Category Archives: photography

Not my style, but sure I’ll give it a go

I’m not much for conferring, but practical workshops . . . yes please.   This year the Photographic Society of New Zealand conference was held in Lower Hutt, a mere 40 minutes drive from where I live.   Along with favourite genres like macro and nature, I took workshops in genres that are definitely off-brand for me.  Specifically, fashion photography, complete with giant soft boxes and carefully posed trained models.   I’m happy with what I managed to snap, and maybe I’ll try that sort of style for real.  Although with faces that have a little more weathering and a lot less makeup.  But having the fancy lighting, that is nice.

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Genoa at dusk

Genoa harbour

We are enjoying a ridiculous one month whirlwind tour of Italy, savoring the mid-winter no-tourist vibe.  Weather-wise it mostly like pleasant spring weather at home.   Genoa was a one-day stop on the way to Nice, but turned out to be packed with surprises, and it’s been marked as “next time and stay longer” on the imaginary travel planner.

After a busy day wandering through the quite fab aquarium and history of the sea museum my husband, ex-navy and with a marine biology degree was in high degrees of happy place (and okay, I was pretty happy too).  On the way back to our accommodation we happened to pass a former palace now a museum (as you do in Italy),  an hour or so before closing.  The art was excellent, the galleries pleasingly empty, but just as we were about to head down stairs a guard suggested there was just time to take the lift to the roof.   So, amazing unexpected views across the roofs of Genoa, at about 4.45pm.

Lesson for next time: must remember to put the pocket tripod in ones pocket, just in case.

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Baboon processed 2 ways

Baboons, despite being the most evil of all apes, are quite photogenic, with eerily human-like eyes and looks-like-a-smile-but-it’s-not mouths.  Dithering about processing this chap, to colour swap or not?  Either way, I’m glad that viewing glass at the zoo is thick, even though it does make taking photographs harder!

Photographed with the IR modifed camera, and a 590nm filter

Another version of that friendly smile

Bitey ape

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October in Wellington = NZ Improv Festival!

So, 20-27th October, stop everything else, it’s time for the annual Improv Festival in Wellington.  This year I was one of the volunteer photographers, and also ran a workshop and co-directed a show based on that workshop, took a bunch of other workshops, got on stage, and had a most excellent time catching up with improv friends old and new.  I saw some of my photos from festivals past blown up super large on walls about the town, which is an oddish thing.  Here’s just a sample of some pictures from a wild week.

 

 

Distracted by baubles

Such a silly, simple camera toy – a small glass ball, costing about $8.  But, great fun to take a photograph or ten through, until the novelty wears off, just as the technique is mastered.  These came out a little differently using the infrared modifed camera as the light doesn’t reflect on surfaces in quite the usual way.  Done with it for now, but I might revisit a few monuments with it, it functions as an extremely wide angle lens, so quite good for the kind of places that you usually can’t quite fit in due to other buildings and such.

Eh, lookee, I won a thing!

Well, I won a part of a bigger thing, the macro segment of The 2018 Sigma D-Photo Amateur Photographer of the Year.  I’ve not won anything like this before, possibly because I’ve timidly not entered any infrared macro photos in any competitions. There’s even a nice prize lens coming my way.

So check this months D-Photo magazine, turn to page 42 and, look, it’s my butterfly, among some other darn fine photos all plucked from the 13,000+ entries in the competition overall this year.

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White Knight