Here are some sneek speek photos straight from the camera. Over the next few weeks we will finish these photos and many many more to form a lovely story for their album.

As with all of our weddings, we cant wait to finish the album as this is where our photographs come to life and tell the story …. until then … enjoy this sneek speek ….

The answer of course is when Councillor for Deagon Ward in Brisbane, none other than Victoria Newton herself arrives at your studio asking for new photos to be taken of her.

No pressure at all but I think if I stuff up, I may never work again … but seriously I hope Victoria is happy with the results of todays photo shoot which i hope will reflect on her own down to earth approachable style of leadership. 

Victoria works tirelessly for our local community so it is a real please to help her out.  Her website is at http://www.victorianewton.com.au/. We appreciate all your excellent work Victoria!

Tech Stuff
Canon 5d MK II
f/8
1/200 Sec
ISO 100
Studio strobes and background

You would never know it to look at this photo, but I am the fussiest person I know when it comes to a workstation. Everything is just right for me to work them spots and crinkes away. The overhead light is placed in exactly the right position to illuminate the desk, tablet and keyboard without shedding any direct light on to the screen or anything behind the screen. The ceiling light is then at the correct intensity which I can adjust if need be. There are no vivid colours in the room which could throw any slight colour cast onto the screen. The keybaord and tablet are black/grey and not white which, when this close,  could affect the appearance of blacks on screen.

The full HD screen is always the brightest thing in the room being at least 2 stops brighter then anything else, it is fully profiled by Spyder so that every colour is exactly measured and corrected.

The super reliable LINUX disk array to the right of the screen is fully hot backed up via RAID which means I dont need to stop working in the event of a disk crash. These LINUX disks have a very hard working life and sure beat Windows and Apple for reliability,  just about never need rebooting, not even after a whole year of continueous work.  They are accessable by any computer in the studio which are networked by Ethernet gigabit (fastest) Local Area Network (LAN). Behind the screen is a Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) which means I can carry on working in the event of a power failure and then power down gracefully without loss of work. The desk is a big enough space so that my printer can produce test prints within easy grabbing distance before commiting to send away for a canvas or an album.  

Everything is based around the screen and graphics tablet, the centre of my working life.

Most inportantly of all , to the right,  is a serving hatch from the kitchen so that I can be passed coffee.

So it may look like chaos but theer is some method to the madness!

Tech Stuff
Canon 5D MK II
f/8
1/125 sec
ISO 1250

So we were doing the beach today and I was thinking about taking a photo of my two girls when I was called over to look at this stone “Hey Daddy look at this, it looks like a love heart”.

Here is my photo of love then  … err … hope you love it

Tech Stuff
Canon IXUS 40
Fully automatic settings

So I asked my 6 year old where we should have photos taken and she replied “Big W”.  For those outside Australia this store chain is named after F.W. Woolworths, the original American dime store and is still alive and kicking today in Brisbane Australia.  Had he been alive today, I think Mr Frank Winfield Woolworth would be best pleased with today’s photo shoot location.

So the scene was set and I allowed the kids free reign to go and do what they pleased in the store. A good strategy as we now have a dozen photographs that I am best pleased with.  This image here makes me laugh as Rachel is busy studying the different chocolates whilst her younger sister, Kate, is bored with this isle so she has decided to have a dance. Even though I am there taking photos, I am totally ignored by both of them, excellent!

For this photo, I could see the movement in Kate so I selected a slower shutter and placed the camera on a supermarket shelf using it as a tripod. I could not see through the viewfinder so I just zoomed out and pointed it in the right direction, Shoot from the hip in other words. Later I cropped the photo.

Teach Stuff
Canon G11
f/8
1/6 sec
ISO 400
Camera held on supermarket shelf as very slow shutter
Shot from the hip without looking … looking is cheating!
Read my earlier post why it is important to take photos of your everyday life

What more is there to say? Well only that our wonderful bride and groom today will be able to enjoy the wonder that nature has provided as through the amazing colours were  arranged especially just for their wedding photographs.

Tech Stuff
Canon 5D MKII
f/8
1/50 sec
ISO 400
1 strobe to back light and I to front light
Tripod
See my earlier post on Wedding Photography

The Sunshine Coast Hinterland recent bush fire had created a natural filter and caused the light from the setting sun to be very much reduced and changed in colour. Wonderful.

I know bush fires can be a dangerous and dreadful thing, but nature here in Australia shows us that many positive things come from this natural phenomenon, and today was one such example.

Tech Stuff
Canon 5D MKII
f/8
1/2500 Sec
ISO 400
Studio Strobe
My earlier post on Wedding Photography Here.

A word of warning before we continue …. NEVER try this at home. NEVER shoot straight into the sun without proper training and guidance. Blindness is not worth getting a perfect silhouette for. It also goes against the good training that was drummed into me on my first wedding photography course many years ago. But rules, whilst they represent excellent common sense, are just made to be broken sometimes and this was one such occasion.

Instaed of a full Silhouette, today we rendered the image as a half Silhouette maning the camera was set up for the domanent back light, In this instance the setting sun, and a flash on minimum power just puffed in some light to turn it into a half Silhouette.

Why Do this? because it is very natural. If you were there tonight, this is exactly as your eye would view it. The flash has not overpowered the image and it has not even correctly exposed our subject, its just puffed some light back to make this natural shot.

Hope you like it. What do you think? has it worked?

Tech Stuff
Canon 5D MKII
f/2.8
1/5000 sec
ISO 100
Flash on manual power and zoom adjusted to look correct
My earlier post on Silhouettes Here.

I have said it before, but many families will associate going on holiday with a need to take photos to remember it by. Thats great and when I am on holiday I take photos like they are going out of fashion. The problem is that it is all too easy to overlook a need of taking photos of your everyday life.

Here is my “Easy as A,B,C” guide how to do it

1. Get a small camera. Yes real small and in fact small enough to fit easily in your pocket. My smallest camera is a old Canon IXUS 40 and whilst being about 7 years or so old, it still takes photos MANY times better than the latest Apple iPhone or Andriod whatever.  PS Did I tell you than phones make lousy cameras? Read more on why here. 
2. Now that you have a camera so small and light, you can take it anywhere right?
3. These tiny point and shoot usually do not have manual settings, good, be content with fully automatic mode.
4. Shoot from the hip. For the photo presented here, I simply pointed the camera in more or less the right direction without looking through the viewfinder or at the LCD screen, and shot the scene. No rocket science what so ever. better still, if you are not detected taking the photo.  This photo has captured what me and my girls do all the time, walk down to a beach well call “Dangerous Beach”. Excellent!
5. Recognise the limitations of shooting this way. You are not going to end up with a magnificent portrait to hang on the wall and be proud of for the rest of your life using this method. You are not going to even have a well composed picture with artistic flair, but you will have captured “what you do”.  Revisit such photos in 10 years time and you will be surprised how much they mean to you.  Happy shooting!

Now photography scholars amongst us may be keen to point out to me that I have got my own shadow in the photo and the horizon is not straight.  LOL, but you have missed the point.

Tech Stuff
Canon IXUS 40
Fully automatic settings
Shot from the hip without looking … looking is cheating!

The answer is of course at 8.25PM or about 3 hours after sunset. The reason being of course that this is not a sunrise at all but an overexposed moon taken just 2 days after the full moon when it glows a red colour. Later into the evening the red colour fades and overexposing the moon renders it almost like the sun, but the difference being the moonlight does not bleach colour like we are used to from our harsh sun.

The sky and water are therefore wonderfully and delicately lit by the moon whilst the tree, grass and sign are dimly lit by a street light which is a sodium bulb giving off a color cast which appears natural on trees but a little strange on the grass and concrete pavement.

For this exposure I was forced to use f/3.5 as the camera, a Canon G11, has no B (Bulb) shutter or time mode for longer exposures; 15 seconds is its limit.  What a shame Canon. I would have preferred to use f/8 and get the tree more in focus but was forced to use f/3.5 and so forced to render the street sign sharper than the tree.

Tech Stuff
Canon G11 (but alas I should have used a SLR with this image)
f/3.5 (would rather have used f/8)
15 Seconds exposure (sadly the slowest exposure the G11 can do)
ISO 200
Manual focus at 1 meter behind the sign to get the tree less soft)
Tripod of course

I spent two and a half hours looking at his amazing Black and White images and loved every minute of it. But just before I went into the exhibition, I saw this Silhouette and reached down for my Canon IXUS point and shoot and captured it.

Of course Silhouette’s were around long before photography but now, using cameras it is so very easy to use this technique of photographing people or objects against the light. The light might be the brightest part of your framed image, such as a sunrise or sunset or an open doorway, a technique known as contre-jour or it might be used in a studio using studio lighting lighting.

Silhouetting occurs when there is a large lighting ratio that gives very high contrast; the difference between the lightest shades (the background) and the darkest shades (the foreground person or objects being Silhouette’d). In lighting ratio terms, a ratio of 8:1 or less may show some detail in the Silhouette and no detail in a lighting ration of 16:1 or greater.

The exposure is set for the background, usually with an aperture of f/8 or f/11.

Here is how to easily achieve a Silhouette

1. Select a scene that is back lit. A person again a sunset for instance
2. Put the camera on Aperture priority f/8 and the metering mode set to Matrix Mode (for Nikon) or Average Metering (for Canon) or Multi Zone. Do not set the camera to spot metering.
3. Focus on the foreground silhouette subject
4. Turn your flash off. For fully automatic cameras or modes that turn the flash on automatically, place your finger in front of the flash.  Alternatively, If you want to see a tiny bit of detail in your silhouette, turn your flash to a minimum setting or for fully automatic cameras or modes, place  a folded piece of grease proof paper over the flash and so reducing its power.

and take the photo, its as easy as that. For fully automatic cameras, just ensure the subject is not too large in the frame and take the photo (if the subject takes up most of the frame then the metering will be affected and a silhouette is not likely to be achieved.

Tech Stuff
Canon IXUS 40
Fully automatic settings
Tiny amount of detail brought back into the mans face and shirt in post processing  (but see point 4 above by partially using a flash)
My earlier post on Henri Cartier-Bresson here

I got out in the back garden and saw the colour coming of these wild flowers. Wow fantastic, all I wanted to do was to photograph the colour!

Here are my top tips on Photographing Flowers in your garden.

1. Pick a dull day. Much better lighting than direct sunlight hitting the delicate flower and/or direct sunlight illuminating the background. If the light looks too flat, then get out a pocket torch and light up part of the flower. The pocket torch (or flash light) is a spot light with a lovely soft graduation of light around the edges, perfect for flowers. You can also very the light intensity by moving the light nearer or away from the flower.
2. Use a tripod as the closer you get, the more any camera movement is exaggerated. A Tripod will keep the camera still and also keeps you hands free for holding the torch.  You can also put the camera on timer to ensure you do not jog the camera whilst pressing the shutter release.
3. Pick a breeze free day. You cant easily shield flowers from any wind. This never works as flowers are so delicate they flow in the breeze all too easily.
4. For wildflowers, pick a flower that is not absolutely perfect and that way you render the wildflower as wild and for garden flowers such as Roses, pick one that is perfect and symmetrical.

Tech Stuff
Canon G11
Manual Exposure on f/8
1/30 Sec
ISO 80
Tripod
Torch to light up nearside of flower. Torch held under flower.

My photo here shows the full moon on 9/11 displaying the light, and hope,  against a sea of darkness and I think that’s all I want to say about what happened ten years ago.

Tips on How to Photograph the Moon

1. Select manual exposure. The correct exposure to photograph a full moon on a very clear night is f/8,  ISO 100 with shutter speed 1/250 sec.  This exposure should show detail in the moon, however, in my photograph here I have overexposed the moon as I was only interested in it as a featureless ball of light and not interested here in seeing the detail of the shadow areas of the moon.
2. Select manual focus and set the focus to infinity.
3. Zoom right in (otherwise it will appear as a small dot). The more you are able to zoom in, the larger the moon will appear.
4. Use a tripod for stability to render the moon sharp.
5. A good time to photograph the moon is around sunset where photographs taken just 2 minutes apart will yield different sky colour and brightness. For this photo, I wanted to render the sky very dark and so I waited until 15 minutes after sunset (Location Brisbane, Australia in Spring Time).

Tech Stuff
Canon G11
Manual mode f/8
1/13 Sec
ISO 80
Tripod
Heaps of grain and tint added in post processing

Here is the birthday girl with her good friend. I like this photo because I think it shows what good fun kids parties are.

Here are my tips on how to photograph a kids birthday party

1. Birthday parties are good fun and so the way to take birthday party photographs is to be good fun yourself. If the kids think you are good fun then that’s all that matters as you will get the most from them
2. Select a small camera. Yes put away the oversize brick like 1ds or D3 and take the smallest camera you can. This will enable you to stay nimble on your feet and run around after the action without fear of causing concussion to a child. Also children are not intimidated with a small camera.
3. Dont just stand there! Run with the kids and be playful. Show them their own photo on the back of the camera and involve them with your picture taking. Thats the only way I was able to get this image, not by being a spectator on the sideline, but by making it obvious what I was up to.  Shy kids need more work so be more patient with them and take a quick candid photo to show them how good they look. Gain their confidence and you will get the best photos of them later on.
4. Get on your knees, not to pray, but to be the same level as the children. The most common mistake made whilst photographing children is that the adult photographer stands up and looks down on the children. Not nice as you are rendering the subject (the kids) are insignificant and unimportant. Break this rule with care, well, as in this photo here actually.

Tech Stuff
Canon G11
Aperture Priority f/8
ISO 200
Focused by camera facial recognition (works well thanks Canon)

In order to render the scene sharp and the moving person blurred it is necessary to use a tripod and also to show the shutter down. The only problem with this is that in normal daylight it can be hard to achieve. That is where Neutral Density filters come to the rescue.  First of all we need to select a small aperture such as f/8 and also a low ISO like ISO 80. These two settings will ensure as little light as possible reaches the film plane and also the digital sensor is turned down (ISO 80 say).  But when I set up the camera, today these settings caused the shutter to be too fast, 1/40 sec,  to render my moving subject as blurred. So the answer is to use Neutral density filters.

The Neutral density filters are just like putting a pair of sunglasses in front of the camea. They cut down the amount of light that hits the film plane (or digital sensor). Just like sunglasses they come in different densities from light to really dark and they also can be made graduated dark to light.

By far the most useful filter you can ever buy are ND filters and ND Grads (graduated Filters). I bought my first ND filter, a Cokin at the age of 14 and since then have bought ND filters from Hitech, B+W and Hoya before settling for top of the range from Lee and Singh-Ray.  It is always worth buying the best ND filters you can afford as the cheapers one’s can suffer with colour casts.  

The camera I used today has its own in built 2 stop ND filter which can be turned on using a menu option. What a neat new feature! In this case it was all that was necessary to reduce the shutter speed from 1/40 sec to 1/10 sec.  Excellent! Thank you for this feature canon, next time can we also have a 3 stop filter too please?

Tech Stuff
Canon G11
f/8 – to cut the light down and have all the background in focus
1/10 sec – very slow and necessary to record the moving person as blurred
ISO 80 – to cut the light down
Camera on manual exposure and manual focus set at 4M
Camera inbuilt ND filter used

Furthermore, and there’s more, Peter Sellers was photographed in 1963 by my all time favourite social photographer, Bill Brandt. The image that Bill took of Sellers has become an icon of the comic genius. See Bill’s photo of Sellers here.  I have tried here to recreate this photo without the aid of Bill’s fav B&W Film of that era, Kodak TRI-X.

TRI-X  is 50+ year old old black and white film, the very high contrast tonal qualities of which are harsh and this gives it a very distinctive look to it. Tri-X has a high grain quality but still looks sharp.  Some photographers use it for its dream like quality which is not quite a mirror of reality. You can recreate this high contrast on digital but not so easy is to recreate its grain. I think digital grain is too linear for this and so this film has a different mood to digital.  My freezer still has a good stock and I must get a roll out soon.

Tech Stuff
Canon 5D MkII
f/4 – wanted to use 2.8 but too hard on mnaual focus when the camera is on timer (f/4 greater room for error)
1/2500 – very fast shutter to render the bright sunlit background dark
ISO 100
Strobe aimed at face so it kept newspaper darkish (would overexpose esaily otherwise)
Camera on tripod and timer as its a self portrait
Manual focus set by measuring the distance between camera and face (not newspaper)
contrast increased in photoshop but no grain added as cant recreate the analogue grain of Tri-X
With thanks to Bill Brandt for the inspiriation

Took the camera along to take a picture of my boy, Jimbo and instantly remembered why he is so difficult to take a picture of. He is absolutely jet black.  The light has to be just right with this boy or you just get a black ball of featureless fluff. To make matters worse his wool has grown over his eyes and so second BIG NOTE TO SELF- Take the photo again a few weeks after his next hair cut.

Here are some tips on Pet Photography …

1. Think about the background first. As silly as it sounds you can take a great picture of a pet in the studio with plain or studio background. Furthermore the light is always perfect in the studio.  For outdoor photos of a dog, have a think about where you walk him or her as the photo will be more meaningful to you.
2. Hardest colour pets to photographs are jet black or brilliant white so consider the lighting more carefully with these extremes. For jet black pets have the sun or light source front lit or broad lit meaning the sun or light should be either behind the camera or on the same side of the pet as seen from the camera. This will ensure as much light falls on the subject as the background. For brilliant white pets then consider back lighting or short lighting meaning the sun or light should be either in front of the camera or on the opposite side of the pet as seen from the camera. Let the light dictate the pose! Always shoot in RAW not JPG to enable you to bring some texture and colour back for the final print as what can look OK on screen may not print well if the tonal range is so extreme.
3. For dogs you can time the photo to coincide with grooming and trims. My Jimbo is best shot a few weeks after a trim.
4. Take treats in your pocket. Its always amazing what pets will do for treats.
5. For dogs take him or her off the lead, they are not about to run away when there is treats to be had.
6. Allow enough time for the shoot. They say never work with Animals or Children for a reason. So have patience and allow double the time you will think it is going to take.

Tech Stuff
Canon G11
f/8
1/500 sec
ISO 200
Dogs wool lightened up a bit in Photoshop
location mine and Jimbo’s fav walking location in Brighton, Queensland, Australia.

In this one scene we have to our left a sharply dressed professional lady. A real go getter who is in the prime of her career. She is on a mission to get home after a successful day at the office. In contrast the man in the foreground just right of centre, is totally over having to commute to the city. He walks slowly and sloppy. For him its grounhog day. His job only serves to pay the mortgage and serve up a plate load of grief.  In the middle of the image we have a young lady who has warmly greeted her boyfriend from a day at work. He has barely walked through the station exit before he gets a cuddle with little regard to partially blocking the exit. How lovely. Finally to our right we have a slender lady looking like a very young fashion model. She was one of the first off the train, walking very quickly before stopping and looking around in amazement that there was no one to greet her. Just shows you that no matter how good you look, you cant always get your own way. So that was my scene that I captured today. I have rendered the faces blank. They are unknown to me.

Who was the master of Street Photography? None other than Henri Cartier-Bresson of course.  In an age when photographers were using large format sheet film cameras, Henri lead the way to show us small can be beautiful and opted to use miniature or small format Leica cameras. Now days we call this format simply 35mm and no longer regard it as miniature at all.

Here are my Street Photography tips as inspired by Henri Cartier-Bresson ….

1. Select a camera with a small sensor size to obtain greater depth of field. Best colour for a camera body and lens here is black as its better to not be noticed. Henri was known for masking his camera in black tape.
2. Select manual exposure and select a small aperture like f/8 to increase what is in focus (increase depth of field).
3. Select widest zoom again to increase depth of field and so that you capture everything
4. Select manual focus and predetermine how far away your closest foreground subject will be and how far away your background subject will be. Set the focus to hyperfocal distance using a depth of field calculator. For my Canon G11 I set the focus to 7 Metres  (for f/8 and widest zoom)  which means I can get in focus anything from 4M to infinity.
5. With camera set up like this you can shoot from the hip, no need to even look through the viewfinder, just point it and shoot it and hopefully people will not even notice you and therefore will not be affected by pointing the camera in their direction.
6. Straighten the photo or crop the photo later using an image editing tool such as photoshop. Consider rending a street scene in Black and White. Even Henri preferred black and white as colour can be a distraction from the abstract street scene storyline, texture, contrast and tones.

Tech Stuff
Canon G11
f/8
1/5 sec – Very slow shutter to render any moving people blurred
ISO 800 – used because its low light situation 15 mins after sunset
Manual exposure
Manual focus at 7m (hyperfocal distance)
Tripod used – not normal with street photography but necessary here after sunset to render the scene sharp while people are blurred
Afterwards changed image to B&W, Toned and added more grain

It was all a different world on this day in 1959 when the first trunk call was made between 2 cities from a phone box. Today the phone boxes are hardly used and even the phone box that stood outside my studio in Brisbane Australia has been removed due to lack of use.

Shows you how quickly the world changes. The other thing that changes all too quickly is how quickly my children grow up. Perhaps that why I took them to a remaining  phone box for this photo shoot today before the kids get an older and before this phone box is removed.  I ended up with a satisfying 16 photos that I will cherish and no body disturbed us during the photo shoot as there is no demand for the phone!

Tech Stuff
Canon G11
f/8 – Selected so both kids were in focus
1/25 Sec
ISO400
Manually exposed off the sky to reduce back light blooming
Flash manually set to 1/4 power
Camera positioned on the floor to make the kids look taller and older (they are only 4 & 5 years old)
In Photoshop turned into high contrast B&W and then toned to give an old fashioned feel
My thanks to Telstra for supplying today’s photo shoot location