Sam Oster - Silvertrace & Headshot Laboratory
It’s fair to say that Sam lives and breathes photography. She has explored this medium across many facets of her creative and professional adventures, including multi-camera bullet-time, 3-D lenticular photography, alternative traditional processes, and of course digital photography. Sam also teaches photography and thrives on educating others and taking them
on their own adventure with the medium. Sam is part of the Photographic Imagery Collective and exhibits her personal work in group and solo exhibitions. Her latest project is a home studio called Watermark Crossing which will be home to photography workshops and arts residencies. She shares a wonderful life in the Adelaide Hills with her husband and teenage son, along with 2 indoor cats, 2 outdoor chickens, and a plethora of seasonal regulars including an echidna (Spike), ducks, turtles, yabbies, possums, koalas, rabbits, snakes and foxes.
Q&A
What made you decide to become a freelance creative?
What drives you to create the work you do?
I have never been interested in getting a real job. Photography discovered me as a free-spirited art school student and since then I have always worked with image making using light in some form or another. My first paid gig was on a short film, then a TV series, and since then I’ve just gone from one interesting project to another. And now I find myself, 30 years later, still gigging from shoot to shoot. I’ve moved more into commercial work since
becoming a mum and finding that work in film & TV isn’t an ideal fit for family life. I don’t actively look for work – I wait for the work to find me, and I love the adventure and freedom that comes with the freelance life. I love that every day is different – it’s wonderful that I am always learning new things and meeting new people who do interesting things with their lives. Photography helps me to understand and discover the world.
What are your hobbies outside of your freelance work?
What are you willing to share about who you are?
My main hobby would probably be called something like ‘landscape shaping’. I spend a lot of time on the property “gardening” but a lot of that involves building retaining walls, and trying to create textures, colours and form out of a combination of plants and natural materials. I love walking in nature, and sitting with my husband at the end of the day with a glass of wine, watching the antics of the wildlife in the garden. I spend way too much time on Marketplace imaging what could be done with curious things people want to get rid of. I love camping, kayaking and road trips with friends.
What made you decide to join a co-working studio?
What do you like most about working from Cog?
I love hanging out with like-minded people – sharing a studio and workspace with other creatives is a huge part of what keeps me motivated and inspired. I love everything about working from Cog – the impromptu chats around the kitchen table, the philosophical debates, helping out when someone needs equipment or advice, laughing at the crazy stories that are shared from shoots people have had that day, or the banter in the group chat late at night – even the futile efforts at keeping the orange tree in the carpark alive and the chaos of the great carpark shuffle on big shoot days! It’s also really interesting to see all the different ways that people use the studio when we have studio bookings from the wider community of creatives.
What is the project you are most proud of so far?
It’s hard to pick one. I’m proud of my work on films like Red Dog and TV series like McLeods Daughters and Wolf Creek. I’m proud of the community we have built at Cog and the fact that we are still going strong after so many years despite the challenges. I’m proud of my little side projects like my mobile darkroom ‘The Tintype Traveller’, and my home studio ‘Watermark Crossing’. I’m also proud of some of the creative collaborations I have done with dancers and choreographers over the years.
Work
