Kirsty and Drew : The long and short of March 17

On March 17, Marianne and I had the privilege of photographing Kirsty and Drew’s wedding. The weather forecast was all doom and gloom earlier in the week but we were  happy to see the heavy rains fall a few days early. This meant that  Saturday was a beautiful day for celebrations. Blue sky days aren’t ideal for wedding photography due to harsh lighting but that certainly did not put a dampener on what was a fabulous day. Once again, we were overhwhelmed with the friendliness and geniality shown to us; something which always helps us photograph the day. The ceremony was held at Horseshoe Bay in Port Elliot while the reception shifted to the Blues Restaurant just outside of Middleton.

With this post, I thought I’d show some of the advantages and luxuries of having two photographers on the day. First of all, during bride and groom preparation, there is no rush for us to head to each venue sequentially. Rather, we have enough gear to split up the shoot between us simultaneously. To date, I have carried the 7D with 10-20mm sigma , 16-35mm F2.8 and the 70-200 F2.8 lens. This gives me the capability to go ultra wide, or ultra long if I need to for detail shots. I end up using the 16-35mm on the crop sensor for most of the shoot. Marianne has photographed the bride with the 5dmkII and 24-70mm F2.8 lens. She rarely deviates from this but has the 135mm F2 lens in her bag if required.

Preparation details photographed independently

Once we are at the ceremony, I usually focus on details with the 7D + 70-200mm lens while Marianne stays wide to capture the whole scene and traditional portraits with the same setup as for the bridal preparation. Usually, I arrive at the scene with the groomsmen which gives me some time to try a panorama. To date, I have not found it possible to do a panorama including the bride and groom as there are inevitably people standing in the way beyond our control.

Soldier's Memorial Gardens : Port Elliot

Sand ceremony in context and detail

Rings in context and in detail

After the ceremony was over, we took a short drive to the clifftops around Horseshoe Bay where there were great opportunities for both short (wide) and long lens images. These gave different perspectives of the same scene.

Long lens shot atop the cliffs

Wide angle from atop the jetty

Long lens image taken from 100m back of the same scene above

Wide angle image of the tracks

Long lens image of the same tracks

We always appreciate quality time for location shoots and we felt that we had plenty of time for Kirsty and Drew compared to many other weddings we have photographed. Once the location shoot was over, we headed to the Blues restaurant in Middleton whose food we had the pleasure of tasting thanks to our hosts

Wide angle shot of the beachouse accommodation

Long lens shot of the same scene above

Wide angle coverage of the bridal waltz

Longer lens coverage of the same scene

Shortly after the bridal waltz, Marianne and I headed back home to Adelaide where once again, Charlotte had proven to be very ‘baby-sittable’. We had a great time photographing the day and are preparing for our next wedding before a four week break, another wedding, then off to New Zealand!! Congratulations again Kirsty and Drew and thanks for your hospitality throughout the day

That was the long.......

....and the short of March 17

Until next time! (ps. some 5dmkIII shots from the next wedding too

-D

New Beginnings

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

Food for Thought

Every now and then I like to drop by Guy Tal’s photography blog.  I am a fan of Guy’s work, simply because I admire the way he sees the world; I often say to Dylan, “That’s a Guy Tal shot” when I can’t see the composition in a location that I know has the potential to yield a great image.

Guy resides in Utah and is a full time professional photographer and writer.  His blog posts are at the same time confronting and thought-provoking.  I find that many things people say behind closed doors, Guy has no qualms in voicing his opinion about.  His posts under the categories “Rants and Raves” and “Thoughts and Musings” are particularly interesting.  

See what you think!

-M

The Rise of the Armchair Expert

These days, information about any facet of life seems to be at our fingertips. Whether it be through internet search engines, library databases or other forms of intangible media, we are spoiled for access to data. With such a variety and number of sources available, it also seems that our attention span dedicated to one particular area of interest is also diminishing.  As a result  of this information excess , a new breed of critic ; the armchair expert has arisen.  This new breed of forum spamming monster pays no heed to their own ability, nor the reputations of others. They often have limited (or no) experience on the field of their chosen areas of pseudo-expertise  yet display supreme confidence when actions are not required to back up words. Armed with a few phrases found on Wikipedia, a few quotes from random search engines and a lightning quick ability to press [Ctrl-C] and [Ctrl-V], they will shoot down anyone who dares to encroach their turf. Call them the grim reaper of tall poppies perhaps, call them a group of left wing internet socialists, call them what you like. But once spotted, their words can be a great source of ironic amusement.

With that introduction in mind , I’d like to draw your attention to the following link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrerabelo/70458366/

This image of a cyclist was taken by a famous photographer (Cartier-Bresson). I’m very poor on my photographic history and had no idea that this was a famous image.  It was presented as a joke to flickr group (photosharing site) in which participants voted to keep the photo or delete it from the group with some kind of rationale behind their decision.  There was a flurry of comments regarding its slight motion blur, flatness, lack of depth of field and poor composition. Those “in the know” sat back and chuckled or frankly abused the nay-sayers.  I must admit that on first glance and even on closer inspection, I’d have to agree with most of the critique given even if it was all on technical grounds.

One could criticise those with a negative view of the image for being the so called armchair expert, the theory based expert focussing entirely on the technical concepts of photography without taking artistic interpretation into account. On the other hand, I’m also quite sure that many of those who took the righteous stance of defending the image were equally guilty of being internet art critiques who had stumbled across this image through many hours of ‘research’ . Many from both groups were undoubtedly proficient photographers but many were just as likely those who freely give opinion and are yet unable to produce anything of similar quality themselves. What exactly is my point then? It seems that nowadays, advice is so freely given and so easily researched online, that it’s often nearly impossible to differentiate between a true expert in the field and pseudo-armchair expert. In fact, the armchair expert may be more eloquent in his argument since he invests far more time in commenting rather than doing. Sometimes, just sometimes though, the armchair expert is caught out on nuance and hence my approach is to take anything I read online with a grain of salt.

Here are a few random examples of critique on my images by some armchair experts which you may or may not agree with.

“I would clone out the power lines and the hiker”

Annapurna Ranges, Nepal

I blame the sophistication of software for these kinds of comments. Adobe Photoshop’s ‘content aware fill’ allows the user to select an area of the scene and with one click, quite effectively remove a feature from the image while filling it in with the surrounding elements. The ease of ‘cloning out’ among other tools has very likely created an era of photographers who shoot first, compose later. In the above image, I like to think that part of the image was supposed to depict man in the environment and the scale of the surrounds? Perhaps I failed in that intent and people thought I was trying to depict wilderness alone.

“You should make the sky brighter than the reflection”

“You should clone out the flowers from the foreground”

Sure, if I wanted a 100 % faithful replication of the scene I could do that. But given that I had used a wide angle lens to distort depth perception , used filters to even out the gradient of light from the scene and accentuated colours in the sky I’m not sure why I should be trying to bring back reality to the image in the reflection.  I found it a strange detail to criticise. I really don’t know what to say about the flowers and cloning them out. Does it look accidental that they are there?

“The image is dark”

In my defence, it was taken at night……..

“You’ve ruined a perfectly good image”

Hrafnntinnusker Sunset : RAW file

Hrafntinnusker Sunset: Edited file

The top image is what came straight out of the camera in RAW format. The second is how I had chosen to process the image.  The background to this image is that it was 1030pm after a long day of hiking and I had gone out to the toilet to find a glowing red sunset. I rushed back in to get the camera and photograph the scene of Iceland’s incredible interior. In reality, the mountain was glowing red and the black sands dotted with bright tents.  When displaying this scene to someone else, is it more important to portray exactly what the scene looked like or to portray how I felt when I was sitting there in awe?  To me , I think it  is the latter that is more important and that is the approach with which I present all of my landscape photographs.  Often that means exaggerating colours and the depth of a scene to the point of unreality. While I appreciate differences in opinion, I believe I have highlighted the reasons in a previous blog post why any image straight out of the camera is just as unlikely to portray the reality in a  scene anyway.

“This picture has too much contrast and has an unusual crop”

This brings me to my last point about armchair critique. Critique from this source often follows the current opinion of a body of experts in the field. The current trend in wedding and portrait photography is to present images in flat, washed out tones with a slight sepia tinge akin to an aged photograph.  Also, for ease of printing,every image should be presented a standard 6X4 crop. I love wedding photography not just for the technical aspects of it but for the joy and happiness you can feel from sharing in the couple’s day. To me this translates as colour and vibrance and so, why not put that into images. As for the printing issue , we could just inform our clients to tell printers not to crop images when printing instead of limiting our composition. I have no issue with those who choose to process their images according to what seems now accepted as the norm but it seems there are those who choose to dislike the fact that our images don’t necessarily conform to a perceived industry standard.

This is my rant for the day. You should of course believe my every word because of the armchair expertise I’ve tried to demonstrate. 

-D

‘Shop ’til you drop

If you are a photographer, have you ever been asked by someone looking at your work “did you photoshop these pictures?”.  And when they asked that question, did you notice the tone with which they asked the question? Sometimes it may come across as an accusation, sometimes it may sound like an apologetic enquiry and sometimes, the question isn’t even asked but instead, replaced with a comment such as “these aren’t real, you’ve photoshopped them!!!”. In this growing world of self proclaimed experts, people continue to show ignorance through the dangers of partial knowledge acquisition. So here I am, about to rant ironically about my expertise in a generation Y old debate: To ‘shop or not?

The Quiraing : Isle of Skye - Unabashedly Photoshopped!

How did you answer these questions? At one point in time, I’d cower away and try to minimise the amount of post processing done to an image :“Oh, not much, just a little bit of colour alteration and sharpening”. Nowadays though, my standard response is a much more confident “Yes, I used photoshop and I loved every mouse-clicking, squint-inducing hour of the day spent doing it”

Like any controversy which bears no relevance to the meaning of life, there seems to be two camps firmly entrenched in their beliefs of moral superiority. On one side, we have the so-called purists, those who believe that the only image worth raving about is the completely unedited, perfectly taken image of pure spontaneous class. I’ll call this side, the SOOC club (straight out of camera). On the other side, we have the pixel perfectionists, those who believe that only image worth raving about is the image with not a pixel out of place, not single highlight blown, with features of interests lying along Fibonacci spirals and intersections of thirds. For ease of argument, I’ll call this group the  shoppers (short for photoshoppers <said with derogatory tone> ) Like any controversy whose polarities are strong, the best outcome often lies somewhere in the middle.  Let me for a day, take the side of the shoppers.

Annapurna Sunset : I want you to believe!

I’ll start my argument with another question. What is the purpose of photography for you? It is a personal question that only you can answer. For me, there are many ways to answer the question. My interest in landscape photography stems from the love of hiking, running and the sense of solitude and freedom in the wild outdoors. Hence, with the images I present, I hope to present to the viewer not only the scene itself but something of an emotional representation of the scene. Colours and light do a lot to tell that story. If it was a grey, horrible day, I’m often feeling uninspired and grey myself, so I’ll often present an image as monochromatic. Usually, my emotions are dominated by a sense of euphoria and my representation of this is with colour. I make no apologies therefore, if some of the images don’t look ‘real’ for that reason. It is what I would like you the believe the scene can be, even if only partly in your imagination.

Slioch: Scotland. My memory is of pink in the sky.

Let’s take my euphoria and colour addiction aside for one moment. For some people, the purpose of photography is to present the scene as close to reality as it can be. Does that mean that no editing of photographs should be allowed? If you thought yes, then consider the following points about light :

-         The so called dynamic range of the best cameras today is about 6 stops of light. (1 stop of light equates to either a doubling or halving of the exposure time/ISO required to achieve the correct exposure for any given scene) The dynamic range of the human eye is debatable but is thought to be equivalent to 20 stops of light. As a practical example, when you are standing on a beach talking to someone at sunset, what do you see? You’ll be squinting but you will be able to make out a face as well as the details in the sky simultaneously. Expose correctly for the face with a DSLR and the sky is blown bright white. Expose for the sky, and the person you are talking to becomes a pure silhouette. To overcome this, many photographers either use filters or blend exposures or even adjust the shadows and highlights in photoshop. Which is the more real of the results??

Korpudalur: Three exposures to compensate for dynamic range limitations

-     The sensitivity of light in the human eye adjusts to the conditions based on what happens in our retina and the size of our iris. In DSLRs, ISO settings represent the changes in our retina in terms of light sensitivity while the aperture acts as our iris. When you are standing in a dark room (eg cinema) and turn to talk to your friend, do they look grainy or blurred to you? Even with the best DSLRs, high iso in dark conditions results in a degree of ‘noise’ in an image. To overcome this, photographers may lengthen the exposure with a lower ISO, or use ‘noise’ reduction in photoshop (or other programs). Which is the more real of the results??

Aurora in Iceland : High ISO shooting and noise reduction

-         The human eye is capable of seeing objects with sharp refined edges. The limitations of DSLR sensors by default, produce images whose components are put together by tiny individual components of the sensor. When you look at something through a microscope, if it is in focus, it is still sharp? When you magnify an image on DSLR down to the pixel is it still sharp? (no). To overcome this, photographers may use processes such as sharpening in photoshop. Which is the more real of the results?

 Another argument frequently touted by the SOOC side, is that in the old days, film photographers never had access to photoshop and still produced beautiful images. So are we , in this digital age cheating now that we have access to photoshop , lightroom and other such tools at our disposal? If you thought yes, then consider the following points:

-         What did film photographers have to do to produce their images after taking them in the field?  They developed them in the darkroom. Techniques such as dodging, burning, cross processing all stem from what used to be done in the dark room but now can be done with a click of a button. In fact, with photoshop ‘actions’ several of these functions can be done at once. Film photographers had the darkroom with which to manipulate their images prior to presentation. DSLR photographers now have a wealth of software with which to do the same. To me, the darkroom is a complete enigma and I wouldn’t know where to start. The post processing side of photography has become simpler and more available to the general public. While some see this as a trivialisation of a previous skill, I see it as a good thing. With an ever increasing baseline standard of knowledge, it requires even more exceptional ability (combined with rampant self promotion) to stand out among the poppy field of competence.

Buchaille Etive Mor: I'm no Ansel Adams but I dabble in black and white sometimes

-         Does the ease and availability of modern software to post process have any bearing on how an image should be presented? Perhaps ask yourself if you would prefer to use a calculator or a slide-rule for maths equations ……weighted scales or electronic scales to weigh an object…..a mobile phone or a telegram to transmit an urgent message……internet search or a manual library catalogue search for your latest research assignment……a bus or a horse  & cart to travel to the nearest city. I guess the bottom line of those questions : We use what technology is at our disposal to achieve an outcome more efficiently (though in some cases, not always with a better result).

 There are many more arguments to present from this side of the fence and no doubt arguments which can be presented from the other side of the fence. Lately, I’ve been post processing images from our 2010 vacation as well as our recent wedding shoots. Unless I can be convinced otherwise, I will continue to ‘shop til I drop’.

-D

Eilean Donan Castle : Maybe a time warp would be good for all of us.