Royal Art Society - portrait session

Portraits of 22 artists, no more than 3 minutes each.

Below is my setup - a black backdrop to eliminate distractions. Incidentally, this worked well because many of the female artists wore colourful clothing which black accentuates.

The white boxes in the foreground were anchor points - I wanted to photograph the artists from various angles and having 'fixed' positions allowed me to systematically photograph the artists from different angles

The fill light is to the left - a soft box with a screen - this allowed me to put an edge on the subject's right side. By angling it towards the camera, the fill light also succeeded in separating the subjects from the background. The main light was very soft - a double screened 150 cm x 150 cm soft box.

The chair is comfortable and allowed the subjects to relax - nothing worse than forcing subjects to stand against a wall.

Generally, I used f18, 1/200 sec, ASA 200 except for the shots of the subject in the chair where the light fall off made me increase the aperture to f14.

To break the ice I asked each artist to identify their painting in the State Parliament gallery (I had photographed their paintings there the previous week). This worked brilliantly.

I took two shots of each artist - a 'head shot' and a 'seated' shot as I wanted to capture their hands, my reasoning being hands to artists are essential.

red beans

I was commissioned to photograph beans, peas and lentils. Images of boring piles of dusty beans sprang into my mind and I was determined not to repeat this error.

My tools were water (to combat the association of dusty dry beans) and natural light.

The results are below:

Homage to Ernst Haas

Sydney today, chilly autumn, and the liquid amber trees are beautiful.

John's christening at St Sophia Greek Orthodox Church, Paddington on 30 April 2011

Despite the gloomy weather, John's christening was a joy to photograph.

To see more images from the day click on this link.

Japanese windflowers

Japanese windflowers in my garden this morning. They can only be photographed in situ on windless days.

Sangria shots

I recently photographed a sangria dispenser for Toros Restaurant in Darling Harbour, Sydney.

Time was short, about twenty minutes, and at first I was a little daunted by the look of the dispenser whose designer seemed to have been inspired by 1970's disco balls.


This is the first shot - the dispenser is in sharp focus but isn't inviting as the light is 'cold'. The background isn't blurred enough and detracts from the dispenser. There is also little in the background to add value to the dispenser. The dispenser itself also doesn't look good - given how dark the liquid in the column, it could be coffee. Similarly, the glasses of sangria are dull. In short, this photo isn't going to bring customers to Toros and it won't get me repeat business.

To make the dispenser's column appear interesting, I got the chef to fire a flash into it.

I then did the same for the two glasses. Next I used a wide aperture to blur the background which was too distracting. I waited until a diner at an adjoining table was drinking and then took the photo - this is because the diner acts a cue as to what to do with the dispenser and thus enriches the image.

Finally, I bathed the image in warm tones, again reinforcing the pleasant mellowness of an afternoon drinking sangria.


Below is the final image which merges four images.

Finally, this is an example of how the image was used by the restaurant.

Angled portraits

When the face is at an angle, the portrait can be more flattering.

I am mulling over why this is - perhaps it is because we feel the subject is more relaxed. Then again, a head planted squarely on shoulders is a little like an oak tree in a field, strong to be sure but sometimes strength detracts from beauty.

Photography of inconvenience

Too much of photography is based on convenience - a leisurely start to the day, which is sunny, take a camera, walk around, take a photo. Consequently, most photography, all the easy photography,  has been done to death so if you want your images to stand out, a good way is to make sure you are photographing in less than convenient circumstances.

The last two days in Sydney have been terrible - torrential rain, dangerous surf, a month's rain in 24 hours.  Going to the coast, Bronte specifically, in these conditions is to risk damaging your camera either from a freak wave,  from the rain or from the salt spray which means that very few photos are taken in such conditions so those that are will be refreshingly original. To make photography more inconvenient, I used a tripod as I was shooting at 2/3 of a second, f22 most of the time with two neutral density filters to kill the light. The results are below.