The best laid plans...

A recent weekend away in the Upper Hunter Valley offered the opportunity to capture another foggy dawn on a lake, one of my favourite places to be. I’d organised to meet an old friend who lives in the area for the occasion. After checking in to the hotel I thought I had better go scout the lake with what was left of daylight only to find that the water level was so low it wasn’t going to be worthwhile. Bugger. A quick flurry of messages later and we decided to seek out abandoned farm houses in the area instead and shoot those in the morning light.

Leaving in the morning twilight for the drive to the rendezvous point I crested a rise to see the hills in the east silhouetted against the orange sky with ribbons of mist winding their way across the valley floor. Exit left, tripod out, working fast before it disappears.

I captured some good images of dilapidated buildings and old industrial sites but the hurried, impromptu dawn images are my favourite for that day.

On portraits

The most important thing in portrait photography is not the camera, the lens, or the lighting. It’s the subject. Working with the person in front of the camera and finding out just how to capture their unique presence is a critical skill.

In 1941, Yousuf Karsh took one of the most widely reproduced images in the history of photography, the scowling, defiant portrait of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill. Karsh had set up his lights and camera hoping to capture a photo after an important speech but nobody had told Churchill.

‘You may take one.’ Churchill said. I’ll defer to Karsh’s telling of the moment that followed…

“Churchill’s cigar was ever present. I held out an ashtray, but he would not dispose of it. I went back to my camera and made sure that everything was all right technically. I waited; he continued to chomp vigorously at his cigar. I waited. Then I stepped toward him and, without premeditation, but ever so respectfully, I said, ‘Forgive me, sir,’ and plucked the cigar out of his mouth. By the time I got back to my camera, he looked so belligerent he could have devoured me. It was at that instant that I took the photograph.”

The Roaring Lion, a portrait by Yousuf Karsh

Photography for Beginners Workshop - October 25

I’m hosting a Photography for Beginners workshop at Gallery 11:11 in North Epping on October 25. This three hour hands on session is perfect for those wanting to learn the foundations of photography or brush up on their knowledge.

You’ll learn how the settings on your camera effect the captured picture and how to control them to get the photo you want. No experience required.

Limited places available, for details see the Gallery 11:11 website

Think big

A while ago a photographer friend commented that they’d love to see my work in a really big format.

Challenge accepted.

The wonderful Rebecca at Rathenart Designs has come to the party with her printing expertise and transformed my work to a scale I never imagined. I can’t wait to see this on the wall of Gallery 11:11 for the opening of my first solo exhibition next week.

Lessons in photography

One of the most important lessons I learnt in photography was taught to me by my father’s sixty year old Rolleiflex camera. Go slow. With only 12 exposures per roll of medium format film, my best guess was it cost me $3 every time I clicked the shutter so every photograph became an exercise in going slow to make sure I got it right. Completely manual, I used a handheld light meter or test shots from my DSLR to set the exposure. Mounted on a tripod and the scene carefully framed, trying different angles and compositions. Manual focus while looking down on the ground glass screen, sometimes even using a magnifier to better see what I was doing. Only after this would I attach the cable shutter release and turn the crank on the side to advance the film, the tiny sound of the leaf shutter being almost anti-climactic compared to the slapping of an SLR’s mirror.

By slowing down the image creation process I had more time to see what I was capturing and different ways of doing so. Seeing the light, moving a leaf on a rock that I’d only have to deal with in post, finding better compositions by changing position by as little as a few inches. Try going slow next time you have your camera out, stop and feel the surroundings and look for different ways of capturing the image before you click that shutter.

I’ve not used this camera since the demise of my favourite photo lab a few years ago but having recently joined a community photo group with our own darkroom, I think medium format film is back on the menu.

Brushy Makeup Collaboration

I recently had the opportunity to work with Luana from Brushy Makeup in her mobile makeup studio shooting a number of models for their Natural Beauty project. The mirror lights in the trailer combined with the white interior to give a wonderfully flattering soft light with amazing catchlights in the models eyes. Before and after shots were taken with no digital editing of the models. One thing I loved about Luana’s project was that the before shots were already in flattering light to give a beautifully natural images.