I have spent two years in The Arcanum. I completed my first sphere in Christian Meermann's House of Monochromatic Exploration. My understaning of Black and White processing greatly improved. I learnt about tonality, textures, how the eye is drawn to different areas in an image. I also developed skills in post processing, mostly in Light Room. Boarder Patrol became a standard part of my workflow, making sure every square inch was 'clean'. Chrisitian named me The Seeker of Essence, and I realised in photography, less is more. My search for perfection and listening to my monkey brain, lead to my demise. I forgot to have fun. Six months later, I joined Shari Millar's cohort, a very different experience. This was less about the technical and more about the art and emotion. She gave me the strength to believe in myself, to take ownership, to enjoy the amazement with out guilt when I look at one of my images and think 'wow, I did that'. I couldn't have arrived where I am now with out both parts of the story.
The Mynah Bird performs a dangerous dance with a two tonne Rhino at Singapore Zoo.
I've always been drawn to nature and naturally wanted to photograph animals and birds. I didn't have the patience or budget to become a wildlife photographer. My attempts were often poorly exposed, badly composed or out of focus. When I started working in B&W, where I reduced and simplified, high levels of noise weren't a problem. This gave me access to the high shutter speeds and depth of focus I wanted. I could also explore other emotions, away from the obvious. This kind of image straight out of camera is very different to the end result. Not only have a removed the colour, but I've removed background clutter and left mostly textures. This is no longer just the foot of a fruit bat, it's a menacing claw of a creature, crawling out of a pit.
The top deck of Singapore's Cloud Forest Done has some unusual residents. This fine specimen lurked, hidden behind a concrete wall, but not hidden from the inquisitive photographer, bored of pretty flowers.
Long exposure from a moving object, normally results in jumbled chaos. When the moving object is on rails and the camera wedged up against the glass, then structure and regularity emerge. The results aren't always predictable, and this was a very pleasant surprise. I wanted an off centre vanishing point so tipped my phone down and right, pressing into the corner of the frame. The station was brightly lit behind glass doors, so the only light would come from that side. The tunnel in the far distance and the red light are far enough away to keep some of their structure and a point of reference for the viewer.
It was one of those really hot days, high humidity. 34'C in the shade but feeling 15 degrees hotter. I had dropped my youngest off for a playdate and had five hours to kill. I wasn't feeling very enthusiastic despite this being a rare opportunity in the middle of the school holidays. I was a little hungover and unsure of what I was looking for. In the past, I may have wandered taking random street shots, and ended up with nothing. After nearly a year in +Shari Miller's cohort and at the tail end of Alex Lapidus Blurs and Unsharp mentorship program, I wasn't going to let the voices of doubt creep in. If I turned up and showed willing the Muse would be pleased and she was. I was gifted with a tree perfect for a multiple exposure image, a technique I had studied and experimented with a few weeks earlier.
I set my camera up in Manual Mode, wanting every image to have exactly the same exposure and depth of field. I wanted a clean noiseless image, so worked at ISO 100. It was quite windy and although it didn't matter if there was some blur, I wanted to keep some texture in the tree leaves, knowing if there was to much blur, then the final result wouldn't look as good. My main subject is the tree and texture draws the eye. The underside of the tree was dark, so I exposed for that area with out blowing out the bright leaves at the top, in full sun. It's better to over expose than under expose. I set the focus area to Flexible Spot and positioned it roughly a third in, so it would cover the base of the tree - this would be my anchor point. I checked how much space I had to walk a full circle around the tree and adjusted the zoom, the left hand edge of the tree fitted comfortably within the frame at any position. I checked all the settings, checked the area in focus using the Sony's Focus peaking. I was set. It took me a full five minutes to complete a lap of the tree, stepping approximately one metre to the left between each frame, and trying to keep a constant distance from the tree. The histogram previews looked good, the only issue was the sky, which although blue with fluffy white clouds, was 50% blown out. I wasn't concerned, I was going to use Orchard Gateway Shopping mall as the primary backdrop as it had lots of contrast and texture that should look good with this technique.