Freshening up your photography

Keeping your photography fresh is an important and sometimes difficult thing to do. Looking back at your images and finding that you are thinking the same image over and over again even though the locations may be different is a disheartening thing. As are those days that you struggle to make any pleasing images at all, trying your hardest to make a few good clicks but nothing works. My favourite way to get over these slumps (we all have them) is to shoot something different or something that you shoot often but in a different style. I took this idea to one of my editors. I wanted to shoot an article for the magazine that stood out from the rest and indeed it did. It was for a rock climbing magazine and we decided to look at the people that made the sport rather than people doing the sport. We chose a busy weekend and set up an outdoor studio at a popular climbing venue and shot a bunch of people and turned it into an eight page photo essay that went down a treat. So much so it is now back as a regular feature looking at some of the figures that made the sport what it is today (See image above). This has refreshed my creative spirit, opened me up to shoot people again (when there aren't moving at 100km/hr), made an impact with readers and editors alike and has been a great opportunity to meet some interesting folk. And it is all just about what we love doing, getting out and taking photos!
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Photography In The Fast Lane

Well it is spring again and we are flat out, so flat out in fact, I cannot remember the last time I manage to post here on the blog. I am hoping to change that over the next few weeks with a few posts on some exciting up and coming projects. We are off to WA in a few days for some great photo opps as well as the 2009 Broome Bird Observatory Field workshop where we hope to blog every day to show you what goes on during the workshop. The I am presenting at APSCON in Victor Harbour on the 8th of Oct. This is a talk on shooting Adventure Sports so come along and say hi. If you want a bit more incite on shooting extreme sports next up we have two commercial shoots in Victoria shooting some of Australia's best extreme athletes and we hope to show you what goes on during such a shoot. I have also lined up a few articles that will be posted on the blog to help you out with a few basic ideas that give folk a bit of trouble when shooting digital. So stay tuned as we hope to liven things up over the next few weeks.

Happy shooting

Craig Read more...

Your favourite lens (and focal length)

After the last post I was intrigued as to what my 'favourite' lens is. My favourite lens would have to be a toss up between the 14-24mm f2.8, the 24mm PC-E or the 600mm f4. All these lenses allow me to create images that no other optic can. But what I was interested in was how many images are taken with these lenses. All are very specific tools, not everyday lenses but exotic optics used for specific purposes. I did a bit of digging and found a great tool that can search my Lightoom catalogue and reports back with some interesting info
Image Reporter analyses metadata in a Lightroom catalogue and reports on cropping, camera makes and models, lenses, average focal length, ISO, and more. Information it reports is astounding. Here are a few examples form my catalogue.

• My most used lens is the 600mm followed by the 24-120, 24-70, 12-24 and 14-24 all in similar numbers. This is interesting that all these have a 24 in the number. After the 6 200mm lenses I use I regularly use 5 24mm lenses.
  
• The average focal length of the 600 is 918, this is due to the fact that I am normally shooting with the 1.4 or the 1.7
  
• TC. The average focal length of the 70-200 is 134mm. This shows that I am using both ends of the lens equally not like the 80-400 at 328mm, which show I am spending more time closer to 400mm.
• The average of crop of all images in the library are 100% and of the images that are cropped the average crop is 85%.

I could go on with boring stats for a long time but they have nothing to do with you and your shooting so the best thing to do is go and check it out for yourself. You will learn a thing or two about your shooting style.
Image Reporter


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Too many two hundreds

Packing for two trips at the moment (workshop this weekend then a quick turnaround for a trip up north on Monday) and came across the usual what to pack dilemma. While sorting the gear I was surprised at how many 200mm lenses I use. I wouldn't have thought 200 would be a favourite of mine but it appears so. Click read more for the full list.


70-200 2.8 the standard tele zoom
200mm micro, the killer macro lens
70-300 VR a great flight lens, so light, so cheep
80-400 VR a very versatile light weight option
200-400 VR awesome for so many situations
200 f2 not just for low light

I still don't think that 200mm is my most used focal length but it is interesting to see where all these fit into creating images. MTK next week.
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Fave's from the photowalk

Here are a few of my favourite images from the walkers submitted images. Can you guess the winner if you don't already know? (and can you guess the runner up? It was a close run thing). Click read more to see some other faves.



Here are a few of my favourite images from the walkers submitted images. Can you guess the winner if you don't already know? (and can you guess the runner up? It was a close run thing). Click read more to see some other faves.









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Adelaide Photowalk 09

It has been a while between posts here on the blog but things have been hectic and I am only just catching up. To start with just a quick follow up on the photowalk. We had a great turn up and some great weather (especially when you consider what the weather was like the previous week.) We started out with 45 folk and I think about 20 made it the full length of the walk with some getting led astray nearly straight away! Everyone was super keen and we all (I think) had a great time.




Most of the folk who came along ended up submitting some images and I spent quite a while considering what was my favourite. It was such a had job with so many great images and all of very different styles. The image I ended up choosing was not one that many of those who know me would have thought would be my cup of tea. Perhaps that is why it was chosen? It is a strong manipulated image but it works on many levels and after much consideration it won out, but there were many great images and the most important thing is that we all had a good time. I sure did and hope to see you all again for the next photowalk.

I am thinking about running another walk in the summer, same idea but with out the backing of Scott Kelby and co. If you are interested in coming along then drop me a line/comment/email etc and if we get enough interest then we will sort it out!


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Photo walk fun

To all that came on the walk today, thanks for coming and making the day great. To all that didn't make it, well there is always next year and we might look at running another in the summer as well. That's summer in the southern hemisphere ;)

More to come when I get back

Cheers

Craig






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