This years Canon Photo5 competition brought many challenges. One of those being the pair of cardboard spectacles. Andrew Foo submitted the below image to Canon and has kindly shared his insight to the creation and thought process behind it. Enjoy

© Andrew Foo

Getting creative… creative flash that is!

Thinking up an idea that is both original and witty for a creative portrait is hard. Well, actually I lie. Neither isn’t terribly difficult, it’s executing on the idea where the hard yards are.

The inaugural competition Canon Photo5 competition came and went again this year and there’s nothing better than a good competition to bring out the best in your creative side.

The “portraiture” brief commanded the use of a supplied black spectacles made from thin piece of cardboard paper. How you used it in the shot, was open to the photographer’s interpretation. In keeping with the competition’s judging brief I wanted to create an image that would engage and probe more questions from the viewer. In “Think it’s time for a new pair…”, I played with the idea of a different kind of portrait and uniting fake with reality. Having worn the spectacles, the main subject could not see any better and proceeds to attempt to clean the cardboard spectacles with a lens cloth. This somewhat felt like a surreal moment, so I thought a ‘dreamy’ cast to the image would be a neat idea.

Having had the opportunity to attend one of SPW’s recent Shots @ The Arthouse (Flash Dance night) I felt more equipped to introduce some off-camera flash in getting a bit more creative. Shot inside one of my rooms in my house later in the day I didn’t have much ambient light to play with. I started by exposing for the ambient lighting for the room’s background. The idea was to keep the foreground pin sharp and in focus, so I dialed in a higher ISO to maintain a shutter speed of 1/50th of a second to eliminate camera shake. Using a wide aperture of f/2.8 allowed me to keep the foreground sharp and throw the background out of focus in emphasizing the action and the object in hand.

A radio remote trigger fired off a flashgun placed left of camera through an umbrella for a softer light. Needless to say I had a lot of fun doing this and comps are a great way to focus on a specific theme and get your creative juices flowing!

Camera and Lens: Canon EOS 450D, Canon EF 50mm f/1.8

Off-Camera Flash: Canon Speedlite 430EX II attached to stand and shot through umbrella @ ¼ power

Remote triggered by Speedlite Radio Kit

Exposure: Shot handheld at f/2.8, 1/50sec, ISO800, Flash WB

Cheers,

Andrew Foo

Check out the link to the image – Think it’s time for a new pair

[svgallery name="Studio Lighting Student Gallery"]

The final SPW Studio Lighting workshop for 09 has been hailed a great success.

The workshop started promptly at 8:30am where a mix of new and familiar faces gathered at the new Light Pro Sydney studios in Artarmon.

The day began with a short presentation by Daniel Linnet running through some theory of basic lighting techniques. There was also a short slideshow of images from both Daniel’s and Scott McGale’s portfolio, showcasing some of their high and low key images to which the students will be shooting today.

After the initial presentation Scott McGale took the students on a walk through the huge Dragon image showroom, going through each light and explaining the effect they could expect to get when using it. Meanwhile, our two models for the day, Olivia and Tara were having their makeup done and choosing the first of about 3 outfits each.

By this stage it was obvious that the students where keen to start shooting! We broke up into 2 groups; 6 students in the low key set with Daniel and 6 students on the high key set with Scott.

Both Scott and Daniel got straight into it, starting with a blank canvas and adding one light at a time to produce the desired effect. The students were given plenty of shooting time. Of course, all this with the help of the ever-so hard-working-assistants for the day; Kieron Dobbin and Jose Fernandez.

Lunch was the usual SPW feast; wraps, sandwiches, sushi and fruit to fuel the students for the afternoon session.

There was a quick costume change for the models and then back on the sets for the afternoon session. Again, different lighting techniques explained and lots of time for the students to go one-on-one with the model.

For the finale of the day in the low key set, the props included a mini tramp and a smoke machine which produced some stunning images, as you can see in the images attached to this post.

The day finished at approximately 6pm (I reckon the students would have stayed on until 9pm if they could) and there were happy faces all round. That is, except for Daniel and I who were left feeling a little jealous that we weren’t getting the opportunity to produce some of the fantastic shots that the students were getting!

Check out the photos and behind the scenes from the day!

Jose

[svgallery name="SPW Studio Lighting 09"]

Approximately every 8 weeks a new batch of SPW “Beginners DSLR Workshop” graduates go out into the world armed with their new cameras and enough new photographic knowledge and inspiration to make the most of them.

From chatting to the tutors and also the students themselves, one of the most beneficial, and I would say fitting ending to the course, is the Final Night presentations where each student brings along a selection of images created during the 8 weeks for a final slide show to music. Being able to see other photographers interpretations of the various exercises and subject matter as, well as uses of basic techniques in unique ways, often broadens the creative mind and can offer a new perspective on an otherwise familiar subject.

Images are created to be shared, to teach, to inspire and off course, to communicate the creators vision of the world. I always make a point to encourage ALL to attend this final night as the value gained from seeing the results of others often outweighs any that can be passed on verbally or by the written word. After all, photography is a visual medium.

For myself, the reward is seeing the quality of the images created and the breadth of ideas from a group who just 8 weeks earlier had little or no photographic knowledge. So it is with great pleasure that we present the first selection of our ‘Final Night Top 30′.

To view the image larger, just click on the photographers name below the thumbnails

[svgallery name="SPW09 T4 Final Night"]

This set of Top 30 Images was selected anonymously from over 800 final night images presented. In the selection process we considered; initial impact, originality of idea/concept, technical execution, composition and overall mood and feel.

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THOSE WHO MADE THE FINAL CUT!!!

by: Daniel Linnet

"Jesus I Trust In You" - © Daniel Linnet

One of the most asked questions from aspiring and pro photographers alike is “What are my rights when photographing in public places, especially if photographing people candidly?” In other words, are you able to photograph a couple smooching in Hyde Park, and then use it in your online folio or for other purposes? The answer can often be a complex one, especially when you start considering common courtesy, etiquette and plain old morals.

A big thank you to Glenn Weinnert who found and posted this link on our Shots Flickr Group. It definitely answers a lot of questions.

“Created in response to objections to my Sydney Unposed project, it is written from a photographer’s perspective, with a focus on what rights shooters have (and don’t have) when it comes to candid photographs of people. Please note: as it is not an encyclopaedia on every possible aspect of photographic law, it does not attempt to address issues like anti-terrorist legislation, council photography permits or National Park commercial photo restrictions. The sole purpose of the following is to discuss legal issues which apply to people photography only.” – Andrew Nemeth BSc (Hons) LLB MTeac

Click here for ‘Australian street photography legal issues ‘

by Daniel Linnet

Melt - ©Simon Harsent

Simon Harsent has won numerous national and international advertising awards including Cannes Lions, One Show, Clio, D&AD, London International, and Australia’s first Cannes Grand Prix.

As one of the world’s most awarded photographers Simons’s work has also been featured in many national and international publications and is also included in the permanent collection at the Queensland Art Gallery and the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney. Simon was awarded Photographer of the year in 2008 at the Hall of Fame Awards in Singapore for his work on Levis.

In 2009 Simon completed his latest project Melt: Portrait of an iceberg, a study of Icebergs photographed off the coasts of both Newfoundland and Greenland.

Melt media release

“This portfolio begins with images of the massive icebergs as they enter Greenland’s Disco Bay from the Ilulissat Icefjord; it ends with the icebergs off the East Coast of Newfoundland, by which time they have travelled hundreds of miles, and have been so battered and broken down that they are little more than ghosts of what they once were” – Simon Harsent

I found his iceberg images absolutely amazing, the light, textures and sheer size of them are mind blowing.

Simons personal website
Portrait of an iceberg

By Jose Fernandez

daniel linnet, Photography, Color image, Horizontal, Indoors, Portrait, Torso, Head and Shoulders, One Person, 24 - 35 years, front view, One Bushman, Single Shearer, Farmer, Shearers, Old Polo Shirt, Clippers, Shearing Shed, outback australia, rural, Hand on Hip, Rural Scene, agriculture, Cowra, Wool

I hate keywording my images! In fact, one of the main reasons I haven’t been a regular contributor to an image library all these years is the amount of time it takes to consistently and  accurately describe each image in a manner that would make it easily searchable to potential image buyers. Yes, believe it or not, acurate keywording is indeed an art form, all be it a time consuming one.

If at any time now, or in the future you might be looking at having a crack at earning a few extra dollars from the stock photo market, brushing up on those descriptive terms might be a good idea.

Here are a few links to point you in the right direction.

Liisa Kaakinen is a keyword trainer and cosultant who has a really cool Keyword Test on her site, keywordtrainer.com. It’s a great way to get a start on how to properly keyword your images.

Alternately, if you’re not up for the challenge and need a touch of extra assistance, Imense Annotator can help you out for US$145 p/year.

________________________________

1. What is good keywording? – In order for images to be found, sold and used they should be easy to retrieve and logically accessible from as many needs and perspectives as possible. Good keywording characterizes broad as well as specific descriptions of the image without being speculative or too detailed.

2. What is a good caption? – For commercial and creative imagery captions should be concise, literal and accurate. Concentrate on the main message and elements and avoid describing the entire contents. For editorial images captions can be longer; the classic rule of thumb for journalistic images is ‘Who, What, Why, When, Where and How’. Captions for fine art images normally include the name of the artist, work title, year of creation and material.

Reproduced from the Imense Anotator site.

________________________________

To access the image Metadata just open the file in any image editor or RAW converter  and head staright for the properties, info or metadata tabs. Here are a few links to help out.

“Working with Metadata in Lightroom” – Martin Evening

“Editing Metadata – Adobe Bridge”

“Modifying Metadata & Keywording in CS4″ – Chris Orwig

“Photoshop CS – use Metadata to identify images” – PC Today

“How to Edit Metadata in Aperture 2″ – Video

EXIF, IPTC, XMP Software – Metadata Readers, Editors, Extraction Tools

Feel free to add your useful links as comments to any of our posts.

Happy annotating!

Daniel Linnet

Debbie Harry, London 1981 - Janette Beckman

Stylin’ and Profilin’ by Janette Beckman

For the first time in Australia, a collection of iconic images which span music, street culture, hip hop, rock & roll and punk icons will be on show throughout the month of October in Sydney.

On Saturday October 10th 2009, Blender Gallery will be hosting a book signing with Janette Beckman.
Her two books ‘Made in the U.K.: The Music and Attitude, 1977-1982’ and ‘The Breaks: Stylin’ and Profilin’ 1982–1990′ are available for purchase at the gallery. Come and meet the photographer behind these classic images!

London native Janette Beckman has made her fame photographing not only a wide array of performers in several musical genres but also the youth subcultures that have cropped up around their music. Whether it’s capturing images of young punks and mods in ’70s London or the b-boys and -girls of New York’s hip-hop scene of the ’80s, her documentarian’s eye has captured the culture and the style of these groups.

Among her best-known photographs are the iconic front covers for the first two albums by the Police, along with portraits of artists from the Sex Pistols to Run-DMC and from Blondie to Lily Allen, among others.

Janette Beckman began her career at the dawn of Punk Rock working for The Face and Melody Maker, when British music pushed every boundary. She soon had extraordinary access to the musicians topping the U.K. charts– icons of an era when music had an agenda with such acts including The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Jam, The Undertones, The Specials, The Beat, The Ramones, The Rockats, Raincoats, Billy Idol and Echo and the Bunnymen.

Radically, this generation thought that the punks on the street were just as important as the bands, which fitted Beckman’s aesthetic. Her sharp eye for street style and pop culture led her to document two decades of youthful tribes: Punks, Mods, Skinheads, Rockabillies, B-boys and girls.
Beckman’s powerful portraits celebrating this music and the attitude are collected for the first time in ‘Made in the U.K.: The Music and Attitude, 1977-1982’ PowerHouse Books 2005.

© Janette Beckman

Moving to New York in 1982, she was instantly drawn to the underground Hip Hop scene. Her photographs of pioneers Africa Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Salt’n'Pepa, Run-DMC, Slick Rick, Beastie Boys and countless others, as well as the DJs, MCs, b-boys and fly girls are collected in ‘The Breaks: Stylin’ and Profilin’ 1982–1990′, PowerHouse Books 2007.Since moving to New York she has shot everyone from Kevin Bacon to Lily Allen – Clients include: Hello, People, Interview, Mojo, Glamour, Esquire, Rolling Stone,   London Sunday Times Magazine. Warner Brothers Music, Universal Music, Sony, Doc Marten, Converse etc.

Run DMC, Queens NYC 1984 - Janette Beckman

Her photographs have recently been exhibited galleries and museums around the world including Paul Smith London, Isetan Tokyo, Collette Paris, Flair Los Angeles, Morrison Hotel NYC, Kong Gallery Shanghai, Rockarchive London and now Blender Gallery in Sydney.
Her work is collected by patrons including: Kate Moss, Paul Smith, Susan Sarandon, Adrian Brody, Carson Daly, Craig McDean, Lyor Cohen (CEO Warner Music Group).
Beckman’s work has appeared in Esquire, Rolling Stone, the Observer and Glamour, to name a few.
She lives and works in New York.

Reproduced courtesy of Tali Udovich, Director of Blender Gallery

Exhibition Launch with Janette Beckman: Thursday 8th October 2009 6pm-8pm

Book Signing: Saturday 10th October 2009

Exhibition runs from Friday 9th October until Tuesday 3rd November 2009

Blender Gallery, 16 Elizabeth Street Paddington

Gallery hours: Tuesday–Saturday: 10am – 6pm.

Gallery Invite

By the way, Blender Gallery is also home to The Just Shoot Lomography Shop for all your Lomo and Holga needs. So put an afternoon aside and pop on over to Blender for a nice hit of photography.

TIP #1 – Flickr
Flickr is a great place to find some inspiration with millions of photos available and thousands more being uploaded each minute. There is a place on the site which presents the most interesting things posted in the last 7 days. To be honest, it’s an amazingly good way to kill half a day as wonderful images just keep coming.

TIP #2 – Start taking your camera with you (if you don’t have a camera on your phone
Have at least one camera with you at every waking moment so that whenever you feel inspired or see a photo opportunity you’ll be ready to photograph.

This tip is much easier these days now that 99% of us have camera phones.

Also, make sure ‘everywhere’ really means everywhere. This means taking your camera along to work, going to the shops, or in the car. Seeing the perfect photo opportunity but not having a camera with you is a horrible feeling.

TIP #3 – Enter Competitions
Entering a competition is a great way to get motivated and stay focused on photography, we often post information about upcoming and current competitions so keep an eye out!

TIP #4- Make Prints of Your Photographs
If you’ve never made prints of your work, then now is the time to start. Whether it’s making prints of your negatives using an enlarger in a darkroom, or sending your digital files to a photo printer, printing is a huge part of photography that most people underestimate.

If you think printing is as easy as uploading your images to a photo kiosk, then you’re missing out on all sorts of exciting and painful things. Things like:

-Color management
-Choosing what kind of paper to print on
-Matting, mounting, and framing

In addition to all the things you’ll learn through the process, you’ll end up with tangible photographs that you can proudly hang on your wall, or give to family and friends.

TIP #5 – Tell us how you stay inspired?

For a long  long time I’ve scribbled ideas and thoughts in my trusty Moleskine, even going as far as numbering the pages and keeping an ‘index of ideas’ on the inside back page. These days however, my iPhone is my new Moleskine, but it wasn’t really until a very good friend introduced me to Evernote did I realise it’s true potential in the creative field.

If you have truly caught the photography bug (some call it a disease), then throughout the day you might get a constant flow of ideas and thoughts about your creative passion. Because my ideas always happened in such a spontaneous manner, usually triggered by my surroundings at the time, I always found that by the end of the day, unless I recorded them immediately, I would only retain only 50% or less.

I needed a way to harness my creative process! So, I went out and bought myself a Moleskine notebook which, with it’s practical design and arty history almost coaxed you to use it……, plus it was the perfect size to fit in my jacket pocket right next to my nerdy pen holder and ink stain.

I felt liberated! Now I was able to scribble my thoughts and observations at will yet still having them all in the same place, always available for further reference, and even indexed for speedy retrieval. The hardcover little black book was not to leave my side for many years.

My Evernote Desktop

I still have the original notebooks full of ideas and inspirations although these days they’re quietly sitting on my desk in a neat pile awaiting their eventual transfer into Evernote. I haven’t given up using them just yet but certainly feel that their days are very much numbered. Working in such a visually intensive field I realised that I wanted to be able to do more than just writing or sketching down my thoughts.

The first thing that jumped out at me about Evernote was the fact that it was a cross platform application. I could install it on all the studio Mac’s and the last remaining PC and keep everything syncronized and accessible from every part of the studio.

The next big plus for me was that Evernote also came complete with a native iPhone App ‘Evernote’ for my shiny new 3G, as well as apps for Palm and Blackberry users…… and things just got better! All the devices stay syncronized via a FREE Evernote account which also acts as your storage portal for all your clippings, so no matter where you are, you can log in to your account and view any of your clippings at any time from any internet browser.

Now I can, and regularly do,  grab a quick snap shot of a potential location (complete with it’s GPS coordinates) I might stumble across, jot down an idea, record a voice memo or clip a web page and then have it almost instantly appear on all my machines and devises, then as I continue my research on the web I can clip the pages along with their URL’s straight into their respective job folders using the browser clipping plugin.

To keep things organised I normally create an individual folder for each job, project or subject, and a default ‘go to’ folder for miscelaneous clippings to be filed at a later date. The ability to keep ALL the information for each project in the one place has proved invaluable in shoot preparation and execution, especially when I’m away on location. It has also come in handy for everything from buying a car, to preparing the grocery list and compiling ideas and information for Foto Priority.

The whole Evernote experience is very organic which takes no time to master, and yes, it’s definitely VERY complementary to the creative process. Best of all, to get going costs you nothing, although you do need to set up an account which gives you plenty of clipping room. The Palm, Blackberry & iPhone apps are also free.

Once you start using it for remembering almost everything, upgrading to Premium gives you a much bigger upload capacity, supports more file types, and offers enhanced security. Plus, you get PDF searching, faster image recognition, and no ads.  That will set you back US$45.00 p/year which, based on how much I use it, is very fair indeed. Happy clipping!!

Evernote Home

Evernote iPhone

by Daniel Linnet

Chris Belyea has kindly agreed to become regular contributor to our “tripod holes around Sydney” category. We’d say looking at Chris’s photos on flickr he is certainly qualified to give everyone a “how to” guide for getting those awesome landscape and seascape images he has been producing lately. Keep reading below to find out how to get “that shot” at Mona Vale Tidal Pool.

If you live on Sydney’s north side, or are looking for something different to shoot at sunrise, I would suggest that you take a look at Mona Vale pool as there’s plenty there to inspire you as well as keep you occupied, and if you strike it ‘just right’ (more on that later) more than likely you’ll be rewarded with some great images to take away

Just a word of caution … I’m only an amateur photographer, who still has a lot to learn, and the information I’m offering is based on my experiences, and I’m sure that there will be plenty of better ways to do this, but we all have to start somewhere and hopefully this might help an aspiring photographer

OK, now back to the action !

There is a huge variety of shapes and textures at the pool, and as it sits at the end of a rock shelf, at low tides the background, depending on where you’re shooting from, can be as interesting as the foreground.

The simple geometric lines of the pool, and the wonderful stainless steel railings and chains, offer a huge variety of compositional possibilities.

Aside from the main pool itself there’s also some great shots to be had of the pool steps, the ramp leading to the smaller play pool and the wonderfully rusted valves on each pool

Mona Vale Tidal Pool - Chris Belyea

About this shot

Canon EOS 5D Mk II, ISO100, f/11 at ½ s, Av mode, -1/3EV, Evaluative metering

Manfrotto tripod, mirror lockup, cable release

EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM at 24 mm

I set up on the steps of the pool making sure that I had everything level and then focused on the 4^th railing from the right at the far end of the pool and selected f/11 to get as much of the texture in the foreground in sharp focus. This also made sure that I was shooting through the axis of the lens so as to avoid and weird distortions.

As the lighting was fairly ‘even’ (nothing too bright or dark) I went for Evaluative metering and deliberately underexposed by -1/3EV to gain a little more contrast. Admittedly, I can get away with this with the 5D Mk II’s low noise and light ability, however the results with other setups may vary

Bearing in mind that the 5D Mk II is a full frame camera, to get this angle/perspective with a crop camera you’ll need to have a wide angle lens of around say 10 – 15 mm. Canon shooters with the EF-S 18-55 lens should be OK and I’m presuming Nikon has a similar lens in this range

The RAW files was processed in Lightroom to get the basic image to where I wanted it, and then used Nik Software plugins in Photoshop to finish things off

Things to Consider

1. As with most Sydney beaches, the pool is illuminated by a set of sodium vapour lamps which will play havoc with your white balance, so the easiest solution is to set your camera’s white balance to Auto (I know some will certainly disagree with this) and take a test shot with an 18% grey target (I use a WhiBal) making sure that the pool lights fall on the card. It’s then a simple matter to adjust your white balance in Lightroom (or Photoshop, or Aperture)
2. Don’t even think of shooting here in anything but RAW as you’ll have no chance of getting rid of the orange glow cast by the sodium lamps
3. The lights are on a time clock and appear to shut off at around 6:00 am
4. The pool is very popular with early morning swimmers, so as the saying goes ‘ … the early bird …’ however I’ve always found them to be extremely friendly and more than happy to chat
5. Tides and wind direction can play a big part in how the pool ‘looks’ and behaves. At low tides, the rock shelf is exposed and the surface of the pool takes on a fantastic glassy look which is great at sunrise. At higher tides there will quite possibly be waves crashing into the pool, both situations offer great possibilities
6. Whilst Mona Vale is not typically a ‘big surf’ beach, you obviously need to be aware of the conditions around you … cameras and salt water are usually not a good combination

Equipment

The pool faces due east so at sunrise you will be shooting directly at the sun so graduated neutral density filters can help if its particularly bright.

Needless to say, a tripod is essential as the shutter speeds can get rather low, and I’d suggest you get familiar with how to put your camera into Mirror Lockup if that facility is available.

A remote shutter release is also a great asset, however if you don’t have one, simply put your camera into self timer mode

As you’ll be shooting in a less than kind environment, some microfiber cloths are a good idea to clean your gear off with when you get back to the car

Best Time to Shoot

I’ve found the best time to shoot is definitely pre dawn and sunrise, however mid winter during the day, if you’re lucky enough to score of those magical crisp, clean and cloudless days also offers up a few possibilities

The best time to shoot is definitely at ‘first light’, typically about 30 minutes before sunrise as this allows you to set up and assess what’s happening with the pool, the sky etc

How to get there

Mona Vale pool isn’t that difficult to find, and there’s usually plenty of parking.

Make your way along Barrenjoey Road, turn into Darley Street and then into Surfview Road. Park at the northern end of the car park and then make your way towards the beach.

Google ‘Apex Park, Mona Vale’ and that will take you where you need to be

If you’re planning a sunrise shoot, you can’t miss the pool as its illuminated by those wonderful sodium vapour lamps

Have fun !

more of Chris Belyea’s work