Innehållsförteckning för December 2018 - February 2019 från Photo Review

On your art nude and boudoir website ( gpixart.com.au ), the opening statement is ‘Personalised photo sessions that empower, inspire and celebrate you.’ That implies there’s considerably more to it than photographing women with little or no clothing on. I became a photographer because I love supporting people to feel good about themselves. When I started my photography, I did sessions with friends and they looked at the work and said, ‘Wow – that’s me! Oh my gosh.’ And to me that was incredibly powerful. That I could show someone a way of seeing themselves, some of their beauty, that they hadn’t seen before. So I’ve always approached it in a way that’s very much about confidence building and giving clients something they can feel proud of. It’s…

All digital cameras are able to display a histogram on their LCD monitors and/or in their electronic viewfinders (if they have one). It's one of the benefits of digital capture, yet it's often ignored because many people don't know how histogram data should be used. Most casual snapshooters check the image reproduced on the monitor screen after a shot is taken - the slang term for which is ‘chimping'. But while chimping lets you check sharpness, depth of field and, to some degree, colour reproduction, it's less accurate for checking actual exposure levels due to the influence of ambient light hitting the screen. The displayed image on a monitor screen will look different in bright and dull conditions, indoors and outdoors and under different types of lighting. Screen brightness and…

Sony took the lead in the 'full-frame' mirrorless camera market by five years, and is currently selling its third-generation cameras supported by a suite of 24 Sony-branded lenses and a similar number from third-party manufacturers. An established customer base, mature product design and Sony's dominance in electronics and sensor manufacturing will ensure it retains this lead for at least the next few years. But the market is changing. August 23 saw the launch of Nikon's Z7 and Z6 cameras, which were followed on September 5 by Canon's EOS R. Both companies come late to the full-frame mirrorless party, having merely dabbled in mirrorless cameras. Nikon's flawed Nikon 1 system was discontinued in July, 2018 while Canon's mirrorless EOS M system, which was launched in July 2012, has failed to satisfy…

Repeat Yourself Pattern and repetition is an enduring visual concept that long predates photography. (Think of the geometric designs on pottery from thousands of years ago for instance.) Repeating patterns are all around us and not surprisingly they follow in the great artistic tradition and are a staple of photographic composition. Our challenge is for you to find an interesting pattern or repetitive pattern in the natural world. What we’re looking for are patterns that arise from a clear repetition of nearly identical shapes or colour values. So pick up that camera of yours and surprise us with your unique vision. Please review the rules and email your entries to photochallenge@photoreview.com.au. Deadline for entries is 28 February 2019, winner will be selected 14 March 2019 and the winning pictures will…

‘In Australia, our public square’s the beach. That’s where people go,’ says photographer Paul Blackmore about the setting for Heat, his photographic exploration of beach culture impacted by a relentless succession of fierce summers. ‘When I started thinking about this project, I was going to go around Australia. But then I thought “No, I’m going to stick to where I live – the city beaches I know, like Bondi and Tamarama. I’ll just start documenting and interpreting this culture that’s kind of laid bare under an ever-hotter sun.” Paul’s desire to engage with the existential enormity of climate change’s effects on our lives is not a recent concern. ‘All my photojournalism work, really, has got a lot to do with the environment and the way people treat it. It’s been…

For a number of years specialist websites have been promoting a technique that involves adjusting the exposure to place the histogram peak as far as possible to the right of the graph without clipping highlights. Theoretically, this ETTR strategy should get the optimum performance out of the image sensor and deliver a wider tonal range in dark areas, greater signal-to-noise ratio, fuller use of the colour gamut and greater latitude for editing. In practice, it's not quite that simple; some cameras aren't optimised for ETTR, particularly those that use lossy raw compression. There are also some preconditions that must be met: 1. ETTR works best with raw files so the histogram should be used as a guide only since it is based on JPEG data. (Raw files should have a…

Fingerprints in the Wheat Field By Ronald Rockman Leica R9; 80mm f/1.4 Summilux-R Leica lens; Agfa Ultra Professional High Colour Saturation Film I took this shot south of Mildura Victoria by hanging over the side of the basket of a Hot Air Balloon not long after sunrise, which was quite exhilarating. I loved seeing the ploughed field below me as I pushed the shutter. Don’s response At first glance I thought this was another nice drone picture, but in fact Ronald not only took this leaning over the edge of a hot air balloon basket, he captured it on film – which for no good reason, I find oddly satisfying to know. The golden colour, the three little trees with their long shadows are all just right, but what really…

When a 10-15km diameter asteroid ploughed into what is now called the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, the resulting impact left a 180km wide impact crater – and an unmistakable message in the geological record. Marine sediments and terrestrial rocks found all over the world show this distinctive signature of what geologists call the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction event. Beyond the impact crater, the evidence is very subtle. Little more than a thin layer of clay in the sedimentary record, its alien nature is revealed by an unusual abundance of iridium, an element common in asteroids but very rare in our planet’s crust. ‘An-thro-po-cene Relating to or denoting the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.’ Now we…

Why visit The coastal drive that follows the Great Southern Ocean brings roaring seas which can be seen crashing into the many coves, headlands and endless stretches of beach. Huge piles of driftwood get pummelled into the shoreline, becoming lodged in the richly coloured and textured rock formations. Rolling sand dunes stretching for miles will challenge a sense of scale and take days to explore. Small boat charters are available to investigate the remote river systems revealing some of Tasmania’s most prized wilderness, with trees more than 2000 years old. Sunsets are very rewarding, as the sun disappears behind an uninterrupted and seemingly endless horizon. Heading inland brings a dramatic contrast, entering into pristine wilderness dominated by towering waterfalls, quartzite peaks and mysterious rivers cutting their way through deep ravines.…

It’s an old story. Man goes on overseas trip, buys a camera in duty free to document his travels and, having never taken a picture in his life, he reads the manual on the plane. It was 1985. A young Nick Ghionis just getting acquainted with his new Olympus OM-1 as he flew off overseas, couldn’t have imagined that nearly three decades hence he’d be one of Melbourne’s top wedding photographers. The realisation that he wanted to become a photographer hit him the moment he picked up his trip photos from the local chemist’s 1-hour lab. ‘I was really happy with the results,’ he said. ‘I thought, ’imagine if I actually knew what I was doing...” Needless to say, my love affair with all things photographic began then and there.’…

As image sensors gain higher resolution and more cameras become capable of shooting 4K video, photographers are being challenged with accelerating developments in the memory card market. Memory cards come in a variety of shapes and sizes with different technologies and ways of handling digital data. With some cameras supporting two quite different card formats, it can be difficult to pick out the one that best suits your camera system and the images you record. With cameras that only have one card slot, the choice of card type is made by the camera manufacturer. This is true to some degree for cameras with dual card slots, particularly if both slots use the same card type. However, some confusion is likely to occur with camera systems like the Nikon D5, which…