Perth Zoo, September 2024

This was my first attempt at animal photography, it was very challenging, especially at a crowded zoo during school holidays. But hey, a free ticket is a free ticket. At the time, I felt the need to connect with my spirit animal, the rhinoceros; thick-skinned, and fearlessly charging through life.
This was my first time visiting the zoo during school holidays. The experience I was accustomed to was a quiet, meditative one. Not so during school holidays, I felt sorry for the animals. Both parents and children were loud and obnoxious, screaming, and banging on the glass. Dreadful.
The staff, at least, were all lovely.
Thankfully, people would get bored with each animal quickly and move onto to inflict themselves on the next. Meanwhile, I sat with the rhino and tiger for hours waiting for them, observing them, getting to know them.
The rhinos wanted to spend most of their time with their backs to the humans (don’t blame them), and marking their territory. The tiger was extremely challenging to shoot. Although he was an old fella and a long-time feature of the zoo, he was so elusive, I had never actually laid eyes on him. I almost believed the tiger enclosure was empty. But after waiting a while he emerged and began pacing. The windows were all covered with decals of trees to give him some privacy. So I was shooting through that and trying to get past the crowd that would spontaneously appear every time he did.

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The Incident Anniversary Artwork Collection

Here’s my artistic and psychological evolution over the past four years.
It’s interesting to reflect on my changing attitudes and approach to the same subject matter. Through it all I remained brave and kept my sense of humour, even when I fell into despair.

Immediately after my near-death experience, the head trauma gave me vertigo and made the world all wonky, so my artwork looked wonky too. The reality of the situation hadn’t entirely sunk in.


One year after the incident, my artwork depicted me brushing it off, ready to move on with life, I was unprepared for the continuing battle ahead of me. This piece was super rushed, I hate the look of it now.


Two years later I was in a very dark place, I had unsuccessfully attempted suicide. I was angry and lonely and in constant pain. But I remained determined to rise above it. This is one of my favourite illustrations.
Now I’ve run the entire gamut of post traumatic emotions. I feel like I’ve reached an equilibrium. This is another illustration that I am proud of.

It feels good to look back on the tremendous growth my art has made in a few years. I just reached a point where I was ashamed that I was in my 30’s and my art had barely improved since high school. Now I can clearly see progress.

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The Incident Third Anniversary

July 22nd, it’s been three years since I nearly died in a hit-and-run. I still live in the aftermath of that incident, but it was also a moment of rebirth for me. I’ve learned a lot, about myself, about pain, about trust, about people, and society.
I will always carry this anger, but it is a good anger. It is not the kind of flame to destroy, but the flame to forge and strengthen.

I wonder if this will be the last art piece I create to commemorate this day. I wanted to capture where I am now. I am in a much better place than I’ve possibly ever been. It was fitting that I latched onto Kazuhira during my recovery, as he too is a character who falls to similar depths and later drags himself out of Hell.
We will never be the same again, but we now have a new equilibrium.

(I’m still waiting on that damn insurance payment!)

I’m always trying to push myself to broaden my skills. I’ve become quite a fan of watercolour as of late. This is the most complicated things I’ve ever done in this medium. It was scary to paint those shadows in. But I think it worked in the end.

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Rolloways PAPG Shoot

Here are my top shots from the Perth Amateur Photographers Group (PAPG) shoot at Rolloways rollerskating centre last month. It was extremely challenging, low lighting, fast movements, plus an unexpected children’s party being held at the same time!
I took a lot of bad photos, and these good ones have a lot of flaws, but they demonstrate how far I’ve improved in the three years I’ve been a part of this club. I have a stronger intuition for the manual settings and my lenses. I know about shooting and editing in RAW. Let’s see where I’m at in another three years.

Thanks to the models:

Lauren Miles

Misty Eligon

Kiara Roberts

Chenta Zaballos

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Dark Knight Rises Catwoman

From the archives, 2012

Costume and make-up by Courtney Coulson

Photography by Luke Milton

I made this costume to wear to the opening night screening of the Dark Knight Rises. 2012 was a wonderful year for movies, I have many happy memories going to opening nights in costumes with my mates, usually preceded by a pre-screening party; Batman, Avengers, Men in Black 3, Prometheus, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Dredd. I don’t know what it was about that year, but the blockbusters were big and fun and coming in rapid succession. I haven’t been that excited about modern cinema since then. Or maybe there’s just something special about that time of your life, being in your early 20’s, in university, particularly an arts university. We had the time and freedom to turn little things like going to the cinema into big events.

The bodysuit was made by me, the gloves and boots I already had. The mask was a fun challenge. It was made from leather that I engraved myself. The head mounted goggles were constructed from Lego pieces with the assistance of my father. It’s the one time he ever worked on a costume with me.

These photos are stunning, some of Luke’s best. They’re my mother’s favourites too, they’re still in her bookcase.

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Zorg’s Secretary- Fifth Element (Award Winning Costume)

In 2021 the Monkey Collective held one of their immersive screening events at the wonderful Luna Palace Cinema in Leederville, Perth. It was for one of my favourite films, The Fifth Element, so, of course, I had to make a costume for their costume contest. I knew there were going to be plenty of Leeloos in the crowd, so I decided to pick someone more obscure; Zorg’s secretary. She didn’t receive much screen-time, nor did she ever get a name, but she had a costume that was another memorable Gaultier creation, it always appealed to me. Plus I already had a skirt of a similar colour. My favourite part of that character is the hair, she wears a wig made of feathers. Initially I tried to see if I could replicate it, but finding such fine feathers on such short notice without spending a fortune proved impossible. So I searched for a regular wig of similar colour, no dice. In desperation, I bought a grey “elderly” style Halloween wig, spray painted it teal to match the velvet and feathers I already had. It’s not at all an accurate shade of teal, but it’s the best I could find around here. The spray paint worked surprisingly well and helped to create a strange texture to the wig. Making costumes in Perth is challenging because we have a limited range of costuming and crafting materials. Honestly, even our range of consumer goods is often limited too. I usually have to order things online; out of the question when there’s a short deadline!

With all those challenges in mind, I am happy with the results, and evidently, others agreed. I had a great night, the audience loved me, and when my character came on screen, they applauded. As impressive as the modern cosplay industry has become, the real fun is had at costume events like this where we are just having fun, improvising and sharing our love of our favourite characters and stories.

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Kidda- Rise of the Juggers (Award Winning Costume)

Here’s an obscure one, this is based on Joan Chen’s character Kidda from the post-apocalyptic cult classic “Rise of the Juggers”. Though I didn’t worry too much about accuracy. I was invited to a post-apocalypse costume event, and had about two weeks to make something to wear. I gave myself a budget of $50 and spent 15 hours making this costume. It was a lot of fun to abandon the demand for accuracy. This reminded me of playing dress-ups as a kid, I just threw together whatever I could find and made it work.

The costume in the film was likely made from industrial scraps, they probably spent very little on materials. However, in order for me to use the exact light weight elastic sheets (not unlike the ones used as yoga bands), it would have cost me upwards of $100. Bugger that, instead I bought a big roll of EVA foam matting for $30. I tore it into rough pieces of armour. The rest of the costume was flannel, which already has a lovely weathered look to it, but I added even more weathering with sandpaper, powdered chalk and acrylic paint. Again, bringing me back to the child-like glee of throwing a costume together. Getting messy and not getting too precious about the results.

I had a good time at the party, rocking out to the band with my mates. Unfortunately, I am not a night owl, so I left long before the night was over. But I was overjoyed to awaken to find that I had won best costume of the night! All that hard work paid off.

The prize was a ticket to Pox Eclipse, a Burning Man-type event in the desert of Western Australia. I hope to have much nicer photos of this costume wearing it at Pox Eclipse. The desert it a much nicer backdrop than a bookshelf.

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