Back from Vacation in Los Angeles
Went away for a few weeks to LA with my wife and daughter for a vacation. So want to share a few experiences of travelling to the United States and also while travelling with a young child. Tripod I took mine with me but most tourist sites won't allow you to use it in the States. You are considered a "pro" as soon as you have a Tripod in your hand. So I didn't use a tripod at all. Actually didn't need to at most locations. I was able to rest my camera on fences, pavements, lean against light posts. Conclusion, I will leave the tripod home on family vacations unless I have already got a...
Turn Off – Release Shutter without Card
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Removing People or Tourists from your Photos
Background Whenever you travel to a popular destination, you want to get great shots of these location. Often the problem seems to be getting a clean shot of the subject without unwanted people or tourists walking into your photo. One of the easiest way is to get their very early or go very late when most people would have gone already, but that doesn't always work. You might be with a tour guide and other tourists so you have to kind of stick with the schedule. This is where applying this technique and some patience pays off nicely. I have successfully used this technique several times both...
Free Texture Pack 2 – Rusting Sandstone
Texture Pack 2 containing 5 high resolution Sandstone rustic images available for download free.
King Street Wharf
Early morning photo at the King Street Wharf near Sydney's Darling Harbour. Very busy location packed with tourists most of the day and party goers at night. About this photo Taken with a Canon 7D with 24-104mm F4 L lens. Shot on a tripod at F11 with a shutter speed of 1/60th second ISO 200. Edited in Lightroom 4, using my HDR Punchy preset which allow you to get HDR like result straight out of Lightroom.
Long Exposure Photography
My latest experiment at Collaroy Beach in NSW was to try Long exposure photography. This style of photography involves using a long shutter speed that allows the camera to capture movement in order to produce a different result. When applied to water moving in the rivers and oceans it creates that silky smooth water in the photograph. The key item needed for long exposure photography is a 3-stop to 10-stop Neutral Density filter. This kind of filter is simply a piece of glass for your lens that gets darker and darker as you got up in stops. Below is one of the results from my experiment....
Trey Ratcliff Sydney Photowalk
Late September, I received this sudden invitation from a fellow Google+ member Michael Sutton when I arrived at work on Monday morning. What's this, Trey Ratcliff is coming to Sydney? Wow...great!! When? Tomorrow, Tuesday? It was very short notice but still a lot of photography enthusiasts and professionals signed up to attend this event. I also, finished work on the dot and headed over to Circular Quay for the meet up. The weather was chilly for a Spring day but it was overcast with lots of clouds. Perfect for taking photos though, landscape and portraits. Trey Ratcliff started the event by...
Cathedral St Jean – Lyon France
Recently renovated, this Cathedral of St Jean in Lyon France looks fantastic inside and out. This cathedral does allow you to use Tripods so it was a blast setting up the shot and taking my time to compose. Although this place is very busy with tourist, so taking a shot like this becomes difficult. The best way to achieve a clean shot is to shoot at ISO 100 or 200, what ever is the lowest on the camera. You do need a tripod for it because using such a low ISO means your shutter speed may be 1 second or 5 second or more. Take the shot when you find people are moving around and now standing...
Prints for Sale
Portfolios Online Spent a few hours over the weekend configuring my online portfolios over at SmugMug for mostly the US audience and PhotoMerchant for the Aussie audience. I've uploaded a selection of my photos that you can buy online in various different formats and sizes. What I didn't realise is that it's a lot of work uploading the photos, tagging them and then setting up pricing for the many photos (literally too many options for configuration) . Now maintaining both portfolios is what will take a lot of energy. Out of the two I think SmugMug has much better interface for managing your...
Climbing the Stairs
In June when I was in Lyon for work, however I did have a weekend off where I could do my own thing and go around with my camera to capture some of what this beautiful city has to offer. In the old city of Lyon, there are many touristic things to do. you can take a cruise in the river, visit the cathedrals, do some boutique shopping or just sit back and enjoy the great variety of food available at all the restaurants. What I found this time around (my 3rd trip there) that the local French people have become more accepting to tourists and have invested in English speaking staff or have the...