Colour & Light Photoblog

Probably plenty more posts on this topic to come as we move from New Zealand to Melbourne. But for now let’s cover off selling the excess stuff – trademe (or ebay). Fun chance for me to mess around doing product shots.

Board games:

Wasgij (Jigsaw) Puzzles:

Books:

Excess kitchen stuff:

The spare bathroom works well as a studio with all the white seratone everywhere – 1 flash bounces well enough to give a good wrap around light. Anyway, you wanna buy anything?

And then the cars too. 2008 Mazda SP23:

As well as the Audi S4

Most of my photos that I like, are ones that have come from well abroad – Europe, Rarotonga, Fiji, Japan. Is it because these places are more photogenic than my backyard?

I don’t think so.

The reason I see, is that I am so accustomed to the local stuff that I no longer see it in a photographic way. When I’m abroad I have a purpose about my photography, I’ll plan around the golden hour, I’ll have my gear with me, and I’ll be seeking out photogenic locations. At home I don’t. At home I plan around work and the elements of daily life. But, when I do occasionally break that routine and focus on photography, I can start to see the beginings of where the good local pictures are waiting – just 5 minutes down the road. All these photos are taken within 100 m and 1 hour of each other at the Whakatane Heads.

I don’t do a lot of paid photographic work. Photography is primarily a hobby for me, but, I am ever conscious of not undercutting those who need to make a living from photography. The photo I give away for free could have been part of someone’s mortgage payment. In this cut throat world where everyone has an eleventy terapixel camera, if it’s not one photographer canibalising another, it’s the clients themselves trying to get something for nothing. Here’s a post from Aaron Lindberg:

One of the toughest things for a photographer to do is to say “no” to new business, even if it’s a bad deal. Especially in today’s environment, your prospective clients have an arsenal of pick-up lines — ranging from sweet talk to coy bluffs — to make bad deals sound like good ones.

Here are some examples of client sweet talk:

via Photographers, Don’t Fall for These Client Pick-Up Lines.

And since this is a photoblog, here’s one photo I did get some payment for, and oldie, but a goodie:

Flood waters have completely receded from our area, and those who need to have been getting stuck into the clean up. Great to have a typical Whakatane day (i.e. sunny!) immediately following the flood.

During

After

And a few more during pics ’cause they’re more interesting:

So I’m getting flooded right now, so I thought I’d update my blog. Yeah, that seems stupid. Anywho, quick one:

Ok, back to battening down the hatches, or whatever you do when the water is rising…

And by coffee art I’m not talking latte art, I’m talking coffee bag art. The team flicking out the coffee orders must be sampling a good volume of the product at times, but I don’t know what message this delivery is supposed to convey…

So is this a forecast for my future, a sketch of the man who packs my coffee, or something entirely different?

Who knows…

Ok, video is up now. Click through to youtube if you want to view in HD, or watch low def here:

Gallery on colourandlight site here: http://www.colourandlight.co.nz/galleries/mbop16may10/

Video clips to come in a couple of days.

Enjoy

Little point and shoot camera on top of the big SLR. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for quite a while, but haven’t been able to find an adapter that would mount on my camera hotshoe at one end and the tripod screw on the bottom of another camera. Well, while in Japan I found one on the shelf:

Looks a little entertaining, but it saves me the dilemma of trying to decide if I want to video or shoot each time a car comes hurtling down the road. I can focus on getting the still shots and then let the little cam grab some (shonkey) video while I’m at it.

Available in HD 720 if you want to click through into youtube to view it:

And the Old Coach Road stills photo gallery is here.

Yeah, I’m totally over uploading the Japan photos now. They didn’t inspire me as much as the Europe ones for some reason. Here’s one of the last I uploaded:

So anyway, back in New Zealand I went a shot one of the Whakatane football (soccer) games this weekend (vs Te Puke), and again wasn’t feeling too inspired (photographically). At least the weather was comfortable (not too cold) and the light was soft and even (overcast), so it made it a easy shoot. Click here for link to the gallery.