About Ballet de Lumiere

In 2007 I was competing in a sailing regatta between Australia and Timor when I was captivated by the myriad of yachts navigation lights on the first night at sea. Having spent 40 years as a professional photographer, and having recently converted from film to digital, I was intrigued to see what I could capture. The resulting pictures of moving lights became my first exhibition in many years, it was called “Ships In The Night” and was extremely well reviewed.

Thus a course was set as I immersed myself in the new found pleasure of searching out subjects that would light up my mind in the act of the capture. Sydney at Christmas and New Year is awash with lights and I found myself once more keen to create images no one had seen before. The movement of the camera as I danced with it to the music in my mind while exposing the digital chip to the lights became my fascination, and “Ballet De Lumière” had begun.The artworks are named after famous dancers, as well as a collection of fanciful names which reflect the musical motif of these artworks. All artworks are created “In Camera”.

Neil Duncan is a veteran of the world of press photography. His career began in Sydney in 1967 on Rupert Murdoch’s Daily Mirror before joining The Australian, the influential national broadsheet, for much of the 1970s.

After travelling throughout South America in 1977-78, he landed in Fleet Street and worked for several years on leading dailies such as The Times and The Sun. Neil was one of only 15 photographers allowed inside Saint Paul’s Cathedral to cover the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana. His versatility took him to other prestige locations in London, such as centre court at Wimbledon and Lord’s, the spiritual home of cricket, as newspaper editors harnessed his talent for sports photography.

While stationed in London, he travelled to Morocco, Mexico or the Caribbean every year to expand his photographic horizons. After sailing to the Galapagos Islands he was offered a job in Ecuador with an advertising agency, which turned into six of the most interesting months of his life.

As Australia prepared to take on the United States for the America’s Cup, the holy grail of international yachting, Neil charted the course of the Down Under challenge from his base in South America and photographed the Aussies’ famous “winged keel’’ victory at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1983.

After staying in the USA for a year to work on different publications he returned to Sydney and became an in-demand photographer in the corporate world. Over two decades he created striking images for some of Australia’s biggest companies, blue chip industrialists from mining to manufacturing.

The new millennium opened up fresh photographic directions, made possible by the digital revolution. While still shooting for corporate clients, Neil began pushing the boundaries of artistic creativity. Inspired by visiting the world’s great galleries and collections, he pioneered a new field of photography and began producing original works of photo art acclaimed by collectors and students of the digital genre alike.

These artworks are dazzling in their brilliance and instantly recognisable by their kaleidoscopic style. Every digital image is a signature Duncan, captured with a special technique that creates the actual picture “in camera”, using Photoshop only for resizing.

In 2010, with a long-awaited book of his classic images now in the pipeline, Neil remains one of Australia’s consummate professional photographers. His pictures have appeared in several other books, are held in government collections in Canberra, and grace the walls of photography aficionados around Australia.

Josef Lebovic Gallery in Paddington holds and represents his historical black and white work, while Neil Duncan’s modern artworks are sold exclusively through the Collektor.com website. His portfolio can be seen at www.neilduncan.com.au.

Coming soon