Maria England (Eadiella)

Written By Campbell Mattinson

Singer songwriter Maria England / Eadiella.

This is a pretty typical portrait session – featuring singer/songwriter Maria England, aka Eadiella – though Maria is clearly comfortable in front of the camera and had a clear idea of what she wanted. That is, Maria England isn’t your average portrait subject. We shot for about 90 minutes and produced twenty or more images that you’d be happy to use in your portfolio or on an album cover or as an image to hang on your wall.

Talking of potential album covers. These square-cropped images of Maria England / Eadiella (below) from the shoot would be stunning as album covers. All of them.

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In photography terms: All these images of Maria are shot on the Sony A1 with the Sony 85MM f1.4. I’m a bit surprised to see that; some of them look more like a 50mm FOV but then, it’s not always easy to tell. On the day I also used the Sony 35mm f2 Contemporary lens – a person favourite, and a severely under-rated lens – though none of the images taken with this lens made this cut (though they did make an earlier cut). I do wonder whether the image above, in black and white, is a bit too over-exposed but a) I like over-exposed images as a general rule and b) it helps to give the image a softness. I appreciate that this type of image can seem more like grey-and-white than black-and-white but I have moments when I don’t want my black and white images to be too contrasty, and this image (and the b&w images below) is one of them. Or it is for the moment.

And …. talking of wall prints: these images are striking presented as a trio on the wall.

One final image. This image a) didn’t seem to fit anywhere else on the page here and b) was overlooked for some time. It’s always funny how your ‘favourite’ images from a shoot often doesn’t reveal themselves until it’s too late. This is one of them. This was a shoot where the hit-rate was higher than usual and where, also, a number of images leapt off the screen instantly. I’m not sure that I gave this image much of a passing thought early doors but now it might just be the pick. There’s something classic about it.

Campbell Mattinson

This post was written by Campbell Mattinson. Mattinson is a former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion book, former editor of Halliday magazine, former editor of Australian Sommelier Magazine and founder of The Winefront business. He is the author of five books on wine – four of which were bestsellers (The Wine Hunter, the Big Red Wine Book 2008, the Big Red Wine Book 2009, and the Big Red Wine Book 2010).

Mattinson is also the founder of the Mattinson Photography business.

Campbell Mattinson has been an independent journalist, wine critic and photographer for forty years. He’s the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He’s a past winner of a Louis Roederer International Wine Media Award; is the author of the award-winning book The Wine Hunter; and is the author of the best-selling novel We Were Not Men. He’s also a winner of a St Kilda Film Festival Award (as writer-director) and is a former winner of the national Best Australian Sports Writing Award. In 2026 three of his photographs were short-listed for the World Food Photography Awards.

Campbell Mattinson, who is 100% independent, has tasted between 5000 and 10,000 wines each and every year for the past 25 years. He tastes blind, in comparative brackets, as often as is practicable.

Campbell Mattinson is a journalist, a photographer, a filmmaker and a wine critic. In all of these mediums his prime motive is to tell people's stories.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com
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