Konichiwa?

Hello all.. so i've been in Japan lately for those who were wondering.. It's been a very interesting trip and its been very, VERY hot... mid to high 30's with high humidity.. good fun.. been sweating like i'm in a sauna, just drenched with sweat. Drinking a lot of water and my sweat just tastes like water.. maybe thats not good? hah who knows.. But yes.. hot and interesting.. In Kyoto at the moment and moving to Osaka soon, hopefully I get some good images and this trip has not just been a holiday.. The snaps i'm getting are alright but nothing has been amazing yet.. probably my expectations are too high.. Wont post too many images today.. just a small sample of what's been happening.. in no particular order..

Right... So that's a quick glimpse of the stuff i've been up to in the past.. 3 days.. time certainly flies.. Need to get a move on and start heading this doco into a more refined direction. The main idea was to focus on the traditions Japan still retains in this modern age we live in, it's a broad topic but I don't know.. we'll see how it goes.. I'm feeling okay after 3 days.. I should have something.. Moving to Osaka tomorrow and hopefully I can take it to the next level. 

Hope you enjoyed the sample. The main will be out soon!

Ciao ciao.

Chris. 

On a side note.. i've realized a lot of my work is looking more... martin parr-ish... as much as i hate to admit it.. maybe Donald was right.. 

Car Wreckers

SO as part of my ongoing assignment with the industrial portraits, I went to visit a car wreckers the other day and got a few snaps there. It turned out okay I suppose.. nothing amazing and i'm starting to think that this series may just be a lost cause... but we'll see how we go.. Had a chat to the teacher about my series and he suggested I do them as like.. mini series of images and not just to focus on the portraits.. different but we'll see how it turns out.. 

So I tried it out at the car wreckers and I'm not sure what I think yet but maybe as a collaborative it'll look better..

I really wanted a nice portrait of this guy, but too bad he was camera shy and refused to have a photo taken of him standing there.. woulda looked really good.. but what can you do.. take what you can.. bit annoyed.. 

Pile of these cares stacked up which I thought was quite interesting.. was a miserable wet and muddy day as you can tell by the mud all over the place.. it's hard to capture whats there.. so much going on it's almost too much visual information to absorb through the camera, which is a bizarre thing as a photographer to experience.. not good.. 

This bad boy was pretty cool. It's amazing how powerful these things were, just picked this car up and threw it around, punched through it like nothing was there, absolutely amazing. Snapped away at this bad boy for a while watching him dispose of cars and pick out parts from the car as skillfully as a surgeon would. 

Wish i was really good at editing photos.. this photo reminds me of an almost... Crewdson-esque photo.. okay maybe not.. no where near.. i lack his talent, lighting and editing skills.. and most importantly the big budgets.. but anyways.. if I have time i'd edit this just for lols.

Probably the best lot of the series.. which isn;t saying much about the quality of my portraits.. shit.... this was a really nice guy, he offered to be my model which made me happy, save me from busting my balls and getting rejected by people, top bloke.

Not a fan of this portrait.. there was a lot in this shed which I wanted to document, but having uncooperative people does not help when you want to take portraits. They just wanna shoot and scoot, no time to fix anything up.. I wanted portraits.. I tell the people at these places.. I want portraits.. set up shots.. nice lighting like I did at the boat builders.. these guys... they all expect me to walk around and get a portrait within 20 seconds.. fkn ey.. I should probably demand more.. I need an assistant to hold lights for me so I can have nice lighting instead of always having to rely on natural lighting.. I like flash.. these people don't give me the time to do so.. shit.

I quite like this image and it's probably a pretty good image to finish the series on.. I wont use all the photos for these mini series, Jerry (teacher) reckons 4 images max for these minisodes.. 1 portrait, 1 working, 1 detail and 1 overall image.. I hope i've covered everything in my shoot on the day and I'll just have to go back and sort out the onces i want.. sigh sight.. more to come.. hopefully.

Chris.

More portraits..

Its been a busy few weeks. Writing emails, getting responses and then.. they decide not to help me anymore.. not very good.. bit annoyed about that.. I need to chase people up and make them give me an answer.. are you helping me or not.. don't say you are then stop writing back to me.. whatever.. I don't care.. well.. I do.. Anyways..

Went to Harrops today, some engineering company who specialize in car parts, making all this stuff which I know nothing about but.. yeah.. Was a pretty quick shoot and not exactly what I wanted.. I was after a more.. how we say.. structured style of shooting like back at the boat builders, these guys were a bit rushed and some of them didn't want their photos taken. It was ok, I got a few images. A lot of the people were like"why are you taking my photo" "who are you?" "where are you from?" all the typical shit.. Sorta walked around the factory floor with a guy and he walked around asking people if they wanted a photo or not, and when they agreed they were nervous and timid, left me not time, shoot and scoot. Hopefully some of them worked, didn't use any external lights, all natural lights.. well... natural artificial lights, which leave a disgusting colour cast and some shit weird colour banding.. 

I didn't use this photo for obvious reasons, but that's the shit banding thing or whatever you wanna call it from the fluro lights, I have a feeling its just the different wave lengths of light emitting from the fluro lights which gives crazy colours. If I shoot in quick succession you don't see the light, or if i over expose 1/3rd a stop its ok. Anyways, i'll show you some proper photos from the day.

I quite like this one but i'm not sure if it counts as a portrait considering you can't see his face.. I still like it. 

Shot a few more photos than these but I think these are the ones which probably worked out the best. I'm probably gonna have to re-edit a couple of those photos like the 2 in the middle, i think they might be a little hot and over-exposed a bit. But yeah.. I dunno.. Kinda wanting to do a few more portraits of industrial workers just to see how this whole series is going to work out. I'm really keen on the car yard to get back to me.. which he hasn't.. after i met him last week and he said he'd call me.. or the OTHER one who told me to call him, i left him 3 messages and still no call back... shit... it's too hard to organize these shoots, i've sent out like 10 emails to different places and only a handful have replied back... what can you do... i'll probs have to chase people up.. anyways.. that's it for now.

Chris.

Babies babies

So you're gonna think.. babies.. this will be interesting, and you are correct. It was probably the first time i've actually enjoyed shooting a baby.. strange i know. This family had contacted me months ago and I had never known how they got onto my website to send me a message to shoot their little baby.

I haven't shot kids since I first started shooting which was over 5 years ago now.. time flies.. i'm starting to feel old.. When I first started shooting babies I had no idea what I was doing and honestly.. I still didn't today, was very nervous to say the least. Arrived at the Doshi's and I asked how they found my website, turns out the mother, Dee, is now a stay at home mum who likes to surf the web and somehow came along flickr, and then RMIT photographers on Flickr... Found me and sent me a message.. what are the odds? 

But having said that, lovely family. Really, no bullshit. So like I was saying, nerves. Already being nervous and worried about how to shoot the "kid" I realized I left my trusty 70-200 at home.. SHIT! okay okay.. relax.. plan B.. use what I have.. 28-70 + 50 1.8.. this could work.. well.. it has to.. I have no choice.. 

So.. started with the 50mm wide open.. yeah nice look nice photos but foolish.. focus can be a little off. Luckily enough the out of focus ones weren't too bad that they were unusable, this being an example of that. We actually started shooting outdoors but.. I liked this photo, so I put it at the front.. sue me..

The weather was relatively nice this morning so we thought it'd be a good idea to get a few shots outdoors, as some of you know, I'm not a fan of.. indoorsy, staged looking portraits.. it's probably the doco photographer in me. Again another shot with the 50mm wide open. Love the shallow DOF on FX. yum. 

I really like this photo for some reason.. maybe its the framing, maybe its a sense of fragility in mothers arm.. I don't know.. it's most probably cos of the bokeh that makes me like it. 

Now before you go and start screaming child abuse.. Sidi enjoyed being up in the air hence the smile on the face. Really nice parents, really nice guys, been in Aus for 5 years. used to live in NZ, they were there for 7 years. Spoke english really well.. I thought he was gonna be a cab driver, my ignorant naivety, he isn't a cab drive.. 

I really like this photo, something very special about this photo. Bit of mother, child love. I like it. I wish I had a photo like this with my mother.. sigh.. oh well.. Really digging the 50mm lens, I think it works well as a general purpose lens, maybe be a bit short in some circumstances, but overall I think its a good 'go to' lens if you're out doing a few portraits. The 28-70 is good too but.. for portraits.. I dunno.. which is ironic cos I used the 28-70 yesterday with my other portraits...

Good way to finish off this post, a nice family photo. Great parents, great kid. Sidhant aka Sidi, cute kid, didn't cry, didn't hissy fit. I like that. Shot a shit load on this shoot.. 355 images in 2.5hrs.. I normally only shoot 250-300 when I do weddings.. eek.. something wrong there.. Always good when you get paid for a shoot    =]  

Anyways, no more shoots for a while I don't think.. unless those bastard industrial people get back to me.. it's been 2-3 weeks.. worst.. might have to make some executive decisions and just call people and force an answer out of them.. ANYWAYS.. till then,

Chris. 

 

 

 

Rejuvenation

Is what i need. So its been a while since i've blogged or put anything onto this site, i've been working a bit.. or a lot, making money which I guess I can't complain about. I haven't had the chance to do any shooting which i've wanted to do for myself, had a shoot the other week for a wine company, it was okay, nothing special. 

This lack of motivation and time has made me a bit lazy and my endeavors to chase up on industrial based portraits has since waned. However having said that, I had a call from a boat building place which was happy for me to go down and do a few portraits which was good, haven't had a proper shoot in ages.

This is the first portrait I took, I was originally going to go with the idea of shooting my images only with a 50mm lens, I wanted to keep a certain consistency in my series of images, but as usual, I changed it and didn't follow the plan I had. Story of my life.. I shouldn't complain, being impulsive has gotten me a lot of good images. Simple set up, 2 x sb-600 up high with shoot through umbrella. D3s + 28-70 @ 2.8, wanted the real shallow DOF< probably should've stuck with the 50 1.8 and shot right open.. who knows. 

2nd image, I found this bloke to have more... character in his face than the other chap. His beard, paint on the clothes, weary face. Same set up, same lens. I'm feeling okay about this shoot, not the best, not the worst. I feel there is something missing in the images. I wanted a simple styled portrait, no posing, no smiling.. I don't know how successful this is as a start, that's for you to decide. Oh well..

Another shoot tomorrow, this time its for a baby.. I don't know how they found my site but they wanted a shoot which they planned months ago. Hopefully that goes well, maybe i'll show you some more pictures then =]

Until then,

Chris. 

back to weddings and shiz..

So i finally got back into shooting weddings, has been a good couple months and to be honest i'd sort of missed it. was good to get back to it. Had this job lined up about 3 months ago, Simon had mentioned it to me ages ago and its scary when 3 months becomes today! ah well.. photos..

Cute couple, Brian and Kazu from Japan. Pretty cute story. All i can say is that a simple letter from Australia to Japan reunited them after years of no contact amd eventuated to this wedding. Quite cute. Brian came of a bit pompous to start with but he's a good guy. Apparently when i got there Kazu said "i like the way you look, i like that' hmmm Simon talked me up and said some shit. Always good to get off on the right foot i say. 

Horses? yes, they are horses. Wedding was shot at Moonee Valley racecourse. Never been there before and for some reason something tells me it'll be the last. Horse racing officials are very... how we say.. anal.. Needed special passes to go anywhere and needed to be "accompanied" by officials everywhere we went.. hmmm strange. almost cult like.. whatever.. douchebags.. 

Kazu's mum straight from Osaka Japan. She was cute.

Decided to try things a little different this time, never shot photos like this before but it was a good time to try and experiment. good to widen your horizons. I know its been done before but something new for me. all good.

the whole gang from Japan. Wish i knew Japanese.. sigh..

AS luck would have it.. as soon as the ceremony started it began to rain a little.. gotta love Melbourne. 

But luckily it didn't dampen anyones spirits, esp the bride and groom. It didn't rain that hard which is good. just Drizzle. that shitty annoying rain where its like "are you gonna rain or not?!" that shitty rain..

all important kiss.

Don;t know what happened here but something made them laugh. Luckily i was facing them.

Love it when people come and do my job for me.. you'd think i was joking but i'm not. Makes my life easier, and time to snap people snapping people. one of those things i like doing. strange..

wish i had shot this on a crane or something. She was standing in middle of a circle of people. THought it looked really interesting. Wish i had of shot it from a high angle to really get that feeling of closure.. oh well.. what can you do.

cute kid. i wanted a photo of Kazu and Brian, but he wanted to stick his head up against the glass. Pissed me off at first as he ruined my shot.. kinda glad he did now.

i lol'd

decided to actually stay clear for the cake cutting for once. I kept the 70-200 on and let Simon shoot up close. Decided it's a better way to shoot these days. Work as a team. let him do what he has to do. trust.. kind of hard when you normally shoot solo.. but.. we're a team.

ok.. i'll leave the weddings there for now.. just finished batching these to JPEG so you guys are lucky to see them so soon! need to mail it out to Sim tomoz.. hmmm 1.5gb for 57images.. fk .PSD files are large.. ANYWAYS.. on other news.. went back to the CFA the other day.. yesterday..

heres a quick snaps to leave you guys with. Enjoy. until next time.

- Chris.

Ok a shit load of photos but Enjoy guys.

CHRIS!