Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2021 i Australian Photography

A few issues back, we ran a step-by-step Photoshop tutorial detailing the painstaking process you’d need to follow if you fancied swapping a sky in one of your images – taking it from say, a boring blue to a vibrant pink. Then, just a few weeks later, Adobe released its Sky Replacement feature in Photoshop that automated the whole thing with the help of some pretty trick artificial intelligence – ain’t that a kick in the teeth. Sky Replacement doesn’t just plonk any old sunset into your images either, but gives a selection of options that run the gamut from tasteful to garish, with each cleanly masked to your chosen scene. Interestingly, each change also makes subtle adjustments to the foreground tones too, so that the sky fits the rest…

ADOBE has released new updates for Lightroom, Light-room Mobile and Lightroom Classic. The desktop (version 4.2) and mobile (version 6.2) versions see the bulk of the new features, including a personalised feed on the desktop version, and support for Apple ProRaw on both desktop and mobile. Meanwhile, the updates to Lightroom Classic (version 10.2), are a little light - and include tethered shooting for Nikon users along with performance updates, although these are seemingly limited to Mac users for now. The addition of Apple ProRaw to Lightroom on the desktop version and especially Mobile will be welcome to certain smartphone shooters - the format is unique to iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max devices running iOS 14.3 or later, and promises more control over editing when compared to…

EMOTION Emotion is a challenging thing to capture as a photographer. If you try to force it, you’ll likely end up with images that feel contrived or insincere, but if you’re too gun-shy you’ll likely miss the moment. What often works the best is a candid approach – patience and waiting for the right timing, like many of our stunning finalists did this month. KRISTEN ENGLAND A Curious Mind EDITOR’S COMMENT Emotions can be big, but they can also be very subtle, like with this shot of 10-month-old Lennon, who has a beautifully concerned expression as she peers out the window. Captured by her mum Kristen England, she says Lennon was distracted with the noise of a garbage truck outside their caravan. “Having only just recently learnt how to crawl,…

It’s 5.30am in Sydney, and while most of the city is starting to wake up to another day, photographer Ralph Kerle and I are already preparing for a day’s shoot. He loads his car with the familiarity of someone who has done it hundreds of times before. First, into the boot of the old Ford station wagon goes a pair of sun-faded life jackets and paddles, and then one of his three kayaks is carefully levered up onto the roof. The two-berth boat he’s chosen this morning is more practical than purposeful, peppered with scuffs and marks and a world away from the sleek, glossy crafts we’ll soon see zipping around the inner harbour. A quick check that our cameras are packed, and we edge out of his driveway and…

MATTHEW CROMPTON Matthew Crompton is an award-winning writer and photographer preoccupied with bikes, hikes and the mystical solitude of the way-out. See more at matthewcrompton.com TIM LEVY Tim Levy is an award-winning Sydney based freelance photographer specialising in events and portraits. See more of his work at levy.photo and theprint.network STEVE THOMAS Steve Thomas has been racing, shooting and writing about bikes and adventure travel for most of his life, and has earned his crust from it for 25-plus years. See more of his work at stevethomasimages.com MATTY GRAHAM Matty Graham is a photojournalist and former mag editor based in the UK. He specialises in landscapes, portraiture and video. See more at mattygraham.com…

THE World Photography Organisation has announced this year’s category winners and shortlist in the Open competition of the Sony World Photography Awards 2021, which sets itself the task of recognising the best single images from 2020. Over 100 photographers were shortlisted in the 2021 competition alongside ten category winners. Alongside winning a bunch of Sony gear, each winner will go on to compete for the Open Photographer of the Year title and a $5,000 (USD) prize. The overall Open winner will be announced around the time this issue goes to print, and all ten of the finalists are published on australianphotograpy.com.…

Protagoras, the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, is best known for the assertion that ‘Man is the measure of all things,’ a statement that was considered controversial even 2500 years ago. As a lifelong outdoors-person, one of my greatest joys is a landscape bearing no sign of human industry what-so-ever. Because when allowed to be simply what it is, the Earth will outshine the grandeur of anything that human hands could ever make. With that said, however, Protagoras also wasn’t completely wrong. For as much as Australian Aboriginal cultures are both right and wise to believe that people belong to the land (and not the other way around), the truth is also that being humans, we exist in an intrinsically human world. As landscape photographers, we often use the exclusionary power of…

Even today, many serious photographers still cringe at the very mention of using an action camera. It’s a stigma probably not helped by those dreaded shaky GoPro videos and terrible photos of a few years back when everyone was using one to document every mundane detail of their lives. But then again, give the camera user a Red camera or a medium format Hasselblad, and they’d no probably come back with equally sub-par results too. This is where we, as more knowledgeable photographers, can use our experience to produce great things from these tiny little boxes of tricks. But where do you begin? Let’s take a look. WHY ACTION CAMS? Most users buy action cameras for making action-orientated videos, which is, after all, what they were designed for. However, if…

I joined Norths Camera Club in 2001, and am currently president of Norths Photographic Society, as well as president of The FCC (Federation of Camera Clubs NSW). My first passion was photographing people, either in their environment or as portraits. This was soon followed by a keen interest in nature imagery, which is now my primary love. However, I have decided to share one of my people images here. I have always found environmental portraits particularly rewarding. However, I’ve learned that to obtain a striking image, there really needs to be more than just the subject in the frame. Either a plain non-busy background to focus the viewer’s attention on the subject, or an image with a beautiful background such as a sunrise or sunset (and preferably in a stunning…

CARE WITH COMPRESSION On a staycation to Dunsborough, in WA, Adrian Haupt and his wife came across a popular tourist location, Sugarloaf Rock. He wrote, “We decided to stay and watch the sunset. Perfect weather, company and a bottle of wine, we were happy to be able to capture this moment”. The colour in this is fantastic, and the composition with the rule of thirds works well. The long exposure produces a smoky effect, but an even longer exposure - say 80s or 100s - would intensify that smokiness and smooth out that water more. A neutral density filter would help to get those long exposures. The main weakness here however is not the image, but rather that there is too much compression. A JPEG needs to be upward of…

As young photojournalists we are taught that good images will be a perfect combination of beautiful light, interesting subject matter and thoughtful composition, but a great image will be all these things plus something special – this is Henri Cartier Bresson’s ‘Decisive Moment’. A hallmark of the world’s defining photojournalistic images – think ‘Saigon Execution’ by Eddie Adams or ‘VJ Day Kiss’ by Alfred Eisenstaedt - the decisive moment is also what separates the ordinary from the extraordinary. That split second we wait hours for, that one frame amongst the sequence, that when you know you’ve got it sends a shiver of jubilation up your spine and an impatience to develop and send through to your editors. This image of Robyn, Jennifer and Alex was made on assignment for The…

While it’s true there’s no one magic bullet to photographic success, I’m a firm believer that challenging yourself is one of the key factors to be successful with your photography. To me, success isn’t about just winning awards or gaining recognition, but about keeping photography fresh and an active outlet for creativity. All photographers go through stages where inspiration can be hard to find. I know I have, and for what can be months at a time I’ll feel that my work is not at the level it should be. But then, a little spark goes off and I’m away again like a 20-year-old. If you’re able to find this spark, you will also avoid that dreaded loss of enthusiasm to pull out your camera again! In recent years my…

Street photography has seen a massive resurgence in the past few years, and for good reason. At its essence, it’s one of the most accessible, yet rewarding genres of photography. There’s no pre-production, no lugging of studio lights, no set design, styling, hair or makeup. The gear is simple - no huge telephotos, no tripods, and hardly a whiff of post-production. Nine times out of ten it’s just you, a very basic camera set up, and tons of patience. You just go for a walk or drive with your camera, and wait and see what happens. In a way, street photography is a bit like fishing. It’s largely stress free, and a typical street photography ‘mission’ will have anticipation, randomness and hopefully a reward at the end. But at the…

Wildlife and nature photographers know that while technique, composition and that creative photographer’s eye is all-important, so too is professional kit, because in these genres focal length can be crucial - not only to capturing successful images, but also keeping a safe distance from wilder subjects. This is where Olympus already has a jump start on rivals, as the Micro Four-Thirds sensors used in cameras like the E-M1X and E-M1 Mark III (as well as Panasonic cameras like the GH5) feature a 2x crop factor, doubling the focal length of any lens used on the camera body. Well, it’s time to grab the calculator because the focal lengths you can achieve with Olympus’ new M.Zuiko 150-400mm F4.5 TC1.25x IS PRO take a little working out. So, the basic 150-400mm focal…

During 2020, the Contemporary Group Council within APS decided to provide a new educational opportunity for their members. Anne O’Connor, Council Member, with the support of the Chair of Contemporary Group, Brian Rope, opted to form a small group project for a small number of members, which had a fixed purpose and designated theme, ‘Place’. The project began with an email inviting enthusiastic members who would like to be part of the inaugural group, spelling out the details of what it would entail. Around 21 people replied to the invite and out of that number, fifteen took up the challenge. Some of them joined just to participate and further their personal education within the Contemporary genre of photography, and I was one of those people. Before I decided to join…