Would you like to see more? I’ve been watching too many Paul Verhoeven films.

While sifting through my ever growing catalogue of images I came across these two portraits which I forgot to share with you lovely people. Will update a little later with some insight into a variety of my portraiture and retouching processes. Take care.

The Anderson siblings are a creative bunch, here’s a quick preview from my sisters fashion label launch on Thursday night. Check back later for a full update about the launch, the fashion and the photography.

Sometimes I wish I were a girl. Being able to enjoy the finer things in life like lamps and interior decorating, order fruity cocktails, and be able to enroll in the roller derby league. I attended my first bout last weekend at the Gold Coast Convention Center between the Sun State Roller Girls (SSRG) and the Victorian Roller Derby League (VRDL). While the match was close the VRDL streaked ahead after half time and crushed our team quite handily. Wow I’ve never referred to any sports team as “our” team before, and that is the draw of roller derby. Guys and girls, outcasts and miscreants, pasty sun hating nerds and geeks (myself included), even those who hate sport can find something to love about roller derby.

I was unable to get a spot close to the action, but figured I’d try take a few shots from the grandstand. I’ve never tried heavily cropping a shot from the 5dmk2 before, and the results were pleasantly suprising. With 21.1 megapixels to work with, you can crop the hell out of an image and still maintain detail. Here’s a comparison between the full image and the crop. Not bad huh? I’d still love a 70-200 though… *wavy screen and daydreaming music*

High quality edited shot, extreme crop. The detail from so far away, with such poor stadium lightning can still be recovered.

The original untouched image.

Every week I head out with my camera (my current girlfriend the 5dmark2, better known as Beatrix) and try to see what mischief I can get into. This week I ran into a street busker in Brisbane CBD, I’d met her a few times before and she always impressed me. Being a former member of The Red Paintings and an operatically trained singer and violinist, why someone who so much talent has to busk is a crime. But it does afford us certain opportunities, like teaching her how to play Still Alive (the Portal song) and then recording it for my gentle viewers.

I let her listen to the song on my iPhone and she learnt it on the spot. Musicians amaze me.

For just learning the song, and putting up with drunks and intermittent rain, we did a pretty good job.

We are planning on rerecording the song when she is out again next week, hopefully with less drunks and background noise. Although, the guy extolling his love for acid towards the end is pretty amusing. Always an entertaining night out in Brisbane Here’s to you, busker girl, I can never remember your name but you always remember mine.

Doing a little experiment with Tumblr integration, I swear I think I’m creating a virus with this blog. All content everywhere! For your troubles here is a picture of a pretty girl.

Beauty retouching can be perilous ground to tread, too much and your subject loses their human quality and takes up residence in the Barbie estate, too little and the image loses the “pop” which makes it stand out from the rest. Personally I am a champion of non destructive retouching, small blemishes should be removed, anything which causes distraction, but not at the expense of texture. Pores, faint hairs, scars…the traits which make us unique should remain intact.
 
Too often you will find magazines attack their models with the airbrush as an ogre with a club, completely destroying the details. Is this look desirable? Do we as consumers covet being absolutely picture perfect? I for one would rather a scar, after all, chicks dig them right?
 
Below is another image of the lovely Minda, who was kind enough to stand amidst my flashing lights for a few hours while I tested out some new gear. Very little retouching had to be done, just a few minor adjustments which make the image pop.
 

One of the biggest challenges being a live music photographer is dealing with poor lighting conditions in small venues. Usually this means neon flashing lights creating undesirable colour casts, making focusing nearly impossible and obscuring details. However, if you can get close, and with a wide enough aperture (2.8 in this case, although I have my eye on a 1.2) you can make the best of a challenging situation.

Quick preview of The Driving Conditions, more to come.