Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2018 i Australian Photography

Sometimes we don’t have to go looking for stories to shoot, they’re already waiting for us right in our backyard. So when it stopped raining in 16-year-old Zara King’s backyard, near Tullibigeal in the Central West region of New South Wales, the keen photographer picked up her camera and drone. She’s been shooting images of the drought’s affect on her family farm ever since extreme conditions started to bite in September last year. It’s been a year of ever-diminishing feed for the cattle, bottled water and short showers for the family and prayers for the sky to open – all of which have become powerful subject matter for Zara’s photography. (You can see her images on instagram at @zarakphotography.) As photographers we are in a unique position to document what’s…

NIKON 1 BITES THE DUST IN news that probably won’t be a huge surprise to many Nikon-watchers, the Nikon 1 mirrorless system of cameras, lenses and accessories has been quietly discontinued. In an email to DPReview, Nikon announced the series was no longer being produced, and with the newest camera in the lineup launched more than three years ago in 2015, it’s long been a matter of when, not if, they would cease production. Nikon are officially gearing up for the release of a full frame mirrorless camera, the existence of which was confirmed in July. An announcement of this new product is expected in late August. The first Nikon 1 camera with a one-inch sensor was developed in September 2011, with the release of the Nikon 1 J1 and…

Nowadays it is easier than ever to buy new or secondhand studio lighting equipment, but before buying your first set of lights, take time to know what you are buying. The difference between good gear and average gear can have a significant impact on your learning experience, and although many people prefer to buy the cheapest option, the extra hundred or so dollars spent on buying the better gear can be money well spent. The better brands often have better functionality, reliability and resale value, and chances are if anything ever does go wrong you also have a better chance of buying parts and getting them repaired. Anyway, here are a few pointers to consider when buying and using your first studio lighting kit. 1. BUYER BEWARE! Most studio lights…

A traditional portrait essentially only shows what we look like at the moment in time when it was taken. An environmental portrait reveals more because it includes something of the environment in which we live or work. The more skilled and imaginative the photographer the more interesting a portrait will be for the viewer to study. However, what if we want to show the viewer of a portrait much more? I asked myself this question when I began thinking about how I might portray myself in the context of a visual autobiography. A what? Well, why is it that biographies must be in the form of the written word, perhaps illustrated by a small number of relevant family photos? Why can’t it be reversed so that the photographic medium becomes…

Since I began documenting family life seven years ago I have been on a mission to create engaging and honest narratives. I aim to take photographs that not only provide a commentary on Australian family life but also tell those stories in an interesting way – a way that makes the viewer linger a little longer on the frame. Travelling with children is never easy and on the day I shot this image we were staying in a low budget motel in a regional town, midway through a long distance road trip. After seven hours on the road the adults assumed their stereotypical roles – exhausted – while the children assumed theirs and were full of energy after being confined to their car seats. Documentary photography is often associated with…

KIDS Being able to capture our families and kids is one of the great joys of photography, but to do it well requires much more than just getting them to sit still. These are the best we saw this month. THIS MONTH‘S WINNER DANIEL JACOBS Emma EDITOR’S COMMENT To capture this image of his niece Emma, Daniel Jacobs says he visited his family’s house in Germany and asked her to walk through the nearby rapeseed field with him. “I didn’t give a lot of instructions to keep it natural so she just started walking through the field picking flowers and I tried to capture that simple moment of ease and playfulness,” he says. This image has that lovely combination of great light, nice swirly bokeh and a lovely candid moment.…

Success in competitions is a great way to boost self-confidence and raise your profile as a photographer. Winning a category, let alone the main prize in a prestigious competition like Photographer of the Year that attracts a huge number of high quality entries, is reason to jump up and down and slap yourself on the back. We’ve entered a fair share of competitions in our time with some degree of success, and we’ve also been on the other side of the fence as judges, including figuring on the panel for the wildlife and landscape sections of this growing contest for the last two years. We’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly and while, sadly, there’s no magic bullet to guarantee you a win, there are some simple things…

THIS MONTH‘S WINNER THROUGH THE GLASS Marj Webber said that she usually has her camera in her hand when sitting in the passenger seat of a car. This photo was taken through the windscreen on a trip from Cairns on the Bruce Highway when they ran into a particularly heavy shower. She said: “It is blurry and out of focus but somehow I really like the photo and the raindrops on the window.” I am so glad that you had your camera at the ready in this situation. This image is not just unusual, but also moody and interesting. The mixture of sharp water drops on the windscreen and the softer traffic ahead works well. It is great. With this sort of scene and those images using long exposures of…

After traversing across this great continent for more than four decades, it is not often I can say that I have found a new location for me to shoot in Australia. I can think of the many iconic locations I have explored, plus the few hidden gems like Carnarvon Gorge, Tasmania and then the really wild places in the Kimberley, Gulf and central deserts region. I still have a couple of places I would like to explore further. In March I returned to Australia from India with my wife Julia and son Frazer to enjoy a few talks in Perth and some time to explore old haunts. We were told about a new coastal road to the north of Perth. Fantastic, time to check that out! We had a great…

Featuring patterns in photography is a great way to create visually appealing images that will capture and hold the attention of the viewer. I enjoy the challenge of discovering patterns that will then become the prominent feature of my photo. Sometimes I find a pattern already in the scene, and other times I ask the subject to assume a particular formation to create an image that I envision. Here are five approaches to thinking about and using patterns in your photography. 1 BIRD’S EYE VIEW PATTERNS It’s always good to think about alternate angles on a scene, such as an extreme high or low angle, where possible. A high angle photo looking straight down onto a subject can provide interesting shapes and patterns, and is a good idea to keep…

Do you remember your first driving lesson? Chances are you were itching to get behind the wheel of a car, after all, you had spent your entire life watching your parents drive you about town - and if they could drive a car, how hard could it really be? Of course, moments after getting into the driver’s seat for the first time, reality kicked in; you might have been able to start the engine but you soon discovered there was more to learn. It is no surprise then, that while you could “drive” after a few lessons, insurance and rental car companies (and your parents) opted to wait a few years before labelling you as an “experienced driver”. In many ways working with light is very similar. Almost everyone is…

My photographic journey is one I suspect many others of my age have followed. I started out using a Kodak Brownie Starlet camera in my High school years followed by film SLR cameras once enough money was earned to upgrade. A good friend who worked in a local camera shop encouraged me get more serious about photography and the following years were spent taking many slides of many subjects. This was done as an enjoyable pastime and tailed off as other interests were pursued. Then came the digital revolution and my interest was rekindled as it combine both the camera and computing side of photography. My first digital camera was a Kodak DC3200 with a huge resolution of 900Kb using flash cards with a whopping 10Mb capacity… There followed several…