Keep your eyes peeled for Joe Blakes

Heading out into the Ozzie bush in the next few days, keep an eye out for Joe Blakes (snakes), the first couple of slightly warmer days and our wiggly little friends or out and about. I had my first encounter for the year yesterday, when two of us tried to inhabit the same piece of our back yard. If your not comfortable around snakes, just keep away from them. They are generally not aggressive, most times electing to slip away to somewhere safe.
However, like us if you wake them up while they're dozing in the sun, catching a few rays, they sometimes spring into action and defend themselves as best they can. Standing on them, or kicking them as you drag your feet along the ground is also guaranteed to get you some unwanted attention.

So be safe, keep your eyes on the ground when walking through grass and bushland. Don't for one second think that the grass has to be long, you will be surprised at how little grass cover it takes to hide young "joey" as he makes his daily rounds.

A whole week without internet access.

So much happens in a week, if you haven't got access to the internet. We had a some problems with the line into our office this past week, which unfortunately resulted in no access to the web. I had know idea how much we rely on being hooked up to the world.
Anyway we're back up and running, and I have a lot of catching up to do... Emails by the dozens to answer, and web sites that are like old friends to catch up on.
One of my first sites to catch up on is the blog of Cameron Davidson a people and aerial photographer from United States. Click here to visit Cameron's blog.
Cameron has some really interesting low level aerial imagery on his site, plus some great links.

So its still winter

Canon 1Ds III f2.8 16-35mm II USM @ 35mm

Yep I know it doesn't snow in the outback, well not very often anyway. Last week the outback photographer was in the Grampians in South Western Victoria when we had a very lite sprinkle of snow overnight. The dull grey Australian bush takes on a new look when dusted with freshly falling snow. This shot was taken early morning before word got out and tourist started to flock onto the mountain. In fact I had to all but run up the road to keep ahead of a group of young and very excited children who were undoubtedly seeing snow for the very first time.

The longest 10 seconds on the planet.

A couple of short notes today. The first one and most importantly for me is that this blog will no longer be directly accessible from excitations.com.au but will still link from excitations-stock.com and milduraphotographer.com. We are adding a new blog more suited to the excitations profile and this the Outback Photographer Blog will have a gradual personality shift more towards photography and the outback.

The second thing today is you must check out Vincent laforet's News Week Blog today about shooting the Mens 100m final at the Olympics. Great stuff.

Shooting a debutante at home.

Canon 1Ds III f2.8 24-70mm lens @27mm

What a great way to end the weeks shooting! Spending an hour with the lovely Bridget, creating some personalized debutante images for her within the surrounds of her parents beautifully decorated home. Robyn and I enjoyed shooting in a number of different rooms, while family and friends called by to check out Bridget, the dress and her handsome partner, Michael. Thanks guys we had a great time and you've got some great shots that we look forward to showing you soon.

I loved the depth we were able to get into this shot by using the archway and feature mirror, while Bridget struck a relaxed but elegant pose on the leather lounge in the foreground. We used the rooms ambient lighting to convey a feeling of space, plus a couple of small 580ex flash guns to provide a little modeling light to our beautiful subjects face.

Whoops it Friday! That means tonights shoot wasn't the end of our shooting week. Tomorrow at the crack of dawn we'll be up getting gear ready and packing up the studio to head to Manangatang were we will be photographing a bunch of beautiful young debs but under vastly different conditions.

Drought and the Murray River

Canon 1Ds II, f2.8 24-70mm lens, Robinson 22 helicopter.

One of the interesting things around here lately is the number of requests coming through for stock photos of the Murray River dying. One from an international agency requested pictures of the river dry... but not from drought , rather it must be dry from over use of irrigation water. Now it must be difficult for international editors to understand that the Murray River isn't really a river in the true sense of the word. Rivers by nature ebb and flow. During rainy seasons more water flows down them, sometimes causing flooding. During dry periods the amounts of water flowing down them decreases to the point they sometimes stop running altogether.

The Murray River however, is managed more as an irrigation channel. During wet periods huge amounts of water are stored upstream in dams and river flows are tightly controlled to ensure that there are sufficient flows to meet irrigation, human and so called environmental flows. The stored water being released during dry times to ensure that these needs are still maintained. So that now even when water shortages are critical, river levels haven't change dramatically with all the dams and weirs doing their job. But if your an editor needing to illustrate the river in drought, the picture above which looks like a totally normal river, despite the fact that it is a recent shot of the Murray River near Mildura under drought conditions, is totally useless. You really need to show something graphic, like dry cracked river beds, or tree roots exposed by unusually low water levels, or dead or dying marine life.

That leaves me in a bit of a predicament. Do I continue to resist the temptation to fudge reality and start submitting images which although not factual, do illustrate the rivers situation? Or do I forgo the income and only submit images that are genuinely of the Murray as it is now? It's really easy to find some swamp that is currently dry, take a few shots and flog them off to buyers who probable don't care that much about truth anyway.

That my friends is the problem for me. I know a number of my competitors have elected to supply what the client wants. More stock images of the Murray River and it environs can be found here, and our good friend Paul Atkins has some new shots of the lower lakes of the Murray here.

St Kilda Jetty and Pavilion.

Canon 1Ds III, f2.8 16-35mm lens

This is the “New” “Old Pavilion” located at the end of St Kilda Jetty, a popular beach side suburb of Melbourne, Australia. The original pavilion was constructed in 1904, if I remember correctly and became of on the icons of Melbourne, until its untimely destruction by fire just short of its 100th birthday in September 2003. So missed by locals, it was decided to rebuild the old girl using original drawings from the 1900’s.

Today the new building stands at the end of the very popular St Kilda Jetty and is witness to many thousands of visitors who flock to the area for a bit of R & R. The outback photographer was able to capture this shot of the pavilion, minus people just by getting out of his 4 star hotel bed early and taking a stroll along the water front before heading off to work. I’d love to tell you the early morning walk was about enthusiasm to get the shot but to be honest it had more to do with the hotels air conditioning unit, which sounded a lot like the engine of a Boeing 747 at full power… all bloody night…

Hey.... while I think of it, Vincent Larforet is currently shooting the Olympic for News Week, and he along with a couple other great sports shooters has regular posts to his blog and also the News Week blog

Some great insights into how those amazing sports pictures get to your morning newspaper. Photographers will appreciate some of the difficulties these guys go through to get pictures. I particularly like Vincent's story of getting a picture of the fire works over the Great Wall... priceless.

Winter

Canon 1ds III , 16-35mm f2.8 lens

Seems the winter slow down for photographers hasn't started yet. Two weeks ago we fitted new all terrain tyres to the Troopy, not knowing that we would in the nest couple of weeks test those tyres on a wide range of surfaces. Highways, freeways, sandy dirt trails, snow covered mountain tracks and muddy back roads we've been over them all.
Now I'm not suggesting for a moment that the outback photographer doesn't love variety, because I do. The problem is getting back to the studio and a huge backlog of work . Not to mention emails, boy do they mount up if you're not on top of your game.

The shot above is photographed on a mountain track in Southern Victoria, in an area that is generally below the snow line and was recently ravaged by bush fire. Talk about mother nature handing out punishment, many of the trees along this road had been burnt badly during summer and are just starting to make new growth only to be covered in snow and ice and buffeted by gale force winds.