Sneak peeks into our little corner of the world.
In the last few months, we’ve been rather slow to update the blog page. I am very happy to report that the reason for this is the birth of our new child Charlotte! She is a healthy , smiling, bubbly, screaming bundle of joy that no amount of reading or antenatal class attendances could have prepared us for. It’s hard to believe that she’s already two months old and there some aspects of her development which we won’t get to see again until we decide to try for #2. During the course of Marianne’s pregnancy and her early infancy, we’ve tried to keep taking images and videos. This post is a record of some of those moments.
Ever since we found out Marianne was pregnant just before Christmas, we planned to photograph a timelapse video of her growing belly. We went through phases of variable motivation but in the end, this was the result:
On a rainy day in July, I filmed another timelapse of the final stages of setting up Charlotte’s nursery.
Childbirth is an experience like no other. I’m not sure if there’s any value in trying to express the emotions we experienced, especially during the latter stages of Marianne’s labour. As each second passed, the previous nine months of anticipation became ever closer to reality. There were moments of paranoia, panic that something was going wrong mixed in with that growing anticipation and when she finally took her first breaths at 9:03pm on August 22, the prevailing emotion was relief. Relief that she was safe after periods of fetal heart rate decelerations , relief that Marianne’s pain and rigours and fever had settled, relief that mum and bub were just fine. These were some of the very first pictures taken in the labour ward of Burnside hospital.
Mother and Child bonding
Relief and the end of a long day
Hungry or Cheeky??
After 6 days in hospital battling with a hungry crying baby while waiting for breast milk to kick in, our learning curve took a superman leap to the heavens . Mind you, the baseline for me was very low to begin with! Who knew that somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind were the motor skills to change nappies, burp baby, wrap swaddles and basically do a whole variety of other tasks one handed while cradling Charlotte in the other. By the time we were heading home, Charlotte had already regained the initial weight loss and has since continued to maintain her ‘centiles’ in weight and head circumference. She seems a very healthy baby indeed 
A moment of peace
When she came home, we even tried taking some portrait style neonatal shots we had seen on other people’s web sites. We now appreciate the degree of patience and persistence required to take these kinds of images.
Neonates are so vulnerable and fragile
Satisfaction is very much black and white for Charlie
Memories of the womb
Daddy the fan heater!
Of course, there have been many firsts and lots of candid shots taken in between.
First Bath at home
First Month Celebrations
First Class Hair!
First Smile!
Finally, we’d like to take the opportunity to thank the entire supporting cast of family members and friends without whom all of this would have been just that much more difficult. With your ongoing support, we’ve been able to enjoy the joys of parenthood while maintaining sanity during the challenges. We’ve even been able to shoot the first of our 7 weddings for this season without much drama but that, is the topic for the next blog post.
A Woolshed Wedding
-D
Are you an Everlook Photography fan on Facebook yet? If not, here’s a very good reason to be – we’re giving away a signed 8 x 12 inch art matte print to celebrate surpassing 500 fans! All you have to do after becoming a fan is to tag the image you would like to win (choose wisely!). The winner will be announced on TUESDAY 16 AUGUST, so head on over to our page and tag it right now!
Tag one image on our Facebook page for a chance to win a free 8x12 inch print!
What a WEEK!! Our Facebook page now has over 500 fans and the numbers grow every day. Thank you to everyone who has ‘liked’ our images, taken the time to comment on our photos or even just dropped by for a visit.
In other exciting news, our SALA exhibition “Otherworlds” is opening at Adelaide Zoo’s Santos Conservation Centre this weekend! Here is your invitation to the opening event on Sunday 7 August – make sure you RSVP by Friday 5 August if you can make it. We’d love to see you there and hear what you think of our most recent works.
We are pleased to announce that we have two upcoming exhibitions opening within the next few weeks!
The first one, titled “Dimensions”, is located in the Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre on Hampstead Road, Northfield, South Australia. 10 canvas prints of our recent works will be on display and available for purchase. Part proceeds go towards the Royal Adelaide Hospital’s Research Fund. The exhibition will open on Wednesday, 27 July 2011 and run until Tuesday, 27 September 2011. The official open hours are 10am to 5pm daily, but the exhibition will of course be viewable during all visiting hours.
The second exhibition is part of this year’s SALA Festival! The biggest visual arts festival of its kind in Australia, SALA celebrates the diverse works of over 4,000 South Australian artists throughout the month of August. The festival is a true feast for the senses, with works being displayed in traditional gallery spaces through to cafes, wineries and restaurants.
Our exhibition, titled “Otherworlds”, will be held in the Adelaide Zoo’s Santos Conservation Centre together with two other exhibitions. The Santos Conservation Centre is located outside the entrance of Adelaide Zoo on Frome Road, and is accessible either from Frome Road or Plane Tree Drive. A total of 10 works can be viewed and are available for purchase. Part proceeds go towards supporting the Adelaide Zoo and its important role in wildlife conservation. “Otherworlds” will run from Saturday, 6 August 2011 to Sunday, 28 August 2011.
More details on the exhibition for SALA soon!
-M
I’ll start this blog post with a list of questions that we are often asked by people who have seen our work.
1. Do you photoshop your photos?
2. That’s an amazing shot ! What camera do you use?
3. Wow! You were soooo lucky to be there in those conditions! Did it really look like that?
I have answered the first question in a previous blog post http://wp.me/prucx-ay :. The simple answer is yes.
The second question implies that the camera is the be all and end all of the image. Put simply, if the late Ansel Adams had used any other brand of camera, he would have still taken striking images ; If Roger Federer used the 50 dollar tennis racquet I use, he’d still be an awesome tennis player; If Jamie Oliver used the cheap K-mart cook set I own, he’d still be able to cook up a feast with panache.
Finally, the topic for discussion in this post is making the most of your opportunities. Because of mother nature’s moods, there will always be an element of luck, but if you know what to look out for and plan your location shoots wisely, you minimise the chance of that grain of luck falling through a sieve.
The following images were examples of varying degrees of ‘luck’ mixed with planning.
Aurora at Hveravellir
When planning our trip to Iceland in 2010, we wanted to visit the interior highlands when the weather was at its most stable and accessible to my novice 4X4 driving. Toward the end of late August, we also knew that there would be periods of true darkness at the tail of the Icelandic Summer. This would give us a small chance of viewing the Aurora Borealis. Initially, Marianne and I had planned to drive through the interior in one day but two things changed our mind. Firstly, auroras themselves are remarkable to watch but we felt that an effective photograph should somehow encompass the location from which it was shot. What better location than steam from a geothermal area! Secondly, wherever we had internet access , I had been checking a very rough aurora forecast from this site: http://www.gi.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast
During our night in the interior, the forecast was for a moderate degree of auroral activity. As the sun set on this evening, there very few clouds in sight and so, we went to bed during the daylight hours and set our alarm for midnight. To our relief, the clouds had stayed away giving us a clear view of the night sky with a near full moon. This was an added boon as it gave the foreground illumination. Due to the clear skies, the temperature dipped to freezing and the surface became iced over. As we waited, and started to lose hope, the ribbons of light slowly began their dance across the skies. Imagine standing among steaming fumaroles by the light of the full moon while watching green lights of the aurora dance overhead.
This image was taken from the west coast of Heimaey , the largest of the Westman Islands of Iceland (Vestmannaeyjar). This was one of those shots where planning and weather all came together with a satisfying result. A very useful application for planning sunset and sunrise shoots as well as knowing moon phases, is the tool “The Photographer’s Ephemeris” , or TPE for short. (http://stephentrainor.com/tools) Knowing that we were going to be on Heimaey on the 17th of August, I used the tool to work out which of the distant islands might be a good subject for a sunset silhouette. The three seastacks of Stafnsnes, Hani and Haena off the west coast seemed ideal and with the aid of the tool, we were able to estimate when and where along the coastline we would have to be in order to see the sun setting behind these stacks. We were deceived initially by near horizontal motion of the sun but stuck to the estimates of the program and ended up with the above image.
One thing that keeps me wanting to stay up late for sunsets or wake early for dawn even in bad weather, is the prospect of rainbows. The above image of Ardvreck castle in Scotland was one that I had planned from looking at images on flickr and looking at TPE. In my mind, I had pictured taking some images of the castle side lit while standing on its southerly aspect. As we arrived at the scene one hour before sunset, heavy rain set in. Marianne and I parked the car facing the sunset and had a brief snooze while waiting for conditions to improve. During this time, patches of light started to appear ,which during rain, triggers ‘rainbow alert’! True enough, behind us and to the east of the castle was one of the most striking rainbows I’ve ever seen. Fearing the fickle nature of Scottish weather, I sprinted out to the west side of the castle and basically abandoned the preconceived plan of photographing the sunset and instead, focussed on the rainbow proper.
The second most remarkable rainbow I’ve seen was at the beautiful West Fjords of Iceland. The town of Bildudalur lies along a stretch of coast which faces north east ; perfect for shooting into the rising sun during Icelandic summer. The dramatic clouds certainly made dawn a wonderful scene but no sooner had the sun risen, did the rain set in. Turning around, we witnessed a rainbow disappearing into the clouds and spent the next half an hour photographing and generally standing in awe of the scene before us.
Weather phenomena always attract a group of photographers who will often set alarms at crazy hours to capture that eclipse, that incoming storm cell, that ferocious lightning storm or perhaps, that one time of the year when a given scene has unique lighting such as the ‘firefall’ phenomenon in Yosemite. Capturing the phenomenon itself takes a degree of technical proficiency which requires practice. However, my personal opinion is that once the technical aspects have been mastered , it’s time to let the journalistic or artistic aspect of photography take over. The image below was of the recent lunar eclipse. I happened to be in Melbourne at the time and wanted to show that context in the image somehow. As I was wandering the streets, it just so happened that the spire of Flinders Street Station was in a dream position.
Eclipse with a context?
For the next image below, summer storms had hit Adelaide and the reports on weatherzone.com.au showed multiple lighting strikes occurring toward the north of Adelaide. It would have been relatively straightforward to set up taking images of where most of the lightning was in the hope that a suitable composition would follow. I chose instead to achieve a composition I’d be happy with and prayed that lighting would magically fill the frame in the image. There was a risk that I’d just get a bunch of shots of jetty alone but fortunately, during my few hours there, just one lightning strike occurred in the desired location!
Lightning with a context
To sum up then, I would make the following points:
1. Be aware of the very many useful planning tools that will assist you with location and lighting: TPE would have to be high on the list of my favourite programs.
2. Look through as many images of the scene you plan to shoot and challenge yourself to come back with something unique. Don’t be afraid to take ‘that’ iconic shot though.
3. Know a little about weather and remember always to turn around when there is rain or you may miss a striking rainbow!
4. Lastly, as ever, go out and shoot! You can’t make your own luck if you’re not even out there!
Phillip Island Pinnacles in late afternoon light
-D
