Photography

Perception is everything.

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Only quick unprocessed phonecam shots but shows promise . you can see its a nice white light(compared to the hallway incandescent.

Strip softboxes and strip lighting are useful things to have in your portrait kit. Unfortunately generally very expensive. I came across these last night at Bunnings. $40. Not a bad effect for the price.

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Helpful Monday tip. :)

So these light holders pictured above are cheap and available on the net and pretty much do for the hobby portrait lighting stuff but they could be better with just a slight mod.  OR Check to make sure yours has been assembled correctly. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.327534624074129.1073741845.289788877848704&type=1

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DSC_0028 on Flickr.

Moonrider. Awesome bike in natural street light, with just a hint of moonlight on the clouds...remind me to not wear orange when taking photos ;) It could do with a polish Thomas! First light with the 10-20mm

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DSC_0058 on Flickr.

La Balerina. Finally a decent bird in flight capture.

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2014-09-04 06.36.53 on Flickr.

View waiting for the train..

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Two more for the phone camera project. Another sunrise followed by a reflection shot. Train is travelling at about 30kph. I had two attempts to time getting me in the window. The slant on the door is keystone effect ive used to give the idea of motion. Image was noisy as I had forced the ISO to manual hi in order to make the camera use a faster shutter. I used Gimp wavelet denoise to clean it up a little.The detail on my reflection in the window was never great. I actually like the uncropped version but it gets lost under compression after posting.

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I often photograph a local dance troop. Ive also started playing deeper with darktable. Here i took the descending line which ends up in the monitor bottom right as my cue and worked with it. Cluttered multicoloured backgrounds of shopping centres are hard to ignore. But B&W also looked too stark for this. The troops colours are red n black so using my new DT skills I used a parametric colour mask to leave the red in. I like it when a story unfolds on stage.

I would have liked a little bit more clarity but the conditions are tricky. Hard back light, little key light and no flash, Im often pushing my camera to its limits. Need more light :)

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Shots taken last weekend. Making the most out of the views from one tree. A little bit of Australiana for you.

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right tumblr forcing the first photo to enlarge so Ive put the animation below it. Cant quite work out a way of controlling what size tumblr displays it at. Im also still getting that highly compressed breaking up picture quality. More reading to come :(

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Ahh the joys of photographing groups. Really wasnt given the time to "develop" this shot. Threw up two umbrellas in front and only had the stage working lights to bring up the background and time was short.

Cast were great fun and looked fab in their outfits. I really wanted to develop the shot but the next showing was due to start soon and they had to scuttle off back stage. One of these will end up in the local rag promoting inter community relationships. Mick of Berwick Miners grid iron club loaned BATS theatre group some gear for props on "Death of a Salesman"

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Wanted: Eye to hardcopy interface with optional zoom lenses.

Today it happened, you know the feeling, every moment is framed in your head as you go about your daily drudgery. "Wish I had camera just then" and so on. I was enjoying a moonrise on my cycle to work. It was cold, the sun was a a good twenty off from rising and the moon slither, only 7% waning, had beaten it to the punch. Followed closely, in a minor supporting role by Venus. There they were hanging in that morning blue sky just on daybreak. A bright slither with its eloquent full circular shadow just visible beside it. I watched it, as I watched the path in front of me as the duo slowly rose to about 30deg up from horizontal. 

 If only I had a camera I would have stopped. It wasn't up there with awesome but none the less it was picturesque and worthy of a 2meg space on my HD. I saw the lights first, the pulsing strobe of the ID lights of a jet airline making its way to or from some exotic place.It came from in between, the planet orbiting cluster of two, sliding silently across them. Then there it was, that moment we all dream of, "that" shot, one in a million, no photoshop required. From my viewpoint the plane flew across the bottom of the shadowed moon. It was almost as long as the moon was wide. Its nose touched the brightly illuminated edge, passed thru and was gone. Wow, .. Reality check. Narrowly missing the trees along the path I had momentarily transcended, I tried to emboss the image in some unused and still viable synapes of my brain. Auto manipulating the axons to compensate for my, too many years spent staring at surface mount technology, distorted lenses but the biggest thought was ... ....why o why did I not have a 600mm DSLR hanging from my neck. Because it wasn't one of those fleeting moments that by the time you bring the camera up its gone. They happen all the time, its life I can live with missing those.This was different. If the camera was there I had plenty of time, I had already seen the frame coming I had time to pick n choose my settings even. That my friends makes it all the worst for missing it.

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Inspired by a bloke a few weeks ago who takes photos of his sink nearly every morning. Seemed strange at the time but I think I get now what he was up to. Threw this bowl into the sink to soak after lunch and the light dancing in the water splashes caught my eye. Armed with phone cam only I set about trying to capture it.

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We call this Donald Duck! Yours truly in the eye of the sparkles, while partner in crime Darren was in control of the camera. The question is

How did we do it?

No photoshop or mirrors here. As in camera.

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Smartphone camera project. Loved the way the sun was hitting the storm cloud. Best of 4 shots, playing with leading lines. just getting the angle of the power lines, the cars and you may notice the hand rail bottom right corner.Then waited for the bird, distant left bottom to flay across. Unfortunately its a bit too distant for my liking but then not many birds co operate ;)

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"For the times they are a-changin" -Bob dylan.

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A recent visit to Werribee Mansion and taking some shots with the d200 and 60mm macro lens.

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Tumblr, fb and social media photo scattering.

So rather than post everything everywhere Im using the scattered seed approach. Some photos fall there some fall elsewhere. If you miss the "good" ones I dont think you'll loose any sleep over it.