Innehållsförteckning för April 2022 från Australian Photography

Recently I was lucky enough to hear photographers Jackie Ranken and Mike Langford speak at a small event in Dunedin, New Zealand. As two of the country’s finest photographers, the Australian expats have spent a lifetime perfecting their craft and they both continue to produce interesting and beautiful work from their home base of Twizel in the Mackenzie basin. One of the topics the pair touched on was the idea of the subject in photography, and how as photographers we can use the subject to ‘build’ our image. There’s a well-trodden expression that where painters create their image with brushstrokes, photographers must do the opposite – removing the superfluous from the frame to create the final image. This can be done through changes in composition, use of depth of field,…

I bought my first SLR in late 1979. It was a Practika with three lenses. Within a year, I discovered that my love of nature could be reflected in my interest in photography, and with birds especially. The rainbow bee-eater was one of the first birds I remember as a kid. How colourful and how fast they were when trying to catch insects! However, I quickly discovered they were tough to photograph. Most cameras in 1979 were manual for both focus and exposure and limited to a 36-shot roll of film. My results were never great, and although I’ve photographed them since, I’ve never been able to capture them as well as I would like. This year I decided to turn my lens on a few subjects I have always…

TIMO BALK Awakening EDITOR’S COMMENT In full darkness, Timo Balk says he hiked up to Signal Peak in the southern Grampians for this sunrise shoot. “From the summit, I watched the warm morning light unfold a spectacular view over the northern ranges. It felt wild, rugged and remote, which I love about the great outdoors,” he says. This nine shot ultra-wide panorama is truly stunning, and a good reminder that longer focal lengths can be a great way to bring variety to your landscape images. And, not only can they can help you get closer, but if you shoot a pano with one, you can still capture the whole scene too. Here, you’ve done well to capture an image with challenging dynamic range, and edited it to preserve the details…

If you are anything like most photographers, there’s thousands upon thousands of images on your hard drives. Maybe you keep your best shots in a separate folder that grows over the years, but what do you do with all the others? Putting my images into a series of nine is something I’ve been doing for the last few years, and I’ve found it adds a new dimension to my photography and how I showcase my images. Why nine you ask? Nine images are visually appealing and yet still a challenge to put into a 3x3 grid. At the same time, nine images of the same orientation will give you a pleasing finished look. Putting your images into a group of nine makes them collectively stronger by saying ‘I think these…

Kingston’s newest XS2000 SSD is faster than most. It’s rated to deliver both read and write speeds of up to 2,000mb/s, which puts it in the same category as the SanDisk ExtremePro we reviewed last year (see: https://bit.ly/3sXn45X). However, the Kingston is even smaller, weighing in at a diminutive 28.9 grams despite still being a relatively durable unit. To add even more durability, Kingston have included a rubber sleeve in case the drive is dropped or thrown across the room by a grumpy 4-year-old – as in my case. The rest of the design is sleek and subtle, with a simple Kingston logo and a blue activity light next to the USB-C port. Included in the packaging is an 11.5” USB Type-C cable that’s capable of matching the fast read…

My preferred genre in photography is wildlife, but with opportunities to go on safari limited for the not-too-distant future, I’ve realised it’s time for a spot of reinvention. Luckily, photography is an incredibly versatile art. We moved to the beach during the pandemic, so I have been exploring seascape photography. For a photographer used to fast-moving animals, I have found it a real learning curve getting my head around the challenges of low light photography. Here, the intention is to have the shutter open for longer to let in more light, often the opposite of wildlife where fast shutter speeds are the norm. Writing for APS, I am happy to share my journey as a keen amateur learning more about my craft. I first learnt how to set focus and…

IAN KENINS Ian Kenins has been a professional photographer for over 30 years whose work has been published in a wide variety of books, newspapers and magazines. His favourite photographic subject is people, particularly those from rural areas. And, as his article in this issue shows, he’s someone not to travel with. See more at iankenins.com. LEE CLELAND Lee Cleland is an enthusiastic photographer and traveller with a love of the ocean and wild places. See more of her work at eecleland.wordpress.com SHREYAS YADAV Shreyas Yadav is an engineer, and a wildlife and nature photographer from India.He is also a writer and lifelong adventure explorer. See more of his work at shreyas-yadav.com DREW HOPPER Drew Hopper is an Australian freelance documentary photographer exploring ecological themes, landscape and place. See more…

PANASONIC has announced the Lumix GH6, which features a new 25.2MP Micro Four Thirds (M43) sensor, 5-axis IBIS, 10-bit 4:2:2 recording, up to 5.7K 60fps, internal ProRes, and slow motion up to 300fps. Over five years have passed since Panasonic released the LUMIX GH5 in 2017 and, despite iterative updates in the proceeding years (the GH5S in 2018 and more recently the GH5 II in 2021), it is the GH6 many photographers and videographers have been waiting for. Firstly, Panasonic has increased the effective pixel count of the GH6 by about 20%, which makes the GH6 the first M43 camera to offer a sensor larger than 20MP. The newly developed 25.2MP sensor has no lowpass filter, with Panasonic claiming that despite it being higher resolution, the sensor should have increased…

THE Head On Photo Festival has announced its People’s Choice winners for the 2021 Head On Photo Awards. Through an online portal, voters selected their favourite photograph in each of the three Awards categories: Portrait, Landscape and Student. The People’s Choice winner in the Land-scape Award is Diana Nicholette Jeon, with her work Under Construction. Jeon said the series is about “the destruction of the beautiful lands in Hawaii in the ever-increasing pursuit of income from tourism and overdevelopment. Archival pigment print with coloured pigment on translucent vellum over lay to disrupt the landscape.” The People’s Choice winner in the Student award is Talia Skuse with her work Through her eyes. Skuse said: “Dyslexia is often misunderstood as a disability resulting in negative emotional consequences due to the stigma attached…

YOUR BEST SHOT IS OPEN TO AP SUBSCRIBERS AND APS MEMBERS. TO ENTER AN IMAGE IN THE COMP, CHECK THE COMPETITION THEMES AND INSTRUCTIONS BELOW AND EMAIL YOUR BEST IMAGE TO YOURBESTSHOT@AUSTRALIANPHOTOGRAPHY.COM UPCOMING COMPETITION THEMES JUNE ISSUE CONVERGING LINES March 31, 2022 JULY ISSUE MOTION April 30, 2022 AUGUST ISSUE HIGH KEY May 31, 2022 SEPTEMBER ISSUE PORTRAIT June 30, 2022 OCTOBER ISSUE LEADING LINES July 31, 2022 YOUR ENTRY 1. Email your entry to yourbestshot@australianphotography.com with the name of the competition theme in the email subject line, for example: Weather, Abstract, Landscape, etc.2. The image file must be the same as your name, for example Jane Smith.jpg. If you enter multiple images, each new image file name should be appended with a unique number, eg Jane Smith2.jpg3. A maximum…

If you’ve ever tried to deliberately shoot creative blur images, you’ll have probably realised it’s not easy. This is because subjects can quickly become unrecognisable when you isolate them from their background, and it can be difficult to give your viewer something to focus on when everything in the frame is abstract. One technique is to use Photoshop to do the blurring for you in a targeted fashion. Before we get started, it’s worth noting that this is a creative technique that may be more manipulation than some readers are comfortable with. If that’s you, remember that the fun in editing is setting your own limits for how far you want to go, and experimentation is a great way to improve your post production skills. With that out of the…

This is a photo of Cockburn Island (64º 12´S) in the Weddell Sea near the Antarctic Peninsula. I captured it in 2021 while working as a photo instructor onboard the ship the National Geographic Resolution. It’s a photo that will forever remind me of a night when I was ‘asleep at the wheel’ and allowed a need for rest get in the way of my goal to make good photographs. Three days earlier I had embarked in Ushuaia at the tip of South America after a long charter flight from Miami. It had been a decent break from the job during the pandemic and I was excited to be on the ship and working with a talented field team of naturalists and Antarctic experts. But I was also very jet…

MARLEY Morgan, a photographer from the Wirad-juri, Gamilaraay and Yuwaalaraay nations, has won stock library iStock’s first-ever inclusion grant. Awarded in partnership locally with Australia Council for the Arts, the grant was open to commercial photographers, videographers and illustrators based in Australia, the U.S., UK, and Latin America. The photographer and mother of three has a particular focus on Aboriginal women, motherhood and culture. She said she was inspired to photograph Indigenous women, specifically mums, in a positive light after giving birth to her first child and not identifying with the women in the materials she was seeing in doctor’s offices. She said she plans to use the $5,000 grant to build a stock library that will address the lack of diverse and positive images of Aboriginal people in the…

When it comes to photography, we tend to focus on the things that most interest us, and these are often the subjects we photograph best. In short, it pays to play to your strengths. This sub-conscious mantra also applies when photographers – amateur and professional – travel over-seas. When landscape enthusiasts venture abroad, they invariably end up in a foreign land’s hinterland, while architecture buffs are drawn to cities filled with unique buildings. I’ve always been fascinated by people – the way they interact with one another and the environment they happen to be in, their hobbies and professions, and the way they personify their country. And, as hard as I try to capture the beauty of a landscape or the magnificence of a historic city, the results are seldom…

It doesn’t seem all that long ago the first GFX camera hit the market, with the GFX 50S launching just five years ago in 2017. Since then, we haven’t seen any other companies dive into the format with as much confidence as Fujifilm has and, with the GFX 50S II, it’s clear the Japanese company feels an iterative update rather than a wholesale one is the order of the day. As such, on paper there doesn’t appear to be much of a difference between the 50S II and its predecessor, yet the new body and a few internal changes – combined with a more affordable price point – might entice certain photographers to jump ship to medium format. The GFX 50S II shares a lot more with the GFX 100S…

My passion for photographing people started in high school. I enjoyed capturing my friends during school activities or at functions. I soon realized time passes too quickly and wanted to record my family and friends for future posterity. The Cuban is a portrait of my brother-in-law John Santillo. He is a hard-working, self-employed truck driver with a great character and a very interesting face. He was initially hesitant to sit for me because he didn’t like having his photo taken. It meant I needed to ensure he understood the concept and style of photograph I had in mind and at my second request he agreed to participate. I explained that the cigar would be used as a prop together with hats. In preparation, I’d asked him to not shave before…

Congratulations to Jane Jongebloed who has won a 12-month subscription to either Australian Photography or Capture magazine for taking out Image Doctor this month! AP is the only monthly photography magazine in Australia, and we’ve been celebrating the work of Australian photographers for more than 70 years. Published quarterly, Capture is Australia’s leading journal for emerging and professional photographers. Find out more about both publications at yaffa.com.au. HOW TO SUBMIT AN IMAGE • Email entries to: imagedoctor@australianphotography.com with “Image Doctor” in the subject line. • Include your name, image title and up to 150 words about how you created it. • Only one image per person per month. • Images must be saved in JPEG format. Maximum file size is 5MB. Include your name in the filename of the image.…