A letter from Fiji...

as promised....

Well I promised a few posts ago to share a video clip I really enjoyed, and finally I'm getting around to doing that. It really spoke to me, and to have someone like Zack Arias admit to occasional loss of confidence really made me feel better about my own self flagellation... anyway why keep talking, have a look for yourself. If you're on a slower connection like me then press play, then press pause. Let it load for a while, then it'll play straight through.Or if it really won't play very well watch the original here...

Pretty cool huh! Also very timely for me, as I'm working on building a photography website, is his website critiques which of course confirmed I'm not quite on the right track!! OK but probably what I'm doing is appropriate for the market here.... But do have a look at the critiques, they are not only really informative, but Zack and Meg are really funny! I'm talking about Zacks wife Meg there of course, not me (Over here Meg and I would call each other "yaca" (yah-thah") which means namesake, to save confusion...). 

One of the points Zack made was that when he opened some of the sites (he used different words of course) he couldn't tell what they did, what sort of photographer they were, so how was someone going to know whether or not they should hire them? This question of what sort of photographer came up a few months ago for me. I have oddly for some reason thought that like many of my fellow mwac's (mom with a camera) that I was a child and family photographer. I offered to take some shots of this family for practice (and thank heavens not for a hefty fee) but when we got out there it suddenly occured to me that despite fine fine training from QCCC I actually hadn't taken a family photo in a long time, so why on earth did I think I was a child and family photographer?! And I knew I was no Tara Whitney... But it was good practice...

So similar issues come up building a website though it's interesting to see a style and type of photography emerging despite myself. Sometimes I can see such a distinct improvement, and other times I discover stuff I like so much from a few years back that despite the lack of technical know how I had then I wonder in despair if I've actually gone backwards! 

Talking of technical know how this cracked me up...

 

This is Richard from the fabulous Red Leaf taking a workshop at the recent Beyond get together. Desiree who took this inspired shot says to tell all of you they (redleaf and their photography, textures or workshops) are well worth checking out...

Finally I found the first photo of this post deep in the archives, and it has the most wonderful grain! It's from the D70 and I've looked at the exif data, but I'm still at a loss as to how I achieved that... This is basically sooc (straight out of the camera) with no work done, it was shot as a jpeg., though my save for web has altered the grain a little (never mind for these purposes). What I did have to do was take out all the spots from all the muck on the sensor! oh my word! No wonder I liked the 50mm f/1.8 lens so much back then, I'm sure going below an aperture of 2.8 was the only way to hide those damn things!! 

Best go now, coming up soon will be pretty scenic pictures of Fiji and the kids. Because we haven't had enough of those lately and it will give a break from all this navel gazing...

When good photoshop goes bad...

No caption needed... though the lads are pretty sad to hear that there's only one more season to watch now...

Strange Happenings at the Vale ni Kana...

So Joe came over for the weekend, but it was very quiet due to him and TG being abducted from beside the Vale ni Kana (the dining hall) quite early on on Saturday. As we suspected however the aliens returned them very quickly. It must be noted that while the boys did not appear traumatised the aliens did...

This has been combined with a couple of days of odd ghost sightings. Ghosts in the office...

Someone commented that Mereani doesn't look at all scared. But look! From one photo to the next she hasn't moved a muscle. She is frozen there with her smile on her face. I put it to you that maybe she is scared, but she is a front office professional, hence the welcoming smile...

and there were ghosts on the beach too, but that is nothing new...

I wondered if what AJ was up to was causing it?

But early last week was the strangest sighting of all, in the Fiji Times of all places! Our friend Brian was outed as a member of the 1nterim government here! Here's the picture from the paper (courtesy of the Fiji Times website)...

Caption Reads: "1nterim Prime Minister C0mmodore Voreqe B@inimarama with some members of his government on a trip to Natadola". (that's my anti-search engine spelling- you'll work it out)...

Brian's secret is out! I wonder if he'll be subject to travel bans...He says he is not a member of this government and was just showing them round...

Not so inspiring...

Long time readers may be wondering where my longstanding banner has gone. Can't even remember it? Here you go...

This was originally a "challenge" on a message board I belong to from Tony Bridge, the essay it is from is about panorama, the wider discussion was about landscape photography:- 

"For the last couple of years I have given my students an assignment using the panorama as their format. They have to create a narrative about their life and self-perception. What makes it a little trickier is that they have to appear in it at least 3 times, each time doing something different. They can make it as long as they like, that is, choose the amount of time they will incorporate. Thus they become the actors in their own story. Unlike the conventional panorama, in which the camera is at the focal point of the image, it possible to use multiple viewpoints and still create a panorama.

They shoot it with their digicams, stitch it in Canon Photostitch, and print it across multiple pages. They then join and mount the images. The results can be amazing. They are part movie, part still. They break the boundaries of what constitutes a still image. Some, of course, do not go that far. But they have all begun to get a grip on the concept of narrative in the image, of telling stories. 
Why not try it yourself? " 

Well how could I resist the challenge to not only have a little fun, but maybe improve my (admittedly rather weak) landscape photography skills? I stuck the camera on the tripod for the day and quite liked the little slice of Fiji life that eventuated (though I am only in it twice). Sadly as I only had photoshop 7 at the time- which doesn't have the sophisticated photomerge of my shiny new PSCS3 -it took quite a while to put it together. But GB didn't like it, as he felt it was unflattering to him. Actually he has just got back from a funeral and has just taken off his black tie. Those of you outside Fiji may be startled to see he is wearing a skirt- this is the sulu vakatana- the Fijian equivalent of a business suit. Note also the other little Fiji idiosyncrasies (ok its pretty small, so maybe only if you have good eyes or imagination) -our nurse Militia Bau with bare feet (AK is home with ear ache), and the kids coming home from school with their good school shirts stuffed in their bags (it's too cold to do that in Dunedin)....

GB agreed that I could put it up as a banner, but only for a week. But guess who doesn't read my blog!! Regular readers will attest that it's been there at least a year now... Sadly last week GB attended BFTE- a big tourism show, and one of his colleagues (who can remain unnamed but could possibly be "bosso" here) teased him about the image of him slobbed out on the couch, blowing my cover and resulting in a rushed banner change.

So yes, I think the current banner is a little lame. I tried to zoosh (how do you spell that? you know, the word that means "make more flash eh") with a bit of a texture-y yellow-y  through the lens sort of effect, but then I read that clear blue will come back in, and although I have wonderful intentions of putting up something better soon you know me... (well friends and family certainly do)...  

But I did feel a bit better about my new banner, well a bit better in general after reading Wilson's analysis of Fiji's new coke can. Very funny, but you must also read all the comments... I mean Coke what were you thinking? 

I did really feel bad about having a part of the photography discipline I was so inept at, so last year in an attempt to get better at landscape photography I studied with both Tony and Mike and Jackie of QCCP. Both groups run fantastic courses which are quite different from each other and equally good. And I'm not just saying that to keep everyone on side! When Laureen was here last week we had an abrupt and incredibly low tide. I mean low, I have not in almost 2 1/2 years seen it that low. I have seen the coral sticking out before, but not this much. So we went out to try and get some meaningful landscape shots. I wanted to capture the moodiness of the heavy sky contrasted against the vulnerability of the coral so exposed... yeah right. It kept raining every time I thought it might clear, and I stood out there in the (warm) water with my camera tucked under my t-shirt while Laureen instead was very smart and went off and had a nice lunch instead... 

This was the result...

FYI according to the charts which I got Jim at the marine shop to read last wednesday, thursday and friday were 2m tides...

 

Laureen, the smart one, simply went out the next day and got this:

,

how cool is that?! We had to catch the big boat the long way round to go to netball practice on thursday in town, and to our surprise it couldn't go all the way to the wharf at Mana as it usually does- the tide was too low. I'd never seen that before either. Anyway so here's one more pano...

And at least now I get to use PSCS3 to do my photo merge. Hey maybe I could add some words to balance the little boat trying to shoot out of frame and use this as an emergency banner? Nah, best I start to work on a new one... Better go...

Quick photos which are not mine!

2 quick extras to add on to the last post... As I took very few decent pics of the cyclone I kerekere'd Carol, one of our guests for one of her photos. And here it is! Check out that hammock! (Carol also shoots with the D200)

and then a shout out to those of you who have ever wanted their photos to look like this...

or like this...

The very talented Renee Oakenfull is launching her new website...today! The website is here and its blog is here. Have a look for yourself, but it features actions, lightroom presets, textures, templates for gorgeous cards, creative borders for your pics and so much more. I personally would like to get Renee to design me a new logo- I have seen some that she has done that are just fantastic...

OK that's all!

Technology and Noisy Kids!

Several things this week reminded me how much (at the risk of sounding cliched) we take technology for granted. I mean we do don't we?! The first was a clip on the Oceanic blog which I will repost here- here's the premise- what if the series 24 was filmed in 1994? Have a look. I love the comment "but that's three floppy discs!!!" and "page him"...

But where we really take it for granted of course is photography. For all that we know film is great we have really taken to heart the flexibility of a decent digital SLR. Take memory cards- no one says "oh remember when we used 24-36 shot films then changed them?" No you are more likely to hear "this 2GB card is just too small..." (folks even allowing for different file formats etc we're talking 100+ photos here). Then there is ISO. Remember when it was stamped on the side of the film, and you couldn't change it? And 400 or higher got really grainy? Now the expectation is no noise at high iso's that you can switch on the fly according to the conditions and effect you want. My camera is reasonably noisy at higher iso's- but then I think well compare that to film! There are some amazing products too- I have Imagenomic's noiseware, portraiture and realgrain, and the noiseware is amazing. So clever! I do not know how they do it, but it can systematically remove noise from your image without ruining it, which obviously is the aim.

So what is real grain? for that matter what is noise (I can hear my friends and family asking)? Well the above photo is a noisy kid. No she hasn't even got her mouth open I know, but notice the grainy look. I used postprocessing that emphasised the noise rather than damping it down and producing a shiney faced smooth perfect kid. I think it looks good! Herein lies the irony. As technology smoothes out the artifacts fashion brings them back. Real grain is a product that adds grain to your perfect photo! As Paul Gero said on Better Photo recently "old film guys don't die...they just add grain in photoshop...". Then of course there is the beautiful texture as used by/ pioneered by Jesh de Rox (sidebar for link), which is a technique used in all the trendiest wedding photos at the moment. I like it. For an alternative here's how we added texture to some photos a few weeks ago...

yep that was tongue in cheek ;) -Tom is off to the right hand side of the photo and has lifted the flaps on the side up of the boat so the girls get splashed. Luckily there was only one guest on board, and he was in a pretty mellow mood, rather than a "look at those waves aaarrrrgh!" sort of mood (its ok Mum the Tui Eluvuka is a very stable catamaran style boat)!

The other tool in photoshop we discuss too often is the liquify. Kate and Liz asked if it really was all that? and if it was could I use it on their photos? Ladies you don't need it- but for a demo look at the embed below. Watch out! Bare bottom...

glumbert - Photoshop: Your New Weight-Loss Regimen

so yes it really is all that... Shall I start post-processing your photos now? Then I'd better go, promise -as always -more news and images soon...
oh PS I know I love my camera noise, 1.5X crop and all; but if anyone in the family wins lotto and WANTS to give me the D300 or D3 (as seen in Cliff Mautner's post here) for christmas then...well... ok!

post post script- not for the faint of heart- and may disturb some viewers so discretion is advised...
Technology eh! They can create a camera that takes sharp photos at iso 3200 (as seen on Cliff Mautner's blog above), cameras that work in the rain, underwater, and as seen on this blog even take photos with parts underwater and above. As demonstrated here (look! it rains sometimes!!)(pentax optio w30)

But! and here's the really scary image.....
there's still no solution for the look of your legs the week before you wax!!!!

So much for technology.... Check out the magnification from the water and the pale washed out colouring!!!