New gear
I received my set of wireless TTL triggers in the mail the other week as well as an RS-5 R-Strap. Really loving this strap, not that my Industry Disgrace one was bad, but there's just so many more options for storage.
There's some studio space in my area that I'm looking at hiring out in the upcoming month or two for an impromptu weekend or evening of portraits. I'm still tossing up the idea of going the full hog and purchasing a support system for some seamless. At the moment, there's not enough room where I shoot for it to be of much use unless I go and regularly hire space. On the other hand, I am a bit of a gear-head! =D
If you've been following my Seven in Sydney project, you would have noticed it's also been a bit blank lately. One of the problems I have is that I tend not to upload every-day stuff to Flickr in order to keep it clean and Seven in Sydney works by taking photos from Flickr. I'm hoping to re-work it to take images straight from my camera phone rather than my DSLR, which I normally post-process. A fast workflow is more important for that than looking pretty (and hopefully it provides a raw stream of photos that have to be based on composition rather than technique). So I've got an 8MP camera phone also on the way.
I'll be out in the bush this weekend, so I'll take a few snaps with a lightweight cam if I can. Will see you next week!
Jam packed!
It's been a busy few weeks lately and I haven't had much of a chance to sit at my favourite cafe and write anything.
A few weeks back we were shooting for St John ambulance. Such a nice crowd of people.
They held their event at the Mercure. It's actually really close by to where I live so it was good to be able to literally walk to work that weekend.
One of my mates also took the plunge and bought a new bike. I put together a short video using footage from my DSLR -- something I've been wanting to do for a long time, but haven't been able to get around to doing. I can cross that one off my list =)
There were the crazy few days of trying to get my entries into the Canon EOS Photo5 competition. A friend told me one of my photos made it to the Canon Facebook wall, but it disappeared shortly after. There were a couple of things wrong with the pic that I wish I fixed, but oh well. I didn't make the finals, but there are some darn good pics in there that are certainly more well placed than mine.
There was a meet up with some friends from high school, celebrating the wedding of one of our class mates. Hadn't seen him in years since he moved to Korea, but it certainly feels like some things never change. The rest of that weekend was consumed by one of my mates' bucks night. Sorry, those pictures won't ever be seen on a public site!
Otherwise, there's been lots of food and drink from a recent ball held by my significant other's university school. They had a Hollywood-themed dress up. Naturally, I went as a member of the press, complete with suspenders, fedora, press card, camera and notepad.
In the past month or two, I've also been toying with the idea of setting up a studio as a workplace, to rent out, and to provide a place for other photographers to use. So far, it's looking good on paper.
I've also found a good-sized studio for holding future classes after the success of our first one at Australian Technology Park. My notepad is absolutely bursting with scribbles from all these ideas I have.
There should be a lot more to talk about in the coming month as the wheels continue to turn... and I've got a couple of new wireless TTL triggers coming in over the next few days!
November and December are looking jam-packed already!
Canon EOS Photo5
The reason I haven't been posting anything lately? My life has been a little consumed with, amongst other things, the Canon EOS Photo5 competition.
I registered a while back and received a box with four items in it -- Bubble gum, incense, confetti and an eye dropper. There's a brief for each of the items, the fifth one being a sound that can be heard online and is open to everyone, even those that didn't get a box.
To be honest, I didn't think I would even complete the competition. You know, I have that habit of not finishing what I start.
So here are my entries (click on through for descriptions):
Super busy
I've been super busy as of late. I'm working on the cover story for our company's flagship magazine and I've had a few very important dates to keep.
In brief I...
- passed my bike on to get sold to generate a bit of money to hopefully buy an upgrade.
- started to write a report on Animania, but am now unsure whether to continue given my previous history
- have been editing a heap of Animania photos. There's a little less than 400 from Saturday alone after cutting out dupes and ones that don't make the cut.
- celebrated my significant other's birthday
I'll be back into the full swing of things soon. In the meantime, you can always follow my updates on Twitter.
How to upgrade your lens to an “L”
I finally discovered tonight that all lenses can actually be upgraded to L-series lenses!
I was really working on something else when I accidentally found out.
You're going to need a few tools, but it can be done on just about any lens. Here's how you get started:
On the job: Professionalism
In the interim between writing up my report on Animania last weekend and now, I thought I'd bring up a little on-the-job topic on the matter of professionalism.
I wouldn't call myself a full-blown professional, but here's what I've experienced in the field:
Main Animania Sydney 2010 Sunday – A sneak preview
Well, having done a sneak preview of Saturday, it's only fair to do one for Sunday, right?
Didn't take as many photos today, but here are some of my faves.
Backstage coordinator extraordinaire, Marina Arrebola has her hair done in the early hours by Jenny Ngo.
Mathias Barrera jams it on his (guitar hero) guitar.
Rika Matsumoto, the voice of Satoshi / Ash Ketchum, delivers a rock out performance.
Another result from the light box at the ABJD display.
Karaoke winner Tuong Vi Nguyen pauses during an interlude to rock out air-guitar style.
There's a couple more in the gallery below!
Main Animania Sydney 2010 Saturday – A sneak preview
I am pretty exhausted after running around for the whole of today. There's no way I can get all of my photos up for tonight, so for now here's a sneak preview of a few of my favourite shots from today.
If you're still deciding whether to go tomorrow, I hope this helps make up your mind!
Bernie, one of the sound, stage, light and AV guys checks the microphones are in working order.
Back of house in the maid cafe kitchen, delicious dishes are made.
Giant wall of merchandise is giant. Pinin makes its final stop for the year. Stock up while you can!
I heard that one of the stores (most likely this one) were selling replica Sephiroth swords. I think they completely sold out.
Remember Geelong Ung that I mentioned in an earlier report on SMASH!? He's working hard at Animania also!
There's a pseudo-light box at the Asian Ball Jointed Doll table. With a little patience, you can get a studio-esque effect with dolls! Photographers take note!
Luke Hill drops the Vash the Stampede outfit and picks up a new gun as a Team Fortress 2 Sniper (and also a cosplay judge).
And backstage, Widya Santoso kicks back and relaxes with facilities set up just for cosplayers and WCS finalists and judges.
There's a couple more in the gallery below. If you're attending tomorrow and you spot me, say hi! I'll try and take your photo!
Putting your camera down
I was moved by a piece written by Kevin O'Faircheallaigh on his views on how, coupled with the availability of cameras, the population divides themselves into a two-tiered hierarchy.
While I disagree with his opinion on whether photographs add or detract from memories (I regretfully never used to take or keep photos as a child and have a very poor memory), I do strongly agree with the sentiment that the act of taking photos detracts from the experience you're trying to capture.
He writes:
I have seen on more than one occasion someone make their way through a gallery or a museum, photographing a piece, then photographing the didactic, then moving onto the next one, never actually taking the camera from their eye to engage with what it is they’re photographing. And video cameras make it worse. I saw a man walk through the Louvre without once taking his video camera from his face. People don’t go on holidays anymore, they document them.
I recommend reading it in its entirety, although it may anger some photographers.
Sometimes, it's nicer just to put the camera down for the moment and live the experience.
How many times have you seen someone glued to their phone or camera any missing out on what is real?
Behind the scenes: Animania Sydney 2010 Setup
I was out at Australian Technology Park today visiting an expo for work when I remembered that Animania Sydney is this weekend.
I remembered because I started to notice all the signage that was up. Then I realised that setup for the event starts two days in advance and that they were probably setting up! So I ducked over on my lunch break and took a few shots.
I think a lot of people take for granted the effort that goes in to setting up an event. There's a science to setting up an event in terms of logistics and scheduling. Things need to happen in parallel in order to make the most of the venue time - the in-house crews can't set up the lighting while the stage contractors build the stage.
The scheduling is pretty simple on paper, but if anyone gets it wrong, the consequence ripples and grows through the day.
The guys on the ground meanwhile are getting all the wiring gathered to connect everything together. Everything is labelled, tracked, connected, secured and then flown on the rigging.
This can take the entire day and typically the crew won't know if they've got it completely according to plan until the next day when they do a dry run and program the lighting board.
There's about 50 lights! All it takes is for one to be connected or labelled incorrectly and it can take ages to figure out what went wrong.
For most of the lights, gels are placed in front of them. Each one is cut by hand and placed in front of the appropriate lamp. They make pretty colours!
... and for sticking around, here's what the 2011 Animania Cosplay Calendar looks like!
Can't wait to see you all this weekend!
Calendar
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Feb | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | |||
Twitter (mukimu)
- Wheels down in Sydney an hour late. Thanks Jetstar. =P 1 day ago
- Looks like that Pebble Watch Kickstarter project has finally, err, kicked off. 1 day ago
- http://t.co/igPB3PbS @Stilgherrian thought we needed more snakes on a plane. 1 day ago
- Just witnessed @stilgherrian shoot a shouty impromptu video here at the airport. That's what happens when you strand journos. 1 day ago
- Flight delayed. Stuck at OOL. Could be worse, I guess 1 day ago
