Author: Robert Young

In the Footsteps of a Hero

One of my early photographic heroes was Melbourne photographer Mark Strizic. Mark documented the changing face of Melbourne in the 1950s and 1960s as it moved from ‘Marvelous to Modern’ A number of these images were eventually collected into a book.

Mark’s graphic black and white photos and his technique of shooting toward the sun inspired my love of urban landscapes. Many times over the years I have tried and failed to produce that strong, contrasty, graphic look. It is a hard technique to pull off. Buildings create glare, lenses create flare and aiming any where near the angle of the sun blows out highlights and gives you a dynamic range the camera just shrieks at.

Last week, in Duckboard Place, Melbourne, I produced my best attempt at this yet. Hey Mark, I’m still trying.

Walking up Duckboard Place

Larger at ipernity.

How I Shot a Show

Recently I had the pleasure of photographing The Man in the Labcoat’s first show of the year, Dungeon Crawl.

I put the big lens on the camera, which not only gave me a 200mm reach, but also f2.8 to work with. With the ISO set as high as it would go (1600) I then had to wait until the stage lights came up to see what shutter speed I was going to be working with.

The evil cleric is betrayed by his baby dragon

The early estimates weren’t good. But after checking the histogram and the image on the LCD screen, I realised that the light meter was over-compensating for the black curtain behind the actors and the light on their faces was too bright. I was able to underexpose (according to the light meter) by a stop and a half. This brought the shutter speed up to something that I could work with; just.

In the early part of the show I tried to get some close-ups from near the stage, but I wasn’t able to hold the camera steady. I settled in at a bench behind the audience where I could brace my elbows and support the camera. The challenge then was to catch the moment when as many actors as possible weren’t moving.

I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the images the camera produced. There is a little noise in the dark areas that the RAW converter took care of. The major problem was the movement of the actors, but I managed to get enough usable images for the Labcoatman’s website.

Summer Floods and The Media

Australia has been experiencing the worst floods on record and this has been occurring over vast areas and in several states.

By far the worst hit has been Queensland where whole towns have been washed away and large areas of the capital city of Brisbane have been metres under water. The media has done a good job of reporting on these catastrophic events but…

Here in my state of Victoria we are now experiencing serious flooding in a number of country districts. A number of country towns are under water and others have been evacuated. Just about all roads to the north and west of Melbourne are cut, severely restricting movement and the ability of help to get to where it is needed.

The local media (such as it is) is not doing much of a job reporting on these issues. Most of our media is nationally owned and is still concentrating on the Queensland disaster. It is difficult to find out where floods are rising, where waters are falling and what roads are open and which ones are closed.

News sources are failing badly here, except one. By far the best source of local flood and traffic information is the Victoria Police twitter feed (VictoriaPolice). Excellent work guys!

How I Shot the Labcoatman

Ben McKenzie is a friend and mild-mannered work colleague, but in reality, he is the Man in the Lab Coat.

Ben McKenzie

Apart from working with me, Ben is an actor, comedian, writer and improviser who specialises in science comedy, and therefore usually describes himself as a “scientician”.

Ben has written, performed and produced a series of comedy science lectures as “The Man in the Lab Coat” since 2004. His shows have appeared in both the Adelaide and Melbourne Fringe Festivals, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and as part of the National Science Week programme.

Ben and friend

A trained public speaker, Ben has made numerous appearances for schools, corporations, scientific institutions, charity events and art gallery openings, always able to find a unique scientific angle on proceedings.

The aim of this series of shots was to provide Ben with several images with a plain white background that could be used for promotional purposes.

Have I got a deal for you

The set up was simple. The white backdrop is the wall of the living room in my house. The main light is a Nikon SB-28 speedlight fired through a white umbrella at the left of camera to produce a large, soft light. At the right of the image was a large sheet of white foam core acting as a reflector. There is another SB-28 directly behind Ben aimed at the wall to make it white. The flashes were triggered by Cybersyncs.The rest of the work was left to Ben.

This was a very enjoyable shoot. Ben is an experienced public speaker and actor and is very relaxed in front of a camera. All I had to do was stand there and press the shutter button.

Ben, the Man in the Lab Coat

Cameras in the Cupboard #11

Nikon Nikkormat

The workhorse. My third SLR was a Nikon Nikkormat, so was my fourth, fifth and sixth.

Nikon Nikkormat

In fact I used Nikkormat cameras from when I bought the first one in 1973 to when I decided to go digital in 2002.

I was hooked on the Nikkormat the first time one of my friends from the Geelong Camera Club let me use his briefly. The view finder was much brighter than the SLR I was using at the time and the prints were sharper.

Over the next 29 years I wore out several bodies, replacing them when they couldn’t be repaired economically. I usually had two Nikkormat bodies in my camera bag, a black one for black and white film and a silver one loaded with colour.

Nikon made the Nikkormat FT from 1965 to 1967, then the FTn from 1967 to 1975. I had examples of both over the years.

I now have 6 large ring binders of negatives, all taken with a Nikon Nikkormat. My favourite camera of all time.

How I Shot a Volunteer

Sharon Carpenter, St John Ambulance

Sharon, Volunteer

Sharon and I work for the same organisation. The organisation’s internal website regularly features profiles of staff, showing what they do outside of work. And it was Sharon’s turn to be featured.

Amongst her many other interests and activities (she is also a medical guinea pig, read her story over at her blog), Sharon is a volunteer emergency worker with St John Ambulance.

We decided that apart from the uniform and tools of the trade, we would only hint at the work she does, rather than try to show her in a dramatic setting. The photo was first and foremost a portrait of Sharon. We wanted anyone who saw the photo to recognise a colleague in an unfamiliar setting.

For our backdrop we chose the interior of an ambulance. I didn’t want to show it in detail, but dimly lit and out of focus. I used a Nikon SB-28 speedlight to put some light in the ambulance interior. I also put a blue gel on it, partly to contrast with the green uniform and warm main light I was planning to use and partly to echo the blue emergency light of the ambulance.

Sharon, Volunteer

The main light is from a Westcott Apollo 28 inch softbox with a Nikon SB-28 speedlight. I was also using a Rosco 08 gold gel on the speedlight to simulate warm evening light. The speedlights were fired using Paul Buff Cybersync remote triggers.

To get the light as soft as possible, the softbox was placed at left of frame as close to Sharon as I could get it without being it in the shot. The 200mm lens I used gave me an out of focus background and kept the focus on Sharon.

Sharon, Volunteer

Cameras in the Cupboard #10

Petri FT

Another first. The Petri FT was my first SLR and my third camera.  I had been using the Agfa rangefinder for a while and was now interested enough in photography to want to start developing and printing my own black and white images. And it seemed that to be a serious photographer, I had to have an SLR.

Petri FT, my first SLR

I had no idea about SLR’s, I had no one to ask and very little information available. I had been working for about 18 months in Melbourne and had saved some money so I started going to the camera stores.

One camera store was advertising ‘the perfect camera for the new photographer’, a Petri FT – $95. So I bought it. And so began years of learning to develop film, print images, mix chemicals, build darkrooms, enter competitions, trying to get better, disappontments, great expense and eventually going digital. And along the way I have met some fun and talented people.

The Petri is a Japanese camera. The company began making SLRs in the late ’50s and the Petri FT went into production in 1967. I bought mine in 1970, probably at the end of the production run. The company brought out several other FT models (FTE, FT EE, FT II) before going bankrupt in 1978.

It had a couple of odd features: the shutter release was on the front of the body and angled at 45 degrees but it worked well when you got used to it. That large lever beside the shutter release is the depth of field control, press it back to stop down the lens to check the depth of focus. I have never seen one like that before or since.

The Petri FT wasn’t a high quality camera, it was on a par with the early Praktika and Yashica SLRs, but it got me started on a life-long journey of taking pictures and producing my own prints.

A Change of Name

For many years I have been doing my own work under the name of my old company; Interface Publications Pty Ltd.

But the time has come to move on. I am now producing photography and writing under my own name.

I will leave the history of Interface Publications on the site for those ageing computer tragics who still remember. And because I am proud of what we achieved in those early days of computing before it all got easy.

And in memory of Tim Hartnell, a close friend who is still missed.

Arriving at Flatey

There are at least two islands named Flatey in Iceland. The one we briefly visited was Flatey Island in Breiðafjörður. Flatey means ‘flat’.

The Icelanders tend to name things in a very literal way. For example, the volcano that disturbed air travel in early 2010, Eyjafjallajökull, means Island – Mountain-Glacier, which pretty much describes it.

Flatey Island was originally the site of a monastery founded in the 1100s. It is now a small settlement and a ferry stop on the sail from Stykkisholmur to Brjanslaekur. From there you can drive to the spectacular bird nesting cliffs (puffins!) at Latrabjarg. The ferry is the only way to get to Flatey unless you have your own boat.

 

When we arrived at the Flatey dock there was a lot of activity. A young mother was bringing her new baby home to the island and she was the centre of attention for the locals. But then a group of young disadvantaged adults, escorted by several Red Cross volunteers, made their way off the ferry to the dock to begin their summer holiday on the island.

The main attraction immediately became the young woman getting her first wheel barrow ride (no cars on Flatey). Her shrieks of laughter were soon the centre of attention for all on the dock and the ferry.