Encouraged by the popularity of the long-exposure Pier series at ipernity, I have taken the plunge and made the 4 images available as prints.
You can see (and buy) them here at Photoshelter.
Category: art
Update
The Top Twelve gallery has been updated with two images that have been very popular on Ipernity in the last few days.
One from Iceland, and the remains of the old pier at Clifton Springs, Victoria, Australia
Sometimes it Just Doesn’t Work
Usually I don’t mind it so much if a planned photographing session doesn’t produce usable results because I generally learn something in the process; but not always.
I have just spent a very frustrating day trying to photograph a glass. The book Light: Science & Magic has a very good chapter on how to light glass. I had tried it very briefly on a previous occasion and got a result good enough to give me encouragement.
The technique for photographing a glass on a white background (in brief) is to have the white background the same size as the field of view of the camera, then bounce the light off the background back through the glass. Buy the book for the full explanation.
I set up the camera and the background, then carefully masked out the area of the camera’s field of view (not easy by yourself). Once that was done I began shooting.
Two problems emerged immediately. I was getting good definition of the sides and stem, but no definition of the rim of the glass. And the white base the glass was sitting on wasn’t getting enough light and was being rendered as a dirty gray. Not good. The only thing I can think of was that I set the glass and camera up too far away from the background. I’ll try that one again when I have the time to go through the masking process again.
In an attempt to gain some usable images, I switched to a macro lens, filled the glass with water, moved in very close and photographed food dye drops in the water.
Two problems immediately emerged. The macro lens showed up every flaw and smudge on the glass; and no matter how I tried, even at f16 I couldn’t get enough of the colouring in focus to produce a usable image.
After spending a lot of time trying to get a glass spotlessly clean and work out a way to get the drops to fall exactly in my very narrow zone of focus, I gave up.
Somedays it just doesn’t work.
By the Light…
As anyone who has been following my photography on Flickr and Ipernity would know, empty early morning streets is a theme I return to often.
Part of the reason is that I walk through the city on my way to work; usually sometime around 7.30 am. This gives me a good opportunity for photography.
I also like the low, yellowish, directional light that fills the streets at certain times of the year.
I have just added a new gallery to the Photography page. It features photographs taken in North Melbourne on two mornings in March.
The Top Twelve Project
Just before Christmas I read two blog posts on the same day. They were both about photography, by different photographers coming from different perspectives. But both posts made the same point: when trying to attract the attention of a potential client, or just people who might be interested in your work, less is more.
Over at The Online Photographer, Mike Johnston explains his thoughts as he looks through a photographer’s online portfolio. He comments on what is and isn’t helpful to someone looking for great images.
And what does he find? Too many gallery links that don’t indicate what lies beyond, interface design and navigation that get in the way of looking at the images and just way too much stuff to wade through.
Scott Kelby takes a look at an online portfolio and has a hypothetical conversation with the photographer about why he has so many images and why he has ranked them in that way.
Both Mike and Scott make the same point, why don’t photographers just show their best 10, 20 or 40 images, instead of hundreds. Not all of that lot can be winners or potential work-getters.
This set me thinking: what impression am I giving online? Apart from a few images on this blog, my online presence is mostly the 1000 plus images at the sharing site ipernity.
If anyone actually managed to wade through this many photos, what would they think of my photography? What am I saying about what I do?
The images I have sent to ipernity cover a vast range of topics. Some I have taken in an attempt to show creativity, some are holiday shots, some are there because I wanted others to be able to see them easily and some are experiments.
Those 1000 plus photos don’t project the image of my photography I would like to present to the world.
So, as a result of reading those two articles, I have started the Top Twelve Project. I have added a new Top Twelve page to the site, accessible from the tab at the top.
This page will give access to a gallery of 12 images. At the moment these are my favourite images from the last two years. Trying to choose the best 12 from the thousands I have taken over the last 24 months was a daunting task and I would be the first to admit that the choice might not be perfect.
The challenge now is to discipline myself to update this gallery as I take new images that I judge to be better than at least one of the ones that are there.
So, it is with great pleasure that I declare my Top Twelve Project open. Thanks to Mike Johnston and Scott Kelby for prompting this change of direction.
The War of Art
Resistance is Futile…
A little while ago I bought the excellent book ‘The War of Art‘ by Steven Pressfield. It is an excellent little book that examines the main problem that artists and writers have: sitting down and being arty and writey.
As a photographer and business writer with aspirations to become a ‘proper’ writer, I know only to well how easy it is to find distractions instead of sitting down to work. Cleaning out the fridge suddenly becomes very important.
Pressfield tackles the issue head-on and blames ‘Resistance’. Resistance causes procrastination. Pressfield goes on to explain all about resistance and how to overcome it and achieve what you want to achieve. people say it is a very good book.
I will probably get around to reading it soon.
An Exhibition…
Eight images from my Horsham series of photographs are now on display at the Breizoz Creperie at 139 Nelson Place, Williamstown, Victoria, Australia.
I took these images in the wheat country around Horsham in northern Victoria in early 2008. They show the results of a number of dry seasons on the landscape.
The images were printed on my very own Epson Stylus Photo 2100 and framed by Altona Picture Framing.
A Brief Moment of Fame
I am very pleased and flattered to be one of three Melbourne photographers featured in the current issue of Altfotonet magazine, a magazine of lens-based fine art.
Things that Have Changed the Way I Think…
Shortly after joining Ipernity, I came across a very talented photographer from Iceland: Ragnheidur.
Her image collection included stunning images of the Icelandic scenery, mountains, desolate coastline, windswept plains. The images were often dark and made with very long exposures, giving them an eerie almost ghostly feel.
Frankly I was extremely jealous of her talent, her images and the amazing country she had to work with. I wished I had dramatic, harsh scenery like that to photograph, instead of the boring normal scenery around me.
Then I started thinking: “I do live in a country with harsh scenery, it’s just different”. I began to take notice of what was special about our Australian landscape. It is a harsh dry flat place for most of the state of Victoria. In the wheatlands north of Horsham, the horizon looks as if it has been drawn with a straightedge. The interest is in the texture, colour and light. In the late afternoon the wheat stubble glows gold and the clouds take on a mauve tint.
I began to drive into areas I once bypassed as being totally without photographic interest and I began exploring what is there. I am slowly building a set of images of the Australian landscape the way I see it.
My images don’t look anything like the ones Ragnheidur takes, but it is thanks to her that I am now seeing my own landscape. Thanks Ragga.
Edit September 2010
In June 2010 I spent 2 weeks in Iceland and got to meet Ragga and thank her in person.
Art Filters
Over on The Online Photographer, Mike Johnston has a post about the new Olympus E-620 DSLR. Mike has some interesting, and not entirely serious, things to say about some of its more interesting features.
I enjoyed his comments and assessment of the ‘art filters’ and agreed with his opinions; after all we would all like Creativity to be added to our photos.
After thinking about it for a bit, I decided I really would like an ‘art filter’ on my camera. Specifically, I want a Caravaggio filter.
He might not have known anything about white balance, histograms, ISO or pixel pitch but he certainly understood light and how to use it.
If I could light a portrait like this, I’d be a very happy photographer.