Roadtrip to Uluru

Well, we're back from our epic roadtrip to Uluru: 7,800 km's and 4 States (well 3 and 1 Territory) in 18 days, PHEW! We all had an awesome time in the Northern Territory exploring Alice Springs, the West MacDonnell Ranges, Uluru and the Olga's.

Photography wise it was stunning although I also had some challenges, especially when it began raining the morning afer we arrived at Uluru and then stayed with us for the rest of the trip.

The kids had a ball on the walks, especially the Kings Canyon rim walk and around parts of Uluru (in the rain). What a magical place, I'm already thinking about our next trip.

Beautiul strong blue sky contrasting with the orange boulders

and Little B attempting to squash Big C.

Playground at the Araluen Cultural Centre, Alice Springs.

Wycliffe Well, UFO Capital of Australia.

The Devils Marbles, N.T.

Dilemmas of long exposures

This week i've been experimenting with taking shots of the kids while they are asleep with very mixed results. This first image had an exposure of 4 seconds as I left the light on outside their room. The light has cast a strong shadow on the wall which looks unnatural, and the colour cast by the light looks cold and bluish.

This image was taken in the dark on a long exposure. Little B started moving around as you can see by the ghosty look of his face and legs. I quite like the effect but the exposure still wasn't long enough to render a correctly exposed, sharp image even though it was exposed for 74 seconds. I used f22 to try for a sharp shot however long exposures on the bulb setting incur a lot of noise and this one is quite grainy when viewed larger. Another unsucessful attempt although the colour is much warmer and nicer.

Perhaps the nicest image is pre sleep as the kids are having a goodnight kiss. No long exposures to contend with but the angle of the bunk bed base is a bit of a worry. 1/60th sec, f 3.5, 640 iso.

Silhouette and Shape

Big C, Silhouette on trampoline.

I've been conciously thinking about taking images from different design and compositional perspectives and came up with the idea of shooting the kids jumping on a trampoline while I was lying underneath. I like the idea of silhouette photography where the subject is implied through shape rather than detail.

Big C, Little B on trampoline.

Aaron Siskind was an "influential American teacher, editor, and photographer who is best known for his innovations in abstract photography" http://www.britannica/. Siskind photographed peeling paint in close-up, investigating its texture and shape and also did a famous series called Pleasures and terrors of levitation where he captured divers in mid air emphasising "the abstract quality of their twisting shapes by isolating them against the sky's light" http://www.bw-photography.net/.

A bucket full of fun

Kids are great at improvisation. Give them a bucket of water and they can have loads of fun just splashing and generally making a lot of racket. Little B thought it was great fun dunking his head and Big C was all too happy to lend a helping hand.

The great thing about photographing kids is that they are full of life and constantly moving around providing lots of opportunity for fun, impromptu images. This movement also provides its own challenges, especially when low light requires the use of long exposures or a high ISO. Ideally I dont like shooting much above 500 ISO as any enlargement really starts to shows grain. Sometimes this is inevitable like tonight when we were shooting at dusk, in low light. This shot was taken at the extremes of my ideal settings. F 5.0 @ 1/100th sec, 640 ISO.

A bucket of water provides a recipe for splashing, dancing, chasing, screaming, running, laughter and general chaos.

When pillow fights go bad.......

This is a funny little sequence of action images that shows how kids always like to push things just that bit too far.................

Big C lines Little B up for a good one

Ohhhhhh. I think I got him a bit too good

Here comes the waterworks :(
Note Big C in the background looking suitably chagrinned.

BUBBLES

Yesterday morning we had lotsa fun blowing bubbles in the backyard which was entertaining but also proved quite difficult to shoot. I had planned to try some closely cropped shots with large bubbles in the foreground & the kids faces in the background. Note to self: bubbles, like children, are unpredictable! They move too fast to focus on and constantly refocusing often led to both bubbles and kids being out of focus. Plus the lens kept getting covered in bubble goo!


Also I find the trees and fence other stuff are quite distracting in backyard shoots but as time constraints meant we had to stay home I used a short focal length of f4, to blur the background as much as possible. Of the 80 plus shots I took I only really like a few.

Click on the images to view larger.

Wishing you all a wonderfully relaxing weekend. x

Love those bright rainbow colours

The bigger the bubbles the bigger the eyes

Little B looks like he's blowing bubbles out his nose. Wouldn't be the first time!

Composition and Design

Todays lecture focused on one of my favoutite elements of photography, Composition. The elements incorporated into a successful image such as Line, Rhythm, Shape, Resonance, Texture, Tone and Perspective really appeal to my love of Design.

Tone can establish form, create a sense of mood and produce a sense of depth. High key images such as this one use predominantly light tones or highlights. A black should also be present to establish key placement. High key images are often used when the photographer wishes to portray a sense of innocence, purity and lightness (Glenn Porter 2001).

Experimenting with Hue/Saturation, I removed all of the colour values in Photoshop except for magenta. This highlighted the pink of the face makeup which provides a striking contrast in the otherwise B & W image.

Line in composition - Jagged lines can imply aggression, violence, fast speed, mayhem and the unpredictable (Glenn Porter, 2001).

Here is an example of an image that didn't work because it was so underexposed. I actually really like the composition, the jagged lines of the kids arms imply aggression, movement and violence, lending drama and interest to the image. Unfortunatly the image was taken in low light conditions and there was not enough light to work with, even setting the camera at 2500 ISO in an attempt to properly expose the shot. I didn't feel the scene suited a flash and if i has taken the time to get a tripod, the shot would have been well and truly over, not to mention the mood would have changed completely. In hindsight I should have used a flash as the hard light would probably have suited the subject.
By lightening the image sufficiently in Photoshop to make it viewable, there is too much noise to render it a successful image.

Our Easter Weekend

Kids can be so funny. Sometimes they say and do things that make you question what bloody gooseberry bush they were hatched under!! Big C was standing on the kitchen benchtops (as she does) looking through the cupboards for something to eat and pulled out a packet of sultanas and was staring at it quite preplexed. "I don't get it", she says, "its a packet of sultanas, so why are there pictures of grapes on it?"

Easter Monday we all went to Crystal Castle and the kids had a ball running around the playground, going on a rainforest walk, getting their faces painted and navigating the labyrinth.

Took lots of images in both B & W and colour and the painted faces certainly added visual interest.

Preparing to leap.

In this shot I had the camera set on shutter priority as I wanted Little B's face in sharp focus whilst still showing a bit of movement. The camera kept automatically exposing for the sky so I added some fill flash to correctly expose the kids faces, erasing the shadows. Exposure taken at F9 @ 1/125sec, 35mm, 200ISO.

Big C leads Little B through the dark bamboo path

I like the way Little B is looking a bit nervous, it adds tension and drama. I darkened this up a bit and bumped up the contrast in photoshop for extra oomph. This image would not have been nearly as moody if taken in colour.

Snapshot photography.

Garry Winorand, Woman eating pretzel, 1981





Nan Goldin, from The innocents series, 1994-1997.


Snapshot photography can be defined as "casual pictures made with hand held cameras by amateurs" Snapshot Photography . Its not a style I tend to use much, preferring a more stylised art photography, yet as some stage every photographer must pick up a camera and snap a shot purely to record a scene for posterity.
Some artists such as Nan Goldin and Garry Winogrand have made a career out of perfecting the snapshot aesthetic with a desire not "to reform life but to know it" (John Szarkowski, Diane Arbus).
The more I read about and contemplate snapshot photography, the more I respect its importance as "an honest visual record of events historical and contemporary". http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/1058/Snapshot-Photography.html

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!

With this much chocolate its bound to be a very interesting day!!!

Photography style

Image by Brenda Ann Kenneally - 1st prize, Daily Life Stories, World Press Photo 2008


When choosing a subject for my photography project I started thinking about photo essays I had seen that really captured my attention and I remembered quite vividly, this series of images from the World Press Photo website. It documents the daily life of a working single mother of seven children in the US and for me, this is the most memorable and interesting image and could quite easily stand alone. Some of the images when viewed on their own are quite average in creative or artistic style, as part of a series however, the photographer has captured an intimate and moving insight into how many families in the the worlds leading country actually live.

While my family is not in the same situation as this one, It lead me to contemplate how my children coexist and hence, an idea for the project was born. I began taking the images in Black and White, because for me, the style, the timelessness and the drama which a great B & W image conveys are so striking. Having said that, I am now contemplating changing to colour for this project as afterall I am capturing children and if nothing alse - children are wonderfully colourful in every sense of the world. I shall endeavour to continue shooting the series in both B & W and colour and decide later on which style better suits the subject.

Here's the link to the World Press Photo site. The images they present are sometimes confronting, often thought provoking and always stunning.
http://www.worldpressphoto.org/

Fabulous Friday

Today's mission was Colour and Movement. I captured this image of Little B swinging towards me while I was was manually zooming the lens at the same time. I don't know about you, but looking at it makes me feel a bit queasy !!! I have seen some quite effective shots using this lens zooming method however its not particularly a style I like and requires a judicious choice of subject.

Here i've been experimenting with panning. Panning photography is all about implying speed and movement and is often used to good effect in sports photography. I love the painterly abstract effect of the background with Little B's face almost frozen. A happy morning shoot.

Its late to be posting but I had a very busy day. Hope you have a beautiful weekend lovely people.

Photography Style

On the telephone, 1928, Alexander Rodchenko

Big C, Little B, Nintendo DS.

Experimenting with angles Rodchenko style. Rodchenko was one of the first photographers to capture subjects from different perspectives, examining familiar subjects from different points of view to challenge our perception of the everyday.

Just in case you thought it was all sunshine and light, Little B in a time out for pouring water all over the rug.

"Why'd you do it Little B, that was naughty"
"I didn't do it"
"But i saw you do it Little B"
"I didn't do it"
"Go to your room and stay there till you can behave nicely"
"Whatever mum".

Like the sepia effect on Little B's hands

Today has been a day for experimenting in photoshop. Woke up thinking about Picasso faces and so took some images of Big C's face and mashed 'em up. Contemplating whether or not to continue in the black and white style i originally wanted or possibly to go colour. Decisions, decisions. We got carried away and were late for school :)

The unseen observer

As part of my Bachelor of Media Degree, i'm doing a Digital Photography unit and have chosen as my project to document my children. So here, in an undiluted and honest account, we will endeavour to portray the interactions, good, bad and ugly, of Big C and Little B and how they negotiate this world as brother and sister .......................... Not as easy as it may seem. Holding a camera in their faces and capturing them mid fight whilst trying to remain impassive and not incur camera shake ...................! Let the fun and fracas begin :)

All is good with the world when we can agree on what to watch on tv

Big C reads her home reader to Little B