Finding something new to photograph
After the revelations of the other day, it may not come as any surprise that I am a bit bored with what I have been taking photos of. I really need to start finding something new to photograph.
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This week, I’m combining the podcast and photo challenge. The week did get away from me I’m afraid. It seems to be happening a lot and I’m not sure how to get back on track. I do need to find my way again.
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Last weekend was Labour Day for Victoria and on Monday in the early hours of the morning the luxury liner, the Queen Victoria arrived in Melbourne. I was lucky to be invited to go aboard with a small group of people and be given a guided tour of the public spaces. It was also great meeting some of the staff and being shown around by Ludwig and Ant.
I was there for a special presentation to the Commodore of the Cunard lines. I’ve been involved in a project that encourages kids with cameras for a few years now and am often asked to judge photos for it. They were doing the presentation and I was asked to come along and take photos of it, but I was also able to go on the tour and take photos.
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My first post like this for the year and while I don’t have a lot to say, I want to get back into the habit of blogging. So this won’t be a long post.
Website
I’m sure many of you have noticed that I now have a new theme on my website. There are still problems with it, but I haven’t really had the time yet to sit down and really work it all out. I am hoping that things will start to calm down soon and get back to normal.
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This post is a day late, I’ve been away at my mums. I went up there to take photos of a project that had just finished. It was also a great opportunity to try out the Nikon D500 a lot. I think it is a great camera, can’t believe it is almost time to give it back.
Christmas Presents
It is only two weeks to Christmas and if you are still looking for gifts I hope you will take a look at what I have that you could give someone as a gift voucher, or buy a copy of the book.
Articles
I told you last week that I had been published in the magazine Better Photography, but then earlier in the week another article I had written for a different magazine, Australian Photography, published it on their website. The first one you have to buy the magazine, but the second, 7 Tips for Better Cityscapes is online and you can read it on their website, click here to see it.
Gear List
I keep forgetting to mention that at the top under the About page I have added a page that lets you know what gear I have and use. I’ve had people asking me from time to time what I use, so thought it might be good to add the list.
Photos
Summer is here now and I thought it might be nice to take a look at some photos from Flinders. The photos were taken last year. I love it down there, I should think about another trip, but not soon. The busiest time to visit any beach is the two weeks after Christmas, so I’m staying clear. I made the mistake last year going down to Sorrento and spent more time in traffic than I did taking photos. It will be nice to get back down there after the summer break in February.
When I was in New York I had some good opportunities to take photos of the Manhattan skyline and when I got home I processed them. Some of them are among my favourite photos that I took while there, especially this one. Now I want to try to do that with the Melbourne skyline.
I like the way the buildings are like blocks all jammed in together. I really liked the way the image turned out from the processing. I managed to repeat it on a couple of other Manhattan skyline shots, but I don’t seem to be able to get the same look for Melbourne.
Besides the fact that New York is so much bigger than Melbourne, it is also much denser. There are so many more buildings there. Tall ones too. I think that as it is surrounded by so much water it is also easier to get back from it and get these types of shots.
Melbourne is a whole other story.
You can see that while I was across the water you just can’t fit a lot in. This is one end and there aren’t a lot of tall buildings on this side of the city.
I also don’t seem to be able to get the same sort of processing to work with my photos of Melbourne. I’m not saying I don’t like this, I do, but for different reasons. I do love the skyline shot so my challenge now is to work out how to process them for here and make them my own. I am starting to work out some things.
The other thing I have to work on is finding different perspectives to shoot from. That is on my list to do this year. Though, the summer is really making things hard for me.
I will have to continue the experimenting with the processing. I know I can do it and I know my Photoshop skills are up for it. I am quite confident about those, so now it is time to just play, my favourite thing to do.
New Galleries
Have you been keeping an eye on the gallery pages? I’m adding new photos all the time and sorting through some. I will also be making them all for sale as well.
In Australia we get quite extreme temperatures in the summer and that also makes it very hard to take photos. The light is harsh, the shadows are very dark, as well as sharp. There is nothing soft about it. Even waiting until the golden hour in the evening can be a waste of time.
I refuse to believe that I shouldn’t take photos. I don’t see why those photos are not as valuable and important. Should we only take photos when the conditions are at their best? If we do that, then we never get a true perspective on where we are. I’ve been playing around with this idea for some time now. I want to try to show that heat and what it is like here in summer.
This is the Manhattan Bridge that connects Manhattan to Brooklyn. It is a beautiful bridge and this view of it is becoming quite iconic, with the Empire Bridge seen through the bottom of it.
The day I took this photo we walked all around New York and then over the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a warm to hot day and when I took this it was getting to the end of the day. I wanted to try and show it how I remembered it, the feeling, or maybe how hot I was feeling. I took away the colour because it was distracting and then I added the colour that I think is always cast on the landscape as the sun goes down.
This was taken on the morning of what turned out to be a hot day. It was late morning and according to all the rules of photography it was the wrong time of day to be taking them, especially for summer. I thought, I don’t care, I’m here, I’m going to take this and see what I can do with it. I warmed it up a lot and desaturated a lot of the colours. This is quite a popular view of Melbourne, so it seemed like a good one to practice with.
I don’t know if either of them worked out the way I hoped they would, but it was fun to try and I will keep trying. Melbourne is set to have some high temperatures this summer if the last month is anything to go by. I will have lots of opportunities to get out and see what I can shoot in this heat. A challenge, I like a challenge.
It is Christmas morning now and as I wait for the family to wake up I thought I would write a quick post to you and present you with my gift for the year. As I have done in the last couple of years, my gift is an image. It was hard working out which one to give away this year, as it is every year. In the end I decided to go with the following one.
It had to be one from my trip overseas to the USA and when I was going through them this one stuck out. It brought back some wonderful memories. Yosemite National Park was one of the absolute highlights of my trip and therefore my year. I would have loved to have spent more time there, but feel so grateful that I got to see it at all.
This is a view of North Dome, if memory serves me right, reflected in the river. There was a fire over the other side of it and you can still see some of the smoke from it.
The photo is a high resolution image so you can right click on it and download it onto your computer and print it out it if you wish. It is for personal use only.
Take care, and be careful out there, Christmas is a busy time on the roads. It is the start of the summer holiday season here. Summer has certainly hit us, with too many hot days already.
Merry Christmas
Today it has been really hot here. To say that our visit to Swan Hill and the Pioneer Settlement was silly is an understatement. Really not a great place to be when it is so hot. I did take some photos, but I don’t know if they will be any good. I did get one that I couldn’t wait to process.
This was in one of the shops, I think it was the stock and station agents, but to be honest, I can’t really remember. The interior was quite dark and all you could see was the light on the desk. I really like the way the camera saw it.
When I got home and started to play with it I wanted to keep that low light and tried to emphasis it a bit more. I also wanted a more sepia look to it, without it being a true sepia image. It is still colour, but has that tone. I tried to make it look like a memory, perhaps a moment gone.
Swan Hill wasn’t really successful for us, but I should have known better. I grew up around the area and I know what the heat is like. There will be other visits I’m sure, perhaps in the winter.
It is the last week of the One Four Challenge December Week 4. I have enjoyed working on this image more than the previous one, still this last week I was a little stumped, and in the end decided that it really didn’t matter, that I should just go for it, so that is what I did.
One Four Challenge
I don’t really know what I did. I did put in a new sky and blurred it quite a bit. I really just wanted to see how far I could push it. I tried embossing it and also using the high pass. I blended layers with Silver Efex. You name it, I pretty much tried it.
I don’t know that I think this is my favourite, in fact I know it is isn’t, but it is all part of the learning curve. It has been fun, though I don’t know how often I will do this challenge. It has been good to push an image more, and I would like to do it more on my own. It is something we did when I studied photography.
I am going to put the original and the other three weeks images into a gallery at the end of this post for you as well. Don’t forget to go to Robyn’s blog, Captivate Me, to see the pingbacks of others that have participated. Or in the read enter One Four Challenge to see all the other entries.
just need to remind people that you can comment on this post, and while it doesn’t look like anything happens when you do, it does. I get all the comments, though it can take me some time to approve and respond to them yet. I don’t know why this blog is so weird to leave comments on. I will have to get onto the developers and see what they can work out.
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- Original
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- Week 1
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- Week 2
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- Week 3
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- Week 4
Donating, I do this blog and my other blog to help me and also to help you. I get no assistance for doing it, so it would be wonderful if you would consider helping me by donating a small amount every now and then, especially if you have been helped by me or learned something from this blog or my other blog. Thank you.
