for the sake of it.

Not very good at converting black and white images but i've always wanted to try it. I don't have the patience to sit and try to tweak channels and tones to get the b/w I want.. maybe i should just buy Nik Silver Effex Pro... but I don't like to pay.. this will have to do for now.. They are old photos I found lying around, thought they'd look good in mono.

Colour cos I can. 

I've been busy editing a bit of architectural stuff. I'm not sure if i've ever put any of it up but I do a bit of work wit han architect. It's good fun and i'm trying to get more work with more architects, stayed up till 4am sending out emails.. now we wait. already got 2 knock backs! hai... 

I made them with white borders in my PDF, so they may look a little funny here. Anyways, thought I might as well post something since i haven't in a while.. 

Chris. 

and we're back

It's been such a long time since i've had the time or motivation to put anything up onto my blog. Have since last year graduated, therefore making me officially a.. "professional" photographer. Been looking for Fulltime steady work for over 6 months and it's been tough. Have had a few interviews but nothing seems to stick. Oh well. must keep trying! Have an interview coming up in NSW so fingers crossed for that!

So, the last 6 months or so.. i've been to the US of A. One word: Amazing! I will post photos up soon but there are just too many photos to go through. In the mean time here are a few photos I took today when I took the dogs out to the local dog park. Nothing special but it's the first post for 2011.. hopefully i'll get back into the swing of things!

Credit to the girlfriend for this photo and the photo of me (can't take all the credit!)

New beginnings.

Hello again.. It's been a while.. so whats been happening.. lost a job, no money, finished uni, need a job, need money.. nice how the world just goes around in a big circle and you end up where you started.

Got a degree, i take photos for a living.. what goods a piece of paper without a job... or a job without a piece of paper.. sigh.. who knows.. who cares.. anyways.. uni is done.. forever.. i hope.. its been a tough 3 years but everything is finished.. it feels weird.. no direction, no goal no objective to fullfil.. OH WELL... anyways.. back to what i was here to do.. got a new Macbook Pro.. is very nice.. 17" i7.. i like it.. need to give it a real work out.. but having said that.. Adobe premiere really kills it.. stupid Adobe..  well after taking lots of PJ doco shots i finally got the chance to take photos in which III wanted to take photos of.. was standing on my balcony this morning and noticed the small tree at the front of our house which was swarming with life. Bees, hover flies, wasps, birds.. everything..

anyways.. D3s, extension tubes, 50mm 1.8, speedlight. went out and took some snaps.

Can get pretty close to things with the extension tubes.. hardest part is tryna lock focus when you are that close to everything. luckily for a few shots it paid off. This is just one of those little moths which fly around fields and such like that. It was sitting on the head of one of those... wheat looking things.. i dunno.. next time you go for a walk you'll see them.. long bits of straw like things... yeah.. doesn't matter.. lol 

as mentioned earlier, the little hover flies.. you might have seen them around before.. te little things like dragon flies which just.. hover around and move shit fast. zig zagging thru the air.. hard to shoot these little bastards.. hard to focus on something that small and that fast. The extension tubes are tricky to focus with.. more like a magnifying glass and having to physically move back and forth to hit focus. Luckily he wasn't moving. 

Unlike this guy.. fluke.. i tell you that.. machine guy.. and wishful praying result in fluke shots like these.. got a few in focus in this sequence, but this one i liked the best, can see his wings. Have always wanted a shot of something in flight and with such detail.. was pretty lucky i guess.. but i suppose all photography is about luck.. well.. the amazing ones anyways.. Henri Cartier Bresson rings a bell.. luck, timing, patience.. whatever.. same shit.. uni's finished.. don't need to care anymore.. Had a bitta fill light in this to make him "pop" a little more. not bad.. will definitely try for more macro stuff later this year. love macro.. always have.. maybe should invest in a macro lens? 

And lastly.. took this one while taking Jack for a walk.. for those who are unfamiliar with Jack he is best friend. 4 legged, stupid faced big nosed and lanky legged best friend. WEll yeah... took this one while walking HIM and yeah... Jack likes walking but doesn't like waiting for me when i take photos.. lies there and barks at me if i don't walk around with him.. i thought this photo was too important to miss. This fly would have been.. half the size of a grain of rice in real life, if not smaller, shows to prove how close these extension tubes can get. Anyways i like the colour of it. so... nice.. 

Any hoo, thats all i had to show and share really.. have done some other free lancing work, one with an engineering firm, which i need to have screened before i can show you the images, and then another one with some architect wanting to start his own firm.. ah well.. we'll see.. anyways... that's it for now.. i'll blog a bit more soon i hope.. 

Ciao for now. 

P.s Jacks down there         

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Back from nothing..

Hello friends and whoever else reads this/.. yeah its been a while since i put anything up here, been busy working, and.. that's about it.. haven't shot in over a month which is NOT a good thing to do considering i'm graduating at the end of this year.. eek.. anyways.. this shoot was organised over 3 months ago, before i went on my trip to Japan. Had emailed Steg engineering as part of my series on industrial work places and thy were nice enough to reply and let me go down and have a shoot. Today was the day.. out in Hastings.. 65km out THAT way.. anyways.. photos.

First photograph i took was of this guy. Kevin aka Kev. top bloke, wanted to do a calendar shoot of the boys at Steg engineering after being inspired by the naked lady calendar hanging up at his work station. Felt strange shooting something.. i like.. after have a month off.. well.. since i got back from Japan really.. been doing a lot of video work.. but that's a different story.

 Kev asked if i wanted to hear something scream.. let this thing whirl for a while and it made a God awful screeching sound. i think he was enjoying himself.

 it was only a small workshop, would have been about 7 people in there max. They make most of the things for the steel company up the road, OneSteel i think it is.. oh well.. whatever.. they'd never let me shoot with them.

not so happy about this portrait.. sort of rushed it, probably should've taken more time with this one before i took it, most probably wont be using this one, i think the first portrait is a lot stronger and tells more than this one. But, we'll see. 

Quite like this photo as well. the series will be made up of about 4 images, so... i guess it'll be 4 out of these 8.. if there's 4 to be chosen.. i hope there is.. i think there is.. you cn make up your own minds on which ones you like or don't like.. anyways.. sent off like 10 emails last night.. got 1 reply.. "thanks for the email, great photos but we're not keen" sigh.. thanks for that... oh well, 1 down 9 to go.. lets hope i can get more before i graduate and time runs out.. need to print them too as well as other shit assignments.. ok... till next time..

Changas.

now that i'm back in the land of Oz

Hello all and now I am back home! has been a fantastic trip and i hope that my photos are enough to justify the beauty and essence of Japan. The assignment was initially to go and document the cultural and traditional heritage of Japan and the continual essence of their culture and history in a modern era they live in. Having an idea which thought to be, at the time, an easy and simple idea to complete, it turns out that Japan, although a country which still cherishes and harnesses its culture and traditions, is not completely enveloped with Geishas and girls in Kimonos. 

There were lots of Kimonos, but didnt see any geishas. My assignment took a slight tangent and ended up being a documentary on the cultural differences Japan has to Australia, a documentary on the life and the way the Japanese live their lives. Broad topic but... hopefully I had enough to cover it all.

just some random image which i quiet liked. Was outside the gates of Osaka castle, which you will see photos of soon..

What i found to be quite interesting about Japan is their continual interest and belief in traditional cultures and heritages. Yes, all the silver there is money.. i'd say alot of money.. in Japan the silver coins are 1, 50, 100, and 500 yen.. so... i wonder how many coins are of which amount haha i wanted to steal some of it...

Kimonos were everywhere.. everyone wears them and its amazing how its such an accepted style of clothing in Japan. in western cultures indifference is considered strange and unwanted, in Japan it seems this is acceptable and welcomed.  I've actually lost track of these photos.. so i'm just gonna put some random ones up in no particular order..

At Osaka castle there was a lantern festival, absolutely amazing, i'd say atleast 30000 candles where lined up all over the premises of the castle grounds, every candle had a wish written on it, its believed that if you write a wish and put it over the candles the spirits will take your wish and grant it for you.. was something to behold.. just amazing..

I could go on forever with these photos.. i'll leave it at that.. but it was amazing.. great night, great place.. wish i coulda taken a few people with me and experienced it with them.. sigh..

oh before i leave on Osaka castle, they had this awesome lantern walk. awesome.. the balloons were filled with little LED lights in there, amazing. 

Bikes everywhere in Japan, even ride them in shopping strips..

Not much to day tonight.. but that's enough of the images.. enjoy.. i'll post some more soon!

Chris.

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.