I guess I need to admit that blogging doesn't come very naturally to me. But today it's raining and I have a cup of tea brewing and it seems timely to jot down a few things in this little blog-type-thing.

The past couple of months have been busy with a couple of unusual projects for me, with much of my time taken by 2 'residencies'. One is an ongoing residency at Flinders Medical Centre, where I am working on a group arts project as a timelapse artist. It is very interesting working with my cameras with movement in mind, and what has been most interesting has been that my approach to timelapse has had to be very different to the usual shoots. Rather than using an intervalometer and locking off a shoot for a few hours / days at a time, this project involves lots of fast shooting and changing camera angles and lenses to follow the action of what is happening at the hospital. It is fantastic working with the other artists, including a musician, video artist and visual artist. This project will continue over the next few months, so stay posted for information about that..

The other project has been at Flinders University working as an artist in residence, again with a number of other artists across various disciplines. Co-incidentally, this is another job where I have been engaged as a timelapse /moving-image maker. This has just completed, and it was really interesting to work in the university environment.

STAY TUNED.. I will be announcing an exciting opportunity for local artists to get their headshots done at the studio over the month of July..!

It's been over 6 weeks since my last blog! Far too long, it must be said. So much for weekly updates! Well, February and March have been fantastically busy and challenging months. I've been shooting a good range of creative works across Theatre, portraiture, commercial photography, and visual arts. I am absolutely loving my new radio triggers and have discovered a new confidence with location lighting that these triggers allow. I am far more comfortable shooting manual flash and having a portable location kit that is light and small is really fabulous.

One of my recent shoots has been for Jason Cross and his wonderful project 'Three Men in a Tub'. We shot the actors on the incredible motorised vessel on a scorchingly bright day, and I was able to use my speedlights to fill the shadows to an impressive degree. Here are a few pictures from that shoot::

We wanted to do the shoot on location (rather than in the rehearsal yard) but that wasn't practical. In order to explore the idea of the travellers having traversed the globe I have done a rough montage with a couple of landscapes to see how they work. Here is an example. The extraction is really rough, an dthe perspective is wrong - but I'll tidy it up a lot more when we decide which way to go, but it's prabably a bit more playful this way.

I will post some more reacent shoots as soon as I get some time. The past week has been gloomy, cold and rainy. I have been out in the rain shooting all week and am starting to miss the summer we didn't really have!

Later.

A couple of days ago I agreed to shoot a quick environmental portrait of a string quartet for a submission they had due. I did some location scouting based on the brief (an old wall with interesting texture and colour in a particular neighbourhood) and found a few fab options. When I scout it is very particular to the shot an din this case I was thinking about options for cerating good dimension in the frame with 4 subjects; I don't really like the idea of just placing people against a "nice wall". Unfortunately in the short time between deciding to do the shoot and the actual shoot, nothing was decided in terms of the location until the morning of the shoot, and in the end it was a spot chosen by one of the musicians for it's convenience. Luckily it was in the shade (we had a heatwave all week and I wasn't keen on fried squinty subjects) and we just got on with it on the day..

The location ended up being a 'nice wall' - it did have fabulous colours and textures but ultimately I find that 2-dimensional locations like this are very difficult to work with for composing groups. I would have loved to have done the shoot in one of my scouted spots, but maybe next time? Anyway, we did a few setups and had a fun time. At the end of the shoot I pursuaded the group to let me try a little idea. I wanted to play with the idea of QUARTET and shot a simple group arrangement in four sections to be pieced together later like a puzzle. This would be very easy to do in post by simply cutting an entire image into four parts, but I liked the idea of the parts not quite fitting together to add complexity and interest to the frames (maybe not comceptually rigorous but still fun). It was quite tricky to make the parts work well together. Unfortunately the elongation and distortion to the figures and instruments were a little compromising to the integral beauty of the musicians.

The group's agent doesn't like the funky edges but when I got rid of them it didn't look as interesting. Maybe it's just too contrived but I think these sorts of experiments are worth pursuing, even if they are not ultimately successful. It's all a good learning experience and rather fun.

The image has been desturated in 2 adjustment layers and, using masks, I have varied the saturation across each frame to slightly emphasise the instruments.

I had the opportunity to shoot underwater last week for a dance film development by Kat Worth. It was a last-minute decision to shoot that scene and I looked into quick and simple options for shooting underwater, and managed to get hold of a DiCaPac unit for my D700. I haven't shot underwater with a digital camera before, so it was a fantastic challenge to see how it would go...

The trickiest thing was having to tread water whilst trying to shoot - basically impossible. The cinematographer was well kitted out with snorkel, weight-belt and flippers and seemed well able to move around as required and shoot the footage. I was splashing about like a drunk seal and found that I couldn't see through the viewfinder AT ALL if I tried to shoot with my head underwater. Not a great start. Luckily there were a few lilos floating about and I dragged myself onto one and hung onto it like a nearly-drowned rat. So much for years of scuba training and total water confidence - dashed in minutes!

Well, from the relatively comfortable position of the lilo I found I was indeed able to shoot down into the water and see what I was doing. The DiCaPac was truly awkward to use - I struggled to use the zoom barrell on the lens and often couldn't locate the shutter release if I took my finger off it to reposition myself on the lilo. I relied on autofocus and was constantly shifting the focus points as the toggle was relatively accessible.

The dancer is Alison Currie, and she was simply amazing - really patient and consistent, and she worked tirelessly in the cold to get the footage required. The cinematographer was Dan (from danimations) and he did a great job from what I could assess - his vantage points from the bottom of the pool would have offered a much more dreamy and interesting perspective, and I was conscious that the lilo vantage point was compromising. But in the end I think the stills are quite effecive (they did need some post adjustment - especially in the tonality and colour). Any shots used should have the black lines in the pool eliminated, but for now they are workable and I am happy with my first efforts at shoting underwater. Next time I'll kit up and would consider a less bouyant camera housing..