On The Couch with Maria Louise Boyadgis

For our first On The Couch of 2023, we sat down with Maria Louise Boyadgis, aka Four Minutes to Midnight. Through her years as a professional photographer, Maria has worked with major companies such as Canon Australia and 20th Century Fox and has had images published in several magazines, including Monster Children and Happy Mag. She has done a range of commercial work, extensively photographed the Sydney music scene and been a still photographer on a number of Australian and international film productions. We caught up with Maria to find out how she got started in music and film photography and how her professional career has evolved over the last decade.

Surprisingly, Maria recalls strongly disliking photography as a subject in high school. Photographing pieces of fruit did little to inspire her, and she transferred out of the unit. But regular family trips to the National Gallery of Australia had instilled a keen appreciation of art and the different ways in which images convey stories. Music was also a significant player in Maria’s childhood and, paired with her art influences, culminated in an interest in creating album covers. She began a bachelor of design but, after a couple of years of learning about fonts and other design elements, realised it was the album background image that interested her most. She switched lanes to major in Photography.

On the day Maria transferred to photography, she emailed a bunch of Sydney venues asking to be their live music photographer. The following day she received a reply from Oxford Art Factory offering her a trial run. Not expecting to hear back so quickly and yet to sort out a camera for her new degree, Maria scrambled to borrow a small compact camera for the gig. It was not a success. The images from that first night exposed her lack of experience and inadequate equipment, but she doggedly asked for another chance.

‘Being at gigs, with music, meeting people; I just really enjoyed it, and I still do.’

Over the following months, Maria juggled full-time uni with late nights spent deep in the mosh pit. Under the guidance of Mark Gerber, the venue’s owner, and some other Oxford Art crew, she gradually improved and found the confidence to ask the lighting technician to help her out with a bit of white light throughout the shows to which they agreed. Before long, Maria upgraded to a full-frame Canon 5D II with a 24-70mm f/2.8 lens and, with the additional light, began churning out solid work.

A unit in the final year of the degree required students to complete a week internship with a professional photographer. Maria came across a callout for a placement with film still photographer Mark Rogers on the film Alien: Covenant. Although the job was a six-month paid internship, the application process involved a one to two-week trial with only the successful applicant being offered the job. Not expecting to get the position, Maria thought the trial would be an excellent opportunity for her compulsory one-week internship. An eagerness to learn and her experience working with low light landed Maria the job. Thrilled, she reached out to her uni, hoping she could accept the position without it affecting her absence but was advised no—decision time. Without regret, she chose the internship and failed the subject on attendance.

Diving into her role as an assistant still photographer, Maria gained invaluable insight into the film industry and pivotal hands-on experience. She continued working nights at Oxford Art Factory, managed uni parttime, and repeated the final subject to complete her degree. She found Mark Rogers to be an exceptional mentor and assisting him offered so much real-world industry exposure that Maria continued working with him for five years.

Maria says things have vastly improved but remembers that landing freelance work as a female photographer in the music underground a decade ago was challenging. To get around this, she booked jobs under her professional alias, Four Minutes to Midnight, the soletrader business she created when she began shooting for Oxford Art Factory. The name is a nod to her birth time and a subtle way of aligning her alias and personality.

Since graduating, Maria has built a colourful career in music, film and television photography. She has also developed a strong portfolio of commercial work and set up her own studio. When lockdowns happened in 2020 and the live music scene ground to a halt, Maria made the most of the vast connections she had fostered over the previous years and began shooting a series of musician portraits. The project served to document this extraordinarily uncertain time for the industry while keeping her artistically plugged in.

This year Maria finally moved to mirrorless, retiring her Canon 5D for the EOS R5. Initially unsure if the expense of upgrading cameras would be worth it, she rented an R5 from CPS to test its performance and was blown away. Putting the mirrorless camera through its paces on the first night at a live gig, Maria noticed a significant increase in her success rate thanks to the R5’s vastly improved autofocus and eyetracking capabilities. After that, the purchasing decision was a no-brainer.

Maria’s affinity for low-light photography has seen her invest a lot of money in fast lenses, so she currently pairs the new body with her existing EF glass via the EF-RF adapter. Eventually, she plans to transition to RF lenses, but there’s no urgency with her current lineup working seamlessly with the adapter. A few of her favourites include the EF 50mm f/1.2 L, EF 85mm f/1.4 L, and the ever-useful EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L. Maria also has the

EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L for when she’s right up the front of a mosh, near the stage. She loves getting up close and personal with the artist, and experience has shown her that the more she can convey to the musician that she is enjoying their performance, the more energy they’re likely to give to the camera.

“When the client reaches out for you, they reach out for you. They don’t reach out for you to deliver another photographer’s style.”

Although the job has served up some wild experiences and a slew of connections with intriguing personalities, it’s also been a grind at times. From missing many personal social events to the physical perils of working within a mosh pit, Maria has questioned whether it’s all worth it more than once. But having pushed through the long nights and low pay, she is now reaping the rewards. Today, Maria has firmly established herself within the industry, finding high demand for her grungelike style that celebrates low light and movement.