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Wednesday, 08 May 2013 10:09

Hidden In The Sands

A key to any sort of growth is practice so with that principle in mind I'm playing with the idea of a daily photography blog post. Today's project was initially to look at creating high contrast and sharpening techniques on skin tones but morphed into a more abstract creative project.

Monday, 06 May 2013 18:14

Rock Pools and Baths

It's funny how we keep returning to the same subjects we've been shooting for years. Looking along the timeline you hopefully see some kind of improvement in technique and style. Today I find myself on a bit of a rockpool thing but now it's much more about composition; sharpening; gradient filters in post; long exposures ( 5 minutes or more) but saying that - it's still all about the beauty of the ocean and the water - that sea salt air in your lungs and the energy of the waves.

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Monday, 22 April 2013 16:28

ANZAC Day - Lest We Forget

This Thursday is ANZAC Day - it holds a unique position in the Australian and Kiwi phyche. Every Aussie, Kiwi or visitor worldwide who has been in an RSL Club at 6PM is awed by the daily ceremony of facing sinking sun and reciting the ode. One ANZAC Day we thank our Diggers for giving us the freedoms we value most - their all too often supreme saccrifice.

Tuesday, 09 April 2013 17:21

Opening Up a Door of Creativity

I don't know much about the theory of learning except that with practice you seem to get better - well, hopefully get better. I thnk much of that improvement must come with the knowledge you've gained and experience out of just doing more and more work - the end result greater confidence. Anyway, I've been shooting now for a quiet a few years now but as an artist I don't think you're every really 100% happy with your work - the best you can do is just to happy with where you are at this present time. Case in point is that as Photographer masting Photoshop equal to that of an Accountant and a spreadsheet or a writer and a word processor. I've continued to spend time to develop my Photoshop post production skills for I know somewhere in this combination of technology and photography I will define my unique style. Here are some recent works - the major new learning has been the use of gradient layer blend modes and sharpening.

Click to enlarge image 8634266848_0d7bba64e7_b.jpg

Corporate Hacking

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Monday, 25 March 2013 03:58

A Day In The Studio.

At lunch last week with some old work friends we talked about whether social media marketing actually generates sales or is more a brand awareness activity? Their businesses are B2B so therefore online channels such as LinkedIn; their own websites; industry portals and other SEO strategies are more relevant than say consumer online channels such as Facebook. Like most businesses they are trying to refine their niche offering and determine the most effective way to connect and engage with potential new customers. At the top of their marketing funnel they are just about to do some PR activity and one thing we agreed on was the need for professional portrait photos to be included, you see, a key point to understand is that there's also competition for PR, that is, Editor attention - your article has to connect with their readers and a good photo can get help get attention and make life easier for the Editor. Creative Concept We've a couple of different shots to do - some standard portraits and then some creative advertising shots. The big difference between these types is lighting setup and the subsequent effect of lighting on post production processing needs. From a creative perspective the composite type images are inspired by Dave Hill's outstanding work. I love these images - they tell a story and push the whole digital photography thing to a new level (beyond the Instagram filter mindset). Mastering these techniques, or a least having some of the skill set, should help evolve my own…

Friday, 15 March 2013 12:30

A Photographers Music Video - 'For Me' (Original) - Elyse McLennan

From your smartphone, digital camera, to your new DSRL, nearly every new camera today has the ability to shoot video but, just because you can, doesn't necessarily mean you should or that the end result will be any good. Personally I've found shooting good video is a lot harder than an Instagram snapshot with a snazzy filter posted to Facebook. Following is the process I went through for shooting Elyse's clip. Project Background The other week I received a call asking if I'd be interested in doing some portrait shots for an new young singer songwriter - "sure no problem - that's what we do" my reply. And would we also be interested in shooting a music video? - ahhhhh, well that's a different story. As I learnt from our recent Tropfest Project there's so many other elements to video that you don't have to think about with shooting stills - the most obvious, "time" - instead of trying to capture a single moment in time and deliver an instant, memorable message - you're actually incorporating time into the viewer experience for the duration of the clip "sound" - sound is one of the most powerful components to any video - your viewers will tolerate ordinary vision but not poor sound. "skills" - editing is yet another new skill set to master. So, with some initial hesitiation I said "yes", my belief being that if you're not constantly challenging your own status quo; learning and doing something…

Friday, 15 March 2013 10:32

Rockpool Sunrise - Cronulla

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My new Lightcraft polariser and ND500 filter arrived yesterday for my Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II lens (it's got an 82mm thread) so I was keen to take it for an early morning test run. For this shot I actually didn't pull out too much of the reflection.

Thursday, 28 February 2013 15:13