Portraiture: The Hole in the Rock

Earlier in the year (yeah, it’s taken me this long to get around to posting these), A. and I went on a little trip down the Great Ocean Road. Just past Anglesea is an attractive rocky spine of a headland, at low tide surrounded by sandy flats. The rocks themselves have been weathered by salt, wind and water, and are riddled with holes and dimples, full of character.

While I was framing some beach shots, A. climbed up behind the outcrop and found herself a little window in the rock to peer down at me. The location appealed to me, so I let her pose while I fired off a bunch of frames. I was really pleased with the outcome.

There’s a number of things I really like about this shoot (aside from the fact that I happen to like photographs of my lovely wife ). First off, I find the interplay between organic and inorganic really appealing- hard, lifeless rock versus fluid, living being. And yet despite this contrast, A. fits really well into the hole, and the shape of it seems to compliment her form in it.

I was using my 16-35mm wide-angle lens, usually a no-no for portraiture, as it tends to distort features unnaturally (especially up-close, where it can make noses bloom and hairlines recede). However in this instance, I kept really close to the rock but not so close to my subject, A., who stayed in the middle distance (which for that lens is about 5-10 feet away). The effect was to keep A. fairly well proportioned, but blow the rock right out, filling the frame, stretching it and (at closest range) blurring it. Oddly, this actually gave the impression of movement through the image, and making the frozen twists and boils of the rock appear fluid, another nice contrast. With A.’s hair catching a sniff of sea breeze, it gave an overall impression of motion and dynamism to an otherwise static scene- almost like a breaking wave frozen in time.

This next shot I like for the sheer fun of it. Again the wide-angle lens has played its role here, overemphasising what’s close to the glass and throwing all else into the distance. A.’s hand and arm are large, almost claw-like as she crawls out of the rock, and she seems disproportionately large compared to the rest of the scene. At the end of the day it’s just a fun image, brought to life by the distorting effect of the wide glass.

This next one I enjoy for the way the rock hole seems to mold to A.’s shape, framing her in a sliver of burning white. The different elements- blue sky, hard rock, fierce backlight, and A. herself, all contrast and yet work together to hold the image in a way I find very satisfying. You can see some lens fall-off in the bottom left corner, further developed by the shallow depth of field, which is a bit of a shame, but doesn’t rob the overall effect in my view.

And this last one would have to be my favourite of the bunch. In part because it’s just a lovely shot of my favourite person. But I also like how natural it feels, very comfortable and unstaged. I’m also very chuffed with the lighting and how it all came together. Shooting portraits contre-jour (into the light) is usually a challenging proposition unless you’re good at using fill-flash (something I’m still learning). The camera tends to overcompensate for the light behind the subject, darkening the face/body of the person you’re shooting, often to oblivion. Because the backlight was only a small portion of the frame here (A. and the rock both served to block most of it out) there was enough light on A. to keep her well lit and visible, with only minor tweaking in post-processing. The result, she looks like she’s emerging out of the sunlight, while the way her hair blows out to white and the frame of the sky behind her has a halo-like effect [avoid angelic references here].  All up, one of my favourite photos in recent times. But then I confess the subject leaves me a little biased…

As always, thanks for swinging by, and hope you enjoyed.

Ciao,

-MA

A Scenic Detour

While I’ve not been quite as prolific a photographer during the first half of this year (something I’m looking to change), I have managed to break my camera out a few times. And likewise, although my travel schedule has been light-on, I’ve popped up here and there to get a few images that I feel are worth sharing from around the place. Once again, I’ll let the images do most of the talking.

These first few are from the East Coast of the South Island, a ways north of Kaikoura. We were blown away by the beauty of this little pocket of the country. I’ve travelled pretty much every corner of New Zealand, with only one or two exceptions, and this was one of those exceptions. A winding coastal road clings to the rocks and cliffs along this rugged coastline, with dramatic breakers on one side, steep hillsides rising to mountains on the other. The weather was glorious and the scenery rich. I’d go back in a heartbeat.

We found this little church and it’s environs along the same stretch. The churches around Christchurch and northwards are beautiful and would be well worth a photography excursion on their own merit.

Another area of fresh exploration for me was Golden Bay. This exquisite pocket of the South Island, along the north-western tip, is a lfiestyle haven with delightful scenery and a rugged, secluded feel out of the main township areas. We did a short walk to Wainui Falls to one of the more dramatic waterfalls I’ve seen for a few years (partly due to Victoria’s general rainfall scarcity).

The bush walk up is lovely, but the falls make it totally worth the effort. Heavy and gushing and surrounded by dripping temperate rainforest, it’s a gorgeous spot to explore.

Heading northwards through the middle of the North Island and it’s so-called desert centre, we stopped on a windy afternoon for a view of Mt. Ruapehu across the barren plains. Wind-tossed wildflowers made for a nice inclusion into the frame on the first shot.

Catapulting west a considerable distance, I snapped these images of downtown Cape Town, South Africa, from my hotel window. Just to mix it up a little.

And finally, a weekend break took us down the Great Ocean Road here in Victoria, where we came across this little waterfall at the end of a roadside footpath into the Otways. One of the under-rated treasures of Australia, the Great Ocean Road is full of pathways and corridors through the bush to explore, and could be mined for weeks for little gems like this one.

More to come as the camera gets out for more walks…

Synaesthesia: The Sound of Water

I love the notion of synaesthesia. In its most simple definition, it’s the notion that something we experience through one of our five senses (smell, sight, sound, taste or touch) can trigger an experience in one of the other senses. Neurologically, it is a rare condition in which neural pathways have somehow become confused, and the sense receptors taking in one set of data interpret it as a different set of values altogether. So that somebody listening to a musical concerto might experience the musical notes as flavours on the tongue. Somebody smelling a bouquet of flowers may instead sense the aroma as flashes of colour. It’s a marvellous, mystical notion (for those of us who don’t suffer from it) and really piques my imagination. (And for readers of paperback fiction, Dean Koontz’s “Intensity” features a particularly creepy villain who experiences synaesthesia).

As a photographer, it’s my aim in taking and sharing a photograph that my viewer takes away an experience from looking at the image that goes beyond the simple arrangement of coloured pixels. At the very simplest, I want to convey some kind of emotion. That might be awe, at the beauty of creation. It might be shock, or something that forces the viewer out of their comfort zone and forces them to confront a new reality. It might be a sense of longing or excitement, a wanderlust as per the title of this blog, or the recollection of a fond old memory.

I started taking photographs- much in the same vein with which I started this blog- because I wanted the people close to me, who I couldn’t take with me on my travels, to experience a little of what I was experiencing. I wanted, through my photographs, to take people to the places and let them feel, on some level, as though they accompanied me. It’s both a gift I hope to give to those close to me, and the fulfillment of a selfish need- not to feel alone when I journey.

My ultimate desire is for somebody to be able to look at a photograph and, on some level of subconciousness, to be able to project themselves through the frame until they have a sensory experience as though they were standing there beside me as I captured the image. Deep, sensory, emotive, real. A synaesthesia of sorts.

Not every photograph conveys that, of course. And the fashion in which an experience might be conveyed will differ with the subject, the style, and the quality of the image. Some photos might pack a more emotive punch, while others might trigger familiar memories, and others still might be more sensory.

This collection of shots I’ve taken over the last few months are all of water, and I’ve found that for me, they’ve tickled the edge of this spectrum. I explore them with my eyes, and I start to hear the water passing through the image.

For a change, I won’t flood this page with words, but will let you assign your own vocabulary to whatever the sets communicate to you.

The first collection is a series I shot at Huka Falls, in New Zealand’s North Island near Taupo. The second is from the area around a small waterfall on the edge of Otway National Park in southern Victoria, just off the Great Ocean Road.

One of the things I like in the second set is the juxtaposition between noise and silence, movement and stillness.

Lighthouse Lightscape

Wrapping up the two nights’ photography I had around the lighthouse at Airey’s Inlet, I thought I’d share the last few shots I took on those evenings- mostly different angles of the lighthouse with the stars behind.  I really don’t get tired of this viewpoint- each shot was a joy to take and exciting to see the result.  Stars are a breathtaking phenomenon, and to see them revealed on the camera’s sensor in this way made this photoshoot an incredibly enjoyable one.  Apologies if you’ve seen too many of these now.  This’ll be the last lot. 

A more underexposed, later-night shot captures the dark hues of a nearly black sky.  You can see the streaked trail of a satellite just above the lighthouse’s crown.

This shot, taken shortly after sunset, shows up some of the softer blue hues still in the sky and reflecting from a sun beyond the horizon, while stars are visible overhead.  Yellow light in the bottom-left corner of the frame is not solar residue but is ambient light pollution from the town of Geelong catching in clouds near the horizon.

This shot, taken looking nearly straight up and avoiding the lighthouse altogether, shows the bright band of the Milky Way, with a satellite tracking across the top of the shot for the duration of the exposure.  I was startled by how many of my shots showed up satellites as they traversed the sky- there are a lot of them up there!  I didn’t notice a single one while I was actually doing the shooting and only saw them after looking at the photos themselves.

Looking nearly straight up, the camera’s wide angle captures the lighthouse protruding into the frame- and yes, another satellite.

From this angle, you can see the beams of light from the beacon catching in moisture in the air.  In fact the effect visually while standing watching the blinking light from the massive bulb was quite spectacular- it shot outwards like rays from a laser gun into the night, though the effect was subtle and hard to capture on the sensor (click the image to see the effect larger and more clearly).

And in this last shot, grain/noise from the camera’s high ISO setting (1600) makes the shot a little overtextured for my liking, but still returns a pleasing composition/exposure.

Thanks for dropping by!

The Smoke-Filled Sky

I drove out to the lighthouse at Split Point (Airey’s Inlet, on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road) to take some sunset shots, only to find, to my dismay, that a DSE back-burn was taking place in the hills behind the town, and the sky was choked by a column of smoke.  So much for a pretty sunset.
What I got instead was the dramatic lighting and colours of the smokey sky, mingling with the warm hues of a colourful dusk, and on into a dramatic, fire-filled night.

Framing the lighthouse against the smoke and the contrasting blue sky (above) created some otherworldly images that really caught the eye.  The lighting was quite surreal.

As the sun set (pink glow behind the smoke and clouds, left) the towering smoke was blown in different directions as it rose against the sky by different winds at altitude.  The column was dark and dramatic.

The colour palette as the sun set and caught high-level clouds with warm pinks and magentas was a stark contrast to the dark clouds of smoke and again leant a surreal air to the scene- quite a unique vista.  With the lighthouse as a point of interest in the foreground, I was thrilled with the shots.

As night fell, the stars came out in the clear sky, while the location of the fire along the ridgeline in the distance was marked by a fierce glow that reflected in the clouds.  The chimneys of the lighthouse keeper’s home made for a point of interest in the foreground.

As full night took hold, the glow of the fire against the clouds was intense.  I’ve celebrated the interplay of light between starlight, fire glow and lighthouse beacon in another post.

Several hours after sunset, and the fire was burning strong.  This view was taken from the top of the hill descending from the lighthouse station, overlooking the small town of Airey’s Inlet to where smoke continued to pour from the hills behind- more than a little disconcerting.  I later took some more shots of the fire from another vantage.  All up, the shoot was an interesting and quite unique one that pitted a variety of curious lighting sources against one another and left me with some very individual shots.  I’m so pleased I didn’t give up before sunset and head home like I very nearly did.

Starlight Exposure

I’ve always loved starlight photography but haven’t had that much opportunity to play with it- usually a combination of always having poor camera gear when I’ve been among great starscapes, versus living in the suburbs with my high-quality gear. Marrying my good camera equipment with a nice clear starry night has proven to be a challenge.

I got a couple of good nights however recently down on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road, where the Split Point lighthouse at Airey’s Inlet sat beneath the spectacular Milky Way on a couple of moonless nights.

There are a couple of approaches you can take to starlight photography. Stars move- quite quickly in fact. Well, they move in all sorts of directions, some of them at ridiculously high velocities, and on average, away from us here on earth. However they are so infintessimally small in our night sky, and the distances so huge, that we certainly won’t be able to record this without scientific aid. However, because the earth is spinning in space, relative to use the stars appear to move through the night sky, spinning about a notional pole which is directly above our axis of rotation at the north and south poles.

But relative to us, the motion of stars can be seen in as little as ten or fifteen seconds on a long-exposure photograph. The effect, as many of you will have seen (and which I’ve put up a couple of here and here) is an apparent streaking of the stars in a radial motion- quite dizzying in fact. Leaving a shutter open for ten minutes or so can produce this motion, although with the right equipment and conditions you can leave a shutter open for far longer- even hours.

Taking a long-exposure shot of this kind requires (as a minimum) a tripod and a remote shutter-release mechanism (to avoid your fingers making the camera shake when you click to start the photo running). Windy nights aren’t much fun as they will make the camera shake unless you have a rock-solid tripod and leave you with some blurriness. The effect works best when there’s a static object in the frame as a contrast, giving an otherworldly image that is very eye-catching. In doing so, however, you have to also think about how the exposure will balance on this other object as well as the stars- in effect, balancing for two different light sources of differing intensity. Moonlight nights, for example, will rapidly overcome the sensor and leave you with a white image. Well balanced, the effect can be spectacular as the moon (reflecting the same light as the sun but at a lower intensity) gives the scene the same colour-pallete as broad daylight, but with a trail of stars left in the sky instead.

In the shot above I’ve not done anything particularly clever, just left the shutter open for a while at a slightly lower aperture and sensitivity so as not to overexpose the lamplight from the lighthouse beacon. I esimated this taking a short frame at maximum sensitivity, getting the right exposure, then reducing the exposure arithmetically and increasing the shutter speed by the corresponding factor (translation: If I get good exposure with ISO 1600 for 1 minute, I will get the same exposure with ISO 100 for 16 minutes) (note: this last is not entirely true as by reducing the sensitivity, because the stars are moving they may not imprint as brightly on the sensor so their trails may be dimmer).

Another option (demonstrated in this second shot) is to try and capture the stars themselves as pinpricks. This is far more difficult as you realistically need both an incredibly clear and light-pollution-free night (away from city lights, artificial lights and moonlight), and a pretty high-quality camera and lens. Clarity is essential- desert skies- notorious for beautiful starscapes- are often difficult to shoot in due to haze, for example. In the case of this next photograph, I am using my Canon EOS 5D (a very good quality piece of kit) at maximum sensitivity (at ISO 1600 the shots can be a little noisy but are still usable much of the time), and my Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L USM lens. Translated, the lens is massively wide- a vast field of glass that sucks light out of places you wouldn’t expect to find any. To the naked eye, the night was not nearly as bright or star-filled as the camera was able to pick up, which I find quite amazing, and which is one of the reasons why this lens is one of my absolute favourites. I actually discovered this trait of the lens almost by accident taking some ‘short’ long-exposures in Western Australia last year, expecting to find only a few points of starlight and instead finding the whole Milky Way on my sensor. It was an exciting moment. The combination of sensitive sensor and massively light-accomodating lens means that by exposing for just a few seconds (15-30) I can ‘freeze’ the moving stars behind my main subject before they deteriorate into star-trails, giving a totally different effect (and one which I have decided I quite prefer). Even a 20-second exposure has some blurring of the stars- they move that quickly- but at screen resolution this motion is hard to pick out.

Starlight photography remains something I enjoy, although something which I need to practice a little more and which I am looking forward to increasingly adding to my portfolio. I hope you’ve enjoyed it thus far as well.

Lights in the Sky

I took this shot deliberately while I was framing up different angles of the Split Point Lighthouse in Airey’s Inlet, along Victoria’s southern coastline. On an earlier exposure I could see the different light-sources colouring the image, and it appealed to me greatly.

There are five different sets of light in the image. Balancing them was part of the joy of the photograph.

To the left, and a bushfire burning over the northern horizon behind a crest of hills was reflecting its light onto the clouds above. The wide angle of the lens (about 120 degrees) captured the clouds over that portion of the sky and the red-orange glow which they soaked up.

Moving to the right and the lower horizon, the light transitions gently from orange to yellow. These are the man-made sodium-tainted lights of Geelong, also catching in the clouds. The transition and contrast between the two colours really caught my eye, and I liked the way the sky took on the different hues.

Above both, of course, are the stars- tiny pinpricks of light which the massive eye of the 16-35mm lens was able to pick up in just half a minute or so of exposure. I shot with the aperture stopped wide open (f/2.8) and at maximum sensitivity (ISO 1600), and with the relative lack of ambient light (nearby towns and moonlight) the stars shone through brightly. I especially like the blue hues of the bright star just to the left of the top centre- possibly not a star at all but the planet Venus? But I’m not sure.

Next, of course, is the artificial light of the still-functioning lighthouse beacon- a yellow-white light tinted red where the red glass of the lighthouse window catches in the beam. This light was in a way the hardest to expose for, being the brightest of all (by many orders of magnitude, at that proximity). The saving grace was the fact that while the other lights were constant, the lighthouse beam flashed on and off, with long periods of darkness between, so that while overall it was still the brightest light in the sky and the limiting factor on how long I could leave the shutter open for before it burned out that portion of the frame, I was still able to get up to a minute’s worth of usable exposure when I wanted it.

There is a fifth light source in the image which is far subtler, and that’s the light which is painting the side of the lighthouse. If not for this light (catching on the left-hand or land-facing side of the lighthouse), the whole tower would be a black silhouette of the same level as the right-hand (sea-facing) side of the column. The light illuminating the lighthouse tower is in fact from the headlights of cars passing on the Great Ocean Road a couple of miles away in either direction, where the lighthouse’s high vantage allows it to capture brief seconds of light from cars turning exposed corners of the route. As I was shooting, the faint glow of the lights could be seen moving from left to right or right to left across the inland face of the tower, casting mobile shadows which turn into a gently graduated glow in the static frame.

Photography quite literally means the writing (or recording) of light. Ultimately it’s the photographer’s job to read the light coming from a particular scene, and try and capture that light through a balance of variable mechanisms within the camera itself- the size and type of lens, the aperture of that lens, the length of time the sensor/film/plate is exposed for, the sensitivity of that sensor/film/plate, and the addition of any other artificial light sources. Framing up a shot with a diverse range of light sources can be a challenge (although a joy of the digital photography revolution is the fact that there is some room for experimentation and instant feedback)- but when the pieces fall into place (as I humbly feel they have done so here) it’s an immensely satisfying experience. This particular shoot (I spent 2 nights up at this lighthouse taking these photos) was an absolute joy and goes into my list of memorable photo ops.

Buy this photo as a print.

Painting with Light

 

Taking photos of the Split Point Lighthouse in Victoria’s Airey’s Inlet, I was enjoying playing with the different light-sources, particularly the interplay between the lighthouse beacon and the extravagance of the Milky Way behind it. While the lighthouse tower was being lit by the headlights of cars travelling on the Great Ocean Road some distance away, the relatively short exposure times (30 seconds and less) coupled with the darkness and the very low ambient light (no major towns or moonlight) meant that the lighthouse tower was relatively underexposed.

The use of flash in photography to light up a dark scene is well understood by even the most amateur of photographers, and ranges from the auto-flash on a point-and-shoot, to complicated arrays of flashguns, strobes, slave units and so forth that a studio photographer might set up for a modelling shoot (and of which I have very little knowledge).

It involves the artificial projection of a brief burst of high intensity light which, if balanced correctly with the aperture and distance from the subject (light beams following an inverse-square law dictating their intensity), can give the main subject an appropriate level of light to be correctly exposed on the sensor/film/plate (note as explained elsewhere that shutter-speed rarely has a lot to do with controlling the intensity of flash on a scene, as the flash of light is usually far shorter than the length of the shutter’s opening; exceptions exist in the realms of strobe lighting and high-speed film).

In long-exposure photography it’s possible to use flash to light up a part of your image. Balancing the intensity of light, aperture and distance, a nearby static object can be illuminated sufficiently to imprint on the sensor, while the longer shutter-speed will continue to soak in the background to the desired level of exposure. In effect you are freezing the subject with the flash and then allowing it to disappear- something which can allow you to create some interesting effects.

However a flash is a single and momentary burst, and to get that exposure to the right level can be a tricky prospect. Another option in long-exposure photography is to supply a less intense source of light over a longer period until the desired level of exposure is achieved.

In the case here, I used my LED headlamp to cast a beam up and down the lighthouse tower (moving it up and down over several seconds) during part of the 30-odd second exposure. This allowed the lighthouse to be illuminated for the sensor to a desired level, while still allowing the sensor to pick up the crisp starlight behind as well. You can see the slightly patchy light and shadow patterns which are where my headlamp’s beam went over itself a few too many times while missing out other areas.

The technique is known as light-painting, and has far more applications than I have chosen to use here. It should be noted it is far more art than science, and generally involves some trial-and-error, and experimentation. Among other advantages of light-painting over flash are: partial illumination (i.e. chosing which part of the frame to light up if you want others to fade into darkness- whereas a single-source flash will generally light up an entire scene in an even manner relative to the distance from the light source); using different colours; and playing with movement (you’ve all seen photos of car headlights at night-time and how they streak; same principle).

At the end of the day, it’s a bit of fun and an opportunity to experiment with light and the image to see what effect can be created. Here, light-painting enabled me to ‘leave out’ the ground so that the lighthouse hangs by itself against the dark backdrop, and the unsightly parking lot at its base remains black- where a flash would have lit up the asphalt. Additionally, a point flash would have cast more light onto the base of the lighthouse (closer) than the top, whereas with a light source controlled by me, I was able to focus it a little more on the higher reaches of the lighthouse so that they didn’t fade into obscurity. While I haven’t got a perfectly balanced effect, it’s certainly less pronounced than it would have been with a flashgun.

Next time I’m keen to play with colour and with more creative uses like selective painting and motion. In the meantime, I had a lot of fun with this shoot and I hope the output has given you something to look at.

Dragon’s Lair

I snapped this shot of a DSE controlled back-burn in the Otway Ranges south and west of Melbourne, from a vantage point just off the Great Ocean Road. To the naked eye, the fire was visible as the faintest of glows behind the crest of the hills and as a slight reddish tinge on the underside of the clouds. A long-exposure photograph reveals not just the column of dark smoke and the way in which the mid-level winds are blowing it across the sky, but also soak up the ambient light the fire casts onto the clouds of smoke above. Those directly over the fire obviously catch the most intense light, which then fades outwards as though the clouds themselves are burning. We don’t normally think of the sky as a reflector of light in quite such a visible way, but here it’s almost like the smoke was a mirror capturing the ferocity and location of the fire beneath it.

The red-orange hues, the darkness, the columns of smoke and the coiled shape the clouds have taken on all reminded me of some sinister dragon’s lair- an apt metaphor in drought-stricken Victoria where bushfires lurk with destructive malice, waiting for the slightest excuse to cause devastation. This back-burn, I’m happy to say, was in control and over within 48 hours, but it was interesting to watch its effect on the clouds and the sky as I was out and about with my camera.  The second shot also captures some of the starry night sky above the smoke- a nice comparison.

The Starry Hosts

A starry night along Victoria’s Great Ocean Road.  This is the Split Point Lighthouse at Airey’s Inlet, about two hours south and west of Melbourne.  I took this shot around 9pm one night last week.  There are a bunch more that will likely follow in a subsequent post.

Click to see a larger version.