and its place in, you know, Australian musical history. [Philip holds up a copy of Go-Set Magazine with a colour photo of a singer standing behind a microphone stand on the front page] [JEFF APTER] I guess it's fair to say it was the first magazine of its type in Australia. [PHILIP MORRIS] It was the rock bible. It was the only music magazine at the time. And it was... the people that worked for Go-Set were musicians. Molly Meldrum, Wendy Saddington, Greg Quill, who was in Country Radio. [JEFF APTER] Future filmmakers. [PHILIP MORRIS] The editor was David Elfick. Um, so... [JEFF APTER] Martin is here. [PHILIP MORRIS] Yes, Martin. So it was a unique magazine written by musicians for musicians, and I think it was about 20 cents. So... it really inspired me as a photographer to be able to photograph big bands, when the Stones toured and Led Zeppelin and Paul McCartney - gave me the access to be able to get up close and photograph these bands. And there wasn't a lot of competition. There was no... It was the only magazine. So there was... [JEFF APTER] It's interesting. I assume a lot of people have looked at the Tony Mott exhibit upstairs, and there's a documentary, and he talks about when he started out how many magazines and newspapers and street press publications there were. There were probably five or six in Sydney alone. Here there was one in the country, wasn't there? Pretty much. How did you get the job at Go-Set? That's worth... [PHILIP MORRIS] Well, I was at a nightclub in Sydney, just down the road, listening to Doug Parkinson and his band, In Focus. And towards the end, it was thinning out and there were some girls at the table next to me, and I overheard Cleo, one of the girls, saying, 'I don't know what we're going to do. Our photographer, Grant Mudford, is leaving. We've got no-one to replace him. He's going overseas.' And I said, 'Excuse me, but I'd like to... I'd like that job.' [Audience laughs] [PHILIP MORRIS] She said, 'Well, you have to go and see David Elfick.' This was on a Sunday night, and the next morning, Monday, ten o'clock, I was... rang up David and I was in his office with my portfolio of the time I was an assistant fashion photographer. So I had a portfolio like that, full of models with very short skirts, and David was very impressed. [Audience laughs] [PHILIP MORRIS] I got the job and... [JEFF APTER] Was he hoping to broaden the scope of Go-Set to include skinny girls wearing short skirts? [PHILIP MORRIS] Well, I guess so. There was a bit of fashion in Go-Set, but he... He definitely was interested in the portfolio. Which was good. To begin with, I was just... as a photographer for Go-Set, I used to just go to a local dance, like the Rockdale Town Hall, and after the band set - band, usually Buffalo or Hush - in between their set, Cleo and Geoff would get up and throw out copies of Go-Sets and hand out cans of Coke, and then the winner... they'd pick a lucky person, and they'd get the album of the week. And they'd hold the album up, and I'd photograph them with the album. [JEFF APTER] Would they run that in the magazine? [PHILIP MORRIS] Then the next week, the photo of the lucky winner was in the next issue. So that was all it was to be the photographer for Go-Set. But it... it progressed quite rapidly after that to being the Led Zeppelin gig, and on the side of the stage with Elton John, and the Rolling Stones. [JEFF APTER] We should start. This shot we're looking at, which is the cover image of the book, is shot at Ourimbah. [Two black-and-white photographs of a crowd of young people dressed as hippies sitting on the ground of a large field, dust blowing in the background] [JEFF APTER] Now, there's a couple of images here, all from that festival. [A black-and-white photo of a grinning hippie dancing with a can in his hand] [A black-and-white image of naked and semi-naked people in hip-deep water] [JEFF APTER] That's one of my favourites. Didn't get in the book, that one. [PHILIP MORRIS] No, they weren't allowed to... [The first photograph of the crowd sitting in the field] [JEFF APTER] Before we start this, I mean, talk about it, because now you've gone from doing suburban dances with, you know, lucky prize winners to the odd, I assume at this point, portrait or concert shoot. [The interview on stage] [JEFF APTER] Then you're thrown into this. Now, Ourimbah was an attempt to kind of... Aussie Woodstock, wasn't it? [The first photograph of the concert audience] [PHILIP MORRIS] Yeah. It was 1970s. That was two years after Woodstock. [JEFF APTER] Right. OK. [PHILIP MORRIS] And I was at a music festival. What's a music festival? I didn't know. So, it was the Australia long... Australia Day long weekend. It was held over $4 for three days and... We drove in and there was... [JEFF APTER] Hang on. Ourimbah, for anybody who doesn't know, it's about an hour... It's Gosford-ish, is it? [WOMAN] Central Coast. [JEFF APTER] Yeah, OK. But it was, what, a paddock? [PHILIP MORRIS] It was at a farm.