Matthew Poon Photography

WARNING: The Photographer advises that this set may contain images of deceased Aboriginal person(s).
�Day 20 of 20: (Photo 10) It was March 2011, and editor Karen Valenti was filling in for Midland editor, Nathan Watson, for a short period of time. I recall Karen calling me into the office to speak to me about a job that required the upmost professionalism and sensitivity. Karri Bropho, daughter of Aboriginal elder Robert Bropho, had passed away. She was homeless and had been living on the street for almost a decade prior. Robert was serving time in prison at the time of her passing, and he was to be granted temporary leave from prison to attend the funeral. Other relatives that had been incarcerated were also granted permission to attend.
�The experience of photographing this particular funeral was very emotional, and for a couple hours after the funeral when I went back to process the images I was left feeling absolutely devastated. It was extremely tough, standing there watching relatives say their farewells to Karri, in what was an open casket funeral. I had to be respectful of when and where I was to take a photo, because this wasn’t my moment.�
There were many powerful images taken during the funeral, however I only have this singular image on personal file now, after accidentally erasing every photo I had from 2011 after a backup failure.�
The story and photos ran on the front page in the Midland paper, and the image of Robert Bropho being comforted by a relative was award Best News Photo in the Community Newspapers of Australia awards.

This is last of my 10 images a day for 20 days. I hope you enjoyed some of the images and stories that went along with them. @ Perth, Western Australia

Day 18 to 20: Journalist Kaitlyn Offer and I were on our way to a job in the Midland area, when we were suddenly driving behind a Police car that quickly mounted a kerb, and officers started to approach a man from behind. I knew something was about to happen, so we parked the car at a near by car park and I ran out with my camera to see if I could get some action. However, silly me forgot to put some memory cards back in my camera, so had to race back to the car to put some back in. I finally get back out again, and the guy is on the floor, screaming and bleeding quite a bit from the forehead.�While I was shooting, I noticed one of the officers looking my way and I think he might have gave me a signal to stop shooting. Having got the shot I needed, I bolted back to the car and we were off again to the job that we were going too.�When we got back to the office, we tried finding out who the person was. It turned out to be the husband of a woman who had died, and the man was wanted for questioning. He apparently had been shopping at Midland Gate, and someone recognised him and notified the Police.�I entered this image into a media awards competition the following year, and I got a phone call from the judge that night after walking away empty handed. He goes “News just seems to come to you!! We were going to give you the award, but then you’ve been winning everything for the past couple of years so we decided to share it around and hopefully give another photographer some motivation”. 😂 @ Perth, Western Australia

Had great fun shooting the amazing wood working products by Arbortech today. Cameras got a bit dusty from all the flying saw dust, but luckily I planned on getting all my cameras fully serviced this week.
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Canon 1DX II
Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L II
Godox AD600B & BM with Elinchrom softboxes on Bowens mount.
Canon WFT-E8 wireless file transfer to iPad so client can view images as I shoot.

@ Arbortech Pty LTD