A Walk Around Town: HDR

Nic and Lilly are away. It's the first time, I think, that I have been left to my own devices for a whole weekend!

Sounds good, but you know what - it's actually pretty lonely.

Anyway, yesterday afternoon I was doing a bit of research on HDR software. Our kitchen window faces north and through it I could see the colours of the late afternoon sun kick in... How could I resist that light? Well, I couldn't so I went for a walk around town:

If you're after information on Junee, or are thinking of making tracks here, check out Tourism Junee's site for details of attractions, events, accommodation and how to get here.

First Wedding: Five Lessons Learnt

So on Saturday I had the privilege of second shooting for well known Wagga wedding photographer Belinda Fraser. This was the first wedding I'd taken a camera along to that was neither friend nor family; this was the real deal and to put it simply I was filling my dacks!

But I survived! There were no big meltdowns or gear failing on me, it didn't rain, the earth didn't open up and swallow me whole and all in all it was a fantastic experience; one that I enjoyed immensely.

But what is the point of second shooting for a more experienced photog if you don't learn anything? Well, there is no point. So here are five things that I took away from the day...

1. Breath and Remain Calm...

I don't know about you, but I've always been prone to shutting down and going all tunnel vision when I'm really under the pump. Maybe that was helpful 10,000 years ago wandering across the savannah, but trust me, when you're shooting a group of people it really isn't helpful!

Keep a level head and slow down. Even if you only take a couple of seconds, look through your shots and force yourself to just take it a bit easy.

2. Keep It Simple. Stupid.

When I decided to accept Belinda's extremely generous offer to second shoot with her, I immediately jumped on the net and poured through hundreds, if not thousands of wedding photographs from all over the world. Why? Well I don't really know. I didn't use a single 'idea' and through observing Belinda, everything seemed to develop organically, or was a child of Belinda's prior experiences (I recognised some of the poses from our own wedding!). 

At the end of the day the bride and groom want a good record of their day and some nice, stylish, fun and flattering photos that they can hang on their wall and put into an album or book to look back on throughout the years and to one day show their grandkids. To this end I quickly realised that I had to trust my instincts, work from the basics and that the rest will come (especially true with a fun and outgoing bridal party!).

3. The Hands (and Bouquet) Matter! 

Going through my photos from the day I was pretty happy with most of them. But one thing that I did notice (and which did not occur to me at the time) was that in a lot of shots that I wasn't overly happy with, a big part of the disappointment with the image stemmed from the way the bride/bridesmaids had their hands and bouquet. 

Now this is not a criticism of them! After all it (a bouquet) is not something that you carry around with you every day! And hands' primary purpose are as tools, not to look good in a photo. This was something that I failed to recognise and treat at the time. 

4. Never Drop Your Guard

I don't mean you should walk around, fists up ready to unleash a left jab or right hook on an unsuspecting flowergirl, but to always be prepared for that candid or moment of unguarded expression.

I know from my own wedding (photographed by Belinda), some of our favourite images are candids, capturing the true characters of our family and friends; the people dearest to us (except Lilly, she was but a tiny entity!). You don't want to miss these fleeting moments of subject gold as you fiddle around trying to turn on, check settings etc.

5. Have Fun!

I know this is an oft offered piece of advice, but I can't reiterate it strongly enough. The bride and groom are after a fun day, you (I'm sure) would prefer a fun day and everyone wants to see images from when fun was had.

Sure, there's some serious stuff up front (and we can't undervalue the seriousness of the commitment) but afterward it's essentially a party to celebrate a couple's love and the coming together of two families (and a whole lot of hangers-on ie friends!). 

Looking back through the images in chronological order, there is a marked change and continued improvement in the quality of the image (not necessarily the technical quality) that coincides with when I started to relax and enjoy myself. Do this from the get-go and you're sure to come away with improved shots.

So there you go, five things from the first wedding ever shot in my capacity as a pro-photographer. But don't let the advice above be limited to weddings; truth is you could probably apply them all (well maybe not the bouquet advice) right across your photography experience.

What are your thoughts? I'd love to hear them...

As always, thank you for reading and don't forget to check out (and 'like'!) my Facebook page and have a browse through my galleries found through the menus above.

And one last thing: thank you to Sarah and Luke and the best of luck in your journey together.

- Will 

Returning Home

It has been many years since I dragged the camera out during a visit home to the Blue Mountains. So often our time is so scarce, flitting from one family to another for the catch-up lunch with the parents or afternoon tea with the grandparents that when we do get a moment to ourselves we just want to sit and, well, do nothing.

So it was a welcome change when we actually had the time to go for a walk out along the plateau from Mum and Dad's house. This was my playground growing up; the pine forest supplied us with trees to fell to build cubby houses and the native forest beyond that was our first introduction to the way the native world worked.

As a kid you can never truly appreciate the beauty or one's fortune of living in a place like I did. I honestly couldn't tell you how many times I've sat at the spot where the photo below was taken, but it would number in the hundreds and it has only been in the last few years that it has dawned upon me just how lucky we were to grow up with this as our back yard...

The view looking East toward Katoomba from Radiata Plateau. The bank of low cloud is the approaching sea breeze and signals the approach of the classic mountain weather of mist, drizzle and cold weather.

Boar's Head Rock; not the best angle to see the Boar's
head, but it does show the classic late afternoon sun on
those wonderful cliffs. Mt Solitary, having already succumbed
to the sea-breeze, looms out of the mirky background

A road into the wilderness. The fire-trail over Narrow Neck
is the first leg of many a trip into the Wild Dog Mountains
wilderness area. In the full size print you can just make out
the lone figure of a hiker heading up the trail.

Carcoar, Charlie and Colleen

Doorway - Icely Street, Carcoar

Over the Easter long weekend, our family made the usual trip from Junee to Katoomba; this time though, with the Good Friday holiday, we had the rare opportunity of making the trip in daylight!

The Belubula River runs through the
center of the village.

Carcoar is a small village, nestled in the Belubula Valley partway between Bathurst and Cowra in the State's Central West region. At one point it was the third most populous town west of the Great Divide, but has now slipped back to a sleepy but charming little village. The village itself, with its sheltered position, small cottages and numerous deciduous trees is reminiscent of a small English country village.

As a child and in my early teen years, I visited Carcoar quite often with my father to visit two sisters - Rita and Thelma, both well into their eighties - who owned a farm we used to fish, hunt and camp on. And because of this I have very fond memories of the place.

 While Nic and Lilly did a lap of the main street I wandered about with the camera.

Entrance - Icely St, Carcoar

Carcoar Courthouse

In the doorway of the local grocery shop sat an old bloke with, what I guessed to be his wife, standing behind them. Seeing the opportunity, I approached and asked whether or not I could take a couple of photos.

Their names are Charlie and Colleen...

Charlie and Colleen

Charlie and Colleen

After taking a few photos I got chatting to them both, asking about their history with Carcoar. As it turns out they both not only knew of my father (he had been visiting Rita and Thelma for a long time before I came along) but remembered his name, occupation and where we came from and all of this 15 or so years after our last visit.

Charlie finally displayed his dry sense of humour with his
explanation about the boxers' stance...

 As we were chatting Charlie quickly got up from his seat on the front step of their shop and took on the stance of an old school boxer. Looking behind me, a young boy stood there, mimicking his stance. Charlie took a couple of shuffles toward the boy who, with a bit of a chuckle took off to hide behind his fathers' legs (the family were walking down the main street). With a wry smile and seeing the confused look on my face he explained "Only one in town I still have bluffed..."

Tips and Tricks to Get That Cracking Panorama

A panorama image can loosely be described as an image with an aspect ratio of greater than 1:2 (ie its longest side is double or greater the length of its shortest side).

 Prior to the dawning of the digital world, quality panoramas were almost exclusively reserved for those with the beautifully crafted medium and large format panorama cameras such as the Hasselblad X-Pan or the Fuji G617. And while the quality was simply breathtaking, unfortunately so was the price for the kit!

The onset of digital changed all that...

With powerful computing and advanced software packages, suddenly the everyday photographer had the option of stringing multiple images together to create a single, panoramic image. This process was coined "stitching".

But is it as simple as blazing away across a scene and hitting "GO"?

Well no, it isn't. There are quite a number of factors that you must keep in mind right from the planning stage through to execution.

The Lens Can Make It, or Break It...

Normally, when you're planning an image that is to have a wide angle of view, you immediately go for your widest lens. These wide angle lenses allow you to fit a whole lot more of your scene onto the sensor and hence, into your image. But there are trade offs with cramming a whole lot into a single scene and for panoramas, the important one is distortion. 

Due to some pretty complex physics, a wide-angle lens will tend to distort horizontal and vertical lines, shapes and figures; the degree of the distortion depends on the distance of the object from the camera and the object's location in the frame: the closer it is to the edges the greater the distortion.

As you would well imagine, for a landscape, cityscape or interior, you have objects at all sorts of distances from the camera and plenty of straight lines! The issue then becomes one of misaligned elements at the boundaries of each individual image.

To combat this, use as long a focal length as is practicable as the longer the focal length, the less the distortion. If you must use a wider lens, then shoot in portrait orientation as this will minimise distortion of the horizon; arguably the most important element in a landscape. Actually, use a portrait orientation all the time!

Lock Your Settings

Even if you shoot in the more advanced shutter or aperture priority modes, there is still every chance that your exposure will change as you move through the scene. This will result in an obvious darkening or lightening of sections of your panorama. Locking the aperture will also maintain a uniform depth of field through the image. 

As you setup your panorama, take a few test images throughout the scene to determine the best overall exposure. Remember to always shoot with a bias toward the highlights as these are what you want to protect. Shadows are much more readily recovered and are no where near as ugly in a photo as blown highlights.

As well as locking the exposure, use either a custom white balance or one of the presets. It doesn't really matter either way; the main thing is that auto white balance is turned off for the same reason as you lock your exposure.

Don't forget your autofocus! Nothing will ruin a good panorama faster for the viewer than for the focal plane to vary through the image. Before you begin shooting your panorama, choose your point of focus and, with autofocus turned on, half-depress your shutter button to engage the autofocus. Once you are satisfied your focus is correct switch it to manual and begin shooting.

The presence of a polarising filter darkens the sky in the
center of the shot considerably, when compared to the
same image below, shot without a polarising filter.

Mount Your Camera, Take Off Your Filters  and Go!!!

Unfortunately it isn't enough to align one frame, you have to make sure your camera is level in both directions (imagine left to right and front to back). If you don't trust your eye, you can pick up a hotshoe bubble level pretty cheap and this will allow you to get the camera pretty close to dead level.

These two panoramas were shot at quite a short focal
length (20mm - 32mm in 35mm format) and this is particularly
evident in the distorted appearance of the fence on the left.

If you haven't already discovered how wonderfully deep blue a polarising filter can make a sky go out and buy one now! But make sure you take it off before you take your panorama as this effect varies with the angle from the sun. At 90 degrees (make a 'gun' with your thumb and index finger, point your index finger at the sun and your thumb will point roughly at 90 degrees) the effect of a polarising filter is at its greatest and this effect reduces as you move closer toward the sun. The result of this is a glaringly obvious graduation in the colour of the sky as you move through your panorama.

I'd love to hear any feedback you may have and it would be great if you shared your pano's with us. As always, you can follow me on Twitter or Facebook.

- Will