Landscape 1 - Cronulla

The sunrise on a stormy morning at the beach in Cronulla. I was looking around for a good location and decided that the rock pools were the most interesting part. Let me know what you think!

edit: Fixed the slant and cropped it a bit to give a better aspect ratio.

Next Class - Response to question 3

 What is the best chuppa chup flavour and why?
I think this question is ridiculous and I refuse to answer it, to be honest I don't even like lollypops.

Instead I am going to talk about architecture photography as was discussed last lesson. So I seemed to be pretty agitated last lesson about the architecture assignment, but firstly I must say that it is because I feel I did not receive a straight answer. In the theory class Cameron said that we can do angles and stuff if it is obviously intentional, and then in the workshop he said we can't because it is not 'technically correct', which I understand, but no where in the assignment brief does it say it has to be.
I was hoping to do something artistic with it, but if I could get a straight answer of why I can't do it a certain way, then I would be fine with that. But getting all of these mixed messages is just irritating.
I guess I just want to say that I was not just trying to argue with the assignment, I just believe that what Cameron was saying was not corresponding with the brief, so I'm going to take it upon myself to ask Julian for some clarification.

And for those of you who said "We are not in art school" last time I checked, photography is an art form, and I intend to photograph the beauty of the world, but if all you want to do is make money, that is fine with me, but don't go telling me I can't be artistic with it.

I want to add a couple of pictures I found, just to illustrate the kind of architecture photography I mean.

        

          

    
Images in order:
http://gnato.deviantart.com/art/y-twist-81509449
http://takitus.deviantart.com/art/Sky-Slab-11420268
http://angelreich.deviantart.com/art/London-Lloyds-86201676
http://angelreich.deviantart.com/art/Cathedral-42975298
http://gilad.deviantart.com/art/Moving-on-up-78975925
http://supergrass1975.deviantart.com/art/Don-t-Look-Down-137529982

Next Class - Response to question 2

Give one reason why you would use film to take a particular shot.


It is hard to give just one reason why shooting film would be better, because personally I love film. But the most important reason I can think of would be the quality. Medium and large format film cameras still exceed the quality of digital cameras in sharpness and tonal range. So if you are shooting an image that is likely to be blown up to humongous sizes, or just want the sharpest and greatest detail, then shooting film may very well be advantageous. It is also much cheaper than shooting in digital medium or large format as the cameras are in the tens of thousands.

Large Format Cameras - Response

Last lesson we did theory on large format cameras, in particular View cameras. I missed the workshop lesson as I had a doctors appointment, but I feel I still learnt a lot in the theory class, and I'm told we will use the cameras again next lesson, so hopefully I didn't miss out on much.
One important thing I learnt was the DOF control you have by manipulating the lens and the film plane. I found this quite interesting and I hope to experiment with it in the near future.

Quick points about View cameras:

• Very large and bulky
• Better resolution due to the film size, which is normally 4x5. Other common sizes include 5x7, 8x10, 11x14.
• More control over processing as each negative is processed individually
• Full control over position of the lens and film plane

Diagram and image of a Monorail View camera were found on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_camera

Industrial 1 - First shot

This was one of the first shots I took of the wind farm, just to show that I worked a fair bit to achieve the looks I was going for. Although this photo is ok... I think that it lacks depth, and it just looks too frozen, which doesn't work at all with a moving object like these. The grad filter I used in the final shot also helped increase DOF and contrast.

I was at this location for about an hour trying to get it to look right. The sun was directly behind clouds for most of the time so I was waiting for ages for a break so the sun would shine on them (trust me it would look terrible if it was shaded), so there was already a fair bit of patience put into this shot, and I don't like it at all!

I just wanted to put this shot up to show myself that it is definitely worth the perseverance and effort to improve a photograph.

And another thing, it was VERY cold and VERY windy up there! (which makes a lot of sense). So I think next time I'll bring a jacket!

Industrial 1 - Capital Wind Farm

Ok, so I went out to the 'Capital Wind Farm' this afternoon in the hopes of getting one of my industrial photos finished for my location folio.
The windmills were first constructed in early 2008, but became operational in October 2009. There are 67 of them in total, spreading out around the Hammonds, Ellendon and Groses Hill ridgelines past Bungendore.

It was a rather nice drive out there, it took about an hour from CIT. I didn't know exactly where to go in order to get close to them, so I had to look at various maps and blueprints and try and match the roads up. A fair bit of the way was on dirt roads through farms. Most people see these windmills across lake george on their way to Sydney, but I really wanted to get close up, just to experience the scale and depth so I can portray that in my photos.

And just to give you an idea of how big these things are, those brownish specks at the base of the first windmill are sheep. These windmills are huge!

I used a ND4 filter to achieve a small aperture and slow shutter f27 at 1/4 of a second so to add movement and really emphasize what they do. I tried taking a couple with the windmills still, but they did not appeal at all. I am quite happy with this shot, as I was worried about taking industrial photos.
What I really like about these windmills is that they are beautiful, and to me they are almost a symbol of nature, which is quite the opposite of what 'industrial' means, so I really wanted to show how majestic and beautiful these creations are, while still serving an industrial purpose.

Please let me know what you think!

Aperture: f27
Shutter speed: 1/4 of a second
Focal length: 17.5mm

Environmental Portraits link

Environmental Portraits

-found an ok link to tips on taking environmental photos.

also has a couple of nice examples.

Next Class - Response to question

What is the most important attribute a photographer needs to be a successful business person.

Passion - I believe that having a passion for what you do is the most important part of being a successful business person, no matter what career path you choose.
If you do not have passion for your work it can be obvious to clients, which can harm your image and give you a bad name, as it is much more likely for a client to return to your services if they have an enjoyable experience.
Passion also gives you inspiration and the motivation to do better. It is much easier to take a better photograph when you love what you are doing, rather than when you find it a chore. If you have no passion for your work this can badly affect the quality of your photographs.

Monoblocs & Speedlights Revision - Response

The two portraits went ok... but not great (unfortunately I do not have copies of them).
The one using the portable lights was easy to set up and do, with nice hollywood lighting achieved. It was very easy to set up and sync to the camera.
The speedlights on the other hand were more difficult. The first problem we had was that I used Pentax and Steve used Nikon, but there were only Canon speedlights, I owned one Pentax flash, but we were told we had to use two. After we overcame this problem we had a little trouble setting them up; getting them on the right settings and talking to one another etc. But we soon grasped it in the end and I expect it to be much easier next time now that I know the correct settings.
Overall the class was a good refresher, however I hope to get onto some new stuff soon and not just go over things we have already covered last year!