John Ogden is a photographer, cinematographer, writer and publisher, whose wide ranging career has encompassed producing television commercials, international documentary making, music video production, drama, and fine art photography. Not to be confused with UK based Photographer and Educationalist John Ogden who changed his name and can now be found at . Nicknamed 'Oggy', Ogden is South Australian born and of Anglo-Irish descent, Recent family research suggests there may also be Palawa heritage. He has worked all over the world, his projects spanning diverse cultures and nations including SE Asia, Sri Lanka, China, Japan, Europe, South America, the USA, and indigenous Australia. His work with imagery associated with Australian Aborigines resulted in the books 'Australienation', and 'Portraits From A Land Without People', released in 2009 to coincide with the first anniversary of Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd's apology to the Aboriginal people.
Early career
Ogden began his career as a photo-journalist, and continued his personal development by completing an English degree, with a focus on Film history and theory After graduating in 1979, Ogden began his career in filmmaking and advertising.
Ogden credits his documentary filmmaking experience with giving him a good sense of natural lighting, as well as the invaluable experience of witnessing how real people behave in a variety of situations. Notable credits include work as Director of Photography on 'As Time Goes By', Bad Boy Bubby and Mission Impossible. His short film 'House of Sticks' was screened at Flickerfest, Hollyshorts and several other festivals.
Music video
Having acted as Director of Photography on over 50 music videos, Ogden has worked with many major artists including Prince, INXS, and Split Enz. In an interview with the ABC in 2007, he recounted the challenge of filming a video directed by Prince, having signed a contract which expressly prohibited conversation with the artist. Ogden credits working in this medium as teaching innovation.
Since 2006 Ogden's work has focused on series' of fine art photography, and extensive work with Aboriginal Australian imagery. His publishing company, Cyclops Press, began production with 'Australienation' in 1999. Partly inspired by a conversation in which Ogden was upbraided whilst in England in his youth, criticising the near genocide of the Aboriginal populations by the colonial immigrants, and subsequent culture clash, Ogden's 2008/9 work 'Portraits From A Land Without People' is considered to be the most comprehensive pictorial history of the Aboriginal people of Australia produced, honoring fully the Aboriginal cultural code which requires permission to be granted by each individual in every picture. To compile the book, and gain the appropriate permissions, Ogden travelled extensively over a four-year period, examining over 300,000 images, and visiting public libraries, galleries, museums and private collections in every state and territory in Australia. Ogden has described the dedication necessary to complete this task as a 'beautiful obsession'. In November 2011 Ogden released 'Saltwater People of the Broken Bays – Sydney's Northern Beaches', and in November 2012 released the companion book 'Saltwater People of the Fatal Shore – Sydney's South-side Beaches'. 'Slightly Dangerous – The Cyclops' Cypher', released in May 2013, provides an insight into the inspirations and influences behind Ogden's work. In his foreword to 'Slightly Dangerous', photographer Tim Page writes: "This is a life well travelled, of a baby boomer who surfs an existential path across six decades, waxing the best of nostalgia against the odds that are self mitigated by the excesses of those times. It is a heritage of the hippest, most gonzo ‘down-under’ attitudes, rendered by images we all wish we had snapped. As if Hunter S. Thompson and Richard Neville shuffled photo cards with Robert Frank’ian images throughout the deck".
