The Legend with the Lens - Meet Brad from Vertigo Photography
Photo of Katy Eve - MPDA 2015
It would be hard to believe from the incredible images he has captured over the years, Brad Edwards, the mastermind behind Vertigo Photography, had never intended to even pick up a camera, let alone become one of Australia’s leading pole photographers.
Brad is well-regarded for his unique ability to capture perfect moments onstage, whether that be nailing the timing and positioning of a trick, or snapping an unforgettable connection between the performer and their audience.
Vertigo Photography came second in the Australian Pole Dancers Magazine industry business awards and Brad himself was voted #8 in the APDM Top 50 Influential in 2016. Most admirably, Vertigo Photography has won the respect of pole dancers worldwide. Brad sat down with me to chat about how it all began, how to make the most from your studio shoots, the pole comp scene and when a flying prop made his life flash before his eyes! We discuss how wildly different shooting a comp is compared to in-studio or on location, how special the pole community is and if the Pleaser was on the other foot – what pole show would Brad perform? Cue the glitter cannons!
The making of Vertigo Photography
When Brad agreed to photograph his ex-wife's studio performance night late in 2008, he would never have foreshadowed the job he was about to tumble into. “At the time I wasn’t a photographer – I knew nothing about it! It was a very strange thing because I went into a really small little studio and a bunch of ladies in their underwear,” Brad tells me. “It’s been a long time since I’ve felt quite so out of place! Then to try to point a camera in someone’s direction and wonder how long it’s going to take for the police to arrive to take me away...” he laughs. “It was a very strange thing but that’s where it all kind of started!”
Not only did Brad have to learn the front from the back of a camera, but he was thrown into the deep end, learning our endless pole tricks and what it was he was trying to capture. His father, a drummer, had passed some musical talent onto Brad so he wasn’t a total rookie and knew dancers usually hit accents and the beat.
“A couple of the girls at the time saw some of the photos and went ‘hey they’re really good!’. I was shrugging my shoulders going well okay that’s great but I have no idea why!”, he says. After the girls suggested Brad look into it a little bit more, he checked it out and soon had people tapping him on the shoulder asking for him to photograph another show, another performance, another grad night. “It just gradually took off from there,” Brad reflects.
Photo of Summer Blazin - MPD NSW 2011
Studio & Location Photography
After becoming the go-to man for studio showcases, in 2009 Brad started to receive enquiries from senior pole dancers and instructors to come in for more formal pole photoshoot days. “I bought some REALLY average lights, various entry-level strobe lights and a very primitive DSLR camera. Looking back at some of those photos, it’s like anything you start learning a long time ago – it’s really not your best work,” he laughs.
There is a very different vibe between being in the studio for a planned photoshoot compared with shooting a show onstage designed to be a performance. The energy projected from a stage is much more authentic, which Brad agrees, however he works hard to boost the vibes in his studio shoots.
“You’ve hit the nail on the head in the sense that when you’re in a live environment, the energy hopefully is there because that’s 70%-80% of your show,” says Brad. "It’s everything else that’s harder to capture when you’re live. It could be you, it could be lighting, it could be the performance, it could be the poles, it could be the stage itself – it could be one of a million things that doesn’t go quite the way you want it to in a performance. In the studio you have a great deal of control over that. At least you can put your hand up and go ‘ahh you can do that again please’,” he says chuckling. “9 times out of 10 I can talk people up to having a little bit of energy. If you’re a bit down on yourself and not quite where you wanted to be on the day, that’s a little bit harder to turnaround but you've just got to do your best.”
Photo of Persia - Scarbourough WA 2013
While we as pole dancers strive for the perfect photoshoot outfits, the glowing fake tan and flawless hair and makeup, Brad reveals those things don’t always create our ideal photos.
“It's funny because when you’ve got a lot of control over everything, you’re always looking for absolute perfection, which to me is a little bit of a fallacy, in that I could sit here and take a photo of Kermit the Frog and make him look like Angelina Jolie on the computer,” he explains. “I can do that, but that’s kind of defeating the purpose, you know? The thing that I really dislike about studio shoots is someone will say ‘you can photoshop that’, ‘you can make me look skinny’, ‘you can take these rolls out’. It’s a matter of not worrying so much about that – it’s more about what you can do rather than what you look like,” he emphasises.
For a man with a fantastic eye for detail, Brad says it’s all of the small flaws which actually make the best image. “I don’t really like perfection per se,” he says. “I have a far greater respect for something that’s not quite perfect. It might be a hair out of place, it might be a bruise, a blemish, a scar, or your skin is not completely smooth. There’s just something about imperfection that is perfect. It’s real. And real to me is a lot harder to come across these days in a society that does everything it possibly can to make you look like anything but what you really look like,” he says, dropping truth bombs faster than we can ball drop on the pole!
Photo of Amber Ray - 2012
So what are Brad’s top tips if you are coming in do a photoshoot with him?
“Number 1 is to be prepared. What do you want to achieve? I tend to move pretty fast through studio shoots, so to have a list of at least 5 things,” he says. “Have a massive long list, starting at your highest priority all the way down to your lowest. If you’ve got costume changes and can work out what costumes you want to do with what moves – even better, extra points for that!”
Brad continues, “Number 2 – come in with a positive attitude on the day. If you’re not quite comfortable, bring somebody else. You can have a cast of thousands back there, I really don’t care! I’ve had studios who say ‘we’ve got 40 people coming, we’re making a day of it!’ There’s wine and cheese and all sorts of shit in there,” Brad says bursting into a laugh. “That was one of the best days I’ve had in the studio in years, it was fantastic. Apparently, it caught on because it happened a few times after that... But have a positive attitude. A positive attitude goes a long, long, long way and you can’t pretend to be positive. It won’t show up in your photos if you’re not.”
Photo of Daisy - 2012
Pole Comp Photography
The first competition Brad was ever roped into photographing was a comp held at the Bull ‘n’ Bush Hotel in Baulkham Hills, Sydney – a classic pub pole competition. He tells me that while his work was rather questionable that night, it was an event he will never forget.
“You know what it’s like when you start on any new phase or journey – you’re really into it. You’re REALLY excited about it,” he laughs. “My work was terrible but it was a very, very special night, because there were a number of people that I met at that show, that I’m very fortunate to still call friends today,” smiles Brad. “It’s kind of cool where you have managed to form a relationship over something which, for me at least, is just so far left field it’s not even funny!” he chuckles. “It’s not anything that was going to be in my life plan that’s for sure!”
Photos of Dallas Dee and Gemma Bardsley - Bull n Bush Hotel
Over the last 10 years, Vertigo Photography has fast become associated with many prestigious pole competitions across Australia. I can see all of the lanyards dangling in the corner of his study, the passes he keeps from EVERY show he has ever photographed. Brad tells me the record was set at approximately 36 shows he attended in one year. It’s his love for pole photography and the pole community that keeps luring him back for more, one event in particular...
Polemas (aka Miss Pole Dance Australia)
Photo of Alethea Austin - MPDA 2010 (taken side-stage)
The first year Brad attended Miss Pole Dance Australia, he was in the audience to watch Felix Cane win her second crown. The following year, in 2010, he was shooting it. While many of us think of Brad as the The OG (original gangster) of pole comp photography, he is quick to assure me he isn’t explaining that there were 5-6 photographers there that night. "I was very, very intimidated at the time!” Brad tells me. The likes of Mindi Burji and Matt Granger were among that group, plus others who used to shoot pub comps. “Those were the guys who kicked it all off in the very first instance. I seem to be the sucker that always went back for more because I enjoyed it, I guess!” he laughs.
For many pole dancers in Australia, the Miss Pole Dance final is the climax of the pole comp year. The opening act becomes more epic, as do the MCs of the event – the legendary Maxi Shield and wicked Chilli Rox. The day of MPDA for Brad is quite similar to that of the competitors – only with less heart palpitations and “mini-voms” (cheers Lou Landers!).
"It depends on who you ask, but MPD it’s pretty much the day of days for performers and audience members alike, and it’s no different for me,” says Brad. Rising early, Brad checks his equipment, making sure batteries are charged and his numerous memory cards are formatted. He arrives at midday and is usually there from the start of tech runs until about 5pm. Then you‘ll find him out the front catching up with people, or backstage being the calm in the glitter storm!
Brad hanging out backstage at Miss Pole Dance with Fontaine
“You might catch up with a few people who are out the front waiting to get in or get backstage and have a chat to some of the competitors who are maybe a little bit nervous,” says Brad. “You just catch up with people because you don’t get the chance to do it very often, so you get together and it’s kind of like reunion time. I usually see whoever's there and if they need a shakeup, a hug, a cry or whatever it might be!” he smiles. “You can just be a familiar face – you're not competing with me; you don’t have to worry about what I’m doing. You can just sit there and tell me what’s playing on your mind.”
Photo of Miss Filly, Marion Crampe & Chelle Hafner - MPDA 2011
Not long before the curtains open, you’ll find Brad positioned at the base of the stage, checking out his gear and making sure he is ready to go. He obviously has a very unique position at MPDA, situated between the performer onstage dishing out delightful and daring pole moments, and the atmosphere of the audience behind him.
“It’s not as though you’re across the orchestra pit from the stage – I’ve been as little as 6 inches away from the performers and I’m practically sitting in the lap of the front row,” he tells me. While the perfect photo would be of a performer looking straight down the lens, Brad says quite often the picture is taken of the pole dancer looking out towards the crowd.
“That’s the photo I get of a lot of people and the photo is terrible, but the performance is right. That energy always comes across when there’s that immediate connection between me and whoever is onstage, and I’ll always feel it from whoever’s [in the audience] behind me.”
Photo of Cleo the Hurricane - MPDA 2013
Pole memories & near-death moments
Sometimes the connection between Brad and the performer onstage gets a little too close for comfort. His position at pole comps should come with a disclaimer, warning him of flying props, heels and limbs!
“I’ve been kicked, I’ve been hit, I’ve almost been stabbed,” he tells me with a chuckle. “It was a pole dancer by the name of Stacey Minx, at a comp in Melbourne. She was in a cheerleader's outfit and she had a photo of a ‘boyfriend’ [in the show] and it turns out the boyfriend was cheating on her. So Stacey pulls out this knife and starts stabbing the photograph, but the silly thing was, it wasn’t a prop knife,” says Brad. “She’d actually been to Woolworths just before coming because she didn’t have a knife and pulled out literally a 10inch butcher’s knife. Apparently, the girls were like ‘I’m not sure you should be using that’ and she’s going ‘well I’ve got no alternative!’”
Brad tells me once Stacey was done stabbing the photo, she flicked the knife and it slid across the stage, directly towards him, stopping only after becoming wedged under some electrical cables running along the front of the stage. “I kid you not, it would have been less than 4 inches from my chest,” he says. “I’ve got a photo of that knife with Stacey Minx performing off in the distance. It’s still to this day, one of my favourite photos,” Brad says with a laugh. “Apparently, she ran downstairs going 'I think I’ve killed Brad!’”
Death-defying danger aside, there is nothing quite like witnessing a pole show live compared to videos online, and being a part of a collective audience who has just witnessed a breathtaking performance. Having attended so many pole events, Brad tells me he has had his fair share of these moments.
“The most memorable ones for me, are the ones that make me feel something. I will always know what I felt after a show,” he says. “Things like Carlie doing ‘Granny’ and ‘Carlos’ - you make me laugh and I’ll always remember you! Always! Lisa D has done a couple as well. There have been tragedies that have been done onstage. A lady by the name of Kym Wyeth in QLD did a show about loss, and I could not see through the camera come the end of it,” confesses Brad.
He continues, “David Helman did a show at Encore years and years ago, and it was terrible for me in terms of photography because he had a projection on the screen at the back of the stage. But the projection at the back of the show was a documentary about a guy wanting to know what it feels like to be accepted. That show, I will remember practically move for move, forever,” says Brad. “The biggest disappointment for that show I think, is David finished, he bowed and left the stage, and as he left the audience started standing up and applauding. I don’t think he got to see the standing ovation, and I really, really hope he did. Because to be fair, as a performer, that’s all you’re after – the acceptance, gratification and appreciation of the audience. He was appreciated that night.”
Photo of Lisa D - MPDA 2010 (taken side-stage)
Iconic images
Out of what is likely BILLIONS of photos Brad has taken throughout the last decade, he tells me there are some standouts for him, including the black and white photo of Miss Filly sitting on the throne, with Blue Phoenix and Lennox either side, just before the music kickstarts a show that would win her a second MPDA crown.
Photo of Miss Filly - MPDA 2017
“There was another one from Pole Theatre years ago of a girl named Sare,” he begins. “Who was just in some obscene split and everything just came together for this photo - everything stopped around me and it’s just one of those things you look at you go ‘that one's going to be really, really special’,” reflects Brad.
Photo of Sare Williams - Pole Theatre Sydney 2017
“There was another one from one of Carlie Hunter’s ‘Carlos’ shows where he had just dumped a bucket of water over himself and there are water droplets everywhere. There’s a shot I adore of Carlie again, doing the Die Antwood show that won her MPDA. You want intensity onstage – that was intensity onstage!” says Brad. “There was a great shot of Chelle Hafner at the first MPDA doing an allegra split variation, and still to this day I have never seen anyone spin that fast! To get the shot that I got from side stage, and thinking ‘hey maybe I can make a shake out of this – that’s not bad!’
Photo of Carlie Hunter - MPDA 2016
Photo of Chelle Hafner - MPDA 2010 (taken side-stage)
Like landing a fonji, you have to know how to time the photo just right to be able to catch these fleeting moments onstage. Experience has taught Brad what to look for in a show, however there is still a degree of pressure to get THAT photo.
“There’s a certain amount of pressure to get the right shot because I don’t get a chance to replay the sequence. But thankfully enough after all of these years, you just get used to spending 4-5 hours with half of your face covered and after that long, you can read what’s going on in a performance. Knowing how to read how the performance is coming up, helps a lot in getting more shots than you want,” he tells me. “You might get 3-5 really good shots in a show even if you didn’t know what you were doing, but trying to get 20-30; that really starts to get a little bit difficult. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve got enough experience, and I’m confident enough in knowing what I have to do, to get the best that I can out of any show.”
Photo of Cleo the Hurricane - MPDA 2013
Vertigo Photography now
From studio showcases in the early days to becoming a fixture on the pole comp circuit, Brad has cemented himself as an Aussie pole industry icon. A credit to Brad’s work, Vertigo Photography has become a name whispered overseas for a while now – I mean, international pole dancers don’t come here to see koalas – they want to see Brad!
Even now, this recognition still shocks him. “Sometimes depending on who it’s come from (it could have been Justine McLucas, it could have been Sarah Scott, Bendy Kate), you just kind of sit there going ‘holy shit, you know who I am?! That’s fucking weird!’” he laughs. “I’m just a middle-aged dude that carries a camera around from place to place!”
Brad pictured with Bendy Kate & Kristy Sellars
Forever humble, that kind of exposure is certainly attributed to the amazing images he captures and produces. It is incredible to learn that besides some lighting and contrast adjustments on the computer, Brad doesn’t edit the competition photos he snaps.
“A lot of people talk about it as being art and being creative. My background is not in art (music not withstanding) I’m an engineer, I’m a scientist. I see it as maths. It sounds bizarre and no-one understands what it is I’m talking about but that’s just how it works in my mind,” says Brad. “Broadly speaking, if I can get it to 80-90% complete in the camera and I don’t have to do so much at the computer, then that’s my job done!”
Brad tells me he might take anywhere between 7,000 to 13,000 frames at competitions like Miss Pole Dance, the Australian Pole Championships and Hardcore. Even though he doesn’t heavily edit the photos, that is still a lot of images to sift through! “You just find it takes up a lot of your spare time or downtime, and it just kind of wears you down a little bit,” he explains.
Brad works fulltime as a quantity surveyor in commercial construction and property development. Spending all of these years juggling both fulltime work and Vertigo Photography, took a toll on many areas of Brad’s personal life he tells me, including a previous marriage. Last year Brad made the conscious decision to limit the number of competitions he would agree to shoot, to spend more time at home with his current partner and also enjoy the time spent while away at these events. “It’s a 50/50 game. Like anything, you’ve got to try and balance your life,” he says.
The year 2020 became the unpredicted but enforced break Brad was looking for. However, when pole comps are booming again, he is still unsure exactly what events he’ll put his hand up for. “When we kick off again who knows. I don’t know what the future holds for that, but I hope I’m still wanted! I hope I’m still in people’s minds to be the person to call if they have a show on and want somebody to cover it, and if in the event that I either can’t be there or I’m overcommitted, I hope they’ll understand. But I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”
Photo of Suzie Q & Toby J - 2018
Pole roles reversed!
Having spent so long looking up at the stage at the antics of us pole performers, I ask Brad what pole show he would do if the spotlight was suddenly on him?
“I’ve done this a long time and no one has ever asked me that!” he chuckles. “I love the showgirl style, I really do, I have a real appreciation for the strength and gymnastic style, but neither of those are very much me, despite the fact I spent way too long on Oxford Street!” Brad says as he bursts into a laugh. “But the one thing that usually makes me feel, is the contemporary kind of stuff because I can feel that emotive energy coming out. With that said, I am nothing of a contemporary dancer let’s get that clear!”
Photo of Adam Lin - Dance for a Difference 2018
He continues, “There’s a song I’ll often hear called Zzxyz Road. It’s a song written and performed by a band called StoneSour, about the last road anybody ever found, alphabetically – it’s the last road travelled. I’ve just always found I would like to see a show to that song. I know what’s it’s like trying to find a piece of music you want to do a show to and it’s the last one you’re going to go with – it has no low and no high points where you can hit certain things. But if I had the ability – not even the opportunity – to do it,” he jokes, “that's probably what I’d have a crack at!”
Given that there would then be a vacancy, who would be the photographer behind the lens capturing this extremely rare moment?
“It could be one of two people. I’ve done a lot of partner work with someone I met down at Suzie Q’s studio many years ago, a lady by the name of Lizzy Cayanan,” Brad tells me. “Either her or – and he would actually hate me for saying this if you put this out there because he hates shooting shows – the guy that taught me how to start in studios – Adam Jay. An English photographer who used to come over here many years ago and circle the country. He’s a very good friend of mine and sadly I haven’t seen him in years, but he’s the guy that started me on my path to what was going on in studios. Every bit of [studio pole photography] comes from Adam – that's where it all started.”
Over the years, Brad Edwards has collected many pole stories to tell, and through his lens, has witnessed countless pole magic. Vertigo Photography has spun throughout the pole community, making many poler dancers dizzy with delight as they relive those precious minutes onstage through his photos. It isn’t just Brad’s ability to capture a moment in time onstage, a feeling from a performer, a raw and real image in the studio that makes him one of a kind. His dedication and passion for the pole community is what makes this man a true Aussie pole legend.
You can check out Vertigo Photography on Instagram at @vertigo_photography_aus or like the ‘Vertigo Photography’ Facebook page.
How amazing are these photos & taking a trip down memory lane with Brad! Leave a comment below & let me know if you have even been photographed by Vertigo Photography!
