VA Blog

[This is a summary of a segment to be given on ABC 891 Radio tomorrow - Tuesday 21st at about 2:30PM]

Some great information can be found on this subject by Andrew Nemeth - NSW Photo Rights. Whilst it is targeted at NSW Laws it applies in most other states of Australia.

In summary, there are no privacy laws restricting photography in public places in Australia. Taking photographs on private property is another matter - owners of private property are well within their rights to prohibit it.

That said, they cannot force you to hand over your camera or film, or delete images.

Council Photography Permits mooted by Waverley Council and Randwick Council were never passed, or at least were recinded as they were probably unenforcable. Likewise, restrictons on photographing your own children at the school swimming carnival, plays, convers, etcetera.

Images of a sexual nature, especially those taken in places where people could reasonably expect a level of privacy are another matter - voyeurism is likely to put you in touch with the law.

All of your rights aside, it is not hard to be polite. There are no shortage of subjects, including people willing to be shot, so if you are a photographer and asked to cease and desist, it is usually the best course.

The Legal Situation is described by the Attorney General of Australia in this white paper.

Vlad Soriano was visiting home (Melbourne) from his normal place of abode (London) where amongst other things he runs or helps run a music venue.

Bennett's Lane on a dark Melbourne evening. Photo by Andrew Weller

Vlad's D50 performed pretty well - although I think I heard him say he was going off to investigate faster lenses (it was dark!) and it was red and green and yellow.

As you will see if you visit the gallery from the night ...

Enjoy it!

If you would like to take shots like this, ask about our Personal Trainer workshops.

The Vivid Adventures Blog is intended to become the hub for our communication with the community we serve.

It will become the repository for interesting articles (well we hope they're interesting) - ours and yours, including your feedback and comments (yes - we want your comments and feedback, especially now).

We will try and publish regularly - perhaps even from the new "Next-G" phone that Telstra are providing us this week, when we are away in the bush. Sometimes it just won't be possible - if you've been on our tours you'll know how hectic and full a day's activities can get.

Here some of the things we have in mind:
* help with photography problems - real answers, even downloadable tutorials with real life examples provided by you!
* information about what we are doing - where we are going, when you can join us, what we are going to do, and then, what we did
* links to other blogs - yours hopefully, especially photo blogs.

So please, start contributing and make it a fun place, and a good experience.

One other thing - quite a few people have been having trouble logging in - the login service is managed by TypeKey - you can create your own TypeKey account which will enable you to contribute to VABlog as well as other people's blogs which use the same MoveableType software.

Cheers,
Andrew.

Melissa capable cutting competitor with wild ambitions.Photo by Andrew Weller

It is a big misconception that excellent portraits require complex studio setups with lots of equipment and numerous assistants.

The setting was Goodliffe Station - a cattle station in Central-West Queensland, home to James and Liz, son Stuart, and daughter Melissa. In December, we had a photography workshop up there, and the participants - John, Pam, Rebecca and Mindy convinced Liz and Melissa to model for us. Pamela, being adept with the makeup, set to work on Melissa, while Liz hid away and hoped to get out of it - although she was not let off, and eventually came out to join us in the hay-shed.

That's right the studio for this shoot was the old corrugated iron hay-shed.

We did go to the bother of setting up a posing table (two bales of hay and a saddle), which provided the perfect environment for these two very capable horse people. Both are setting the world on fire with the Cutting Horse performances, so look out for them when you are out and about at the big Cutting events, like the Tamworth Futurity.

In addition we used a large reflector on the ground in front of the hayshed to indirectly reflect light onto our subjects. For this shoot we largely used the gold warming side, but could have as easily have used the silver or white sides for slightly less warming effect.

The important things for the shoot in this sort of setting are:

1. Comparative depth - ensure that the background is about 2x (or more)further away from the subject than the camera




2. Subject out of direct sunlight, but lit by the reflector - not directly, but more softly.




3. Use an appropriately small aperture - for the length of lens you are using, so that you have sufficient depth of field to get the whole of the subject(s)' faces or other parts, that you are interested in, sufficiently sharp to look the way you want it, but for the background to be buttery soft. On many inexpensive cameras, this will be the largest aperture that you have (or the smallest numbered f-stop).

Here's a shot of the workshop participants in studio.Photo by Andrew Weller

If you don't have a reflector, make one ... white card, a white sheet, aluminium foil, polystyrene foam (a wonderful soft white reflector) will do equally as well as the more expensive reflectors.

So, to see the results, look at the Goodliffe Portraiture Gallery and tell us what you think, or ask some questions ... remember, Blogs are supposed to be full of communication, so if you don't make some comments it will sound rather one-sided.

Want to have a Portraiture Clinic like this one in your location? Well, let us know about your interest, and we can discuss the possibilities. We do Personal Training and Private Workshops all around Australia.

Good shooting, great light and make some wonderful portraits.

Well, for a long time we have been looking for a Photoshop action that provided those trendy wet-lab like look of sloppy edges from the developing process that provides an interesting, different and perhaps unique frame for our digital work.

Well, hello Mr. Kubota... Kevin Kubota, no less - a leading wedding photographer in the US who has created along with Craig Strong - of LensBaby fame, a set of high resolution, high quality and interesting sloppy edges with a Photoshop Action to go with them... you can see it at Kubota Image Tools.

So, here's an example of a gallery of work that I prepared with it.

These pieces were all shot with a Canon 5D. They were cropped to 16x7 (most of them anyways) and otherwise converted to B&W in Lightroom. From there they were exported to Photoshop where I added some vignetting, and where the Kubota Sloppy Edges were applied.

Finally they were imported into Lightroom and using Lightroom and a Simpleviewer Web Gallery Template, the web gallery output.

If they're not for you that's fine, but they are something I have been looking for for a long time, and I think they're just great.

Tell us what you think.