Steps

If you have every tried to photograph a child moving you will know it isn’t easy. They are constantly moving and doing something. On this occasion we were in the park and my son was running back up to the top of a slide. I was trying to capture it all and thought the steps were an interesting backdrop. It was in the shadows so I was forced to have a slow shutter speed anyway and this is what I managed to capture. It certainly shows his movement.
When ever my son sees this image on the computer he says “They are my shoes” (he is three years old).

Alone

I have posted this image before. Since then it has had some minor tweaking. I caught this shot of my wife on top of the Rock in New York. She was tired and cranky and quite over all the walking we had been doing. When I turned around and saw her like this I had to take a photo, but I was taking my life into my own hands when I did, you don’t want to poke the bear when she is angry.
I really like the way she wasn’t looking at the view, but rather sitting there looking sad and alone. It was nicely juxtaposed (A good artsy word there) by the couple on the left who were looking at the view and by chance were holding another M&M bag.
My wife knew I was taking the shot, but thankfully didn’t kill me for it.

The Drum – Issue 93 April 2015

The April issue of the Drum is up on the club website.
There are articles on March club meeting, the Bridport excursion, the Centenary Trophy, and TPF AGM programme. Plus we have the winners from the February “Monochrome” competition and results of the second Facebook competition.

Please enjoy.

Bin It

This was something different for me. I was waiting for my wife to finish work so I started walking around her office building and found this random bin with some nice light. The texture of the wall behind it was also very interesting to me. I have no idea why the bin was there, but I was just seeing the light and shooting.

Last month I entered this image “Bin It” into the Open small print category of my local camera club (Northern Tasmanian Camera Club). It didn’t go well because the judges couldn’t figure out what it was about. That is fine, it is a viewers prerogative to judge the image they are looking at and in this case it didn’t speak to them. One of the judges asked me what I was shooting here and my first response was “the light”. That is a basic answer to that question so I want to elaborate on that a little.
The light was the first thing I saw. Next was the rough and patchy bricks, the pattern of the mortar and the different colours in the brick work. Add the smooth and slightly shiny plastic of the rubbish bin, I really liked the way that contrasted against wall. I could use the “artsy” word juxtaposition, but that really isn’t my style. To add to the scene there was also the debris on the ground which gave me another texture and the discarded starter which obviously was meant for the bin but failed to make into it. Plus there was some greenery poking through which added a small splash of colour.
So those are the things that drew me to the image, but why shoot it in the first place? I wanted to photograph this because it was there and so was I. It is mundane and ordinary, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be a good photograph. Would I like to be photographing something more interesting? Hell yes, but there wasn’t anything overly interesting to shoot at the time.
These days I shoot just about anything that gets in front of my camera. I don’t have the time to wait for something better to come along because it probably won’t happen. If I see something I like I shoot it. If I see something that is boring I will probably still shoot it. I shoot the boring because there must have been something there in the first place that made me look at it. I want to stay open to any possible image and this is a result of doing just that.

Lilydale Upper Falls

Lilydale Upper Falls

I took this image in 2007 and then did nothing with it. Last month I was searching through my back catalog of images and came across this shot so I finally processed it. It was processed with Silver Efex Pro and then I did some final processing in Lightroom. I am glad that I never actually processed this image when I took it because I never would have made it look like this back then. My taste and processing has changed considerably over the last 8 years and I am glad it has.

The Drum – Issue 92 March 2015

The March issue of the Drum is up on the club website.
There are articles on Lightroom, the “lots of” evening, the exhibition opening, and Photography – a love story. Plus we have the winners from the January “lots of” competition and results of the first Facebook competition.

Please enjoy.

The Drum – Issue 91 February 2015

The February issue of the Drum is now up on the club website. It is full of information of upcoming events plus articles on the January club meeting and a night photography workshop.

Please enjoy!

The Drum – Issue 90 January 2015

The first issue of The Drum for the year has been published!

In this issue we have the winners of the Robert and Dorothy Mackrill Trophies plus the winner of the President’s Trophy.

Please enjoy!

The Drum – Issue 89 December 2014

The latest issue of The Drum has been published for December. It features articles on the recent TPF Meeting (page 6), and an interview with Jason L Stephens (page 14).

Each issue of The Drum is a lot of work to put together. Sourcing and writing articles, editing and changing the layout to suit. It is a big effort, but it is also very rewarding to see the finished product.

With the silly season well upon us this latest issue became much more difficult to finish. With some rather late nights in the last week I was able to bring it all together. January’s issue will be done on a tight time constraint as I don’t want to be wrapped up in that issue over the festive period. Then February will be under a lot of pressure. My wife is expecting our second child in early January, so life in our household will change dramatically.

As with most things time will tell how everything pans out.

I hope that everyone who reads this latest issue will enjoy it.

The Drum – Issue 88 November 2014

The latest issue of The Drum has been published for November. It features articles the recent club field trip to Armidale Stud, and the second part of the Ibarionex Perello interview (The Candid Frame).

I hope that everyone who reads it will enjoy it.