What if?

A couple of days off from all things photography related, a cold beer, a comfortable chair in a great Aussie backyard and some delightful company was all that was needed to start me thinking.
What if... manufacturers of fast foods were allowed by legislative oversight or intent, to add addictive chemical compounds to their products, causing the population at large to slowly but surely become addicted to their products?

What if ... Obesity was no longer considered a condition but was by legislation defined as a disease?

What if... there was a cure for cancer, which was a freely available to the general population, was cheap and was totally natural?

What if... What if powerful lobby groups convinced governments to ban naturally occurring and beneficial substances such as vitamin C ?

What if... we were continually fed with misinformation by all available media outlets? Would this cause us as a general population to be manipulated into acting in a manner which was directly opposed to our natural instincts?

What if... there were available renewable and entirely environmentally sustainable energy sources? Would we be encouraged to use them or would powerful fossil fuel lobby groups prevail?

And so the list goes on, I'm would like to think that that the above what ifs are hypothetical but are they? My younger brother has a saying "Remember its all about the money." May all our collective gods be with us if that is the case.

Merry Christmas everyone.

1Ds II with 70-200 f2.8 IS lens @ 200mm

Hey... everyone have a great and safe holiday season, we've got tow days off so I'm outa here.

The image above is of the lovely Rhian, and was captured using available light while she was sitting on a bed with lit form a large window on one side of the room.

How to make a small fortune from photography?

Canon 1Ds II 70-200 f2.8 is lens shot way after sun down

A chance meeting last night with fellow photographer Paul Dickeson was both brief and pleasant. I have for a long time admired Paul's art photography, and hope that one day the rest of the world will also recognize this mans gift. However I stray from the point. Paul reminded me of a something that I use to tell aspiring photographers.
I would ask them How do you make a small fortune from photography? After a bit of time considering that question and a few puzzled looks I would then tell them the secret...
"Start with a large fortune!"

The image posted above is one that I shot about twelve months ago, after finishing an ideas test shoot for a client, we had the model stand in the river, bathed in the last light of twilight and with the reflections of the coloured sky dancing in the water behind her shot a series of images just for the fun of it. We get to photograph lots of beautiful women, but rarely do I shoot pretty girls in bikinis. So I figured I'd post this one just because I can.

We're off to shoot the wedding of another photographer today, which we're looking forward to greatly. It's always an honour to be chosen by a couple to create their wedding images, but when the clients are also photographers its kinda special...

Getting High..

Nikon D2x 17-35 f2.8

Still the busy times roll, so just a quick post today. The above pic is of the flight crew for a recent aerial shoot, left to right are Rob our great pilot from Sunraysia Helicopters, the outback photographer himself, minus hat because hats blow off when your working out of aircraft with the doors off, and of course Stephanie who normally spends her time in front of our computer but doubles as card changing, camera handling data logging assistant when we're in the air.
The aircraft is a Bell Jetranger which is a beautiful aircraft to shoot from, stable and plenty of room for assistants and equipment. Expensive yes but worth every cent... All we have to do now is convince clients of its value.

Not enough hours in the day!

More to do each day and less time to do it in. The magic date, 25 December is fast approaching and the pressure will continue to grow.
Today started at 4:30am, checking equipment and loading the truck for a two day shoot in Swan Hill. It could be argued that I should have loaded up last night but when I finished up my last job at midnight, nothing was further from my mind. Before hitting the road for the two hour drive to Swan Hill, I had an aerial shoot to handle first. I'd booked the helicopter for 6:30am and by first light at 5am it was becoming apparent that suitable light was going to be a problem. Casting an eye towards light overcast building by the minute it was going to be touch and go as to whether we could justify taking off as scheduled or pulling the pin and going another day. One of the jobs we were shooting had a narrow window of opportunity so I finally made a decision to fly. Picking up my assistant for the job, Stephanie, and arriving at the airport right on time.
Pre-flight briefings out of the way, we took off to our first photography site, while the lighting gods came through and gave us some great light, buy the time we reached our second target things were strarting to look a little worse but Rob our pilot was able to manoeuvre the Jetranger quickly into position so we were able to get the required shots. Just to the east of our second target there is a large billabong of water, which I decided to get Rob to do a low level pass over just to see if there were any shots going to happen. I can't wait to see the results I think I got some nice shots here but unfortunately once back on the ground I had to reluctantly hand off the memory cards to Stephanie who was hading back to the studio while I continued on to Swan Hill. Its now 4:30pm and I've got a 2 hour break before I start on the final location shoot for the day and I can tell you I'm looking forward to a good nights sleep.
Talk to you tomorrow I hope..

Great photos...

Like to see some great examples of modern photojournalism, then head on over to the VII website and enjoy.

It gets busier by the minute...

Canon 1Ds II, 70-200 2.8 IS lens

Post are few and far between at the moment, as the silly season pushes all wedding portrait photographers to the limit, at this time of the year. It happens every year and every year I vow to better manage next years rush, but next year is always the same. This year we spent some time training a second person to take a bit of the computer work off my shoulders.
One of the drawbacks of working in the bush is that it is hard to find appropriate people and when you do and you spend time training them to a standard where they are useful they become unavailable do to other commitments. So its back to the same old long hours and impossible deadlines for another year.

Water... are we serious?

The other day while driving back from a location check, we took a small detour through an area that I hadn't visited from probably 20 plus years. A once thriving farming area is now not much more than a wasteland. As water for irrigation has become more expensive, the farmers, mostly dairy producers have been forced off the land, leaving vast tracks of land weed infested and unused. Now you could argue that poor farming practices led to the downfall of these farmers, and I would have to agree. flood irrigation of crops, to me seems to be entirely wasteful.

A number of resilient an innovative producers are making a go of farming their land, turning to newer farming and management practices, while producing higher value products. But the one thing that stood out most to me was the method of delivering water to the farm. Open earthen channels criss crossed the area. Large wide dirt channels. A channel system right out of the stone age, in fact this is the most primitive way of delivering water in existence and its still in use. These channel systems are maintained by semi government authorities and have been for over a hundred years. In that time it seems to me that these delivery systems have had nothing other than cosmetic changes made to them. Farmers have paid ever increasing amounts of money for their water. The revenues from the sale of water have been steadily flowing back into government coffers and in return the irrigators have been getting little in return. They have admittedly received their water, delivered to them in via the most primitive methods available.

It must really hurt farmers to be now hear governments talk about taking a long hard look at the viability of these areas and closing down pumped districts which still use channel systems. Favoring instead to make land available to large corporations who will bring to the areas modern irrigation practices that small farmers are unable to do. Quite funny in a way. Successive governments have milked the water cash cow for years, by taking the farmers money, but refusing to reinvest any of the earnings back into the irrigation schemes, then when the going gets tough, pointing a finger at farmers, telling them they are inefficient uses of a vital resource and they'll have to go.

Quick and late post today.....

Canon 1D IIN, 24-70mm.

Real quick post today, more work on the desk than I'd like to think about today. The pic above came across my desk yesterday while showing Chrissy and Nathan their wedding album layout, and I just love this shot, taken before the boys started to get ready for their station wedding. The wedding was just a fantastic event, held in a great location, Reola Station.

Thats it for today gotta run...

Bouquets when they're deserved..

Most of us are ready to complain about bad products or services, but we often forget to give credit were it due. Early in the week I needed a room overnight at short notice, I randomly selected a motel, literally as I drove past it. I think I had driven past at least half a dozen such establishments in a distance of only a few hundred metres. Why did I choose the Australian Settlers Motor Inn over other very similar offerings? To be honest, it was an absolutely random choice.

You know how it is, you check in, you sleep, shower and check out. Well the managers John and Dianne Bertram where really friendly, and helpful, to a level that I wouldn't have ever expected. Thanks guys. I'm not into plugging other businesses or services but if you're ever in the Swan Hill region of Victoria, drop in and say g'day, good rooms, good service, and at very competitive rates.

Flat out Wednesday

Canon 1Ds II, 24-70mm, available light with on reflector used to cut light off the face and create some shadows.

After two days on the road shooting location portraits for a corporate client, I'm back in front of the Mac all day today. I had a great time shooting, meeting with some truly interesting and successful can-do people. On a road trip like this locations pose their own special problems. The main one being you rarely have the opportunity to pre-plan the shot and although working from a written set of instructions as to what each image was to contain and how it was to be shot, you still find yourself making it up as you go.

Firstly the designer who was providing the instructions hadn't been to any of the locations or met any of the subjects... so they were providing ideas based on not actually knowing what was available on location, which makes it hard to stay on script. For example one of the shots required a couple to be photographed in front of their home, and provided a very good description of how the house should look in the background. The problem of course was that on arrival the home although beautiful, didn't remotely resemble the designers description of what it should be.

The images were to be of real people in real locations so there was not going to be any shifting to another location to get a background more closely matching the designers layout. The solution, change the shot totally to still get the emotional feel the design was looking for while uses the real people and their real environment. Fortunately our client who was along with us while we shot was totally understanding, could see the problem, and was really happy with the work around.

The main challenge with location shooting is to retain the natural feel of the location and to try and make interesting images of people quickly and with out to much fuss. Most shoots lasted between 15 to 30 minutes including location checking, setup, shooting and pull down. the image above is of Tony Pumper, an engineer who is making a name for himself manufacturing custom built trailers fro the trucking industry. The machine in the background is a plasma cutter which can cut almost any shape from plate steel, quickly and so neatly that its hard to believe the final shape wasn't created meticulously by a master craftsman over many days.

Making the most of the drought

Canon 1Ds II, 24-70mm lens

The drying lake bed of Lake Boga near Swan Hill, Victoria, is a very popular water ski-ing and holiday destination but this boating and swimming sign give us an indication that there may not be much in the way of water sports at the popular lake this year.

A day of inspiration

After a 4am start yesterday and a 3 hour drive to my first location I was reminded of how successful people always seem to take advantage of adversity and turn it in a positive.
Shooting for a corporate client, my first location yesterday was a large and successful cereal grain growing farm, where despite the currently drought conditions the farmer is achieving very impressive yields from his crops using newly developed farming techniques.
Then it was another hours drive to an irrigated property which has little or no irrigation water available to it this year. The farmer has responded by taking advantage of this unique opportunity to redevelop a large area of his property, because normally the ground is to wet to allow major earth works to be undertaken. So while there is no production on his property this year, there is major redevelopment being undertaken so that when conditions finally improve he will be able to take full advantage of the new technologies that his is putting in place.

A shot from yesterdays wedding...

Canon 1Ds II, 70-200mm is lens.

Teresa and Dale stroll down the drive at the ever beautiful Ampelon gardens after concluding their photo session. This image shot raw and quickly past through Adobe Lightroom with contrast , exposure, colour temperature, vignetting and saturation presets applied.
I love the ability of Adobe Lightroom to be able to very quickly apply a seemingly infinitely variable number of presets to a batch of images and in many case have the images ready for their final destination without going anywhere near Photoshop. For a busy working photographer this is a real time saver. In fact being able to make non destructive edits to images without making endless full res copies of the file isn't a bad thing either.

Let me just say this...

For those of you who are non Australian, the above line is the way in which our new Prime Minister pre-phrases many of his answers to questions which he doesn't want to give a straight answer.

Yesterday the people of Australia combined to vote in a new government. A government of young fresh ideas, most of which we haven't been told about yet. So I guess you could say we're a trusting mob here in Australia. We do know however, that we will be signing as a matter of great urgency a piece of paper that really has very little value. It remains to be seen whether the new young team will have the balls to actually do anything about environmental issues, or whether the major corporations will be able to seduce them like they did the former government. We also know that we will be sending warships to protect whales from our Japanese scientific friends, who some how need to slaughter hundreds of these animals so that they can research them and ultimately save them. Yeah right.... We will also be bringing home our troops from Iraq, well actually, I'm pretty sure if you read the fine print, that will be all our combat troops, which I think is about 30% of our total deployment.

For me, Iraq, the war on terrorism, and the "coalition of the willing", has been the most embarrassing part of former Prime Minister Howards' 11 years in office. I honestly can't believe that under international law, Blair, Bush and Howard weren't charge with war crimes. I mean, invading another country to liberate them, or their oil, surely must constitute a crime. I did notice our now new Prime Minister, just recently try to rewrite history by spinning the line that his party had vigorously opposed the invasion of Iraq. I seem to remember that the opposition leader of the time, Simon Crean was missing in action, from any debate on the subject.

My real concern about the new political scene in Australia is the lack of opposition the new government will have. Howard was a strong leader, no potential leadership depth in the party behind him. His demise will likely leave the now opposition floundering and self destructing in much the same way that Labour did after the Keating defeat. Government without opposition does none of us any favours. Democracy fails to work without effective and meaningful opposition. Hopefully someone will rise from the opposition ranks to provide us with alternative views and debate. Frankly I can't see Peter Costello, the leader apparent being that person.

Five or so years ago I believed that Kevin Rudd would be our next Prime Minister, as there was no viable successor to John Howard amongst the Liberals, and frankly there was only Rudd in the Labour Party. Let us hope that Prime Minister Rudd can lead his government for the benefit of Australia, and not be lead instead by a party full of factions all wanting their prize for helping him get elected .

Noisy neighbours

Nikon D2x, 80-200mm 2.8 lens

These two "Little Corellas" along with about 100 of their mates have been keeping me company for the best part of an hour. Feeding on an acacia tree just outside my office window, sliding down the corrugated iron roof of the studio and generally making sure that I don't feel lonely. Common throughout outback Australia, Little Corellas are a very social bird, rarely traveling alone. They eat,drink and sleep together and I should mention play together in small to large flocks.
There ability to remain quite for any period of time is non existent, with the mob consistently screeching in a harsh, sometime irritating manner. Try sleeping in the bush anywhere near where these guys camp and you'll soon know what I mean, even in the dead of night they need to squawk and chatter amongst themselves.
Anyway it good to have them around as we prepare for a full days shooting and a generally big weekend, having already shot a couple of small commercial jobs this morning, starting at 6am, back in the office by 8:30 to down load an process files, then short out the gear before heading off to a wedding followed by a family portrait session, and then back to the wedding reception until midnight.

Weather...

Ok so we're still full on mostly doing post production and trying to meet upcoming deadlines so again not much time to post this week. I was supposed to be shooting early this morning but welcome rain yesterday and heavy overcast this morning means it'll be another day behind the computer.

For those or you who have an interest in photography the Strobist Blog have a great little movie posted on their site. Link Here. It features an American photographer, Chase Jarvis who shoots lifestyle and advertising images, well worth a look. In fact if your not a photographer it will still make for some good viewing, runs for about 55 minutes so be sure to organize some snacks before you start.

On a completely different note. I spoke with one of our clients this week, he is a marketer who sells copious amounts of product over the internet. He often spends far more money than I would expect on product photos for his web site. He tells me that he measures everything to do with his business, including the number of hits each product gets, how long the average surfer stays in a product area and percentages of purchases for each product. The really interesting thing is that he reckons that a good product picture attracts about four times the number of click-throughs than a similar product with a straight average product photo, and that the length of time spent looking at the product is nearly doubled as are the number of purchases.
So I guess it proves once again that good pictures are worth the investment, or at least making your product stand out from the crowd is.

The news....

Today as always before I start work I try to catch up on what has been happening overnight. Because I usually check Australian sources rather than international ones, its fairly common to find that nothing has changed since yesterday, probably because everyone closes their newsrooms down overnight, even the news organizations that advocate that web services are now and important part of their news delivery.
What strikes me most is how we often ignore international events of significance which occur in Asia. We see all the stuff out of the US, and to a large degree out of Europe but Asia, the region we claim to be part of, well thats secondary stuff.
Today is a case in point. Local sites are reporting as headlines that a football player has been "Outed for 12 Months", that a Hollywood movie actress was "Really frightened" when a wayward photographer drove his car over a median strip to pursue her chauffeur driven car. We learned that a Minister of the Crown allegedly knew of the AWB kickback scandal, now that wouldn't be a timed political statement would it!
However is you are prepared to look really hard, a couple of news sources and I do stress a couple.. report that the cyclone in Bangladesh four days ago has killed at least 2,500 people with the local Red Cross reporting that the toll has a good chance of topping 10,000. Can you imagine what would happen here if a natural disaster killed thousands of people in Australia.
But Bangladesh is a long way away and it really doesn't matter to us, they're poor, lacking in education and they don't have any oil for us. Apparently they are also going to be one of the first countries to really suffer the effects of global warming . Low lying coastal areas will be flooded by rising sea water, and inland rivers swollen from snow melting in the Himalayas forcing up to a third of the population off their lands. That amounts to tens of millions of very poor uneducated climate refugees, with no were to go.
Bangladesh shares a common land border with India, who have commenced building a fence along the border to stop refugees from entering India. Now there is a neighborly gesture if ever there was one. Your neighbor is drowning in flood water so you build a fence to stop him getting out.
I guess the real irony is that these people are going to be the first to be effected by climate change, but if you accept that man has contributed to global warming by production of greenhouse gases, then these people because of their lifestyle will be the first effected but will have contributed least to the problem.
Anyway who cares? Back to the important news, did you see that a well known celebrity was filmed running a red light with her children in the car... Shocking!

An election looms

Well here in Australia we are in the last week of election campaigning. If we are o believe the seemingly endless polls conducted by various media outlets... well lets just say it would be far cheaper to elect our governments based on these polls. The result is going to be a landslide victory for Kevin Rudd. In fact the size of the Rudd victory is now becoming the story with newspapers looking for new adjectives to describe the "calamitous Howard loss"
Rudd is apparently only in "fourth gear" and has plenty of "petrol in the tank", while Howard is preparing to leave politics after his defeat and join to public speaking circuit for a "million dollar per annum fee".
Apparently we have a Prime Minister who has "lost the plot" has no idea about anything and is just plain to old, while our new Prime Minister is fresh and young with "fresh and young ideas" to save not only Australia but the world. Now to be honest I saw Rudd about 5 years ago on a television interview and predicted then that he would be Prime Minister one day, and I still think he will be. I'm not to sure about his fresh and young ideas, because to me most of these ideas seem to be the same ones being pushed by the current leadership, with only a few cosmetic changes. Anyway only 5 more sleeps until the only poll that counts or is in anyway accurate.
On a different note there is smoke in the air this morning, so I guess we can safely say that the summer bush fire season is on us. Be safe...

Busy Thursday

Canon 1Ds MkII, 24-70mm f2.8, ISO 400

Canon 1Ds MKII 24-70mm f2.8 lens, ISO 1600

Really short post today, as deadline pressures build. Yesterday was an 18 hour day behind a computer today isn't looking much better, Although I'll have help for four hours when a trainee Photoshop operator joins us later this morning.
The images above are one my desk this morning as part of a quick design job, (aren't they all) so I thought I'd post them. Created as part of a promotional hair styling shoot for Agave in Mildura, both capture on location using available light only. For this shoot we worked with 5 models, with little or no previous photographic experience, wearing outfits that we had no prior knowledge of in a location that was selected by the client, and due to other commitments we had just two hours to get it all together.
I can't speak for anyone else involved in the shoot, but I know we had a great time and got some terrific shots

Whistling Kites...

Canon 1D MkII, 70-200mm f 2.8 IS Lens.

Sometimes we forget how lucky we are. Each morning here, living on the banks of the Murray River as we do, we awake to the sounds of a multitude of native birds as they also wake to face another day. A couple of the locals, well a lot of the local birds actually come in first thing to be fed by my wife who just has to feed any wild animal that fronts up to our door.

Pictured above is one of the early morning diners, a Whistling Kite, who along with his/her partner land in a nearby tree and Whistle until Robyn gets out of bed and takes a piece of ox heart down to their favorite feeding ground. A small clear area of dirt between a row of trees. Placing the meat on the ground, Robyn walks away as the big guys glide from the tree top, line up on their breakfast and bingo... brekky is served.
Depending on wind conditions, the birds will sometimes take a long, low, slow glide into the target, but as the wind increases they tend to change their approach often over flying the target at around 20 feet, then when directly above, folding their wings in and plummeting vertically down to almost ground level before pulling out of their dive inches above the meat, grabbing it and flying off.


You would think that photography these guys then would be simple, but its not. When they glide into the meat they are low and the background is cluttered and distracting, when they dive onto the target and your working at such close range it is almost impossible to keep them in frame. Even with the best autofocus and a frame rate of 8 shots per second, a good day may yield one passable shot... Ah well there is always tomorrow.

Twenty five pictures taken at exactly the right time

If you would like a smile this morning here is a link to a set of pictures that should do the trick.
You see its all about timing, a millisecond to late or for that matter to early and you have a no picture.

Family portraits

Canon 1Ds MkII with 24-70 lens @38mm, f4.5 @ 1/30th, ISO 500

We love it when we get the chance to go "bush" for a shoot, on this occasion our good clients asked that we create a family portrait on location. And what a location! A large wheat and wool property with great photographic props and locations in almost every direction. One of my favorites being this shearing shed.
The portrait was created using nothing but available light. Late afternoon sun streaming through the window and bouncing around the interior of the the building created this amazing golden glow. The family were totally at home in the environment, so we chose a very simple pose, much as if we had just walked into the room and snapped a picture. We also resisted the temptation to improve the image with retouching, preferring instead to go for the completely honest approach, and recording exactly what was there at the time.

Today being Saturday we would normally be shooting a wedding, but instead today we have a number of portrait sessions. The last of which I'm really looking forward to, as we are again going on location for a family portrait. This time the location is to be a luxury home and we will be shooting exterior portraits just after sun set. Can't wait, I know the light is going to be incredible...

Blatant self promotion...

All the above images were created as part of joint promotion between Excitations and Carla Jane Accessories. Each image was created in or around our barn style studio, a 12 x 18m shooting space constructed specifically for our style of shooting.
These images along with a couple of others are now on display in the studio as 30 x 40" posters. All were shot on the brilliant Canon 1Ds MkII with a 70-200mm IS L series lens. I have to be honest I can't wait to get my hands on the new MkIII but that won't be until early next year.
Anyway another busy day in the studio so that will have to be it for posting today.

Carmelo and Annmarie...

Both images, Canon 1D MkIIN, 24-70mm @24mm

A couple more pics from Annmarie and Carmelo's recent wedding. These shots created in and around the 1957 Chevvy which featured as our couples bridal car.
For all the photographers out there, image capture was as normal for us, in RAW, and files finished in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom by reducing colour saturation and tweaking hue adjustments. Shooting RAW allows us more options, when we come to the design stage of production.

Carmille Seaman

Lets be honest with ourselves... Photographers all fancy themselves as fine art photographers, well maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration. However along with the title professional photographer it seems to be one of the most miss used labels in the industry. My favorite is people who label themselves as "Fine Art Nude Photographers", then you see their work and you quickly realize that their images may be of the nude form, but are neither "fine" or "art".

I digress however, the real reason for this post is to point you to the work of a real live fine art photographer. Her name is Carmille Seaman, she is about to have a showing of her work in the USA and has some images on her website. Title "The Last Iceberg", you really need to have a look at this work. Here's the link.

Just fooling around...

Canon 1Ds II with 24-70mm lens @ 24mm, ISO 1600

While shooting Annmarie and Carmelo's wedding recently, I saw this shot with the brightly lit pool table and balls. I was supposed to be shooting the groom, but just couldn't resist this shot because of it vivid colours and the casual, candid nature of the groups poses.

I simply love the 1Ds II's ability to work in low light conditions and being able to capture the mood of a shot using only the natural light. Rather than hitting everyone with a bright flash every time I take a shot.

A busy Wednesday...

Just a really short post today, we are "flat out like a lizard drinking" as the saying goes. Heaps of post processing and design work to get done, and only a short time to get it all done.

For those of you you like landscape photographs and just pretty pictures in general, you might like to head on over to Laurie Excells web blog. Laurie is an American photography instructor and nature photographer. She has a really cool panorama of the Northern Lights on the site and a great blurred motion image of Snow Geese in flight. Check it out here

Murray River, Australia

Canon 1Ds II with f2.8 24-70mm lens @ 30mm

Thought I post this image, created at sunset on the river just downstream from our studio recently. My favorite time on the river, when most people have gone home for the day and I'm alone in the peace and quite. Lots of native birds take advantage of the peace as well and come down to the river for a drink and quick bath. This shot was processed as a direct positive in Photoshop Lightroom. It was recently picked up for use on a calendar, something that always makes a photographer happy.

Worlds oldest blogger

Check out this blog, All about Olive, apparently she has recently turned 108, she seems to be having a bit o a hard time at the moment but well worth the read if you've got time. Olive is an Aussie and with over a hundred years experience on this planet she has got some interesting insights into life.

Melbourne Cup Day...

Hey all... today is Melbourne Cup Day here down under. The "race that stops a nation" or so the media claim. It certainly dominates the news for a couple of weeks prior the the day.
We are bombarded with stories on race day fashions, tv in depth stories on how the rich and famous will spend the day in lavish corporate tents, sorry marquees, what they will eat and drink and the chefs who will prepare those meals for them. I wonder sometimes if any of these people even see the horse race.
Don't mined me, I'm just jealous. You see its a public holiday here in Victoria but this photographer has an ever increasing backlog of post processing and design work building up, so for me at least it will be a 12 hour day in front of my Apple 30" Cinema display. Maybe I'll check the results later in the day.

Back in the bush...

Wow! After a full week of running around seeing clients and suppliers in Melbourne we're finally back home . I doubt that there will be any time for posting this weekend as it is set to be a huge weekend of shooting and post production work. I'm excited to be back shooting as I haven't fired a shot in nearly a week.

The plan was to take a couple of hours off in Melbourne and shoot some private stuff, but unfortunately that didn't happen. Just to busy. So I'm really looking forward to todays wedding as I have a couple of new ideas I want to try.

We had a good drop of rain last night, the first in a loooong while and it looks like we may have more this afternoon, during our wedding, which I'm hoping will give us some great opportunities to create some really great images.

Service or lack of it...

1DsII, 70-200mm f2.8

I love this delightful little image. Shot in the driveway of our studio, the set up for this image was so simple. Using only available light we sat the young model on the ground near the wooden cart, I positioned myself on the ground some distance from the subject so as not to distract his attention, wile his mum was just out of frame talking to the little fellow and attracting his attention. Normally I would have had Robyn interact with the child but she was on this occasion busy making sure "Teddy" stayed upright in the cart. The whole set of images from this location were created in only a couple of minutes. Plenty of time really if your fully prepared in advance.

Now to get on with my beef of today. Yesterday while running around Melbourne seeing clients and suppliers, I visited one of our regular equipment suppliers. Walking into the "Pro Photo Department", which for those of you not in the industry is not an exclusive area for professional photographers but the area of larger photographic retailers where you are more likely to find the type of equipment used by working photographers. This particular store is usually buzzing with activity and stocked with all shorts of goodies for us photo nuts to drool over. Yesterday however, instead of walking into a retail area stocked with large amounts of the latest toys, I entered a sparsely stocked area with only one sales person instead of the usual five or six.
I was soon to discover why. Instead of being greeted with the usual cheery "Hi Ian" there was no greeting or recognition at all. My first question was did they have an item that I needed in stock. The reply was a shock "It is no business of yours what we have in stock". Ok thats not a good start but there is other stuff I need, so I start asking about a couple of radio triggers that I've been looking at adding to my kit. This time a slightly better response, "There over in the display cabinet" Ok thats good... what are the features? Reply, "if you don't know, you don't need them" Ok thanks for your help...

A little shocked at that encounter I took a short walk down into Lonsdale Street and visited the Camera Exchange, where, thankfully the service from Jason was great, the atmosphere was cheerful and even though they stock mostly second hand equipment, they also handle new equipment. I was very impressed when asking about a second hand lens they had on display, to be told that it wouldn't suit me, as the new version of the lens is optically superior the one I was looking at. Now I knew this anyway but Jason gained a lot of credibility with me for being so honest. From now on a lot of my equipment purchases with be made from the Camera Exchange just because they offer helpful advice and service.

Sometimes service and helpful friendly advice is worth a lot more than price alone shopping.

Julieanne Kost

Yesterday as well as visiting with clients I was lucky to attend a presentation by Julieanne Kost, Adobe's senior evangelist. Its always great to have a chance to learn new tips and tricks about the software you use on a daily basis. Julieanne spent a lot of time on my favorite software Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, which frankly, has really given photographers a brilliant new tool.

Happy Birthday Stephanie...

Canon 1Ds II, 70-200mm f2.8 L lens

A good friend of the team at Excitations is celebrating her birthday today, we couldn't miss this opportunity to wish her all the best for the day. Of course it gives the Outback Photographer a chance to post a picture of a pretty girl as well... That can't be a bad thing.... right.


The above shot was captured recently when Stephanie visited the studio as one of the models for a promotional shoot for a fashion house. Shot on the steps of our Barn Style Studio, using entirely natural lighting.

Any way happy birthday Stephanie, hope your day goes really well.

On the road again.

Excitations photographers take the Outback Photographer on the road... This time to the city were like a fish out of water I struggle to find my way around, get totally frustrated at the amount of time it takes to get anything done, and quite frankly I spend my time wishing I was back in the bush.

This will be a short post as today I'm off to an Adobe Masterclass to learn lots more neat stuff aboout Adobe Photoshop, I hope. Then there are a number of client meetings, and a laptop to fix.

Jock

Canon 1Ds MII 24-70mm. iso 1600

If you ever visit White Cliffs, in far North Western New South Wales, you must look up Jock. He is easy to find, just ask any local. Jock will take you through his underground dugout which he calls a museum. It is in fact a very large dugout with many rooms all packed with relics from the mining days. I'd guess that Jock has at least, one of just about everything, stashed away in his underground home. The real treasure though is Jock himself. He is entertainment plus, loud, jovial and your guaranteed to leave with a smile on your face. Chances are you'll learn a bit as well.
If you would like to license the use of this stock image, click here.

Bushmans cure...

Here is an old trick that I was reminded of just the other day.

Ever cut yourself shaving and the nick just keeps on bleeding? Try a little bit of spiders web. Just collect a bit of spiders web on your finger, roll it into a loose ball and place on the wound.
Seems to work really well. I've heard numerous reason why it works, none of which sounded to scientific, but its results that count.
I'd be a bit cautious that the owner of the web wasn't home, while I was collecting the web. And if your in Australia, and the web is very strong, I would seriously consider getting my finger out as quickly as possible. The Red Backed Spider spins a very strong web, and the female of the species has a bite that can be deadly to even the strongest human. How do you know which one is female? Well, basically if you see a Black spider with a bright red stripe on its abdomen then its a female Red Back. I guess the other method is to let it bite you... if you die it was a female.
As with all posts of this nature, I'm not a doctor nor a scientist, and I'm in no way qualified to give medical advice. I'm just passing on an old bush remedy.

Todays a no shooting day... yes the worst kind. Instead I face 12 hours in front of the old MacPro catching up on a whole lot of post production.

The little things...

It Sunday morning already, that means we're slap bang in the middle of a busy weekend, we currently have nice overcast conditions with a breeze that is picking up. As we will be shooting portraits for most of the day, and many of those sessions outdoors the overcast suits me fine but the strengthening breeze isn't so promising.
So why the image of two flash unites? Well last evening to finish off the day I had a recently completed residential property to photograph. Our client wanted a night shot of the building, so I opted for the old time exposure approach, locking the camera off on a tripod, making one exposure based on the evening sky, a second exposure for the window lights and a third to capture the exterior ambient light around the building. All very simple stuff really, but there were a few areas around the building which needed a bit of extra attention. My normal approach is wait a few extra minutes until darkness falls, then make another longer exposure while walking around painting the required areas with light from a Canon 580EX set to full power. A few minutes post work in Photoshop blending the different exposures together and the jobs done. Last night however I decided to use both the Canon 580EX and a Nikon SB-800. One in each hand, fire one off, then while that unit was recycling aim and fire the second unit, as the units were being operated manually there would be no compatibility issues with synching and any slight differences in colour balance would go unnoticed. The big bonus for me is that I would finish up just that little bit earlier.
Now comes the problem, well not really a problem, just a small irritation. If you look at the picture above you will see that both of these excellent Speedlites have a small button on the bottom left hand corner of the unit. Canon mark theirs "Pilot" it is raised from the units body and glows read in the dark. Nikon have recessed their "Flash" button into the body of the unit and it doesn't glow. With my rather large hands this tiny little button on the Nikon is a bit difficult to press at any time, but in the dark it proved even harder to locate and activate. Just to add to my woes, there is a raised button just above the "Flash" button on the Nikon which changes the unites "Mode". Yes you can guess which button was pressed accidentally more than once.
Off course the obvious answer is to use two similar units, but on this occasion that wasn't possible. It is often not the big differences between pieces of equipment that are important but some times the smallest design differences that catch us out. Both of these Speedlites work well for me on the odd occasions that I use them mounted to the camera. Nikon SB-800 mounts onto the camera just that little bit faster than does the Canon 580EX.

Big Dry

In keeping with the drought theme this photograph was taken recently on a trip to Adelaide, strong winds were kicking up a large amount of localized dust. While I'm the first to admit this isn't a great image, it is a true look at what happens in the Mallee region of Australia during a period of drought. I'm really glad my Canon 1 series cameras are dust and moisture sealed, because the middle of a dust storm isn't a good place to have your cameras.

Blank sheet of paper syndrome

Yep, Its the old blank sheet of paper syndrome... what to post on your blog for the first time. Well lets face it it really can't be that hard can it, I mean millions of people do this every day and obviously they don't have a problem with coming up with ideas.

Ok so I can tell you that the outback is dry, really dry. We here in South Eastern Australia are well into a "Dry Spell" as the locals often refer to a drought. This particular drought has been building for around 11 years, which quite frankly is enough.
The media would like us to believe that the continuing lack of rain is a direct consequence of climate change. They may well be right about that, I doubt that anyone truly believes that man isn't having some pretty ordinary effects on the environment. However, in Outback Australia drought cycles are pretty common, and traditionally the intensity of these dry spells vary from a single season to many years in length. Looking on the bright side, "EVERY drought is followed by rain".