Conservation Volunteers

We braved the wild, wintery, and wet weather travelling to Point Cook's wetlands last week. Conservation Volunteers Australia in partnership with BHP Billiton are looking after this conservation project and are doing some terrific work in small teams in the area...

For those of you unfamiliar to the area, Point Cook Coastal Park is located 20 km southwest of Melbourne, and is a popular destination for birdwatchers... it features abundant birdlife, a historic bluestone homestead, intertidal sand banks and a Marine Reserve. Parks Victoria have recorded over 250 fauna species which is fairly impressive considering it's proximity to the city.

We first stumbled upon the work CVA perform researching volunteers and groups which are involved in weed control and environmental monitoring including bird surveys in Australia.

Oliver captured these few pictures of the team hard at work... Overall a very rewarding and interesting day.

Definitely worth a day trip and if you have some free time give CVA, and more importantly our environment a hand!

Free Ecards!

Introducing a great new addition to the BISON range... our Ecards are sure to delight, provoke thought, and take you somewhere you'd prefer to be (i.e. not in the office). Updated weekly stayed tuned and send for free to your friends!

We're also currenly producing our 2007-8 corporate catalogue which will have an Ecard customisation page for all of you greenies saying no to paper Christmas cards this year!

Fungus sandwich anyone?

Deep withing Tasmania's virgin forests, where time has slowed, and giant trees reside, grows a variety of fungi that Oliver seems to be quite captured by...

Wilderness to wasteland in 40 seconds

Q. How long does it take to cut down a tree in Tasmania's old growth forest? A. 40 seconds.

Oliver witnessed the destruction of one of the most pristine habitats on Earth...

It begs the question, if our Government does not take action soon, we will have gone from wilderness to wasteland in one generation.


Another case of pictures speaking louder than words...

BISON9 launched today!

The Mother Church

St. Patrick's website writes the following, "...the mother church of the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne." With the first Mass celebrated on the site in February 1858 in a former partially completed church, it truly is a gem of Melbourne architecture.

"Designed by William Wardell, St Patrick's is regarded internationally as the finest ecclesiastical building in Australia and a pre-eminent example of the Gothic Revival style. The austere facade gives little hint of the glorious interior with its ethereal golden light of mesmerising beauty..."

With Mass celebrated 7 days a week, and weddings on Saturdays booked months in advance, visitors enjoy this beautiful, reflective environment...

"... is the spiritual fire of prayer and daily worship which gives the building its heart, ensuring that it is more than just an architectural monument."

These pictures speak volumes of the Cathedral being so much more than a place of beauty and peace.

Myspace Marketing

Having jumped on the Myspace (personal) bandwagon sometime ago, we've been considering the advantages of marketing our BISON brand.

Myspace with a social network of over 90 million members (and growing daily) who are all easily contactable and willing to interact should be a MAJOR Marketing opportunity. If you've never used Myspace.com before then we'd advise you sign up, learn the ropes and have some fun...

This begs the question is simply using the social network Myspace as a way too get whatever your selling out there in the faces of any demographic you want feasible?

A direct marketers dream, or more spam and time wasting? What makes Myspace so powerful is how you can decide who to send your advertising too based on a huge amount of criteria. You can sort by age, sex, height, location, hobbies, music taste, disposable income and many more... But do we want it? And how many of those targeted actually buy?

Admittedly, like with any direct marketing campaign, making 100 contacts (friends) who smoke will be 1000% more effective in selling your new "stop-smoking" product then 1'000 who don't smoke. So again the key to networking with Myspace is targeting the correct demographics... so far not much has changed.

We've discovered the following which could work if you're intending to market using Myspace... Goals! You need to have a goal in mind - depending on what you want to achieve will bear greatly on what technique you should use to market.

• Bands looking to get in contact with local gig goers may want to build up a targeted friend list of people in their city who like their genre of music. This would give them the power to send bulletins about upcoming gigs and CD releases.
  

• A webmaster launching a new website may benefit from sending out 50'000 private messages to people who may be interested in the new website - an instant source of quality traffic which will lead to sign-up's, adsense clicks and more.
  

• A company launching a new gadget could benefit from making friends with gadget lovers and then leaving a video commercial as a comment for each and every new friend! Publicly viewed comments are seen by everyone meaning your 1000 comments may be seen by 100'000 people!

Hmmm... as for commissioned photography, we'll have to think a little more about that one! In the meantime here are a few new Australian wildlife pics we've recently posted and had great comments about ;)

Fit for a king

With employees spending more and more time in the office, the role of interior designers is becoming an increasingly essential factor in the updating and design of new work spaces.

This design by the Smith Madden Group of the St. George Bank head office (Melbourne Stock Exchange) is no exception, and a pleasure for us to shoot.

Seemingly, no expense was spared in creating what must be on of the best work places we have seen! The use of colour is bold and bright, quite unlike the subdued tones of other conservative offices in town, such as Macquarie further up Collins St. (brown and tan).

The influence of the two colours, red and gold, have great symbolic appeal, and are very auspicious in China and appear to have been used similarly in this space. Notably, some colours, usually white, have been said should be avoided at all costs! We're just wondering if the designers had a Feng Shui consultant work on the project?!

It certainly is award winning design, and undoubtedly fit for a king!

Another major event?

With the Australian Open tennis now a distant memory, football season only moments away, and Formula 1 Grand Prix just around the corner, you would wonder whether Melbourne was in sport overdrive!

Another major event? You bet... the 2007 FINA World Swimming Championships are just over a month away as our famous tennis stadium gets transformed into a "Skypool".

Using the same technology employed in the acclaimed Barcelona pool at the 10th FINA World Championships, the system uses free standing panels of hot galvanized steel. This fantastic technology, developed by the creative Spaniards, enables the pool to sit on the stadium’s floor without having to construct anything or “hammer a single nail”.

We can't wait to see it... Go Aussies!

Our dried up old land.

Traveling over 1500km's in four 40+ degree days, it's not hard to reflect on why Oliver returned with such an astounding folio. Interpretation ranging from depressing to haunting, extraordinary to surreal, we've found this selection to be the most discussed yet.

As our drought stricken earth cracks at the seams, waterfalls flourish and provide a cool respite...

Driving further, Oliver captures the pink salt lakes reflecting the harsh Australian sun. This is Victoria, rather hard to believe it's all one State.

The old twisted gums dance to the symphony of our burnt land... finally the new growth breaks through as some say it's too late.

Reflecting on our climate change we see large-scale and global environmental hazards to human health. More importantly a loss of biodiversity, supply of freshwater, land degradation and stresses on food-producing systems.

2007 should be about adopting a new perspective which focuses on our precious ecosystems, and on recognising that our foundations of long-term good health rely on the continued stability and functioning of these life-supporting systems.

We're doing our little bit to awaken and bring an appreciation of the complexity of the systems upon which we depend.

What are you doing?

What's your niche?

Not only has the new year festivity allowed for some much needed relaxation, it's also enabled us to network with designers in a less 'formal environment.' Less conferences, more bars!

Meeting with a group of friends on Sunday night, one conversation led to another as we discussed the importance of goal setting, business strategy and finding your niche in the flood of stock libraries.

As Peter, a young rising multimedia star simply put it, "You can't be good at everything." Spot on.

This year one of our goals in the studio is to refine our categories and focus on what we do best, landscape and wildlife, architecture and interior design... world's apart you may say - not really.

What's your niche?

Can you see it?

With creativity oozing from the virtual pores of our macs, 2007 is set to become the greatest yet!

All of us at Bison have been busy working through the festive break, with interior photo shoots scheduled only a day after the Christmas pudding had a chance to digest. Oliver seems to have well and truly tapped into another vein producing some weird (and wonderful) visuals for the mass media critics.

From our corporate somewhat conservative folio's, juxtaposed with high impact animation set to originally produced music... will you ride the wild bison in 2007?

Happy Holidays!

From all of us at BISON studio.... we'd like to say thanks for a great year, and all the best for a lovely holiday and of course, a wonderful 2007!

Looking forward to another exciting year ahead!

It's snowing this Christmas in Melbourne!

Who would have thought it possible? From bushfires burning across the state to heavy showers, hail and thunder! There was even talk all week of snow in the alpine region.

Choosing our Christmas theme this year we must have had some sort of unusual synchronicity with Mother Nature choosing a winter Christmas theme, captured in Austria last year. Premonition perhaps? Oliver seems to have had an impressionable warning of this freak future event.

"Premonitions... a vague feeling of disquiet suggesting impending disaster to actual visual or auditory hallucinations. Premonition is sometimes referred to as a "gut-level" feeling. The sensation tends to occur prior to disasters ... and other traumatic and emotionally charged events."

Checking the snow cams up at Mt. Buller, it appears that snow is falling on the summit! It's currently -3.0 degrees C with snow showers. A white Christmas - who would have thought?

And the winners are...

What a great fortnight it's been!

With the release of our Top 10 architecture folio for 2006 (see a few posted on this blog), to the publishing of a great article in the Australian Anthill magazine (check it out), to our DVD's being projected onto 20 metre warehouse walls, at would could have been one of the best secret party's summer will see... we're all reeling at what pushing a few creative boundaries does for our growth.

There's nothing better than standing back, and watching our audience interact with the work we produce.

We got quite a surprise as we watched party goer's reaction to the DVD which shone across the warehouse walls...

Who would have thought that someone would lie in front of the train tracks in our railyard photo? Or kissed the cuddly koala image close up? Or stare amazed at the mountainscape folio from St. Anton.

We just stood back and thought, this is why we love our work...