[tweetmeme]Today I’m very excited to announce the launch of the PhotoGuides Forum. It’s an addition that I’m hoping will revolutionise PhotoGuides, but we need your help to make it work!

For the past two years PhotoGuides has been well renowned as a website for photography and photoshop tutorials. We’ve shared content with over a million people in 200 different countries and received much love in return.

Today though PhotoGuides is transforming from a simple website into an online community, where photographers and designers can meet each other, share feedback, ideas, ask questions and simply discuss their passions.

Launching a forum is tricky. People really need to kick start the action and get the content rolling. I’m very pleased to say though that if you are a PhotoGuides Member your forum account is already live and running.

To make this forum work though, we really need your help. All that we ask is that you get involved, start great threads, ask great questions, share cool stuff and leave great comments. We need your help to get the discussions rolling!

As an added incentive there’s a competition running alongside the launch where you can win a Kodak mini camcorder or some PhotoGuides Books. Check the competition out over here.

That’s all for now though. I really hope you like the forum and I’d love to hear your thoughts. You can either comment below or jump over to the Forum Suggestions thread to leave feedback or new ideas for the forum. Thanks guys and enjoy!

Enough talk, take me to the forum! >

‘Photographer’ by jj8rock

[tweetmeme]A new year is in the loom and throughout the world people are deciding what they want to change for the year ahead. So what should us photographers aim to change? Here are 10 resolutions that can help us all become better photographers in 2011.

1. Never use Auto mode.

One of the first steps involved in improving your photography is taking control of your camera. P mode is great as it automatically controls your exposure but it lets you meddle with white balance, ISO and a great range of other options that can help bring your photos to life. In 2011 I will never use Auto mode.

2.  Shoot more in RAW

I personally believe there is a time and a place for RAW. Lately though, I’ve been neglecting the format. RAW is an uncompressed file format that retains all of your photos information. As a result you can continue to adjust white balance and other camera options when you’re back at your computer, and your photo retains details that otherwise would have been lost in JPEG. In 2011 I want to shoot in RAW more often.

3. Take control of your flash.

Your camera’s built in flash can be a bit unkind sometimes. On Auto Flash mode the burst of light can drain the colour and vibrancy from your photo. Most camera’s these days have multiple flash modes that can help you to use your flash creatively. In 2011, if I’m ever using flash, I’ll consider what flash mode will best do the job and switch it off auto.

4. Take your camera with you more often.

I’m often complaining about the size of my camera. It’s too big and heavy to lug around sometimes, and I often opt for a small point and shoot when I’m on the move because it’s more portable. In 2011, if I’m ever going anywhere even slightly interesting, I’ll take my camera with me. It may be a hassle at times but I’m sure the photos will make up for it.

5. Shoot more in the rain.

I think photographing in the rain has a great deal of potential. Usually people are scared off by the rain and tend not to use their cameras in fear of getting them wet. Heck, most sane people avoid even getting themselves wet. This though means that the world in the rain is an unseen world. Grab a raincoat and a plastic bag or some other form of camera protection, head out in the rain and see what you can capture. In 2011 I won’t let a storm scare me off. I’ll head out and photograph the sights that people wouldn’t normally see.

6. Never use the camera’s Black and White mode.

If you select the black and white mode on your camera, your camera simply desaturates your image and discards colour information. Typically, the end result is a flat image. If you want stunning black and white photographs you need to photograph in colour and then play around with the colours in photoshop or Lightroom. Here you have an astonishing amount of control with your black and white transformation because it retains colour information. This means that if you want the sky to stand out in your black and white photo, by adjusting the hue or saturation of the blues in your photo you can make your sky pop. The photograph will still be black and white but these programs remember your colours to give you full control over lighting, shade and the texture of your subject. In 2011 I will never use the camera’s black and white mode, and I’ll do it all myself in Photoshop or Lightroom.

7. Develop a photography series.

Pick a subject or topic, get out there and create an amazing collection. It could be bikes in the city, people’s hands, the contents of people’s handbags or some other idea I haven’t thought of. A photography series can be a great thing to share and look at, as well as a fascinating insight into the abstract qualities of life. In 2011, I’m going to pick a different, fascinating subject and photograph the hell out of it.

8. Stop the car.

Every now and then while driving along I spot a stunning landscape that just begs to be photographed. I always think ‘that would make a great photo’ but I never stopped for a closer look. In 2011 I’ll be sure to stop at any opportunity, get out of the car and photograph that stunning landscape. Don’t let these opportunities pass you buy.

9. Use filters.

Filters really can transform your photos. Whether it’s a polarised filter or an ND filter, putting another piece of glass in front of your lens can provide you with a world of new opportunities and some pretty stunning results. PhotoGuides can of course tell you all about the three essential filters. In 2011 I’ll invest in ND filters and other sorts as well, and I’ll see just what filters can do for my photos.

10. Don’t forget the people.

As a landscape photography enthusiast it’s often easy to ignore the people and go for the stunning scenes. In 2011 I’m going to try and take more photos of the important people in my life. Wherever we are, whatever we’re doing, great photos of people are always the ones you’ll cherish and remember. If there’s one resolution that we all take on board, I think it should be this one.

Happy new year everyone! What are your new years resolutions for photography? Feel free to share them in the comments below.

[tweetmeme]It’s taken 4 months of casual, procrastination filled work, but the PhotoGuides book is finally here.

The PhotoGuides Guide to Photography is a complete guide for the beginner photographer. It’s filled with a full range of beginner photography guides, an extensive selection of tips and tricks, and some cool techniques to help you get the best out of your camera.

This guide is simple, concise, and highly visual. Every guide has full page photographs to help put each concept into context. This book as been designed to provide you with all of the knowledge you need about photography, and then a broad range of skills and tips to allow you to exercise your knowledge and understand, not just why your camera acts in certain ways, but also how to utilise your camera in certain situations to capture the most amazing photographs.

It’s a reasonably small book, but it’s full of information. Furthermore everything’s been written especially for the book. Nothing has been copied from the website and instead it’s all been rewritten and restructured so that the book flows and acts as a succinct guide.

The PhotoGuides Guide to Photography is a limited run and is only available for purchasing until December the 6th. After this date, I’ll collate the orders, have the books printed and then shipped in time for christmas. It’s the perfect guide for the beginner photographer and a great gift for anyone who’s looking to learn.

Also, if you’re a photography teacher and you’re interested in the book, I’d love to hear from you.

[tweetmeme]It’s been a fairly intense month, but I’m pleased to say that I’ve now finished my exams thereby completing my high school education. More importantly though, it’s good to be back and finally have some time to spend on PhotoGuides.

I’m pretty happy with how it all went. I did everything I could do, so fingers crossed my marks reflect it and I get the score I need.

So what lies on ‘the road ahead’? Well, I’ve got a few future plans for PhotoGuides that I’ll probably be revealing and putting into action over the next few weeks. One of them’s a book. It’s already finished and ready for publishing, but you’ll be hearing more about that later, hopefully well before christmas.

Finally, I’d like to give a huge thanks to everyone for all the kind good luck messages I’ve received on twitter and on PhotoGuides. You’re all awesome

Anyway, I’m off to bed. It’s about 20 days past my bedtime.

[tweetmeme] As I write this I’ve been awake for over 42 hours, and needless to say I’m a little bit tired. Over the past two days my life has taken on the biggest transformation that I could ever have imagined. I’ve had my last day of school, had my ‘muck up day’, and as of a few hours ago I have graduated from High School. It’s been the biggest transition of my life and it seems that I’m too tired to quite realise it.

The past week’s really been a bit of a blur. School’s been so intense with practice exams and essays due in every single day. Every teacher’s been imploring us students to prioritise their subject by overloading us with handouts and giving us cheesy pep talks about how to manage our time and motivate ourselves for the weeks ahead.

42 hours ago I woke up and prepared myself for my last ever day of school. It really was a great day. There was a distinct smell of ‘sharpies’ in the air as everyone rushed about writing obscene comments and sketching phallic images on everyone’s shirts. Sure we’re in year 12, but we’re still immensely childish. Every bell that day was followed by cheers and tears as we crossed off another lesson but slowly came closer to the rather frightening end. When the final bell rang at the end of the day, everyone looked a bit puzzled. It was a strange moment. We’d been thinking about that moment for probably 13 years, but to actually be standing there having completed the entire schooling system was so outrageous that emotionally, no one had any idea how to respond. It was kind of funny.

The last ever media class. In hindsight, it was a pretty sad moment.

That night was a ‘Muck Up Day’ party. After school most people went home for a quick nap. I however didn’t, because I had editing to do. For the past two weeks I’d been working on a video for my entire class. It was my gift to them – a story of our entire year 12 experience that followed a day in the life of a student – and I had to add the finishing touches before it would be screened at the year 12 assembly the following day. Thankfully I got it all finished on time, and it was received at the assembly better than I could ever have hoped for. I’ll post it on PhotoGuides eventually.

The party that night was great fun. Never before had our entire year level been together in that sort of social scene. It was a bit of fun to see our social segregations fade away over the course of the night. Anyway, because we’re young and exuberant, we all thought it would be a fantastic idea if we stayed up the whole night. I loved this idea and jumped on board the all-nighter bandwagon by drinking a few red bulls. Shortly afterwards, everyone decided that not sleeping was indeed a stupid idea. Everyone then went to bed, including me, but for some strange reason I became full of energy and couldn’t sleep.

This is me at the party pretending I know how to rap.

The next morning was a morning to remember. I’m not sure how global the Muck Up Day is, but here in Australia it’s basically a day where we all dress up in strange costumes and spend our day at the school being as mischievous as the principal lets us be. I dressed as peter pan because it turns out I look a bit like him, and spent my morning creating an obstacle course and slalom at the school’s entrance out of toilet paper and bins. The groundskeeper wasn’t overly happy, but he still had to drive through it to get to us.

Long story short, our Muck Up Day was a heap of fun. We made a pyramid of chairs in the centre of the oval, trashed the year 11′s common room, provided the whole school with a superb year 12 farewell assembly, and then spent the rest of the afternoon either sleeping on the grass or touring the school on scooters whilst laughing at people in classes.

The Year 11 common room. I think we did a fairly good job.

That night was our Valedictory dinner. In essence, this was our graduation. The night really was outstanding. The highlight was a phenomenal speech from our school captain who in his speech epitomised everything our year level meant to us, and gave us a great overview of the road ahead. We then ate food, took photos, received our graduation gift from the school, and here I am now.

It’s currently 1:30am and I’ve been awake for 42 hours. But don’t worry, I’ll go to bed soon.

As soon as I wake up tomorrow, probably tomorrow afternoon, I’m throwing my head in the books and going to town on those pens, studying my little heart away for the slightly important end of year exams. Six exams lie ahead for five different subjects. The exam scores and marks from coursework from throughout the year are then crunched together to leave me with a single four digit number. This ATAR score will define what university courses I’m allowed into, will probably be used to gain an advantage in job interviews, and will hopefully be used in many arguments to assert my intelligence and therefore correct point of view.

My golden date is November 15th. At 5:15pm I walk out of a large room and enter what has been described to me as ‘the real world’. At that time on that day I end my involvement with 13 years of schooling and enter a new chapter in my life. I say goodbye to lunchtimes, assemblies and mentor groups, and hello to degrees and an actual career.

In the meantime thought, I sort of have to say goodbye to PhotoGuides. This year I’ve been trying my hardest to post regularly, but it has been difficult with school commitments. These next few weeks though are serious so I really shouldn’t be touching the website at all.

So I guess I’ll be talking with you all later. Wish me luck!

[tweetmeme]Firstly, thank you everyone for the amazing entries. I really have been blown away by the quality of some photographs as well as the stories behind them. There can only be one winner though, and I think one particular photograph is very deserving of the Photography theme from The Theme Foundry.

Congratulations to Dirk Schlottmann for his photo ‘Living on an Island’. This photo, which is shown above, really has an inspiring, inquisitive story behind it, which is why feel it’s worthy of the prize. Here’s what Dirk wrote about his photograph:

This is one of my favorite shots, because I had the impression, that the man in the wheelchair was really thinking about “life” when he was looking at this little island.
The picture was taken in Southkorea (at the eastcoast)

Dirk, I’ll be in contact with you shortly to send you your theme.

Thank you to everyone who submitted their favourite photographs. I had a lot of fun going through them and seeing all the smiles, the moments and the astounding scenes. Also, a big thanks goes out to Drew Strojny from The Theme Foundry for offering his stunning Photography theme.

So Dirk, I hope you enjoy the theme. And for everyone else, thanks for your entries and keep an eye out for the next PhotoGuides competition.

This competition is closed. Check out the winning entry over here.

[tweetmeme]Share your favourite photo and you could win this stunning WordPress Photography theme courtesy of The Theme Foundry. It’s a beautiful theme designed to showcase your photography with elegant galleries, a blog and rich large images right across the website.

‘Photography’ holds a very simple design, but it’s an incredibly capable theme. Image galleries are fully integrated with your WordPress Galleries, and you can even directly link your theme to Flickr to automatically share your photographs. ‘Photography’ is normally valued at $68, but I’ve got one free copy to give away.
Be sure to check out the live demo.

Here’s how to enter.

Step 1: Find your favourite photo. This should be one you’ve taken yourself.

Step 2: Share it with PhotoGuides by linking to it in the comments below. Also tell us why it’s your favourite photo.

Step 3: Tweet or Facebook the competition to double your chances.

Here are some more details.

All of the photos will then be reviewed and the winner will be chosen based on which photo I like the most. I won’t be looking for the photo that’s technically perfect. I’ll be looking for my favourite and reading your explanations to see which photograph I feel deserves to win.

The competition will close in two weeks on Saturday October 16th, and I’ll announce the winner shortly afterwards. I’ll also share a few of my favourite entries here on PhotoGuides. I’ll then be in contact with you to send you your theme.

Good luck, and I look forward to seeing your favourite photographs!

[tweetmeme]For the past two weeks on PhotoGuides we’ve been giving you the chance to win 1 of 3 Bokeh Masters Kits. Today, I’m very excited to announce the results of the competition.

Congratulations to Marianna Ferrari, Jeanette Delaplane and Matt Boudwin. I’ll be in contact with you very soon.

These lucky three will be walking away with a brand new Bokeh Masters kit, curtosy of diyphotography.net

If you really wanted one of these awesome kits but didn’t win, then don’t worry. They’re available to purchase right over here.
Thanks again to everyone who entered and congratulations to the winners. Thanks for your continued support of PhotoGuides, and expect to see another competition soon.

Bokeh 2 Star by JoshMahoney

This competition is now closed. You can see the winners over here.

[tweetmeme]I’m very excited to announce the first ever PhotoGuides competition! We’re giving you the chance to win one of three Bokeh Masters Kits, curtosy of diyphotography.net.

These amazing kits will let you photograph bokeh and transform it into all kinds of cool shapes. We’re giving away three of the top end masters kits, which include 20 awesome bokeh shapes and 8 uncut disks for you to make your own shapes. There’s also a carrying pouch for you to keep them all in one place.

How do I enter?

It’s pretty simple. All you need to do is this:

1. Follow @PhotoGuides on twitter.

2. Tweet this message:
Win 1 of 3 Bokeh Masters Kits. Photograph bokeh with amazing shapes! Tweet this and follow @photoguides to win http://bit.ly/beVMbL

If you don’t use twitter then don’t worry. You can also enter by leaving a comment on this post saying why you want to win a Bokeh Masters Kit.

Twitter entries limited to one per day per person. Comment entries limited to one per person.
Entries close at 11:59pm on Sunday the 30th of May

What next?

When entries have closed, I’ll be selecting three tweeters at random. I’ll then be in contact with you to find out where to send your Bokeh Masters Kit, and then it’ll be on its way!

That’s all there is to it. Just tweet for your chance to win! Check out some of the photos below to see just what this kit is capable of.
If you don’t win, then don’t worry. Bokeh Masters Kits are available right over here.
Good Luck!

[tweetmeme]‘Tilt Shift School’ is a short film I put together for my media class at school. It’s based in the Year 12 common room, and it basically just shows everyone chatting, laughing and playing around in front of the camera. It’s a fun little film.

Don’t forget there’s an awesome tutorial for tilt shift on PhotoGuides.

You may have noticed that I’ve written Technical Exercise in the opening credits. A technical exercise is a short film we had to produce which focuses on two of the technical properties of film production. I chose editing and music in this one so that I could play around with the tilt shift effect. This was then submitted along with a writeup detailing how these two properties effect a film. My fingers are crossed for a good mark.

I do wish I’d made it longer. Even when I watch it, I find it ends disappointingly early. I plan on making a few more throughout the year though, so think of this one as Episode 1 of the ‘Tilt Shift School’ series. The next few will be a lot longer as well, because they won’t be restricted by the Tech Exes time limits.

Anyway, I hope you like it. And if you do like it, feel free to share it, tweet it, comment on it, blog it or anything else that’ll let more people know about it. As always, tips and criticisms are welcome below.

Balloons by TaylorArbolante

[tweetmeme]This time last year I was constantly tapping refresh on every computer and iPhone I could lay my hands on, eagerly awaiting something to appear. One year later and PhotoGuides is now a highly acclaimed photography and photoshop design blog with international authors, a few thousand members and a world class podcast ranked highly in the iTunes store. If someone had asked me what my plans for PhotoGuides were a year ago, I’d have had nothing to say. The success of this online community has blown me away, especially considering that PhotoGuides was nothing like I first set out to create.

It all began on February 7th 2009, a day known amongst Australians as Black Saturday. At 46 degrees Celsius it was the hottest day in Melbourne’s history (and certainly one of the most devastating), which left me stuck inside a powerless house with nothing to do but chew up the battery on my MacBook. Just a few days earlier I’d picked up a copy of iLife 09′, so I installed it, clicked the iWeb icon, and began playing around.

I’d been getting serious about my photography around this time, and I decided I wanted a website portfolio to feature and perhaps sell some of my work. iWeb treated me well. Building my website was quick, simple and incredibly easy, but later on when I started to think like a marketer I began to ask myself “why would anyone want to go to this website?”

My website was boring. It was just a simple showcase of photos – something to skim through, but there was nothing attracting or keeping people on the site. I deemed blogging to be the solution to attract attention and hold people’s interest. Fresh new content would bring people back to the site and develop a bit of a community. This was a concept I liked. The only question was, what would I blog about?

As someone still learning about Photography, I often craved a decent selection of beginners guides and tutorials, but I’d never found a website that held exactly what I needed. My idea? Why not make one myself. Soon enough this concept of photography guides began to take over and eventually I’d developed an iWeb site centred around beginners guides for photography. Think of it as an experimental prototype. It never made it to the public, but for this special occasion I’ve decided to release the first ever PhotoGuides.

iWeb was very limiting. There were simple little things that I couldn’t edit, and the website’s structure was set in stone. This frustration eventually drove me to the WordPress platform that PhotoGuides runs today. The image you see below is the first ever PhotoGuides design. Simple, irrelevant and very difficult to use.

Then again, in the beginning my intentions for PhotoGuides were still very unclear. I envisaged it as a personal blog with some occasional guides about photography. Clearly though the website has taken a massive transformation. As you can probably tell, it’s now centred around three basic topics; Photography, photoshop and inspiration. It’s no longer a personal website either, thanks to a few other people scattered around the world that share the same passions as I do, and wish to share their photography and photoshop knowledge with the whole community. Thanks a heap to Amar, Jamice, Patrick and Bert for their contributions to PhotoGuides so far, and thanks to everyone else who has declared interest in becoming a contributor and will write a guide in the future.

There’s no denying that when PhotoGuides was first released I was an internet novice. I didn’t know a damn thing about coding, css, php, html or any internet language. When PhotoGuides first went live there was some database error, and as soon as I saw that error message I was doubtful I’d ever get the thing up. It still amazes me that I’ve managed to get this far. I’m still learning, but I’ve covered the majority of the groundwork. Every now and then I find myself in a bit of a ditch, but I can always rely on my brother James Davies to get me out of it. He’s helped me so much with the development of this website, so this paragraph is dedicated to him as a thankyou. He has a blog, and it’s a bit awesome. Check it out over here.

As for the future, I have a few plans. When school’s over I plan to look at the iPhone and what its App store offers. Book writing is also a form of media I’d be interested in. A PhotoGuides guide to photography is certainly something I’d love to see on bookshelves around the world. For now though, these remain on the to do list, and thanks to year 12 I don’t expect to have anything new and exciting done for the rest of this year.

So that’s the first year in review. Today, PhotoGuides turns one year old, and as I think back to when the website first started I can’t help but realise what an impact this website has made on my life. Of course, one big thankyou I have to give out is to you and the rest of the PhotoGuides community. Thanks for taking an interest in our guides, sharing them, leaving comments or feedback, or any involvement whatsoever you’ve had with this website.

If there’s one thing I’ve learnt throughout my one year on the internet though it’s this:
Whatever it is that you want to do, make sure it’s something you love. It motivates you, keeps you interested, and most prominent of all, it’s a huge factor towards being successful. PhotoGuides still has a lot of potential, and even though it doesn’t fully compete with other design blogs out there in terms of traffic, it’s the love for what I do that’s kept me interested, and without that passion PhotoGuides would be nothing like it is today.

Writing by LeoNn.

[tweetmeme]PhotoGuides is now open to contributors. Now you can write articles for photography or photoshop and share them with the whole PhotoGuides community. It’s a system that should take PhotoGuides to the next level, delivering even more great new content and sharing the ideas and talent of the photographers and designers among us. Whats in it for you? The experience, the reputation, and the chance to promote your own website and work in return for your ideas.

There are a few reasons for the introduction of this contributors system. One of which is to meet the demand of the rapidly growing community. It’s something I can’t do myself, especially because in just 3 days time I’ll be beginning one of the hardest, busiest, most time consuming years of my life.

For those who don’t know, I’m a 16 year old Australian student, and I’m about to enter my final year, year 12. It’s the year that churns 13 years of schooling into a single 3 digit number (The VCE Enter Score), which will define my university course and potentially my future. Year 12 is a very demanding school year, and in order to get the best result I’ll need to be focusing all my attention on my studies. Sadly, this means there won’t be much time left over for PhotoGuides.

The new contributors system will help to make PhotoGuides far more independent, but at the same time it will help the website and community to grow far beyond anything I could achieve on my own.

Every article you submit will contain an authors box at the bottom, holding a picture, a short bio, and a link to your website, twitter, flickr or whatever else you wish to share. You’ll gain exposure for your work and you’ll be able to share your ideas to tens of thousands of visitors.

I’ll be accepting both photography and photoshop guides and tutorials. More information can be found over at the contributors page. Just fill in the contact form sharing any ideas you may have, as well as your website, flickr or other portfolio if you have one. I’ll then be in contact with you and you can start writing for PhotoGuides right away.

Thanks, and I hope we can work together to share great new content with the whole PhotoGuides community.

Click here to learn how to become a PhotoGuides contributor.

[tweetmeme]PhotoGuides now has a Flickr group, and it’s all yours! Now you can join and share your own photography or photoshop creations with the whole PhotoGuides community.

So get over there and click whichever button it is that makes you a member, and put your own photos up for all PhotoGuiders to see.

Take me to the PhotoGuides Flickr Group.

This isn’t quite a Photo Guide. Nor is it relevant to most of my readers. What you’re looking at here is a short documentary I’ve created which I hope will be the first step on the way to living my dream.

If you’ve read my colophon you may remember that my dream is to one day combine my love for writing, cars and cinematography by hosting my own car show. My ambition is to review cars on video, sort of like Top Gear, but without fame as my motivation.

Synergy is a short documentary I’ve created for my media class at school. The basic task was to create a short minute documentary on a subject we’re passionate about, so I took the opportunity to create what I hope will be my key into the industry. Synergy looks into the Toyota Prius and the technology behind it. It’s sort of an in depth car review which also looks at the philosophy behind the car.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. All feedback is welcome and encouraged, be it regarding the editing, cinematography or the review. If you have any questions, I’m happy to answer them. Feel free to contact me directly as well.
Also, if you like this, please do share it with anyone else you feel may enjoy it, because the more people that see it, the greater chance I have.

This video is a recent media assignment in which we were given a sheet of 21 set shots (such as ‘close up of person focusing camera’) and then had to produce our own thriller, based on our own interpretation of those shots. The shots could be as long or short as we wanted, but they had to appear in the specified order.

I found this quite tricky at first because it’s hard to produce something unique when everyone has basically the same sequence. This though gave myself and the two others in my group the opportunity to think outside the square.
Thus, cinematography and editing were our main focus. The colours of the film have been modified to better express the mood, and it’s been edited in ‘ultra widescreen’, which I’ve now fallen in love with.

For those interested, here’s a list of the 21 shots we needed to include. Admittedly we didn’t follow the ‘camera static’ instruction, but the motion was essential to portray the action feel…

1. Camera static – CU of person (face) peering through some sort of opening
(like a blind, shutters, window or doorway). Camera is sharply focused on edge of opening. Camera pulls focus away from opening and onto person as they take aim on target.
2. Camera static – ECU of person’s face (mostly their eye) in profile looking right of frame.
3. Camera static – P.O.V. / LS to person’s target (some activity taking place).
4. Camera static – CU of person’s camera lens sticking out of opening (voyeuristic shot, that is, as though audience sees the action but nobody in the world of the film does).
5. Camera static – VLS / LOW ANGLE of person from behind them (inside their room) looking through opening.
6. Camera static – CU / Profile shot of person adjusting zoom on camera and aiming at target.
7. Camera static – CU / P.O.V. shot of person’s target again (activity continuing).
8. As per shot 5 but camera not static. Very slow dolly in towards person at opening.
9. Camera static – ECU of person’s eye.
10. Camera static – CU of person’s target (activity continuing).
11. Camera static – ECU of person’s mouth.
12. Camera static – ECU of finger on camera button.
13. Camera static – CU / P.O.V. shot of person’s target (activity continuing).
14. Camera static – ECU of person’s hand pressing trigger on camera.
15. Camera static – CU / Profile shot of person taking shot of target.
16. As per shot 5.
17. Camera static – Over the shoulder shot of person seated at desk removing film from camera.
18. Camera static – MCU of person concentrating on task of removing film
from camera.
19. Camera static – MCU / Low angled profile shot of person reaching for and pulling open desk drawer.
20. Camera static – MCU / Over the shoulder shot of previous action (caught midway through).
21. Camera static – ECU of drawer opening (same action as for shots 19 & 20) to reveal drawer full of film canisters and photos of target.

Something’s been bugging me.
It’s simple really, but whilst I know I shouldn’t let a simple statement annoy me, the fact that the majority of people have this same point of view just gets on my nerves in a way I can’t really describe.

Just a few weeks ago someone made a comment along the lines of
“What’s so hard about photography? All you do is push a button.”

I do realize that the person who made this comment has very little respect for photography. This isn’t what bothers me. People can follow their passions and loathe the dreary things in their life, even if their views completely oppose mine, and I wont raise a question. What bugs me is that this person was implying that photography involves very little talent, effort or skill.

To the millions of people globally who believe that photography is easy, I ask one simple question. Why can’t you do it?

My photography world and its development has been a real journey (all 5 years of it). When I started out, I’ll admit that I couldn’t do it. All I had was a 2 megapixel Kodak camera with 8 megabytes of memory, and the only things I ever took photos of were my dog, family outings, holidays, cars and random objects around the house. Clearly I wasn’t going to get any extravagant photos out of these beginner-cliché scenes, especially with a substandard camera and basic knowledge. Sure enough I didn’t. They were all small, poorly composed, blurry, noisy and ugly. But at this point I had no idea, so it didn’t faze me in the slightest. I loved taking photos and took it incredibly seriously. I saved up all my money to buy a memory card (64mb. It cost me $64) and would fill it up so quickly and so often just by playing around with angles and taking the same photo over and over again until I got something I was pleased with. I’d then chuck the photos on the computer and put everyone in my family through torture by going through them again and again. I built up a collection of well over 1000, all of them rubbish.

At this point, whilst I didn’t have a great deal of talent or skill, I had an obsession with photography and it was this genuine interest that propelled my mind and ability forward.

The person that asked me “What’s so hard about photography?” is still at (or even before) this initial stage, purely because they don’t have the respect or interest in photography to help develop their skills. As a result, all of the photos they take will be done with no skill, talent and no developed eye. They’ll be crap, and this is what’s giving them the twisted view they have on serious photographers.

I have a way of defining the difference between photo takers like this and people who care about photography. It all comes down to the simple terms you use. When unpacked, photography means art. It may only be defined as capturing a picture using a camera, but a picture is then further described as a painting or drawing, which is of course art. Photographers take photographs. It’s as simple as that. I believe though that to be a photographer, your skill level doesn’t mean a thing. All you need to do is take the time to craft your photo. Even if it’s not particularly good, it’s still your artful expression of a scene.
The people with no respect for photography though take snapshots. They just snap away carelessly and thus receive a careless result.

I took a fairly hefty jump on this photography journey. Three years ago I decided my little Kodak camera wasn’t getting me anywhere. My interest in the subject had caused me to look further into the world of photography and as a result I discovered there was an incredible range of potential that I eagerly wanted to explore. The Fujifilm S9500 was my answer. My endless research found this to be incredibly versatile, very well priced and most important of all, highly manipulative. It catered perfectly for my new greed for knowledge, so I saved up, bought it, and a new chapter began.

Simply by fiddling with this camera I learnt an enormous deal about photography. By looking through my entire collection of 11,000 photos you can plot a clear timeline of development. You can begin to see when I began to understand the power of composition. You’ll find my love of night photography and the hundreds of trial and error shots I took as I began to understand the fine relations between aperture, shutter speed, ISO and anything else that affects exposure. Put simply, this timeline perfectly defines the difference between photography and snapshits.

However, photography is not done with the camera, similarly to how a painting is not created by a paintbrush. Photography comes down to the artist. This camera was simply my tool to explore and express my photography. Anyone with a camera I believe can be a photographer, provided they show this interest in the subject and take time to create photos. Sure, their work may not be valued as highly by themselves or by others, but the time and effort taken to capture something that looks good to them proves their interest and classifies themselves as photographers.

There have been countless times where my ambitious photo shoots have turned out to be rubbish. That’s why, of all the 11,000 photos I’ve taken with my S9500, there are only 100 of them I’m willing to share with you.

As a bit of research/inspiration for writing this I looked back on my old PC at all the photos I took with my big camera. Annoyingly I can’t find any of the ones from my first Kodak. I found a few different genres where I had distinct ‘before and after’ shots of my journey and development.

The Beginner Shots:

2006	2008

Her name’s Penny. She’s a Golden Retriever, about 13 years old.

Initially these photos were cliché and boring. They held no real character, little eye for composition, and as a result there was nothing special about them. The 2008 shot though is and probably always will be one of my favorite photos, mainly because it’s captured the character of Penny and it really tells a story. I call this one ‘Innocence’ for obvious reasons. It took me 40 tries (with many deletions) to get this photo right, each one baring slight differences.

The Technicalities:

2007	2008

I call this 2008 image ‘Coast Guard’.

These two photos really show my technical advancements for many aspects of photography. Not only is there a change in composition and a stronger implementation of the ‘Rule of Thirds’, but my aperture was being changed with a lot more meaning, along with other settings in regards to exposure and colour, all to create a photo that was subtly different in many ways. These slight changes all added up to a photo which is a lot better overall.

The Landscape Shots:

2006	2009

Paynesville is a playground for landscape photography.

Whilst it’s evident that the composition of these two photos are the same and that they are of the same scene, the colors and overall feel of the two photos are dramatically different. This mimics the huge increase my understanding for photography had. The ‘Before’ shot was still thought out carefully and I still took about 20 shots before I got this one, but the only settings I really changed were the ones affecting exposure. In the After shot though, everything was different. Specifically though, you can see just how I used white balance and other settings to capture a whole different aura of the scene. Very little editing of this photo was done. The beautiful colours were caused by bushfires in the region that sent a thick layer of smoke right across the sky. I saw the potential to create something beautiful and did all I could to capture it.

These are just a few of the photos that speak of my development. They are far from my best. In my eyes, my New Zealand Collection contains some of the most beautiful work I have created to date. It was hard though to put these photos into the ‘before and after’ comparisons because they’re unique to all other photos I have taken

~

What I’m trying to emphasize here is that photography really is a journey of rights and wrongs. This extract from Michael Mistretta’s article on the Myth of Talent I find really summarizes the value of the journey of acquisition of this creativity.

Maybe creativity is like anything else. Maybe it can be learned. Not packaged into a neat little curriculum and taught in schools, but learned through experience, mistakes, and determination. Maybe a good eye can be developed, a good ear, honed, and the writer’s touch, perfected.
Maybe my value is determination, persistence, passion, a stubborn refusal to say “I quit”.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s more valuable than Talent.

This is completely true in my eyes, and it’s this determination, this passion and above all, the initial interest in the subject that drives your quest for perfection. Clearly, this is something sluggers of photography don’t have.

So what exactly is so hard about photography? Well, I can tell you from experience that every time you push that little button on your camera, years of pain, frustration, care, craftsmanship, knowledge and passion are expressed by whatever goes through your lens.
Unless you’re someone who still thinks it’s easy, in which case you’re an arse.

[tweetmeme]If you have a slow connection or an iPhone, then clicking this blue bit of text here will make it work better.

This video is a recent Media assignment in which we had to take a movie of our choice and create a trailer out of it that takes on a completely different genre. This is commonly called a Mash Trailer.
In my case, I chose the famous and slightly-ridiculous comedy, ‘Bean – The Ultimate Disaster Movie’ (the one where he sneezes on a painting) and mashed it into a trailer for an all out action film.

I’ve tried to model his character on James Bond, labeling him as a sly, sexy thief living on the edge. To emulate this the trailer includes chase scenes, guns, and of course the traditional car chase and sex scene. This was incredibly hard to do. Mr bean rarely shows a serious face and never says a thing in a voice that can be deemed as normal. Any sign of a dopey face would ruin the whole atmosphere of the piece.
Because of this, a lot of editing had to be done to make him look sexy in the poster you see above. You’ll notice smoother skin, blue eyes, a thinner leaner face and an expression which doesn’t look like the original.

The song is from the start of ‘James Bond – Quantum of Solace’ and is called ‘Time to Get Out’ by David Arnold. It’s certainly an integral part to the piece and would have been impossible without it.
All of the footage can be found in the original film, only in the original they mean something completely different.

Enjoy

[tweetmeme]Our way of life never ceases to amaze me. We operate almost systematically with directions and paths set in stone from an early age, most of which aim for one single thing. Financial success. This is our life, our key to happiness in whatever door we choose. Life is a system and we mentally cannot be sound if we don’t have the money to cater, not only for our needs, but for our wants. I too am a victim of this, as I’m sure most of you are. It’s a simple fact bound into our wealthy culture and our minds. There’s a story though that makes me think. It’s one we can pretty much all relate to because we probably all know of a similar thing. Perhaps though we’ve never stopped to think about it.

If you were to go to your local mall, shopping center or whatever it is you call it, I can guarantee there will be at least one shop where you have stopped in the past and thought “Why the hell is he here? Who would shop there?” It’s a common thing and I’d go as far as calling it a cliché. It’s not uncommon also to go back to the shops after a few weeks and see a closing down sale. Your initial questions were right. Who would shop there? Clearly no one did.

There’s a specific store I have in mind when I speak of this. The man opened his store in what I like to think of as the cursed shop. It’s the shopping block where nothing seems to work. One shop opens, and then closes down. Then another strange shop opens and then closes down, until eventually it’s been purchased by another hairdresser or a phone retailer. This man’s idea though was pretty outrageous, and to explain it all I can really do is ask you to think of the Queen’s bedroom. I’m talking about insanely ‘royal’ furniture with sculptures carved into the sides of beds, wardrobes, lamps and anything else that can be painted gold. It really was a shock to see a store with mirrors the size of houses in what I would call a casual shopping center in a normal town. Put simply, it was never going to work.

To my surprise though, he was still there a few months later. Good on him, I thought. He’d stuck in longer than most other shops I’d seen, even though his idea was even more absurd. However there was still no one in the shop. As far as I could tell, this guy had had no significant business. The questions once again flowed through my head. “What on earth was he thinking?”

Well, I now not only know what he was thinking, but I also understand his thoughts. Over the past few weeks I’ve been having this small epiphany in regards to values in life, brought on by my recent eye-opening trip to South Africa with The Simunye Project.

The slums. Known to others as ‘home’.

If I were to mention 3rd world poverty, our minds instinctively conjure up a few generals. Sad, lonely, sick and dying people in a gloomy world with efforts, but no real hope. It’s a harsh statement I know, but it’s the simple assumed truth. As a result of my experience, I figure now that there are two real differences between the 3rd World and our own. The first one is the economy. Despite the recent recession and troubles, ours in Australia and other Western cultures can only be descried as wealthy. For the South African’s though there’s really no comparison. It’s very poor, weak and is the traceable cause of most of their problems today ranging from poverty to health.

The second difference though is a lot simpler, purer and personal. It’s heart.

Through my whole 18 days in South Africa, I can honestly say that I didn’t interact with a single person without a smile on their face. Everyone we spoke to showed expressions of love and joy, and as you can see from my Simunye photos, all the children we played with were over the moon and beyond. We forever hear the tragic stories of these orphaned and ill children living in simply ruthless circumstances. It’s hard to hear, hard to think about and believe me, it’s harder to interact with let alone experience. But did they show that through their expression? No. They never did.

If you consider your life you’ll realize the incredible contrast, not only for the obvious material differences, but also for the deeper ones. We all let small things get to us, and sometimes we let these things stick in our minds. We all see and think negatively and occasionally we reflect this upon others. It’s a constant cycle, a part of our life that’s pretty much written into our cultures. We work to buy to live to love life and all it holds. That’s what we live for and if we don’t get it then we know it, we feel it and we reflect it.

So without the clear options of finance and comfort, what do many of these South Africans have to live for? Clearly their life paths are going to be a lot different to ours. I was amazed to find out though that their dreams are very similar. We played with young boys who wanted to be pilots and soccer players, and girls who wanted to be princesses. It was cute, but also saddening to know that these children were growing up in situations that didn’t really cater for such dreams. It became clear then that these children didn’t live for financial success like we do. They live for one thing. Life.

In the 3rd world a luxury can be as simple as a hug, smile, laugh or a person. They don’t focus on searching for wealth and money in life because, even though they would want financial comfort, this is only to provide for necessities. Because of this, they never seem to act for greed or significant financial gain. Instead, they do things because they either need to do it or they want to do it. They take action with heart. It seems that anything they do they love doing and, even though there may be better things they can think of, they love it for what it is be it a chore, a sport, a person or a moment.

If we were to call a friend rich then people know we are implying that their life is full of luxuries. These are things that matter in our lives. 3rd World luxuries though are the simple things in life and the joys they take out of them, and these are the riches they search for.

Think about the man with his unique shop. What was he searching for? Money of course. That’s how our lives work. But it wasn’t a priority. Instead, he made his choice to create the shop based on heart. He opened that shop because he had a passion for such furniture and a dream, not to make riches, but to share it with the world around him. Clearly though things aren’t working out for him, so you might be asking what use is heart if it sends Western people to failure? Well, it’s all about dignity and happiness. If we forever focus on making money we let the little things get in the way of our lives. In South Africa though, making lots of money isn’t their main priority so there are no obstacles on their path to happiness.

It is hard to follow this philosophy of life in our world. We’re in a culture that doesn’t cater all too well for focusing on what we love. We all have a passion and we all have a chore. All I can really say is that next time, regardless of what it is, if you act with heart then happiness will come in some form, as it does for them.

~

Harmony, work, this photo says it all. Celebrating with the children of Tshepang.

This piece was written listening to ‘To Build a Home – The Cinematic Orchestra’

Downloading slowly? Using an iPhone? you can also try Simunye 3096 on YouTube

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As many of you may know, I, along with 40 others recently returned from a trip to South Africa known as Simunye, which means ‘We Are One’.

The Simunye Project is a non-profit organization which aims to empower young Australians with the skills and attitude needed to make a global difference.

Being a photographer, my camera was always out and as a result I captured over 4000 photos. On reviewing them, I found that it wasn’t so much the individual photos that stood out, but rather the whole collection and the stories they told together.

Thus I came up with this video, Simunye 3096.
(3096 being the number of photos in it)
I feel the video really captures the true essence of the experience in ways that a single photo never could. If you liked it, I recommend you watch it again. Every time you’ll pick up new things. I’m still picking up new bits myself.

I’d love to hear what you think so be sure to leave a comment.
Also, you might like to have a look at ‘Heart. The Secret to Happy Living‘, a piece inspired by my Simunye experience.
You can also have a look at my Simunye Photography Collection to see the best photos from the whole experience.

Thanks especially to Miss Beal and Mr Amos for letting me use their cameras and some of their photos. The video certainly wouldn’t have had the same effect without the memories they captured.

Enjoy!

Sunrise Over the Desert

The desert is an incredible place. Never had I imagined that such simplicity could posses beauty in so many shapes, lights and forms. This photograph here is definitely one of my favorites from the broken hill expedition, not only for the way it turned out, but also because of the processes I took to try and get this photo exactly the way I planned.

As a group, we all decided that we’d be getting up and out early that morning to try and beat the intense heat. It seemed a good idea at the time, but no one predicted just how hard it would be to wake up at 5am in the freezing cold of the desert night. For about an hour we were walking under the incredible stars attempting to navigate our way. The sky was indescribable (as it always was). There was no artificial light for hundreds of miles in all directions which meant that, not only would you see about 10 shooting stars every night, but you could also see satellites floating around the sky.

The most beautiful sunrise I’ve ever witnessed.

Thankfully, as the light burst out from the top of the horizon, this beauty was not lost. The photo above is the view we were presented with, and, to our delight, we were heading straight for it. About half an hour later, as we were climbing the hill, the view just kept getting better. The sun was at such a low point where it was almost exploding all over the land as far as the eye could see, and in the desert, that’s a very long way.

Out came the camera and on went the shooting. I was getting really frustrated because the lighting in my photo would not turn out anywhere near the way I wanted. No matter how much I changed the aperture or shutter speed, the photo would just be a complete silhouette bathed in yellow with lens flair all around. I took about 60 shots of the same scene fiddling with every setting I could think of. It turns out that one of my mates had turned the ISO up to 1600 the night before for and, by the time I’d realized this, most of the incredibility was lost.

It was a bit disappointing to have lost a potentially amazing shot but I still knew that the image had great potential. As impure and fake as it may seem, my best option was to pop it onto aperture (or adobe lightroom for the PC users) and find the hidden light and colors, just to try and mimic the original scene.

The Original. I didn’t like it.

Unfortunately though, this image to the left is what I had to work with. It didn’t seem all too nice. It was too dark, poorly lit and the lens flare wasn’t a particularly good thing either. Amazingly though, with a quick lower of the vibrance and amplification of the shadow light the image brought out all of the color and light that was lost by the overpowering sun making the image you see today.

Whilst I know the image isn’t as original as I would have liked (purity is quite important to me), I still love this photo. It ended up very close to how the actual scene was, so every time I see it I’m reminded of the incredible and unique beauty that the desert holds. It really has captured the essence of the scene, and that’s the most important thing there is.