National Photographic Portrait Competition entry

My entry into the 2010 National Photographic Portrait Prize run by the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra is one of 55 finalists from more than 1200 entries and is now in the running for the $25,000 prize that will be awarded in February 2011. The exhibition will be displayed at the National Portrait Gallery from 25 February to 17 April 2011 and tour to selected venues throughout 2011.


Like all of my portraiture, this image stems from my philosophy of  searching out beauty in everyday life and demonstrating its presence through my photographs. I want people to appreciate that beauty is not reserved for media celebrities since beauty has little to do with the material world.


For me the beauty of the portrait, ‘Young girl in a dance class waiting to be photographed’, stems from the honesty and innocence of the young girl. She is not cloyingly sweet, she has not smiled or performed for the camera and she is not trying to be anyone other than herself. There are no material possessions in the portrait that distract the viewer from appreciating her honesty. 

It is no coincidence that I specialise in funeral photography for mourners, being tender, compassionate and thoughtful are too beautiful not to be photographed.

An example of one of my wedding books

Like my christening books, the book cover can be leather, silk or buckram. In the cover below, the album cover is leather and has a debossed image.

Pages can contain one image that 'bleeds' (goes to the edge of the page) like this:

Or this:

Sometimes a large border suits the image:

When dealing with family shots, they can be a little repetitive so it makes sense to make a pattern out of the repetition:

When considering double spreads, it's a good idea to have the left page relating to the right page.

It's fun to have a large 'lead' photo with smaller detail shots on the left

Finally, toning can bring out the mood in the photo: on the page below, the toned image has been placed to signify the end of the formal portrait session - the next page introduces the reception.

An example of one of my christening books

An enquiry from a prospective client today made me to realise I should have images of books I have designed on my website. Whilst there is nothing like seeing one of my books to appreciate their quality, a photo is better than a description on the phone.


To the cover of one of my christening books, these can be leather, silk or in the photo below, buckram and I can also include a debossed photo on the front cover.

A good idea for the inside front page is to include the christening invitation.

Images on pages can fill the page to leave no border.

Or a single image can be laid out with a generous border

Two images can look terrific.

It can be fun having a 'lead' image with smaller images to the left.

Smaller images can also be placed to the right of the 'lead' image.

Or the smaller images can be below the 'lead' image.

In summary, when I design my books, I consider whether images 'belong' together, their significance and if there is sufficient difference between the pages to make them visually interesting to the viewer.

photographing dance classes

I was asked if I wanted to photograph a primary school dance class - well thirteen of them actually , to be photographed on a Saturday morning at a school in inner-city Sydney over 4.5 hours. I thought of all the boring photos that I had seen of ballet classes and thought why not give it a go- I decided to make the shoot exceptional by energising the kids and lighting them beautifully.

The kids were energised by one of the parents, Zoe, whose energy levels were contagious - she really sparked up the kids.

I provided the lighting - two Elinchrom remote controlled softboxes, lights large enough to allow the kids fairly large leeway as to where they wanted to stand. Since the lights were wirelessly triggered, it was safe for me, Zoe and the kids to move around. The lights were also 'fast' enough to freeze the kids in action.

The lights were bright enough to illuminate all the kids, not just those in front.

As for the individual shots, the kids choose what they wanted and that was fine because the lights were flexible - one girl wanted to do the splits on the floor, which meant the lights had to cover her - no problem - another girl wanted to leap into the air - again, the lights could easily deal with this.

Little fairies will always be little fairies!

Or rappers!

Or posed.

Or thoughtful!

In short, with today's lights, dance photography no longer has to remain stuck in the 1970's so if you want good dance photos, drop me a line.

Thoughts behind an image promoting a Blue Mountains B&B

In Sydney it was 26 degrees and gloriously sunny and with perfect weather there was nothing stopping an ideal shoot for Bilpin Springs Lodge, a terrific self-catering hotel in Bilpin catering for families. But as we drove closer to the blue Mountains, the weather turned - 11 degrees, cars had pulled off the road to shelter under trees to hide from the hail - the nets above the apple trees in apple orchards along the road were weighed down by hail. In other words,  a typical photoshoot that always presents challenges no matter how much you plan.

The photographic brief was to photograph interior shots including two family rooms, two bathrooms and some exterior shoots so initially I focussed on interior shots such as the image below to allow the weather to improve.

Normally I avoid shots like this when photographing restaurants and hotels - I call them Marie Celeste shots - beautifully empty rooms - my reasoning is if I saw an empty restaurant I would never go in so why do restaurant and hotel websites never include people in their images? However, bathrooms and bedrooms can be devoid of people, common areas such as hotel foyers and restaurants should never be.

Finally the weather cleared so I was able to work outside- the client wanted an image of the back of the lodge to show guests there was lots of grass for kids to play on.

I could have settled for the photo below.

But it lacks life though it does show green lawns and a car nearby to placate any guest who feared they would have to walk miles from the carpark.

To inject life, my client acted as a model.

This photo adds lots of value to the brief of showing the lawns behind the lodge. It shows that the lodge is dog-friendly, that cars can be parked nearby, there are horses but they are safely behind fences and that the proprietor is friendly.

But the photos is not without flaws since it was a spontaneous image taking only minutes to set up. There is light on the horse's foreleg causing the viewer to look there and not just on the happy (i.e. friendly) proprietor. The dog is in shadow, the man's forearm is too bright, the jeans and base of the shirt are illuminated, the horse's face is a little too dark, the fence post is intrusive, there is too much emphasis on the car, there is a distracting light on the porch and worst of all, the proprietor looks a little apprehensive and this is a bad message for if the proprietor is wary of the horse, maybe it would be too dangerous for families to stay there?

So with a little bit of photoshop, the image has been enhanced and the client can guarantee increased bookings for his lodge!

Why portraiture is usually superficial

A Macedonian christening in Sydney - lots of family and friends, a peaceful and kind family gathering.

 Until  the brother-in-law flips, maybe the booze, no one really knew.

A tragic event that bounded everyone present including me, the photographer. Consequently, the commonality of experience between me and the family gave rise to portraits like this one of the godfather.

I didn't create this portrait. The circumstances did.  

I also didn't create the portrait below which was taken when the christening was still an innocent gathering.

One of her nine year old cousins took this photo - I set up and then held the camera (a 2kg beast) but that was it - so the image is about the relationship of two girls who have known each other for a lifetime.

To sum up, most images I take at family gatherings are superficial  (how can they be anything else when I know nothing of the subjects) but occasionally they have meaning. To minimise superficiality, I avoid direct portraiture and focus on the relationships between key players at the family gathering, whether it be a wedding, a christening or a funeral. Possibly my greatest insight as a photographer is to understand portraits have true beauty when they reveal character and only rarely can my relationship with the sitter be of sufficient depth to bring character to the surface.

pro bono work

It's nice to do good. The cards below have photos on them taken during an afternoon in West Bengal. If you want to buy them, they are available at Kolkata, a fair trade shop in Brighton, England.

With many images to choose from, it helped enormously to decide the six cards needed a common theme to make them greater than their individual components. So I settled on the theme of joyful play and hopefully, they will do much to raise money for Suchana (www.suchana-community.org).

wedding album design - how to determine the size and number of images on a page.

One wedding, three pages showing three layouts. 

When an image is very strong, it needs no additional images.

 But sometimes it's fun to have a record of images leading up to the large image.

In the last page, the images are weak in their composition but strong in their emotion so there is no one dominant image. The images are placed to emphasis the diagonals to lead the viewer from, for example, the bride to the groom.

Wedding photography 101

A weekend in Sydney in the late afternoon, the guests are waiting for the bride to arrive. The light is harsh and sallow.

I walk three hundred metres from the garden to the awaiting bride. This is not the time to be fussy about the light or meticulous about posing her.  All that's important is her happiness and excitement. Any problems can be dealt with after the event. Indeed, given this is the first encounter between the bride and the photographer on her wedding day, it is vital for the photographer to appear to be confident and any fiddling with camera dials will cause the bride to doubt the photographer, and that look of scepticism could contaminate every subsequent photo.

This is the photo as it was shot.

This is the photo after tweaking it.

Before you take any photos, tell her she looks wonderful - she will, but it's nice and a relief for the bride to hear it from the person who is going to record the event for posterity.

How to photograph a school play

Your child is in the school play, the star performer, but will your photos be stellar? This blog explains how to take great photos without flash.

First of all, you need a DSLR camera, your iphone or point and shoot camera will be too 'noisy' given the poor lighting conditions or it will try to compensate by triggering the flash thus disrupting the performance. Your lens should be able to zoom as much as possible e.g. use a 18-200mm lens rather than a 18-55mm lens. I normally use a 70-200mm lens.

Secondly, you need to change the metering mode of your camera to spot metering. Your camera takes a reading of the ambient light levels in order to calculate exposure but typically in a play, your child is illuminated against a dark background and your camera's light meter is tricked into thinking your child's face is dark so the camera will overexpose the scene and your child's face will be 'burnt out'.

Thirdly, you need to set your camera to manual mode. Then select at least 1/180th second for shutter speed because the actors are typically moving on stage and a shutter speed slower than this will result in blurred faces. Also set the widest aperture your lens offers (e.g. f4 v f22) - you need a wide aperture because the scene is dark and the wider the aperture, the more light will reach your camera's sensor which is necessary to avoid noise. Finally, let the ASA 'float':  I generally find the ASA floats between 2500 ASA and 6400 ASA when I set the shutter speed at 1/250th sec and the aperture at f2.8.

Fourthly, you need to decide if you want more than one actor in the frame and if you do, you need to hold the camera very still, focus on one actor and then without moving the camera, focus on the other actor/actors you want in the frame.  This is because when your aperture is wide open (e.g. f4)  there is a very shallow depth of field so it's unlikely anyone other than the actor you are focussing on will be sharp.

When you get home,  merge the two images into one using a program like Photoshop. The photos below demonstrate the before and after results using this technique.

Photo 1 - the girl is in sharp focus but no one in the background is

Photo 2 - the boy is sharp but the girl is blurred

The merged photo - both actors are in sharp focus

Photo 1 - the boy is in sharp focus but the girl isn't

Photo 2 - the boy is not in focus but the girl is

Merged photos - the boy from photo 1 has been combined with the girl from Photo 2