Altar of D200 worship

Happy New Camera Gear... I mean New Year!

2012-01-10T21:55:00.007+10:00

Nikon has just released a bunch of new stuffs. Now I need to justify making that expenditure of new gear after a slow 2011.

From Hargraves Lookout in the Blue Mountains - (click to zoom in, or press your face against the monitor)

UPDATE: info on set up, 24mm 1/100, f8, iso400, the magic is in post-processing

Floriade 2011

2011-10-03T21:02:00.003+10:00

In between other more important projects this month, here a some sneaky Floriade photos.

Vanuatu

2011-09-02T19:27:00.002+10:00

Went Vanuatu for a friend's wedding. It's a tough life to have to eat a 3 hr breakfast and snorkel all day.

Temora Spitfire

2011-08-22T18:10:00.002+10:00

How often do you get to see a pair of eliptical wings and hear the roar of a 12 cylinder Merlin engine with its supercharger whine? Geez it's a thing of beauty.

Corin Dam - HDR Pano

2011-08-01T20:33:00.002+10:00

Hi all, quick post of Corin Dam in Canberra. 8 frame (5 EV each) HDR + stitched pano. Some foreground artifacts from stitching and the right and side is over processed for HDR. Missed the full rainbow as it was partially casted in shadow by clouds

Big Band - Big Bang - RMC centennial celebrations

2011-07-02T22:15:00.002+10:00

Quick post, Centennial Celebrations for RMC Duntroon with Big Band and Fireworks

Brit Classic Sprint - Wakefield Park Goulburn NSW

2011-06-29T20:31:00.005+10:00

It was a dismal drive out to Goulburn last weekend, fog, sleet, ordinary breakfast meat pie... But the highlight was to see my mate's dad's Adelaide housed Triumph Spitfire MkIII doing time trials around Wakefield Park race way.

Other notable classics were GT6s and TR7, some making the trip up from Adelaide too. The foggy start to the morning added to the atmosphere of hearing high performance engines shrouded by mist (and the occasional tyre squeal!)

Access was limited (and I was somewhat lazy), so the shots look kinda samey.

All in all, still need to practice slow shutter speed panning (though 70-200mm VRII does most of the heavy lifting) and shot dicipline to start tracking and panning earlier whilst keeping and eye on composition. I'm most satisfied with the GT6 and Wakefield Park sign in the background.

LoFi - Lensbaby is tricky to use

2011-06-18T17:23:00.004+10:00

So a Lensbaby composer pro with sweet35 optic came in the post the other day. I've been aching to get out with it but work sees me at home after dark at the moment. Nevermind, the weekend is here, but it's bitterly cold (falling snow even! but it melted before it hit the ground)

Ducked out on the bike for a quick sunset play with the new toy this afternoon. Definitely not easy to use in a time critical situation. I went with a tacky Lomo-esq processing to see if it made me feel any better about using it. Overall, I'm pretty happy, it gets me an image that I couldn't easily do in post, that crazy stretched blur or without a seriously expensive tilt-shift lens.

If anything it stops me just blatting away taking photos, I have to really work on composition and sweet spot location, AND size based on aperture. Hopefully it will be a good training tool to worry more about my composition.

Pocketwizards Picnic

2011-05-22T22:09:00.002+10:00

Just a sample of a wedding recently photographed in the Blue Mountains.

Setting: about midday
Lighting: Single flash + shoot-through white
Magic bullet: PW FlexTT5 to allow sync at 1/1000th, f2.8 over a distance of 10m with 70-200mm

Joe McNally is my Master now, wireless RADIO TTL rocks.

Melaka, Malaysia

2011-02-22T13:22:00.003+10:00

As a side trip to get away from the glitz of Singapore, we embarked on a bus tour to historic Melaka.

Once a port to the Dutch, Portuguese and British, the town is now vying for the tourist dollar. There were ubiquitous trishaws looking for passengers around every corner. Seeing how the petite Chinese tourists were fitting 2 to a trishaw, we both tried to squeeze our 'robust' frames into one, much to the amusement of the owner till he realised that he'd have to pedal such a large combined weight. In the end a second trishaw came to our aid and off we went.

Part of our tour included a stop at a Taoist temple where people were coming to pay their respects to their forebears as part of the Lunar New Year. The historic Jonkers street was filled with anachronisms. Motorbike repair shops and traditional flour mills next to small batik tailors and shops of hand made pastries.

Unsuccessfully posing for a photo

With the intent of travelling light, all I packed was the 18-200mm which was a shame given the ornate detail in the carvings at the temple. Also trying some different post processing as the light was very diffuse and overcast.

Singapore Zoo - Wow!

2011-02-20T14:28:00.002+10:00

It's pretty easy to think "Zoo - Ho Hum", but Singapore Zoo is one of those world class zoos that should not be missed. It's a great experience for both adults and kids a like.

This is one seriously happy elephant!

The enclosures help showcase the animals and the actual scheduled shows such as the elephants at work and play have a strong message about the plight of endangered species.

There are also free roaming enclosures where you can get very close to lemurs and enormous butterflies.

The cheeky orangutan here is reaching to snaffle some chippies much to the annoyance of the keepers.

Oh to be a monkey.

Breakfast with Orangutans - Singapore Zoo

2011-02-15T23:33:00.004+10:00

Breakfast with the Orangutans was a unique and fantastic experience to get up close to these creatures and was worth every cent.

There were several of our forrest chums who came down to eat with us including a little imp who was not camera shy.

ZOMG! Talk about the proverbial mountain of tourists taking photos and blocking the view for the rest of us (though I did partake - but at a modest distance with my 200mm). Most annoyingly were the would-be camera buffs eyeballing each other to see who had the biggest lens and blatting away at 9fps on a stationary ape?! Seriously how many photos do you need? I bet you they just bought their cameras downtown the day before and were shooting skywards at the animals in a strong backlit scene. I hope all they got was some verdant green foliage photos with a big black orangutan sillhouette. I didn't see a single one stop to check their exposures and adjust. SIGH they must just be better photographers than me.

The smarter ones were standing back and picking their shots and eating. So to all adult camera nerds, take yer photo and get out of the way, the kids can't see. Enough ranting.

In my meager handful of photos (at the behest of stuffing my face with delicious breakfast), I waited and got the photo I wanted. HELLO BOYS!

Jurong Bird Park - Singapore

2011-02-15T17:54:00.003+10:00

A holiday with no laptop whilst infinitely more enjoyable means a dang lot more processing at home. Time to start the sifting of 400+ photos from our two weeks in Singapore. These posts will be more of a highlights reel, starting with the Jurong Bird Park.

After no success haggling for a teleconvertor with the surly proprietors of camera shops in Sim Lim Square with Chris N, we hit the bird park and the new 70-200mm was proving it's worth and taking everything in its stride.

(remember what I said - "don't make eye contact with the tourists")

It was great to see some very well trained birds strutting their stuff at the shows, particularly the hornbills and the vulture that got thrown at our heads.

Lorakeet feed was the highlight with too much time being spent feeding these monsters and getting pooped on.Thanks to Chris N for hanging out with us.

Sublime Point, Leura

2010-12-26T14:19:00.004+10:00

Pano of the back side of the Three Sisters in Katoomba from Sublime Point on a foggy day

Three light greenhouse

2010-12-21T10:45:00.002+10:00

After a fun time lapse sequence constructing the greenhouse, we thought we ought to nail some final product shots of the completed (but uninhabited) structure. Thanks to Nic and Jamos for being good sports. Fun stuff used, 10-20mm and 3 speedlights + gels.

Family Portrait II

2010-11-17T08:24:00.004+10:00

I had completely forgot that friends Selina and Angus W had recently returned to OZ and were living in BrisVegas. Opportunely, Selina sent me an email the very first day I arrived. Selina W, being a photographer herself (see linky to left), bemoaned that she didn't have many photos of her and baby. So we sorted out some family portraits.

A wedding in BrisVegas

2010-11-14T00:08:00.007+10:00

Fellow OCAU Photographer Steve T tied the knot to his beautiful Tina today. So glad I shared the BIG day of someone who continues to challenge and inspire me with his photos. True to form Steve snapped photos of his bride walking down the aisle.

Well done you two!

Overcoming an irrational fear of babies - The Walter Family's Photoshoot

2010-10-31T23:06:00.006+10:00

Being currently childless and having only recently succumbed to holding a newborn (under the supervision and tutelage of Therese), I sometimes feel babies are one of the most unfathomable things in the universe, next to the Navier-Stokes equations, Fermi's paradox and why food always tastes better when mum cooks it.

People portraits are easy, adults can be engaged... but babies... They seem capable of mocking you by not looking into the lens or looking straight through you as though you were the most uninteresting person they had seen that day jumping up and down like a chimp and making monkey noises (I do that a lot around babies for no apparent reason other than some misguided attempt at failed communication).

I've steered clear of baby photography for just such reasons... however...

Some friends in The Can thankfully had the most chilled and friendly baby for me to do a session with (a particular thanks for the stick-in-mouth pose, that made my day).Without any further ado, I move into the realm of family photography. Tell your friends!

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Ged M for tips and guidance, and the Walters for assuaging my fear with such a great kid.

YeeaaHaaawwwrrr! - Bungendore Rodeo 2010

2010-10-28T23:32:00.004+10:00

Very overcast day, tip the camera ever so skywards and you are instantly having to dial in +1.3EV. Again let down by my woefully slow focusing 80-200mm. Wishing I had a 300mm f2.8, but I am thinking a 70-300mm AF-S VR might be a good stop gap. Would have liked to have seen what the pros were pulling out of their big lenses. Had some dood in black pin striped suit jacket with John Lennon sunglasses (AT A RODEO fer CRYING OUT LOUD), motoring away at 11 fps with a D3 + 400mm (I think).

I reckon this is the face the Fonz would pull if he were into rodeos "Heeeeeyy.."

Out and about - Scott 24 hr

2010-10-09T23:32:00.004+10:00

Went to see a friend race in the Scott 24 hr at Mt Stromlo. The light was getting nice and long. Should have used the bigger guns to kick out the background and perhaps drop the shutter speed for less freeze frame. Meh...no one was paying me to nail the photos. Used +2/3rds EV out on the course to get some detail in the shadows. Gotta love Canberra's late afternoon light in spring.

In this month's Gourmet Traveller...

2010-08-10T15:25:00.010+10:00

I got published :D

It wasn't an article, it wasn't even a photo in an article. It was a small part of a one page advert about an Australian Tourism photocompetition. I didn't win, I wasn't even a finalist, but I did get my name and a picture on p67 of the July 2010 issue of Gourmet Traveller. Cue flag waving!

http://www.nothinglikeaustralia.com/flash.htm#/entries/17244/title

I was doing a job for a sports photography company (who may or may not want to be associated with this blog and thus will remain anonymous - however, if you have a sporting event, these guys know how to roll out good coverage - I can pass on a name) and the long and short of it is one of my frames caught the eye of someone who knew about the competition and I submitted on that basis.

To be honest, I thought I had accidentally taken something fantastic, beyond my known abilities, tapping into some innate artistic creature I hadn't found before. So I was quite underwhelmed when the photo in question was revealed to me. It was a test frame to check ambient backlight to dial in my exposure and flash fill for the event competitors. Hell there was even a building crane smack bang where the sunrise is!

So with some garish colour manipulation and quick and dirty heal brushing of the crane we end up with this...

Slap on a cheesy title (I had no coffee or pastry though I did pity the event competitors it was so cold) and email... it is that easy to get published people!

Revisiting Italy - Damn Jpeg

2010-07-25T22:30:00.003+10:00

I was looking back over some photos from my 2006 trip to Italy, and thought I'd try my hand at sprucing some of them up with an extra three and a bit years of playing around with photos.

I shot everything in jpg (I didn't know any better early on) and hence am pretty limited in manipulation leeway, I only had my three primes a 90mm, 50mm and (bodgy) 28mm.

Everything was shot off hand without any real thought to composition (as far as I can remember) and I hadn't yet learned to use the in camera histogram to evaluate exposure.

In reflection, three years on, I've gotten far better at my camera handling and knowing what my D200 can and can't do. However, I think my composition is still fairly rigid and needs to be loosened up and made more adaptable. Despite fancy zooms and fast lenses, I'm still sticking to fairly mundane perspectives. That's not to say I don't deserve new gear though ;-)

Danger Zone - Jets - Temora, NSW

2010-07-18T22:24:00.004+10:00

Mikey and I decided to wake up well before dawn and travel over 400km just to smell burnt aviation fuel... vintage aviation fuel!

Temora hosts an air museum which has bi-monthly flying days of its vintage aircraft. We went this particular weekend to catch three of their turbine powered flying machines.

It was a good opportunity to practice my panning skills again. To freezes these planes going low and slow I needed at least 1/800th, but was using 1/400th to see if I could induce some panning blur.

Unfortunately, 1) it's hard to see relative motion against a pure blue sky with no clouds, and 2) where there were clouds I just plain sucked at panning.

The longest lens I have a the moment is my 80-200mm with 200mm being insufficient to really fill the frame with a jet (OH&S meant they weren't allowed to go balls out right above us).

I had better luck with the static displays and busted out some subtle HDR.

Tulips - something from nothing

2010-07-08T22:50:00.005+10:00

Tried some 3 flash lighting, 2x shoot-thru defuse front lights - 1 key, 1 fill and a gridded hairline off to the right from behind.

I don't know too many people who'd model for me so tulips from the markets just had to do. They weren't in the greatest shape, but hey when you have lemons...

Used a variety of lenses, 90mm to 80-200mm for kicks. Used aperture to control amount of light. Toyed with ND4 filter rather than fiddling with 3x flash power controls to open up the aperture a little (3x strobes in small white room = lots of light bounced around)

A little underwhelmed by my post processing. The vingetting is too cheesy in the preset I was using. I toned it back but still looks pretty dire.

Lesson learnt: Takes a lot of effort to make a photo from nothing.

Thredbo - Start of the snow season

2010-06-20T22:34:00.005+10:00

Just a few landscapes. Lugged around a lot of gear, but spent more time eating fresh snow (carefully avoiding the yellow stuff) than taking photos. Also bought a cheap ($50) 12" usb tablet from Aldi... seems okay for photo stuff, not really sure if you'd want to be doing fine art drawing on it. My 21" Wacom Cintiq will just have to wait a little longer.

Laksa on top of Australia? Especially in a german styled bierkeller? All I can say is it's no Laksa Hut (sob..)

Cheizie wasn't really looking impressed about going through the snow maker sprayer that someone thought would be awesome to put right next to the ski lift. Let's say it was more water than snow as it was right next to us.

Melbourne Weekend

2010-06-06T19:04:00.003+10:00

Should have brought my tripod in hindsight... siigh..

Ground to Cloud lightning strike?

2010-05-04T21:00:00.008+10:00

UPDATE: Looks like I made the front page of the Canberra Times too! HERE

I decided to do a chance time lapse as the clouds rolled in across Canberra. Managed to grab this. Looks strange to me, possibly a ground to cloud lightning strike.

EDIT: Some more information on ground to cloud lightning (here)

EDIT: Time lapse youtube

Friendly competition - Old School Rules

2010-04-21T11:51:00.016+10:00

I've been trying to go back to basics after a recent series of mediocre photos. I was blown away by what a friend has been doing with his Kodak bakelite Brownie Hawkeye. When he showed me what you could do with a simple light meter and a fixed focus/fixed f-stop camera I just had to try.

The Hawkeye has a fixed focus lens with a close up attachment, and a fixed f-stop. I tried to emulate it's operation by only allowing my bodgy plastic lensed Vivitar 28mm f2.8 to operate at f8 only at two focusing distances of 23cm and 2metres.

I tried to do the exposure manually like you had to with the Brownie Hawkeye using a separate light meter. Since the only light meter I have is in my camera, I used it in centre weighted mode and tried to meter different parts of the scene for best overall exposure. I came up with a shutter speed of 1/250th (which seems a bit too fast to replicate the older camera).

Processing was done as simple as possible, for the next lot of Browniesque photos here are my steps

1) Match the framing of the Brownie prints - center crop to a 1x1 aspect ratio.
2) Give it that film feel - Process using some sort of preset lightroom film type in this case Fake Fuji Superia 100.
3) Simulate the light fall off on a brownie lens - Use a preset vignetting.

Now the real challenge is that my friend pays $3-$4 per print from his camera, so I couldn't exactly be unjust and chimp away with my digital. I have to focus on composition and exposure and I'm only allowed one click to get my photo right.

So here is my attempt this month, a Cosmo Flower grown by Therese on our balcony. The photo is still too clear and sharp, and doesn't have that dreamy look that my friend's photos have. I think I need to look up the Brownie Hawkeye's specifics and constrain myself even further.

EDIT: Yup, next time I need to fix the 28mm to f16 and only use a shutter speed of 1/45th. I might also introduce some negative clarity into my processing as the crappy Vivitar 28mm is still sharper than the meniscus lens on the brownie. I could just buy a hawkeye to play with but I can't afford the film processing costs!

Wedding - Mikey and Jo

2010-04-13T15:11:00.004+10:00

I think this pretty much sums up the fantastic evening we all had at good friends Mikey and Jo's Wedding.

Didn't take as many photos as I had hoped since I was part of the bridal party. The photog. was very good and was quite calm even though we missed the golden sunset moment.

More Landscapes - The Rock - Wagga

2010-03-30T21:28:00.005+10:00

The last landscape I'm going to bother doing for a while. Plus, I worked out how unfit I am that it was heavy work to haul 5kg of camera gear up a hill. Stitched HDR and converted to B&W with PP to bring out the cloud texture. 24mm @ f8, handheld. PS does a good job of stitching these days.

Need to get back to my portraiture. Went to the National Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition. Maybe it's just me, but only a few (including the winner) stood out as exceptional photos. Without wanting to sound self involved, many amounted to mere snapshots.

Have you ever seen an very ordinary, blurry photo of a surly looking teenager taken by his mother blown up to a huge size and hung in a national gallery? Well here is your chance.

I'm not saying that my photos are works of art or contain vast quantities of emotive content, but heck, I can at least take a photo that doesn't have back focus or slow shutter blur (most of the time anyways).

Kosioszko Landscapes

2010-01-29T22:58:00.003+10:00

We had our first camping outing since way back in 2007 at Girrawheen. We hiked and stayed in the Kosioszko National Park and covered 22 km in one day doing the Main Range track to Mt Kosioszko. I sure wished the camera wasn't quite so heavy, I wonder how I will go trekking with it.

Lessons I learned:
VR is no substitute for a tripod in doing panos...
trying to guess hyperfocal distances sucks - use the iphone app... or a prime with f-stop markings
50mm f1.8 rocks in portrait orientation - that's what the L-bracket is for...
be consistent with using an index frame at the start of each pano/HDR cycle - it costs nothing...
Don't go beyond diffraction limit of a lens just to get a shorter close hyperfocal distance...
Watch for the change in polarisation angle whilst panning across the scene - a bitch to fix in PP...
HDR looks fake - use a ND grad. filter where possible

On to the photos...

The start of our walk. The ascent on the other side is much steeper than it looks

Blue Lake Pano - pushed more blue into the lake as it was looking greeny-brown, maybe too much

Head waters of the Snowy River - towards the end of the day

HDR Pano - Lookout from the Alpine Way back towards the Main Range

HDR Pano - Tom Groggins Camp site - late afternoon

Now for a MANscape... Awwww Yeahhhh.

Trawling for macros - David vs Goliath

2009-12-17T13:42:00.004+10:00

After having some fun with the Ladybug, I thought to see if I had any other macros worth posting. This one was taken two years ago with just a single corded SB-800 bounced off a white brolly (thanks girls - still using it!).

This Rhinoceros beetle was most likely the cause of death for the poor papaya tree behind the Hash house in Indooroopilly. Everyday, for a long while, it would continuously gouge holes in the major roots of the tree. I gingerly handled this monster who wasn't particularly pleased at being displaced from his tree molestation. The shot was to make the beetle's eye the focal point, but an ant wandered by to have a look.

Getting the ant in the right focal plane was just dumb luck as it was already hard to best use the limit DoF on the 90mm macro at close working ranges. Even at f9.0 it's "wafer thin"! (@ mark 4:06)

Idle lunch - Ladybug

2009-12-16T17:06:00.008+10:00

I had some Ph.D downtime as the power to our apartment was disconnected for about an hour, good thing the flash batteries were charged! Bright daylight, but still required 2 flashes. Corded 900 from above right and slave 800 from directly below. Went for f8.0-10 with 1/160 - 1/200 shutter. Spent 1/2 hour coaxing and waiting for the little dood to be ready for it's "close up", even so, only came up with two frames worth posting.

No ladybugs were injured in these photos, last I saw was the ladybug stalking some aphids on our balcony garden.

Trawling for landscapes #5 - Girrawheen Redux

2009-11-15T15:40:00.003+10:00

Can't remember if I have already posted this one.

Taken a while back in Girrawheen National Park. 14mm f8, no polariser. Wish I put the tree on the left and worked the crazy shadow it cast into the frame. That would have been a more even composition rather than the empty space to the left.

Having a play with it in post to see if my new found tricks can add to it.

Trawling for landscapes #4 - North Stradbroke Island

2009-11-12T22:14:00.011+10:00

My motivation to kick out some landscapes is for my new Windows 7 rotating backgrounds, some have been successful, others a nightmare for finding icons. Plus it's a relaxing disconnect at the end of the night after bashing my head against my paper all day.

This one was taken mid this year during our "get-the-hell-out-of-Canberra" winter holiday on North Stradbroke Island. It was a fairly flat day so some licence was taken with regards to PP. I'm happier with this one as it's @ 45mm with the 24-70mm, I think it's my preferred working range rather than the 10-20mm.

Composition wise, for me I feel there is more lead-in for the eye (compared to the other 3) with a pronounced bottom to top in both colours and subject focus. Improvement suggestions? I'm wondering if I can ditch the 3:2 ratio and crop to a composition that's tall and thin?

Edit: I think both Selina and Billo are right in saying there isn't something distinctive in the foreground for inital impact (too many sticks going everywhich way). Does the new crop with the skinny aspect ratio emphasise the bottom to top flow? I'm hoping it also highlights that bottom left to middle tree branch as the key foreground content. The crop also ditches a lot of the sky which was always an understated blurgh. I also tried an almost 1:1 crop but I don't like cropping more than I have to, and need to make more of an effort to get it right in the camera 1st.

The last 4 entries have honed for me that I simply cannot run and gun with landscapes. They require far more thought to a proper composition not to mention patience as to best timing. This appears to be common knowledge on various other blogs and sites I've been reading, but I guess hubris makes me think I know better ;-) (Damn that tasty hubris!)

Thanks to all for their constructive comments, they are exactly what I wanted.

Trawling for landscapes #3 - Lake George

2009-11-11T23:00:00.007+10:00

Eight image stitched panorama, handheld, 24-70mm in fast fading light. If I remember, I exposure locked for the middle of the frame, so there might have been some light fall off on the edge frames. Stitched in CS4 which does a pretty damn good job at auto stitching. Lightened the foreground in post and added a little punch to the colours as I have the camera set in neutral for greater flexibility in post. Given I do so much pp for colours I'm wondering if I don't use standard saturation by default rather than neutral sat. Will have to think about this. In hindsight, I should have used a 50mm and I wouldn't have that nasty distortion in the foreground... Unless I just crop most of the foreground out. Any thoughts?

My issues with this photo are lack of distinct foreground object to initially draw your eye, in fact no subject really worth mentioning save for the colour in the horizon and horizon too much in the middle. More a post processing exercise, works well for my computer desktop as it's not too busy that I lose icons in it. And the pastels are calming when I have a model crash.

For those of you who know the Lake George rest stop I took this from, it's interesting that the sun was at an angle such that the ridge of hills behind me cast a sharp shadow on the hills in the background of the frame. A few minutes earlier and the tips of those hills were a golden orange. Next time gadget!

Edit: I'll go with Ged's v. good call, the asymmetry was bothering me but in the uncropped photo, there was a pile of McDonald's wrappers (bloody bogans) defiling a memorial rest stop of a V.C. recipient during WWI so I had no choice. Good point about the downward dip in foreground being distracting. Thanks Ged, I do like it better now. Does anyone know if it's possible to get rid of stitching distortions in CS4?

Trawling for landscapes #2 - Tidbinbilla

2009-11-11T17:13:00.002+10:00

Dunno if this really counts as a landscape, but I took it with that intention so it is! Again around midday (ARGH!), again 10-20mm, again same old composition,albeit with a slight macro twist. Fiddled with it in post. Focus ain't spot on and I'm workin' off a jpg. I dunno how people make money from landscape photography. Honestly I have less than 10 landscape photos that I'm happy with in the last 3 odd years of owning this camera.

Trawling for landscapes - earlier this year

2009-11-10T21:37:00.003+10:00

Taken out near Broken Hill on our drive back to Adelaide for Xmas. This is the best of 12, still needs composition work as it looks boring. Has anyone done a landscape course and is it worth it? Or am I just using the 10-20mm all wrong? Also could someone tell me if my blues are verging too much on purple? They look fine on my big monitor but a little to purple on my el-cheapo secondary. I get the feeling the spyder2express doesn't work too well on wide gamut monitors.

A Wedding

2009-11-03T17:44:00.004+10:00

The practice day before

An opportunity arose to do a wedding for friends in Brisbane. Luckily I got the day before to check out the venue and do all the "details" photos as the day itself was hectic, comprising of

1) the "engagement party"
2) the surprise wedding
3) the reception

yes, a surprise wedding! Most guests were blown away, stoked, looking for the candid camera etc. The practice day had the most gorgeous sunset and wispy clouds, it was near perfect. I was hoping for the same on the day itself, but it was overcast, good for no blown highlights, but took a bit of effort in post to add colour and punch, plus it meant running the D200 up to 400 ISO, which ain't the best setting for it. I really think its time for a new body something that's smooth and creamy up to 1200-1600 ISO plus I'm well over 1/2 way on the D200 shutter anyway.

Gotta love that graduated filter in Lightroom, lets you bring a little more contrast in clouds etc

I thought I was crazy to have 3 flashes at the reception, two off camera remotes via wireless radio triggers as well as slaving off an on-camera commander with ttl slaves. but it was great. I could fill a space with light and just wander around.

80-200mm f2.8 worked a treat but really could have done with something that focused faster. SAVE SAVE SAVE.

Thanks to Claire, and the OCAU boys for loan of their gear.

And thanks to Tiff and Michael for trusting me with their special day.

National War Memorial - what not to do

2009-10-27T23:07:00.005+10:00

Had a chance to go to the War Memorial on a sunny day (a change from the last 3 weeks in Canberra). Took this photo which was a learning/remembering exercise in what not to do.

1) Don't photomograph at midday - why do you forget these things?
2) Don't hesitate when photomographing unless it contravenes 3).
3) Don't photomograph people if you don't feel you should - especially children, as you will contravene 2) whilst trying to decide if you should/shouldn't have them in focus.
4) Don't photomograph from your boring eyelevel of 5'10", it's only really interesting for the wee people

So conceptually 5/10 for me, but perhaps a 3/10 for resulting excution.

Foriade 2009

2009-10-16T17:12:00.002+10:00

Clearing a back log of photos, here are some from the nice days at Floriade 2009... should have gone in with a specific photo in mind rather than "I'd like some floral stuff for the walls"

Umbrella Jo - a new recruit.

2009-09-07T23:31:00.007+10:00

It feels like I've been doing wedding photos forever, so I needed a quick assignment to keep me thinking creatively. Inspiration came from this, though it was very clear very quickly that I needed a big ass shade to diffuse the light as they have.

I got a moment with Umbrella Jo to try a bit of outdoor portraiture. I think I need to switch to shoot-thru brollies as I'm losing way too many light stops using bounce flash. Plus I think I need a bigger brollie to spread out the light and be able to get it further from the subject without it acting like a point light source. Also a reflector/shade wouldn't go astray in the midday conditions as was when we shot. In post, I opted for as different as possible rather than theme. I've been feeling and as Jo so rightly pointed out, I've been using post as a crutch for bad photography, so I'm on a mission to tighten my shot discipline.

I can see a limitation of the 80-200mm f2.8. At longer focal lengths and f-stops below 3.5, it's soft soft soft. But between 80-160mm at f3.5+ you could cut glass. Not too shabby for 20 year old tech.

A postscript to this entry is 3 days later Jo broke her nose at a game of full contact netball. In a conversation soon after the incident, she said what I was thinking "Thank god we got those photos before I broke my doze". Hey she said it! I was just thinking it!

One for the ladies... Poppies

2009-08-11T23:09:00.003+10:00

Taking a break from wedding photo PP, thought I'd crack one out. Two flashes, one main, direct on the top flower with a tight beam focus on the SB900 and another secondary gridded snoot behind left of the two lower yellow flowers. Exposure care of Nikon CLS iTTL, 0.0 FEV on main and -0.3 FEV on secondary. would like a 3rd flash (maybe a ring) on front with -3.0 FEV for some slight fill, but didn't want to use onboard camera flash as working distance was too close and lens would cast a shadow.

FYI: 90mm macro, stop f32, note diffraction softening in exchange for DOF, brought back in post with sharpening to a limited degree. Black point raised to make sure background was black black and to add to contrast.

Claire and Richard - Shine Dome - ANU

2009-07-02T00:05:00.003+10:00

Practise Practise Practise - 20 minute multiple flash setup and tear down coz it was sooo bloody cold. Thanks to Claire and Richard for being so game... hope it doesn't wear the big man down such that he succumbs to Claire hooping cough!

Look how cold the poor chickins are when they weren't posing

Kelly and Greg

2009-06-28T23:05:00.002+10:00

Oh the nerves... important events coming up and having to shoot! Thanks guys for letting me practise.

The Running Man

2009-06-14T21:30:00.002+10:00

Some ancillary shenanigans from the Wedding that could make it to Facebook so had to be published here

To crop or not to crop?

2009-05-31T19:00:00.002+10:00

A pose and grab shot with only one frame exposed as we were on our way to greet guests

I'm of two minds about the head and shoulders crop, Therese suggested it and whilst it does lose the dangely hands... it also loses that 3rd layer of depth with the cottage in the background. I liked it with a more body and background, though I should have got the groom to fold his arms or put them in his pockets.

The Red Bucket Series

2009-05-31T00:07:00.003+10:00

I took the opportunity to get outside in the freezing bleak Canberra weather to practise my DIY sunset lighting (which I failed miserably at, I should be at the top of the hill) and Miss T came out to do some composting/impromptu modelling. Instead we came back with a series of photos I wasn't expecting.

Also please complete the poll regarding your screen size resolution, coz on my new monitor every thing seems so small that it makes me want to upload bigger photos!

Cheers

Story
1) Cold and bored
2) Hmm Red Bucket
3 & 4) Ensuing craziness

DON'T FLY TIGER AIRWAYS!!

2009-05-30T12:02:00.003+10:00

Lemme tell you a story...

So I booked some tickets for friends for a surprise. Having only ever known one of them by their Chinese name, I found out that all their ID was in their Malay name after I booked the flights. I was shocked to learn that Tiger's name change fee... EVEN WHEN IT'S FOR THE SAME PERSON! is $100. I tried to ask them to waive the fee as a gesture of goodwill since I haven't flown Tiger before at that stage and didn't realise they would charge a fee just to change the same person's name to that on their ID. They still pressed for the fee giving some BS that they'd waive the flight change fee instead?!

Then I actually caught my first flight with Tiger, delayed by two hours with no notification on their webpage or any other service. I was stupidly with Tiger on my return flight which was cancelled 40mins after the departure time without any notification prior. We all had to rush back to the front desk only to be told after waiting for 20 minutes in line that they'd be flying again So 1.5 hours after scheduled departure we left.

My third Tiger flight left on time for a change but somehow got there 20 minutes early which meant our pick up wasn't even at the airport yet! On my 4th Tiger flight we were delayed by another 2 hours.

SO all up ZERO PERCENT on time performance for Tiger Airways not the 72% listed on their website. Plus an absolute lack of care for their customer's repeat business with their poor customer service.

Lets make sure all the affluent and influential people know how bad Tiger Airways are. I am out to cost Tiger Airways more than a thousand fold in negative publicity for the $100 they charged me for a name change for the SAME PERSON!!!

I thought I had it bad till I started reading some of these and all the rest

Here

Here

Here

SO TIGER KEEP SINKING THE MONEY IN ADVERTISING, COZ EVERY DOLLAR YOU SPEND IS GOING TO BE A DOLLAR WASTED THANKS TO ME!

I am a wilful person so I am happy to be bad publicity for Tiger Airways for the rest of my life or till they go under which will be hopefully soon.

24-70mm f2.8 - Still learning

2009-05-03T17:21:00.001+10:00

Byron Bay.. Probably could have done a similar shot with existing lenses.

Gear dust-off - Canberra Festival Balloon Spectacular

2009-03-08T17:17:00.006+10:00

So... Canberra.

Well, it's much drier here so I don't have to worry about lens fungus as much, just dust and grit!

So I'm trying to get back in to the swing of taking photos now the worst of the relocation is over. I've managed a few photos in the last 4 months, mainly family things. The Canberra Festival Balloon Spectacular (Spectacular!) was a great op. for some cool photos. Again I suck with the 10-20mm, oh well.

Thunderstruck!

2008-10-21T22:40:00.002+10:00

Jumped off the bus after work and turned around to a spectacular lightning show. I ran to the house to get my gear and exposed a few frames, managing to get this shot.

Quick and Dirty Floriade 2008

2008-10-12T23:00:00.004+10:00

Had a quick lunch in Canberra last week with the Gorgeous (it was part of a trip, I'm not that rich as to be able to "nip" down from Brisbane just for a feed). She packed a delicious picnic and took me to Floriade from the airport. Canberra can be lovely, let's hope it doesn't get too miserable in Winter... though there is always snow to look forward to.

And the prettiest flower of them all.. (Geez I make myself nauseous sometimes)

Brisbane Eye(sore)

2008-09-28T10:23:00.008+10:00

(Boring)

Well everyone else has done it and many better, but I thought I'd flex those photography neurons after a long couple of weeks at the grindstone.

(Better)

Ah well...

Studio course

2008-07-28T20:35:00.009+10:00

Briefly, went and did a studio course with some of the boys from OCAU, got to use studio strobes and work with a model. Amongst the banter we actually got some photos in.

Note to self: need to find a new repetoire of compositions, we've done the one eye thing to death.

We also had to practice on each other so here's a sample of "The boys..." I think these were all our "Money" faces.

I'm a freek! (courtesy of Munkiboy)

Storms under the moon

2008-04-26T10:54:00.004+10:00

Just quickly, since I should actually be working (on ANZAC Weekend Saturday no less! Damn this Ph.D!)

The storm was brewing over the bay and I initially thought it was a flickering street light till I opened the frosted window. It was a hard long exposure because of the moon being in the frame as well (not to mention the sporadic nature of lightning at the best of times). This is the best framing out of 12 exposures... sigh... getting rusty with lack of camera use.

note to self: If PPing on a laptop screen, make sure it's colour cal'ed to the brightest backlight setting and not lower so that you have maximum contrast, oops!

Adelaide Photo Night - Randoms

2008-03-29T18:37:00.004+10:00

"No time for love Dr. Jones!", I've got a Ph.D fish to fry so posts will be sporadic for the next few months arriving in spurts.

FLARE?! and Northern Lights - State Library

Dang Frinks was right about the polariser!

Improptu Portaits: Leney W

2008-02-25T22:52:00.005+10:00

I'm finding out how hard it is to conjure a good portrait out of thin air. All the Umbrella Girls (in no way affiliated with Umbrella Girls USA, though I think my girls are just as pretty) were preplanned with much thought going into what I wanted to try/reproduce. However, with just my small collection of lenses and a single flash, I had to please Leney W's Ma since she had gone to a great deal of trouble to thaw me out a tasty lamington and find some cocalish ambrosia.

Continuing from lessons learned from Umbrella Claire, the hotel room windows yielded some high key stuff, though no umbrella to help the front lighting, just my tupperware. Tried the whole "close-your-eyes-then-open-them-when-I-tell-you" glarey sun trick, but I've obviously got to work on my timing or Leney's got to start reading my mind. That's okay I like the squint, I think it's more natural.

Thanks to Ben J for showing me some of the more picturesque places in Victor the last time so I got a good location, though it was hard light.

Thanks to Leney for horsing (can you tell I'm a missin' Claire) around for the photos and I hope ya Ma likes them!

Umbrella Claire

2008-02-17T19:30:00.005+10:00

So after a long hiatus, many broken promises and much gnashing of teeth from Claire (when I had absconded so many times) I got around to some portraits of Claire - the last of the Umbrella (ella ella) girls.

All shot in the comfortable confines of AGHQ with no dramatic (read cheating) sunrises or sunsets to help lighting. I tried for high key stuff with just a white sheet, the flashes and brolly. Firstly with some girl next door type o'photos.

Had a crack at some alternative settings but ended back at the white sheet, B&W again was not my forte, so post processed with sepia to make things a little more interesting. I like the way B&W can smooth skin but it's hard to add depth to an image.

When I called for props, Kat kat turned up a GH III axe and this is what Claire came up with... :-P

Thanks to Kat and Claire for their creative input in PP and lighting, helped with the learning on what other people see in a photo.

Quick ones - Disraeli Sunsets

2008-02-06T20:53:00.001+10:00

After a long day of rain we got blessed with a very spectacular sunset out west of the CBD.

OCAU Crapshoot - B&W challenge 24 frames with no in-camera review

2008-02-04T18:12:00.000+10:00

I suck at B&W. It's gonna take some practice to get my eye in. Luke C and myself set each other the challenge of only 24 frames in B&W with no reviewing of the images in camera. 4 frames were complete crap and 6 were okay. I reckon he did better than I. The rest are here.

NYE at Point Turton, South Australia

2008-02-01T22:12:00.000+10:00

Well being first of Feb. I've had ample time to recuperate from NYE (not that it was particularly debauched since we almost missed it coz we all had a nanna nap). It was one of the most spectacular sunsets I have seen in a long time. Also went down to Innes national park whilst we were there.

Victor Harbour - Lots of boring rocks and late sunsets

2008-01-20T22:50:00.000+10:00

HDR of Causeway and foreground rocks

Final part to my day with Ben J. Got to Victor Harbour with still too much sky between the sun and the horizon. We putted around and almost forgot to get to Granite Island for sunset photos (which would have wasted the day).

Final one looks fake to me.

Big thanks to Ben J for his tuition and taking the day to do some photographing.

Cheers

Hash

Stones, Dog, Logs and woody bits (with snails)

2008-01-11T23:36:00.000+10:00

Got around to having a photo day with Ben J (of Keeping you up with the Joneses Blog). We probably ended up with the same set of photos since I was trying to copy... err.. learn as much as I could from Ben. It was an epic day filled with way too much sun and bloody sunsets at 9pm in the evening.

This portion was from Port Willunga on our way down to Victor Harbour.

Excessive wood? You betchya!

6 Months on a Leaky Boat

2007-12-05T23:30:00.000+10:00

Well not really, more like 26 hours on a luxury yacht. Was recently invited to partake in a Radon sampling expedition in Moreton Bay aboard the Velella. Chief and I were well chuffed to be included. Here's some pictures.

Competition Updates

2007-11-26T18:48:00.000+10:00

So after some effort of going and trying to take competition level photos, it's time to update some of the available results

Canon Photo5 - No short listings - Friend Frink reckons it's because Canon can't let a Nikon camera be short listed or win ;-) Without tooting my own trumpet, there are some truly pov entries, and none of them were admittedly taken from Nikon camera. Which I guess is a good thing! Geez I'm a sore loser! ;-p Go here to vote and view the finalists.

Brisbane Lord Mayor's Photographic Award - On display - Got a letter to say that my entry will be on display alongside the winners from the 30th of November to the 2nd of March in the Museum of Brisbane, Town Hall in the City. WOOT!

Queensland Premier's Multicultural Photographic Awards - Pending - Early next year

Canon Photo5 Competition

2007-11-15T15:59:00.000+10:00

Oh thank goodness they are finally over! NO MORE PHOTO COMPETITIONS!

This Competition held by Canon Australia is limited to 2500 entrants (No professionals allowed) with a final 50 images (10 per category) being short listed by judges, and voted on by anyone who can be bothered to register! SO REGISTER AND VOTE FOR ME!

The premise was simple "take 5 objects we provide for you and do something creative with each one individually!"

The five objects being

Cardboard boxes
Balloons
Cellophane
Dots
Chalk

Here are my submitted images. We were allowed an artist's comment on how we came up with the image concept. Will post voting links if I even get short listed!

"Bluey"zilla

Comment - Pondering boxes on my way through the garden, I spotted this blue tongue wending it's way across the paves when I instantly thought "MONSTER LIZARD!" I wanted to see if I could use the boxes to belie the scale in the photo, to make this lizard seem larger than it was. I didn't really want to bother the poor guy so I didn't have time to draw windows, I just hoped perspective, creative lighting and DOF would make him seem larger than life. Then again, it could just look like a lizard in some boxes No Lizards were harmed in the making of this picture.

"Flight of the "Val"kyries"

Comment - Balloons took some effort to think of, but I remembered seeing some balloon powered toy helicopters. Which instantly brought on less ominous visions of Francis Coppolla "Apocalypse Now", complete with Wagner's "flight of the valkyries". Coincidentally, the gorgeous lady in the foreground is called Val Hardest part was controlling these things, of which you had no control.

"Banks of the River Styx"

Comment - This object was the hardest. I wanted to use the cellophane as a light modifier but also as the central object. So i decided on a candle as my light source but soon found the background too dark to distinguish what sort of origami I had made. so I decided to float the boat in a red container and use the flashes light the water red... Blood red which I've always imagined to be oil black or blood red.

"Long day at the office"

Comment - I thought office supplies and what I would do if I was couped up in a high rise office building, luckily I knew a friend who was and it had a great view! It was going to be called "Friday Afternoon" and we waited almost two weeks for a nice sunset over the city, but with time running out we had to go with the weather we had. Was hard work trying to get the dots properly exposed and minimising reflections, and using the hyperfocal length of a lens is so much harder without the appropriate markings! Cloudy day gave a much more interesting sky in the end. Technically the hardest to setup.

"Chalk Camera"

Comment - Geez, what can I say... cheesy? My Chalky Camera has served me well for this photo competition. This final image is a testament to the amazing photographic tool that a chalk camera can be. Pretty straight forward method, little manipulation in software and PRESTO! Chalk Camera taking a photo of Chalk... I wonder what the resolution is... at least it doesn't seem to be monochromatic!

BIG THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO HELPED OUT ESPECIALLY CLAIRE, SAM, KATRINA and THERESE for allowing me to sound out my ideas and providing creative feed. Thanks to Val, Matt B, Mothei, Todd V and especially "Bluey" our backyard blue tongue lizard got disturbed twice in one week, Bluey, if you are reading this, stop hiding at my front door!

QLD Premier's Photocompetition - Multi-cultural New Beginnings

2007-11-15T00:52:00.000+10:00

The photocomp was aimed at promoting multiculturalism in QLD. I had something else in mind, but the last few weeks have been taken up by duties, so this was a last minute photo.

Completely ran out of time, this is actually our bike shed at AGHQ, but it COULD be a dingy bar (to me anyway!)

I tried kissing my own forearm with lipstick (which didn't taste nice), but Claire kindly volunteered even though we were both weirded out by it... The number actually is the start of the Premier's office number (I hope she doesn't realise this when judging!).

Getting the right title took longer than the photo! Sam and I came up with

Cultural Exchange
Bridging the divide

I finally settled on "It's in the numbers" for the multiple entendres (sp?) it provided.

though in hindsight I would have much preferred "The roots of Multiculturalism" or "Multicultural Roots!"

Sigh!

OCAU - Newfarm

2007-11-09T00:46:00.000+10:00

Went for a walk with the OCAU boys again, this time in New Farm to try out my swanky new tripod! Also had a first hand look at a Canon 40D, and I have to say, it's impressive what you can buy for $1700 these days. Finally got a chance to take photos of the old Gasometer structure on Longland street. Yes it's been done to death, but not by me! Go 10-20mm goodness!

Umbrella Val

2007-11-07T10:40:00.000+10:00

Finally! After a lengthy ND agreement (something to do with wooing a certain man with a surprise, me thinks), I give you the wondrous if not wonderful, Umbrella Valerie!

It's been so long I forget what I was trying to do, I think it was to try and bring detail out in the black dress, which I didn't really do very well. Also I was attempting to do portraits with a really dark background without losing depth to the image, ie using lights in background etc, again, didn't do so well. At least Val saved the day by just being beautiful!

Living With Our Wild Neighbours

2007-11-01T23:34:00.000+10:00

My entry for the Brisbane Lord Mayor's Photographic Competition: Shifting Focus

Apparently I have to give a cheesy 50-word "artist's" comment

Humans manipulate their environment to benefit themselves. Consequently, urban landscapes are as foreign to this ‘Bluey’ as the moon is to man.

With increased awareness and concern for our local environments, wondrous backyard encounters such as mine will continue.

Shifting focus helps us see eye to eye with our world.

Clare Bowditch and The Feeding Set

2007-11-01T02:09:00.000+10:00

Back in BrisVegas for her new album launch "The Moon Looked On", the first after having twins. I thought I'd splash out and take all the roomies with me. Unfortunately Miss T (also a big fan since our train trip to Alghero) was unwell so she relinquished her precious ticket to a Mr. Todd who being a long time fan (and who coincidentally introduced me to her) was very appreciative of.

We had seats front and centre in the Powerhouse Theater. When I say that I mean second row from stage at about eye level with Miss B's knees, smack bang in front of her. Felt like she was playing just for us (I wish!)

I was a big fan of "What was left" and I am now keen on the new album (featured on Triple J all this week). Pick up a copy and give it a spin, and then buy all the earlier albums too! Definitely one of my favourite female vocalists and musicians in general, just ask the girls... I keep playing her again and again!

P.S. IMHO I've come a way of a ways from the first time I took photos of her in July last year, always nice to visually see I've gotten incrementally better over time

Out the corner of my eye

2007-10-25T23:52:00.000+10:00

As I went back up to the Hash House today (my granny flat) I spotted this little guy on a dandelion. Out came camera, flash+lightsphere and sync cord. Ahhh... set to manual of 1/500th @ f18 and let the i-ttl flash do the rest! Framing could have been better without clipping that bottom petal. Nikon's 85mm PC micro would have been cool to get the DOF plane to include more petals, but that's $1500 more than I've got. Anyone want to donate to Hash's photography fund?

Also here are a few that I took whilst at Girraween National Park (near Stanthorpe) last weekend. The inch ant I encountered was ferocious! Kept on jumping at the lens!

Yes still alive

2007-10-14T21:47:00.000+10:00

Here, have some place holder photos to tide you over. Been a little flat out what with a friend's wedding, a trip back to Adelaide, portraiture work and not to mention a very photographically eventful 30th Birthday!

Tried to use the multiple exposure ability in the D200, though I think it would be just as easy to stack photos in PS afterwards. Had a lovely picnic with Therese on the lookout which was very crowded. I pushed the colours of the first one a bit much, and blew out highlights all over the shop. Ah well...

More photos SOOON!

Hash

BCG - Fort Lytton - Portraiture Workshop

2007-09-10T23:10:00.000+10:00

Being always in the need for models to practice on, I was told of a portraiture session with the Brisbane Camera Group at Fort Lytton, down near the port of Brisbane. It was crawling with photographers and models. Cameras were jousting lenses to take a photo of the models. The poor things were faced with 20+ cameras clicking away at anyone time with shouts of "Look over here please!"

Leisel

Alysse

Overdue Lunar Eclipse

2007-09-09T22:57:00.000+10:00

Probably been done to death in the past few weeks but here's my $0.02 worth. I attached my trusty D200 to Sam's Dad's Dobsonian mount XXXXmm reflector scope that looks something like this...

I couldn't completely get rid of the shutter vibrations from the camera so things came out a little blurry. There are better pictures out there but it still was well worth freezing my butt off for my own!

Sandgate Sunrise

2007-09-09T00:38:00.000+10:00

Once again up at an early hour! This time I'm joined by fellow OCAU Photography compatriots Steve and Luke. We were hoping for better weather, but clouds were obscuring the horizon. Nevertheless we got what we came for.

I'm getting this feeling that, my landscape photography is really lacking something that makes the picture stand out. They feel hohum... I think I might indulge in a landscape composition course some time soon.

The Boys

Sydney Opera House Pano

2007-08-30T23:05:00.000+10:00

Before I got my 10-20mm I had to live with stitching panoramas (sigh). Here's one of the Opera House. It's hard to convey the detail in this photo, to give you an idea, that little white square of a sign in the bottom middle of the frame is a no smoking sign I can read in the full resolution version.

Go Go Lomo Octopus man!

2007-08-24T11:43:00.001+10:00

Been sick lately so this is the best I could come up with... This guy was crusing down the street in Byron Bay waggling his legs like an octopus for propulsion. Thought he'd look better in Lomo... he doesn't.

Roses in the Garden

2007-08-07T13:34:00.000+10:00

More 90mm Macro goodness with remote off-camera flash and LSPJII diffuser

no cropping! :D

Gorgeous smelling roses in the garden

1:2 ratio on the Tamron 90mm SP Macro

1:1 ratio

1:1 ratio with 68mm of Kenko extension tubes

I love my Tammy

Bridge To Brisbane 2007

2007-08-05T04:30:00.000+10:00

I was up at 0430 this morning for the year's annual Bridge to Brisbane fun run, which raised money for the Surf Life Saving Queensland (who do an admirable job all year round). I did my bit, not by running, rather trying to play pro (as in paid, not as in good) photographer and getting as many corporate group shots for the event photography business I was employed by. This in turn raised addition funds through photo sales for SLSCs in QLD. Also got a chance to get track side and try my hand sports shooting, which is damn hard! GO D200 AF system!

The light was harsh with the competitors coming in from the east against the sun with no cloud cover. Tried the trick of -1/2 to -2/3s EV comp. and bumped up fill flash comp. by +1 to balance things out background and foreground without blowing highlights. Didn't help that the company was wanting jpgs so there was little touching up to be done afterwards (I LOVE RAW!). Sharp sun after sunrise was also hard to work with, especially when people were wearing hats (learned my lesson from photos with Mel :D ).

Respect to these guys, they were v. fast!

So was the elite 1st place person (damn fast), he was in and out of frame before I knew how to compensate for his ebony skin! Have to remember that when I'm taking photos of Chief's family. Other people (Mr. Tease) were fast for other reasons (more on that later).

I caught up with Ali G. and Paul G. (Check out his gallery lots of awesome stuff! Sorry Paul if the photo makes you look a bit... what's the PC term... special needs? Just the wide angle lens skews and distorts! HE'S PERFECTLY NORMAL PEOPLE!)

Also caught up with Val and Tiff from Claire's Lab (aka Hume lab(?))... WITH YOUR POWERS COMBINED... you make for a nice photo??

The sun, heat and exertion seem to have brought out the PHREEKY side of people, especially our friend Mr. Tease who suggested... then posed for his shot (oh dear god, my right eye is still weeping blood).

Being photographer seemed to attract a lot of attention from girls... perhaps they were just more comfortable at getting their photos taken or yelling "YooHOO! Mr. PHOTOGRAPHER!" The old guy was 86(?) and had competed in all 10 Bridge to Brisbane runs since the inugaral in 1997! I have no excuse...

Did I mention I hate clowns?

The rest of the photos HERE.

Around and about Brisbane

2007-07-30T22:15:00.000+10:00

Some miscellaneous photos over the weekend about Brisbane. Still playing around with 10-20mm. Dropped it though! It bounced back from a 4" drop from the bag, still works! :D

William Jolly Bridge

Riverside

Woot! Hand-held on a ferry down to 1/13th! Don't look too closely though!

A Wall, a girl, an umbrella lightstand of goodness

2007-07-24T00:11:00.000+10:00

A Wall

Amy subjugated herself to more photos on behalf of developing my skills. This time I was trying not to focus on just the subject but to throw more illumination on the interesting background without loosing the subject.

A girl

Thanks again Ames!

A Gimp

Ack! New lens and I have no idea how to use it! Sigma 10-20mm EX DC HSM f4-5.6

2007-07-16T23:58:00.000+10:00

Right, so tax time came and the ATO left me some change... Me thinks it be time for an early birthday present so I got me a Sigma 10-20mm ultra-wide angle lens for my collection. First thing I found was I had no idea how to compose with it. So a quick consult with my Dad who owns the same lens and to Ben J for some composition advice left me still feeling a little flustered about this whole ultrawide angle thing.

Claire, Kat and myself went to the Glasshouse mountains for a bit of a hiking adventure, complete with roast chicken picnic and laughter till Kat's pants fell off. I look at the pictures I took and feel composition wise, some thing is still lacking. I guess only practice will tell whether me and this lens are a match.

Awww work it! Some other person who claims they were a photographer (Whatever it takes to get away from her friend who was reciting poetry to her I guess) took these and got snap happy with my D200 coz it made a nice "clicking" noise. Hey it's only 100,000 cycles MTBF! I'm charging you for those 10 frames! Speaking of which I'm fast approaching 15,000 shutter activations.

Mel's Belles!

2007-07-09T01:18:00.000+10:00

YaY! Puppies!!! oh and Mel too! This photographing is tough work, had to get up before the crack of dawn just to drive 40mins to Shorncliffe Jetty. Some other photographer was there trying to do landscapes in the pre-dawn. Thought he'd snap one or two but then he proceeded to spend 10 or more minutes flaffing about with his tripod in the sand, so I thought "stuff you if you are going to waste the pre-dawn light" and started taking photos of Mel whilst in his frame. ;-7 Bit rude really... oh well.

I never realised how quick the sun rises! It's worse than working against the tide. I think we had about 20 mins pre-dawn and about 1/2 hour once the sun had cracked the horizon and it was like working against an atomic bomb.

Amy was all about where to position the lights relative to the subject. Mel was more about positioning the camera relative to the lights and the subject. I didn't feel it at all simple especially adjusting the exposure every time to compensate for the rising sun and rapid increase in light levels.

Things I need to be aware of in future... Since I was concentrating so hard on getting the exposure right, and the rush against time, my frame composition went out to window, paws cropped off, tails off frame etc... must work harder. I rely on Nikon's Creative Lighting System too much and need to start using the flashes in manual mode combined with full manual mode in the camera rather than relying on the camera's meter to get the exposures I would like. Some things like having the sun in frame whilst using a couple of off camera strobes isn't quite what the exposure programmers had in mind when they were creating the D200.

Thanks Mel for braving the cold and bringing the pups! I had an awesome time! You ROCK! And a BIG thanks to Claire for also braving the cold, being dog handler extraordinaire, uber photo roadie and my strobe biznatch coz I'm too cheap to get a second light stand! Some photos of the various setups and dog shenanigans.

Amy Jane

2007-07-02T01:10:00.000+10:00

Amy of blogging goodness was the first volunteer for my attempt to practise my lighting skills. She was infinitely patient and wasn't at all condecending of the more feeble attempts.

Thanks Amy! You rock!

The first and the last... Sniff

2007-06-26T19:14:00.000+10:00

I finally got to one of mate Nige's shows (he's the one playing double bass) for Mardi and the Rising Seas. As always, my D200 sucks in poor ambient light at anything above 800ISO with lots of shadow noise, maybe I should be shooting it in B&W and call it "grain". Or lemme hear you say "f1.2!" Alas, Nige is departing these fair shores for greater things so I was lucky to get to his last performance here.

Stumpy Greyness

2007-06-20T23:18:00.000+10:00

Our neighbour's cat, Zelda, likes to visit us often, though she has been missing for a few weeks now as it appears the neighbours are on holiday. We miss her muchly.

Missy Higgins @ The Tivoli

2007-05-19T21:01:00.000+10:00

Went to see Missy Higgins supported by Jackie Marshall at the Tivoli. What's with the 'tude that man hating lesbians have? Like I care about their sexual preference, just hands off my girlfriend, there's enough to go around!

Photos were poor as all I had with me was the 90mm f2.8 and 50mm f1.8, angles were bad as I was too scared of the death stares I was getting from the chixors with comfortable shoes. They think they own Missy because of the ambiguous lyrics in her songs. As Hetero Claire puts it "I want her songs to be relevant to Me... Me and someone of the OPPOSITE SEX!"

Have a look here on how it should be done

Things that make you go Hmmmm...

2007-05-15T00:23:00.000+10:00

Crazy insect with mandibles of death!

2^3 eyes hurts more when flashed

Mouldy froot anyone?

Paid work - Woohoo!

2007-05-14T23:55:00.000+10:00

I never would have imagined it but some people paid me to take photos! Wish I had a wider angle lens for the St. John's Cathedral in Brisbane, the people knew the stone mason who worked on the cathedral extensions.

Also made a canvas print of a flower for a friend's house warming present.

London

2007-05-11T23:30:00.000+10:00

I met up with Therese in London and went to see the things I missed out on the last time I was there. We arranged a sickly romantic meeting in the middle of the Tower bridge, I was so excited I even got there early so I could get some breakfast down to calm my nerves (I had about 3 hrs slept thanks to a red eye special from Pisa).

I inhaled a breakfast burrito of chicken and salad (bad choice in hindsight) and went to meet the girl. Therese, too, got there early, giving me a big hug and we walked in relative silence off the Tower bridge, gazing wistfully into each others faces before she announce, "By the way you have a big bit of lettuce in your front teeth!" Thanks Gorgeous! :)

We also met up with the Nash's whilst we were over there, it really helped to have Chris and Michelle point out places they liked. As much as I bitch and moan about how crowded and busy London is, at least I wasn't bored whilst I was there!

A couple of shots from the British Museum filled with colonial plunder and antiquities!

The great natural history museum was also something else, the Waterhouse building alone is amazing. LOOK!! UNDEAD MONKEYS!! AIEEEE!!

We stalked about sunny London and sat next to an old man feeding the squirrels, singling out a particular one he called Susie Squirrel (thus picture with obligatory squirrel-in-park-eating-nuts photo) Chris met us for dinner and we tramped about Trafalgar square before settling on some great Japanese. Therese got cold and I lent her my only warm item of clothing and braved the London autumn evening in nought but a T-shirt (well pants too... come and get it ladies!), needless to say I got sick and she still blames me for the runny noise and fever I gave her! Puh!

I wanted to go to Dover, but it was suggested that there isn't much there unless you were in a boat coming from across the channel, so we went to Brighton/Hove instead! Pebble beachs are a pain in the ass. There was an amazing donation cat which purred when people passed near it, it gave me the willies when it caught me unawares with my back to it the first time.

I left London and Therese with a promise to see what would happen after 3 months apart. It was worth the wait.

About a Girl

2007-05-05T23:56:00.000+10:00

"Im standing in your light
I do hope you have the time
I do pick up number two
I do keep a date with you"
Nirvana - About a girl

So the news I have been sitting on for so long and have been so reticent in sharing far and wide for fear that it was just a figment of my lucid imagination is... I have met someone wonderful.

It’s funny how you can live for a very long time in complete ignorance to the world around you, steeped in your own concerns and troubles. Yet all it takes is to open your eyes and things are seldom as bad as they appear in the shuttered space of your mind. Commonsense? Yes, but that is sometimes hard to find when you do not care for those logical rationales.

On this Italy trip I rolled back the blinds only to find a wondrous person in return.

A long story short, Therese is a friend, who I had only met once before, of my housemate Sam. We kept in email contact because of a lapse in concentration during a group email (we need to thank Karen for the initial impetus). We ended up deciding to rendezvous in Sardinia since she was on a 6 month journey and I was on a conference. I found that four days in Sardinia wasn’t enough time in this lovely person’s company, and I jumped through hoops to see her again before we were at geographical antipodes. I conjured up a shortened trip to Italy (sorry Gio!) after leaving Therese in Alghero, Sardinia and kept my promise to take her to dinner and the theatre in London (The Lion King at the Lyceum - Thanks Chris and Michelle)... What lady could resist dinner and a show? Needless to say things boded well for us from that point on.

Yes yes some of you wheedled my excitement out of me, but by in large I’ve been kind of vague about Therese. So why was I so taciturn about this scenario? Well for starters, Therese was only 2 months into her 6 month sojourn in Europe and she was hoping to turn her 6 month journey into something a little longer and more permanent. Also she lived in Sydney and was into sheep and horses (Ag. Science degree!).

A Science Communicator by virtue of further training, Therese makes me feel ineloquent when trying to convey the synopsis of my Ph.D project, she has much to teach me about communicating ideas with efficiency and without overwhelming detail to the wider community.

We have weathered four long months, separated by 23000 odd kilometres and numerous bad internet cafes. She has recently closed the distance between Brisbane and Sydney to be with me, so I feel Therese is here to stay. Be on the lookout for more exciting events involving this gorgeous lady!

My last picture of Therese asleep on a bus to Alghero Airport as we prepared for our first painful parting of ways. I remember wondering if I would ever see her again as I stared at her on the bright view screen of my trusty D200. Sometimes a 2.5" viewfinder is just not big enough...

Thankfully you've made my camera obsolete by moving to Brisbane Gorgeous!

Porto Venere

2007-05-05T23:13:00.000+10:00

Alrighty, time to get this overseas trip photo monkey off my back! I'm missing out on some important news I would like to share with you all.

SO! Gio took me to Porto Venere, favourite hang out of Lord Byron. A stunning sea side hamlet with amazing colour-washed terraced buildings, must have been glorious on a better day! Ah well you take what you can get. Nevertheless, I'm still gobbed smacked when I look at the photos of my trip, it almost feels like a life time since I was there with Gio!

Apparently Lord Byron found his muse by wistfully watching the sea pound the rocky coast line

HDR's Cheatin'!

2007-03-28T23:47:00.000+10:00

Quickly took a bracket of 9 photos (ahhh D200 bracket burst!) from + and - 4Ev at 1Ev stops. Bang it all together with some photoshop magic and you have a HDR, play around a bit and you have a photo that can't be done without digital photography. Makes even my backyard look interesting. Ah well new trick up my sleeve, but better not use it as a crutch too much.

Carrara - Fosdinovo Castle

2007-03-25T21:13:00.000+10:00

Quarry from Township of Carrara

We continued from Pietrasanta to the source of Carrara Marble, quarried since roman times, used in sculptures such as Michelangelo's David

Township of Carrara

Giant Bees

Lardo again!

We then continued to Fosdinovo castle which had amazing views from the rampart of the surrounding country side.

Gio managed to convince me to get in front of the camera, once again resulting in a photo which confirms why I belong on the other end of a camera.

We got home just in time before Viareggio got hit by a large storm... so pretty!

Pietra Santa

2007-03-25T13:24:00.000+10:00

I'm not usually one for religious works, but sometimes like at Pietra Santa, I find them awe inspiring. Even though I don't quite get the God thing, they do feel ethereal, primarily because of the effort gone into them.

North Stradbroke Diving

2007-03-20T14:28:00.000+10:00

Just as a quick aside, I went diving on the weekend with a bunch of uni people on North Stradbroke. It was an amazing couple of days weather wise.

Dive 1:
Site: Flat Rock
Start pressure: 220 bar
End pressure: 50 bar
Bottom Time: 50 min
Rate: 3.4 bar/min
Max depth: 26m
Visibility: +20m
Conditions: Calm, light swell

Dive 2:
Site: Manta Bommie
Start pressure: 230 bar
End pressure: 55 bar
Bottom time: 47 min
Rate: 3.72 bar/min
Max depth: 13.1m
Visibility: 20m
Conditions: Strong current outside of dive site, some surge

Fauna: Manta Rays, leopard sharks, wobbegong sharks, Octopi, small rays, green turtles, nudibranchs, Moray Eels, puffer fish.

Highlights: Lying face down in front of a leopard shark and just watching it. Watching Matt B razz up a puffer fish so it blew up. Manta ray (even though it was in the distance). Swimming with a turtle.

We stayed on North Stradbroke over the weekend and had a great time just hanging about. After the trip I think we were all pretty exhausted and needed another weekend.

Photos from the weekend can be found here

Desperately wanting a housing for my D200 now.

It really LEANS!

2007-03-14T22:07:00.001+10:00

As you can guess, you can't go to Pisa without at least seeing the Leaning Tower! Gio apparently walks straight past it on her way to uni! She says it wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the tourists all trying to pretend to push it over or hold it up. Luckily I got there before the press of tour buses, and sure enough it did look ridiculous as the myriads of people all jostled to take photos of themselves holding it up. I scoffed at them for being so pathetic, but deep inside I knew the only reason why I wasn't one of them was I didn't trust anyone with my camera L

Gio Blogs IV

2007-03-12T23:51:00.001+10:00

Righto, after a long hiatus and perhaps forgetting quite a bit of my journey, I have finally returned to my Italy trip photos with a vengeance. The time spent on the wedding photos wasn't all bad, taught me to sharpen up my colour balance skills etc, and that sometimes oversaturation can add dramatic effect to an otherwise dull photo. Not that any of my photos are all that exciting to begin with.

There as a huge feast thrown for Gio's Birthday at her grandma's house. I have never eaten to excess like I did there, so many tasty foods, including a Tuscan speciality called "Lardo". Might not sound tasty, but it was mouth wateringly flavoursome with garlicky goodness.

Gio, could have romantically spent her birthday with her boyfriend, but instead she had to drag my sorry arse to a lovely town called Lucca, which, once upon a time, was a direct rival to Pisa. We walk through leafy boulevards and along the protective walls of the township, apparently they were built at the time when Cannons were all the rage and hence were much thicker and sturdier than those of Pisa.

Inside were spectacular villas, piazzas and churches. I was blown away. I met some of Gio's friends (Hullo!) and we had coffee in a secluded piazza not frequent by tourists as it was tucked out of the way.

Villa Bottini

Torre Guinigi

Duomo San Frediano

Duomo San Michele