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 MORGAN JOHNSON speaks to photographer ELLENI TOUMPAS about her unique exhibition detailing the artistic development of singer Kate Miller-Heidke.
We’ve by now probably all seen Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous – the semi-autobiographical tale of a young teen being thrust into the ‘70s music game to travel on the road with one of his favourite bands, under the guise of journalism for the then interesting Rolling Stone Magazine. It was a time before publicists, stylists and vertical integration had taken a chokehold on the music industry … and there was more than the passing opportunity for journalists of pen or picture to capture the ‘real’.
Sadly it’s a little different now – the concession to the Global Village as also seen the rise of media campaigns and strict dissemination of all types of news for our controlled digestion. So how are we to peak behind the façade of the manicured soundbite and carefully manipulated image control? Especially in the music game where so much rides on how you look, and what you endorse … oh, and occasionally the tunes. Well they do say a picture tells a thousand words.
 Elleni Toumpas has only been shooting for two years, is completely self-taught, and has just returned from a month long trip where she was a fly-on-the-wall observer to star on the rise, Brisbane girl Kate Miller-Heidke. After taking her first shot at a lesbian fringe show, a year later Toumpas was shooting P!nk at the Entertainment Centre, and not 12 months after that she was sitting in a recording studio with Miller-Heidke. To say it’s been a whirlwind would be doing the 26 year-old a disservice – Elleni Toumpas is a woman whose mind is constantly ticking for the next project, while devouring whatever creative entanglement she finds herself in.
“I just like to cane myself!” the gregarious Toumpas laughs over coffee. “I’ve always needed that creative outlet, I’ve always had a side project.” With day jobs confined to the more mundane aspects of visual media 2007 saw her throw herself into live music photography, with 2008 seeing an increasing devotion to studio work.
But photography is expensive – and while there is a widely held misconception that the more expensive your gear, the better the shooter (especially in digital) – skill still plays a crucial role. And in an attempt to broaden her skill base Toumpas successfully applied for a Youth Arts Mentorship, and other grants to fund a photo-journal trip to Los Angeles.
The result is O So Curious, an exhibition of Toumpas’s work during six-month tenure with Miller-Heidke under the mentorship of Russell Shakespeare. An exhibition which glimpses at the realities of an artist at home and overseas, the pressures of recording, and perhaps offers something of an insight into one Australian pop’s seemingly extroverted, and stylistically savvy young women. In other words – Toumpas has captured that elusive ‘real’.
 "It was interesting to see the relationship develop with Kate. When I first initially pulled my camera out, you could see her kind of tense up a little, and the naturalness of the shot was lost, as she would either pose and morph into her prescribed pop persona, or stop whatever action or moment she was in. But Kate is great – she got used to me being around, and by the end was rather relaxed around me…which is a bit tricky when you've got someone with a massive lens around!"
O SO CURIOUS opens at The Transit Lounge, Level 3, Judith Wright Centre Wednesday Oct 22, running until Friday Nov 14. You can find more photos at www.myspace.com/katemillerheidke
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