Photo Buddies

I've  always known my photography improves when I use my camera more frequently.  I also know my photography improves when I have time to clear my head and just live in my photographic world.  What has become more apparent to me over the last couple of years is the role "photo buddies" play in improving my photography.

Just knowing other photographers doesn't necessarily make a big difference although it does help.  Hanging around other photographers certainly makes a difference to me.  However, it is when I have a connection and a trust and respect for the photographers I am with, that my photography improves in spades.

I first learnt this a few years ago when I did my initial digital course with Greg Dickens (http://www.photosydney.com.au/)  The lessons were fabulous.  The regular schedule of learning and practice made a great difference but it was really after the course had finished and I realised what a supportive group I had grown to know and depend on that the penny finally dropped!  What we had was a group of like minded people of varying skill level who continued to shoot together.  That's when my work stepped up a notch.

A couple of years ago I finally had the courage to front up to the local camera club.  Surprise! Surprise!  Here on my doorstep was a whole group of fantastic photographers who had found a way to build networks and friendships with other people of similar interest and passion.  I was in awe of their collective skill and loved the way I saw them encourage each other.  It took a while and a few baby steps, but after a few months I too had found some "photo buddies" to hang out with, to ask for critique and to build friendships.

About 15 months ago, having retired after 40 years in education, I took a huge leap of faith and signed up for a full year's Master Class with Len Metcalf.  (http://lensschool.com/) If my beginner's course and my camera club activities had made a huge difference to my photography, this intensive mentoring allowed me to find myself photographically.  It challenged me in ways I had not been challenged before and it gave me the confidence to call myself a photographer, rather than a recent retiree.  Both are accurate descriptions, but it is my photography that owns me at the moment.  Retirement is the luxury that allows me to be a photographer.  Not a working professional, but an actual practicing photographer.

So now, a fair way down the path, I have some amazing photographers that I hang out with.  Each time I do I learn something.  When my "photo buddies" are around I have the luxury of time and opportunity to live in my photographic space.

In this last week alone I have had two separate opportunities and have returned form both with a new richness and new ideas.  The images I captured may not be hero shots, but they were a means to an end.  A way of experimenting, of trying new ideas, of seeking feedback, of sharing and of having fun!

The first opportunity was 5 nights down the south coast.  Thanks to Sue and Kay for their hospitality, good humour, red wine and encouragement.  The second opportunity was an evening shoot with Len Metcalf's group in the city near The Rocks.  Again, a great chance to practise a few ideas and to talk about what we were doing.

If you are keen about your photography and frustrated about where and what to shoot and how to improve, I can't stress enough the value of finding a group of like minded photo buddies.  Get along to your local camera club, enrol in a course, be proactive in taking every opportunity that comes your way, force yourself to be a bit social when you are with other photographers.  For every bit of effort you put in you will double what you take from it!


This post is among other things a recognition of the generosity of photographers and photography.


I've posted a few new images from last week.



Enjoy!

Nostalgia

Today is a good time to revisit some old images thru new eyes.  Earlier in the day I had the privilege of returning to one of my old schools and seeing so many wonderful young people and their parents catching up with old friends and teachers and celebrating all that is special about our schools.

No matter what nonsense is being promoted by governments desperate to get a quick boost in the polls, schools remain such a special place in our society.  Like few other institutions, they are a constant that links us all.   Today, it was such a day.  150 years of continuous education, of families, of kids, of dreams and of successes.  It was a privilege to be there.

Returning home tonight I felt I needed to dig back into some images that I'd taken some time ago and had put away not knowing how to show them at their best.  Having now installed all my Nik Software and needing some practice, I have let my old friend "Nostalgia" out for the night.

Some of these images do look better having been locked away for some time.  Others needed to be culled and headed straight to the Trash.


Enjoy!  I will keep adding to this post over the next couple of days as I dig out some new treasures.




These few images were taken in the area around Cairns in January during the wet season.

Port Douglas (above)

Mossman Gorge (above and below)

The cyclone winds were ripping around when I took this image (above) looking out towards the Coral Sea.

Bloggers block

I had the best day out photographically yesterday!!

Didn't necessarily get the image to beat all images but just being out in the bush, a different season every 30 minutes from soft overcast light to howling winds and rain and the most amazing billowing mist swirling up through the cliff tops.  I took far too many images and have been working the delete button pretty hard.  However what I did get was some time to be outdoors with a couple of other crazy women with our cameras and tripods and I had time to look at the landscape and think about what I want to take over the next few weeks.

It was the best practice session I could have imagined.  I was telling a friend today how much Len Metcalf's (http://lensschool.com.au/) insistence that we know our camera inside out and back to front has paid off.  I gave my camera a really good work out and with it blew a lot of the cobwebs from my own mind.  I came back quite exhilarated.  Fresh air, exercise, creativity, good company, laughter ...

A great day.

But today isn't a blogger's day.  It's not coming, so instead, a few images from the upper Blue Mountains on the 1st of June 2011.   Today I'll let the images speak.

I'm trying to sort out a bit of a new style to show these gums.  (above) It'll take a while.  I can see it, I just have to make it happen.

What is it about waiting?

What is it?  I am always waiting for something but sometimes the "something" is a bit more special.  Today is one of those days.

Today I'm waiting for news from Sweden as my dear friend (and ex exchange student) is about to have  a baby.  It's been coming for months (as they usually do, nothing different about this in Sweden) but as the last few days get narrowed down to just a single day, I am thinking about what's happening and waiting on some news.

I've also been waiting on my Nik Silver box to be delivered.  It has been a few days since it was ordered and I can't wait to see what magic it can do with some more of my images.

It's raining - actually it's pouring and so heavy that somewhere close by on the low lying areas, there have to be overflowing creeks.  I'm a bit partial to rain and we haven't had much this month so the last 2 days of May are putting that all to rest.

My fingers are itching to get out in the wonderful light and start snapping away with my camera.  I occupied myself a little while ago by hiding undercover in the carport and taking a few snaps of the last leaves on my maples and seeing light that reminded me of European light.  Such a change from the harsh bright Australian light we usually have at this time of the day.

And suddenly, just like that! one of the three "waiters" have arrived!  The postal delivery bloke (who now remembers my first name) has just knocked on the door with my Nik silver!  Yeah!!!  Now to open and install.

Something has changed here in Australia with the way we do business or where we look for a bargain.  (Eat your heart out Gerry Harvey!) No longer are we stuck with the inflated and ridiculous prices that some of our long time stores charge, we can now hunt them down online.  Even buying online from a group that has an Australian outlet (or address) offers so much more in competitive prices than do the local stores.  While I want to support local jobs, there comes a time when the obvious mark up and the company profits that some of our bigger traditional distributors announce, make it very easy to go online and buy at a far better price.

If anyone is interested, here is where I look for a bargain photographically speaking.   None of these places have ever let me down and they have always offered a far better deal than the local mall.

http://www.digitalcamerawarehouse.com.au/

http://www.d-d-photographics.com/


http://www.dwidigitalcameras.com.au/store/index.asp

http://www.adorama.com/

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/

http://shopping.netsuite.com/

http://gicleemedia.com.au/


And as is my usual want, a couple of images I've taken over the last day or so as I have been "waiting".  These were all taken in or around my home.

Enjoy!

And so it was Autumn

Love Autumn!  Love the light, the colour, the aromas that begin to come from kitchens working and wood burning (sorry I know that's not good for the environment but I do love the smell of logs burning slowly).

I always dream for months about what I will shoot next Autumn.  Autumn comes and I'm still dreaming, planning, waiting... The local trees are never quite "right" .... another day, another week, another location...

The story is the same each year and suddenly, rather than waiting for Autumn to come and be at its best, I'm chasing images because Autumn is leaving and I wasn't on the bus again!!

However, when I look back at my collections from previous years it is this late Autumn bloom that I really love the most.  Less leaves on the trees, more blue skies, more light paths thru the branches, more shades of colour.

And so it is this year as it always is.  Panic sets in that I've missed the darn event again so off I head to see what is left.

I've recently spent a week with my elderly mother driving around the  country, enjoying the beautiful Autumn weather and seeing some of the country thru new eyes.  I'll add a post about the whole Thelma and Doris trip a bit later but today, I just want to celebrate Autumn.

A few images here that I grabbed a couple of days ago when a bunch of retired women were up at Norman Lyndsay's Gallery in the Blue Mountains planning a photographic workshop that we are running in September and as we were leaving we saw some wondrous mushrooms that we've not seen in these parts before.  http://www.normanlindsay.com.au/

I headed back in the mid afternoon and as I'm wont, I ignored the mushies and followed my heart to chase down wispy Autumn impressions.  Just a few attached here.

Enjoy!

(Above) Impressions from one of the fountain pools with bubbles from the water drops and colour from the overhanging Autumn foliage.

This one (above) is my favourite.  I've just printed it and I'm about to frame and hang in the house.  It looks stunning (if I can be so bold?)

Where does clarity come from?

I had a fabulous photographic trip to Eastern Turkey last year with Peter Eastway through World Photo Adventures.  ( http://www.worldadventures.com.au)


From this marvellous photographic experience, the question is asked; what do you do with your images?  Frankly,  I have far too many and there is some learning in that for me for the future.  I think I would have done well to try to cull some while still on tour so the task at home is a little faster.


I travelled with my notebook and 2x500g external drives and downloaded daily with Lightroom.  Some of the early edits were uploaded to my picasaweb album.
https://picasaweb.google.com/shirley.steel/FANTASTIKTURKEY2010#


Anyone looking at this will realise that these were fast and furious in the digital darkroom and that I need to cull hard but I also need to do a better job on processing.


Since returning, I have printed and framed a couple, selling one at our class' exhibition late last year.  (Thankyou Helen!) I also uploaded a more restricted and better chosen selection to my phase site.
http://www.pbase.com/ssteel/turkey_2010


However, as anyone who has undertaken similar trips will know, there really is a strong desire to have your best printed in such a way that you and friends and family can share and enjoy.  So, like others before me, I am preparing to publish them in a book.  I've given myself the rest of the year to get this major project completed.  I might even wrap it for under the Xmas tree "from me to me"!


This will be my first attempt at a book.  A coffee table book that I can proudly display and fondly look through.  It might even act as a reminder to save for my next trip?


Here's the rub ... I've got  a few too many preconceptions about what to choose.  I've got the bias that comes from the first images I chose to quickly edit and upload, I'm caught having seen some amazing images of the others on tour, including the leader, Peter Eastway who has already published quite a number as illustrations in articles he's been writing on a range of topics.  Some of these are just fabulous.  So, can I find anything that is mine, unique, something that speaks of my experience and my vision and voice?  My photo buddies will laugh at this point and suggest I could devote the whole damn book to weeds or blurred images as they reckon these are the "Shirley Shots" that are so recognisable.


Well, I don't know whether this is right for me or not???


A few weeks back in my masterclass, Len Metcalf and the group were mulling over the selection I'd brought in from Turkey.  I was being a bit anal and systematically ticking every stopover off and attempting to find the best from each venue and try to get a mix across all genres and ideas.  


Well, I thought it was a plan???  And I like plans.  So, here I was, listening to people ask me question like "how do we know it's Turkey?" and "this doesn't say Turkey to me" and my response of course was, "well, I was there and I took these images and the *&%$# title will be Turkey, so what the hell???"


By now I'd figured peer review and input was not going anywhere.  Why did I even waste the ink?   And then something happened.  Old wise Len looked at them (he'd been doing this for some time) and pulled 3 out of the mix, laid them down and said, as only Len can ..... "There you are.  That's your book.  Mono!"  And you know, when  I looked with clear eyes, and not eyes shrouded with a lot of other images and bias, I too could see it.


So, my friends, sometimes "clarity" comes to us in the strangest and in quite unexpected ways.  


I've continued since that night to work on my images, slowly revisiting them with new eyes.  Black and White eyes.  It makes a difference.  This time, by looking at them as a mono image, I don't see them as hastily edited and uploaded from the hotel room in Turkey.  I don't see them as the images of my buddy travellers.  I don't see them as Peter's images from his magazine.  I see them with new eyes and I see them as my images.  


A new confidence, a new energy and a new purpose in working on my book.


I think I'm actually going to do 2 books.  


My friend Lidia (check her out, her work is stunning! http://www.redbubble.com/people/dopera) has given us a fabulous checklist of pros and cons for Momento and Blurb.  My Black and White book will be with Momento.  I will then do a second book with no preconceived notion of colour and I'll publish this with Blurb.  It will be slightly smaller and less expensive.  


Clarity is a clearness, or so the dictionary says.  It's also a really lovely slider in Lightroom.  


A tiny, tiny sample of some of the "new images I'm considering for my book.  NB  These are not final edits, just a few that I had already exported and resized for web.


Enjoy! 

This last one (above) is not mono yet, but I really like it.  It speaks of quirky.  Here I was in the New Mosque in Istanbul, having just been introduced to the Foreign Minister who was leaving the mosque at the end of Ramadam.  The mosque was at its beautiful best.   We had been invited to share the sweet treats left after the service and we spent 30-40 minutes by ourselves, headscarfs, cameras, no shoes and our small tripods.  An amazing experience.  I couldn't help but see the beauty in this single electric light hanging by itself but framed by the architecture inside the mosque.  A contradiction and a moment of beauty.

Inspired by talk of heavy metal

Strange what suddenly refocuses your thinking????  Sometimes a word is all it takes.

A small group of us from our local photography club are committed to working on a personal project of passion this year.  Just a fancy way of saying that we are going to commit to do something special that gives us both joy and a bit of pain and that we agree that we will present it for viewing at the end of October.  These things are not new and the last couple of years we've called it a portfolio.   It's actually a great thing to do.  And having to commit with a group ensures that I "deliver" and not just have it as an ongoing thread that never finishes.

Where am I going with this????  Well, tonight we had our first round table discussion and while we were talking one of our group mentioned some old machinery and that led me to comment on a fabulous book I own Take Tour Photography to the Next Level.  It's written by George Barr and published by Rocky Nook.  Highly recommend it.  George Barr is easy to read and by way of illustration he has many images of machinery, hand tools, metal and ordinary things.  None of them are the pretty chocolate box image but every one of them is an interesting image.  I never tire of reading and rereading it.

So home I come and pick it up again and flip through it and I begin to reminisce about some of the old machinery and pieces of metal that have attracted my attention and I've often wanted to photograph.  And then I remembered!!!!  I have all these lovely images I took at Tarana a couple of weeks back that I haven't finished playing with.

So, here for your enjoyment  (and my satisfaction) are some more of my metal images from Tarana.  One of the things I love the most about knowing how to use a camera is the way it can make the ordinary seem extraordinary.  I look through the viewfinder in the right light, with the right sort of moisture in the air, some wispy movement in the surrounds and suddenly an ordinary shape becomes a star in its own right!  Magic, pure magic!

I warn you, I'm going to add too many - yes, I know I have recently learnt to be more discerning and leave people wanting to see more .... but not this time.  This is a celebration!

Enjoy ....

PS  I am back 2 days later and finishing the upload (I'd realised at around midnight that maybe I wasn't going to be able to sleep if I stayed in my photography zone, so I wisely turned it off) and today my books from Amazon have arrived and included is the next George Barr book as well as a couple from David du Chemin and a fabulous one from Bruce Barnbaum.  I have so many beautiful photography books that I will start a section on the blog.  I always love reading everyone else's reading list.

OK, I lied.  This one (above) is not part of the metal idea but it was in the same garden and I loved it.