Afro Moses at NOTES in Enmore.

Afro Moses, who I made some photos with last year at the Opera House, sent me a ticket to his gig last night at Notes, a new music venue in Enmore, at 73 Enmore Rd. A singer, composer, multi-instrumentalist and teacher of music, Afro Moses was born in Ghana in West Aftica where he hit the charts as a teenager, becomming known as 'The African James Brown'. Moses makes the most joyful, spirited music, using traditional instruments played masterfully - the thumb piano, a beat-box, his voice - to share his message of unity and individual beauty and talent. At the Notes gig last night, Moses was supporting the tour-launch of another group based around Indonesian singer-guitarist Tommee to celebrate the release of his fourth album “Material is Thick”. Tommee is a renowned musician who has also toured with The John Butler Trio, Harry Manx and Blue King Brown as well performing in Indonesia, Canada, Europe and Japan. The group is a fabulous trio comprised of Tommee and his exciting new rhythm section, Rory Brown on Double Bass and the very fluid Walter Piccolruaz on the Pandeiro (electric Tambourine). Of course I took my camera along...

Just Show Up...

My friend Audrey recently asked me to join her in writing for her new blogsite which she has initiated for sharing of creative inspiration, called 365 Just Show Up. This image is one I posted there recently, after an early morning shoot with friends near Palm Beach in Sydney's north.

With photography, light and timing is everything. And sometimes that means 'showing up' when the rest of the world is sleeping. This weekend, fellow photographers Richard, Anastasia and Vlad and I arranged to meet near Palm Beach on Sydney's northern beaches area, to catch the sunrise over the water. We needed to arrive at the location somewhere between Astronomical Twilight (which was 5.17am on 7/8/10) and Nautical Twilight (5.46am on 7/8/10), in order to scout the location, get set up, and have an hour's shooting time in the magical pre-dawn light.

For those of a technical mind, Twilight has 3 defined phases: Astronomical, Nautical and Civil that refer to specific points in 6° increments of the sun's angle to the horizon before sunrise and after sunset. Each phase lasts approximately half an hour. (Australian readers can use this Geoscience Australia calculator to obtain the Sunrise / Sunset and Twilight times.)

Astronomical Twilight = the instant in the morning (or evening) when the centre of the sun is at an angle of 18° below the horizon. At this time it is possible to still see the light of stars in the sky.

Nautical Twilight = when the centre of the sun is at an angle of 12° below the horizon. At this time in the absence of moonlight, artificial lighting or adverse atmospheric conditions, it is dark for normal practical purposes. For navigation purposes at sea, the sea horizon is not normally visible. (Occurs approx. half an hour after Astronomical Twilight)

Civil Twilight = when the centre of the sun is at a 6° angle below the horizon. At this time in the absence of moonlight, artificial lighting or adverse atmospheric conditions, the illumination is such that large objects may be seen but no detail is discernible. The brightest stars and planets can be seen and for navigation purposes at sea, the sea horizon is clearly defined. (Occurs approx. half an hour after Nautical Twilight)

Sunrise: (Occurs approx. half an hour after Morning Civil Twilight)

The reverse occurs in the Evening: Sunset, Civil Twilight, Nautical Twilight, Astronomical Twilight, fading into the darkness of night.

Here Kitty Kitty Kitty...

Sometimes, on peaceful sunny afternoons, my neighbour's cat comes visiting. The tag on his collar says his name is 'Biggie'... I googled blue cats with yellow eyes and apparently he is a Chartreux, which are monastery cats that the French Carthusian monks used to keep the mice away from their Camembert... According to the Oracle (bless Wikipedia) the first letter of the official name of a Chartreux cat encodes the year of its birth; all Chartreux born in the same year have official names beginning with the same letter. The code letters rotate through the alphabet each year, omitting the letters K, Q, W, X, Y, and Z. For example, a Chartreux born in 2002 would have an official name starting with the letter T. Which means Biggie was born in 2006, making him four years old. He still has a playful kittenish spirit - his favourite game is to hide under garden furniture and then rush out to bat my feet while I'm hanging out the washing...

I Can See You!

Just learned how to post my images larger on the blog, so they can be seen in all their detailed glory! Turns out I was using an old version of Blogger Updater which was hiding all sorts of useful features to me. The Updated Editor button in Blogger can be found under Basic on the Settings page, near the bottom, where you can check to see which one you are using. The new one will let you see a blue menu bar with the sizes and positions when you click on your uploaded photos. It doesn't change my old posts, but at least new posts will appear Bigger and Better. Thanks Blogger Help - now my blog looks Just-Like-I've-Always-Wanted-It!

Thanks for the feedback!

Following a suggestion from my friend Becs in Lismore who is also a keen photographer, I made a new version of the Newcastle headland photo in Lightroom3, using a combination of sharp (the man and the sculpture) and misty (the sea and the railings) - and this is EXACTLY the effect I was looking for. Well done, Becs! Thanks so much for your insight - a collaboration always makes more than the sum of its parts!

Sculpture By the Sea - Newcastle NSW

Early morning walk around the headland of Newcastle Beach. Two versions... a misty one and a sharp one - which do you think works best?

Ah, Grasshopper!

I found this li'l martial arts expert in one of the cumquat trees in my backyard on the weekend... He was only 5mm long, so the Sigma 150mm macro lens came in handy. I am also indebted to Alex Wild for his kindness in sharing his insect-photography techniques.

My Twenty-Cent's Worth

When I was looking for a new 'point and shoot' for the times when the lovely-but-large Nikon D300s is too inconvenient to lug, Canon's cameras stood out from the crowd. After reading the forums, it was a toss-up between the S90 and the G11... I was almost ready to flip a coin, 'cos I couldn't decide from reading the tech-specs alone... but when I held them side-by side in the store and popped off a few test shots, the superb macro capability of the Canon G11 won me, hands down!

Platform 2, Central Railway Station:

The 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

Grandmothers Grandsons

Photoshop Post-Production

After reading an article on New Photo Pro Blog today about Photoshop Post-Production, I was inspired to give it a go and deepen my (currently ripple-thin) understanding of Layers. I took some lovely textured art papers, scanned them into jPegs and then spliced them in Photoshop with some of the images we made on the shoot with Melinda. I feel like I learned some useful things. Here's my first three pieces:

Tonya and Jess - Happy Valentines!

Here's a really sweet portrait of Tonya and Jess, from a photoshoot we did at Coogee Beach.

Picture Postcard Family Photoshoot

My friends asked me if I could do a family photoshoot so they could share some pictures with their family and friends. So we went to Bicentennial Park at Homebush where the kids could run around with lots of lovely peaceful landscaping. The day was over-cast, making perfect soft light for portraits. I worked this one in Lightroom to create a 'post-card' effect. Thank you my dear friends, for such a fun day and for making such beautiful and heart-warming photos!

Family Photoshoot

Family Photoshoot - Jenni

Family Photoshoot - Emma

Wise Eyes

Scooter!

Flash-Test Dummy

Determined to learn how to use off-camera flash, I enlisted 'My Li'l Helper' - the child mannequin I got 20 years ago from the closing-down sale for a children's clothing store. Usually she works as a hat-stand for my Vietnamese farmer's hat, but tonight, we ran a brush thru her 'Ranga wig and voila! a model that will stand still while I move the lights around.

So for this exercise, I actually read the manual (yes, really!) and discovered how I can use the built-in flash on the Nikon D300s as the commander, so that the SB900 flash will act as a wireless 'off-camera' remote light source. The trick to it is to go into the camera's flash menu, select commander mode and then dial the on-camera flash down to -- and set the off-camera flash setting on TTL (through-the-lens) way up, to around +3. Then flip the switch on the off-camera flash to commander mode also, and you're ready to go. I played around with various positioning, pointing the flash vertically straight up at the ceiling to bounce the light, or angling at 45 degrees, and then placing it at different places around the model: on the floor, on a table, left, right, front, behind. Here's a few frames - the last one I ran thru Lightroom to get the 'Sigorney Weaver / Alien' effect. So now I think I'm good-to-go with some real children! - which is just in the nick of time, as I have a family photo-shoot booked for next weekend - wish me luck!