Feeling Good

Do you sometimes doubt yourself? I do. And I have been lately. Am I ever going to improve as a photographer? Will my photos ever been great? I am sure most photographers feel like this from time to time.

Fortunately, this week I got my weekly email from Digital Photography School and there happened to be an article titled Start feeling GOOD about YOUR photography. It was like it was meant to be! Perfect timing in fact.

The authors first point was about starting to compare yourself to yourself three months ago, six months ago, even a year or so ago. You are your own benchmark for improvement.
Guess what I happen to be trying to do at the moment????? Sort through some holiday snaps from 2 years ago that got put on the back burner when bubs arrived. There are quite a lot of photos that I have come across that I am REALLY embarrassed to have taken. What was I thinking? My settings were terrible! There are some ones I am happy with though.

Another important point he made was about sharing your photos. Sharing what you go will also help you improve especially if you are open to critique from others. So, its a good thing I have started this blog to share what I do! I hope you will leave me comments if you wish!

The other point that sits pretty well with me is defeating gear envy. Yep, I get some pretty good gear envy from time to time..... and I know I shouldn't. I have a really good camera that I am happy with and I have upgraded my lens to a really nice piece of glass. So, I will try really hard to not get gear envy and really push my self to get everything out of the gear I already have! Interestingly enough, the photos from our holiday 2 years ago were taken on my original 350D with kit lenses, so I am very blessed to have been able to upgrade to some newer gear.

Anyway, here are some photos from a few years back. Ones I am happy with!

 Kaikora, New Zealand

 Seal Colony north of Kaikora

 

Hanmer Springs, New Zealand

 

Westport, New Zealand

The Event - Day 2

Coffee, Coffee, Coffee! Yes, I needed it after the Nikon Night. 

On our second day, we were treated to the keynote speaker, Jennifer B Hudson. Oh my goodness, what a beautifully creative woman she is. She seemed to have everyone in the room captivated and hanging on to every word she said. She creates very feminine and soulful pieces of artwork and she discussed some of her simple techniques that she uses. She also talked about purposeful posing of her models, both formal or spiritual. She shared how she analyses the models body, their arm length, leg length, flexibility and strength as all of this helps her to pose the model to suit their body and flatter their body. She also talked about communicating with the models, being genuine and creating trust and a bond with them.

Jennifer then had a model join her and we watched as she set up poses. She spoke softly to the model and guided her into the poses with such grace. It really was a delight to watch. She didn't bark orders at the model, and didn't physically move the model into the poses. She just spoke and occasionally demonstrated to the model the direction she wanted her to move in.

Check out her website to see her current and past works, they are such emotional pieces of work.
 


There was much excitement after this session, I received a text saying I had won a GoPro Camera from one of the stalls at the trade fair. I had been joking with my friend that I should buy one for my husband for his birthday.... now i didn't need to! Yay! I hardly ever win anything. I still haven't had a play with it, as I need to get a micro SD card. It is going to be fun. We can attach it to the bikes or helmets, take it to the beach, take it snorkeling or diving (never done either, but there is a first time for everything!), the list is endless!



Speaking of the trade fair, we also received a free mini tripod. It seems like a really sturdy little one, so I think it will be good to keep in the car or maybe for travelling. Might need to test it out with a larger lens on the camera, wouldn't want it to topple over! There were a number of stalls to look at with camera gear, editing and printing gear and companies that make the photo books for professionals. So many to choose from. It has given me some ideas though. I am shooting my very first wedding later in the year and they just want digital files. I have found some great ways to present the disc or USB to the clients to make it a little more special that just a disc in a case!

On the topic of weddings, the two final sessions we attended at the Event were with Rocco Ancora and Shireen Hammond. Both are professional wedding photographers from Melbourne.

Rocco's session was about post production work flow, which I found really helpful. He covered everything from capturing the photo through to exporting it for print or digital file. Learning how he named folders and files was really useful because I have known for a while my system isn't great and now I have started to 'file' my photos in a more systematic way.  Rocco then showed us his workflow for editing an image in Lightroom. I really liked this part as I have figured out the basics in Photoshop but need to learn some more.

Here is one of his wedding photos, Beautiful isn't it?!







Shireen Hammond's session was about posing and lighting. Gosh, she was a good presenter. It was her 50th birthday so she made us all sing Happy Birthday to her! She had a model Bride and Groom which she used to demonstrate how to pose them and use different lighting to create some beautiful effects. I have in my notes from this session to practice posing in the mirror! Sounds silly, but I guess if you can see how changing angles, tilting heads, tucking in elbows etc can look more flattering then it will be easier to put it into good use on the wedding day. No one wants a double chin in their wedding photo, right?  I also walked away from this session feeling motivated, Shireen didnt decide to become a photographer until she was 36 and now at 50 she is a Master! There is hope for me yet!

Isnt this a beautiful photo? I love the use of natural light.



And that was the end of our AIPP Event experience! We really wished we could have gone the following day too but sadly I had to go to work. I absolutely loved attending and came away really enthused about my photography. Hearing all these inspirational photographers got me thinking more and more about my journey and hence I started this blog.

Next post I will share some of my shots!

Katy

The Event - Day 1

In my last blog I mentioned that I had attended the AIPP The Nikon Event in Hobart last month. I thought I would share a little about what I did while I was there for two days.

You are probable wondering what it is? Well is is an annual photographic conference in its fourth year run by the Australian Institute of Professional Photographers. It runs over four days and is packed full of keynote speakers, seminars, workshops and not to mention, social events.

I attended two days as this is all I could squeeze in with work and the cost of it.  But it was an amazing two days. I attended with a friend that I studied at Uni with, she is now studying photography in Melbourne and asked me to join her. We were like to kids in a candy shop on the first morning. Excited to be attending but also a little nervous to be surrounded by so many talented and professional photographers.

The keynote speaker on our first day was Michael Kenna. He is an English born photographer that now lives in America. He was so fascinating to listen to. He attended a catholic school as a boy and was going to become a priest, until he discovered art and photography. Thank goodness he did, he has some absolutely beautiful photographs. To this day, he still shoots on film and intends to do so until he can no longer get film anymore. He spoke about he journey to becoming a photographer and his 40 odd years as a professional travelling the world. This was his very first time in Australia though! He even spent 11 years working on a project photographing Concentration Camps in Europe. There are some very moving images there.

Here is one of my favourites of his, Giza Pyramids, Study 5, Cairo, Egypt, 2009.



We attended a seminar from Grant Matthews, a fashion photographer who has photographed many many celebrities including Kylie Minogue in the early years and Jimmy Barnes/Cold Chisel. There were some interesting stories there!

After lunch, we hopped onto a bus and headed out to Frogmore Creek Vineyard (formerly known as Meadowbank) for a workshop with Liam West. This workshop was a Food/Wine Shoot and also included some wine tasting! :-) I dont have much experience with studio lighting, so I found this workshop really interesting. It was amazing to see all the tricks of the trade to get the wine bottles or the delicious food looking looking perfect. I took loads of notes so maybe sometime soon I can have a little play and attempt some food photography.

Here is what he created on the day.
 

That evening we attended the Nikon Night at the Henry Jones Art Hotel, in the Atrium area. It was so beautiful. I love going there for brunch or coffee, but this was something else. There were fairy lights strung up everywhere and big gas heaters. Such a winter wonderland! There was yummy canapes and an oyster bar, lots of tasty wine and bubbles. Dinner and dessert were a buffet, and boy was it delicious. We were definitely spoilt.

Not the best photo, but as you can see, it was rather pretty!

I will do a seperate post about day 2, otherwise it is rather long!

Katy

A new beginning!

Welcome to my new blog.

I love photography! There, I said it. It is out in the open.

Actually, if you know me, you would have already known how much i love photography.

Some may even say I eat, breath and sleep photography. My Husband would anyway! Apparently last week I was sleep talking about cameras.

So, what got me thinking about creating this blog? Any why a blog?

Well, ultimately one day I would love to be talented enough to have my own photography business. My own studio even. But I am one of these people that if I am going to do something, I want to do it properly. I want to be the best I can before I put myself out there in  business.

I figured that I need to learn as much as I can by reading journals, blogs and tutorials, attending workshops and seminars or even completing a course. And most or all, practice, practice, practice!

So what better way to ensure I continue learning and developing by creating a blog about my journey. I will post about new things I learn about my camera and equipment, new types of photography that I am yet to try and new post processing techniques. Maybe you can give me ideas too?

To get to ball rolling, I will share a a few photos I took a few weeks ago after I attended the AIPP (Australian Institute of Professional Photographers) Event 2013 here in Hobart. I came away from two days of talks and workshops feeling really inspired about the art of photography and yearning to learn more. It also coincided with  Dark MOFO, a winter festival of Art, Music and Food. This featured Ryoji Ikeda's Spectra, a light beam that reaches 15km up into the sky. A truly amazing spectacle that drew people from all walks of life to view it from their homes, the top of the mountain, from across the river and of course from the base of the light itself. 

This shot was taken from across the river on the Bellerive waterfront. 

(ISO 250, f/4, 6sec )

And this from the Summit of Mount Wellington.

(ISO 640, f/11, 15sec)


Hope you enjoy and see you for the next post.

Katy