2 Months Since I last Shot A Seascape…

I just checked my Flickr stream and it has been over 2 months since I’ve gone out shooting seascapes.  So when Gavin and Kajo said that they were heading out this week I figured it was time to haul my lazy arse out of bed and hit the rocks again.

This first shot was taken on Tuesday at North Coogee pool.  I had scouted it ages ago and figured it would be a good shoot with the high tide.  It’s an old derelict tidal pool.  As Gavin and I arrived I checked a text from Kajo (who lives just up the road) and he mentioned that he wasn’t getting there until 5:15am.  Gavin and I were there at 4:50PM and there was some lovely colour in the sky…. and it quickly disappeared… which only goes to prove that the early bird really does get the work when it comes to dawn seascapes.

This second shot was taken the following morning at Little Bay… Alarm went off at 3:45AM!… God thats early.  The image below is a blend of two images of the same scene…

• Top half is a 60 sec long esposure to create blurred clouds and blurred distant water
• Bottom half is a 4 sec exposure to get water movement around the rocks in f/g

I used a 3 stop Singh Ray Hard GND.  When I bought it into Photoshop I worked in the DCAM colour space and assigned Joseph Holmes -18 colour profile to create the desaturation effect (thanks for that tip Christian).

Anyway, it was fun getting back into it after some time off.   I’m heading up to the Central Coast soon, so look forward to shooting my head off in some of my favorite locations.

Happy New Year everybody

Brent

Light Painting Article in Better Photography

I just picked up a copy of the latest edition of Better Photography.  Peter Eastway has written up a nice article about a shoot I took him on a few months back to show him the ins and outs of light painting.

It’s funny what editors omit from their articles… he ommited to mention that he went on a seascape shoot with two Phase One backs in his backpack wearing thongs.  Now the trip out to the headland wasn’t too bad, but it was an incoming tide, and I think Peter got a tad nervous when we had a few dashes across the rocks in between waves.  Watching somebody dash across the rocks in thongs with about $80K worth of camera gear on their back was certainly one of the moments I won’t forget in a hurry.

🙂

BP

My Wife’s Xmas Present…

My track record around buying successful Xmas and birthday presents for my wife is not exactly spectacular.  So this year I gave it a lot of thought and decided to make her some nice portraits of our 3 boys.  I had recently bought some off-camera flash gear (softbox, brolly etc.).  I decided to give it a run out at Middle Head Fort.

Now my boys are not really the clean cut “perfect boys” that you often see when you walk into friends houses and you see the professional portraits on the wall with not a hair out of place.  I was adamant that I wanted the portraits to really capture the essence of my boys.  I think I have accomplished this even though these are not your traditional portrait shots…. dirty feet, disheveled hair etc.

My wife loved her present and the photos are now framed and hanging on the kitchen wall.

At least I got it right this year 😉

Happy New Year to all my photo buddies and readers of my blog.

Brent

Next Seascape Workshop – Feb 6th & 7th 2010

Hey Folks

I’ve just locked in the dates for my next seascape workshop. I’ve decided to wait until just after the school holidays are over.  I’ve got quite a few people on my wait list, so if you are interested in doing this workshop, please let me know ASAP.

I will be running the optional “Photography 101” session for 1 hour before the main workshop starts, so if you consider yourself a beginner or would like to brush up on the theory, this is a great opportunity to ground yourself in some solid foundations for photography before we get into the Seascape content.

More information on the workshop can be found here.

Brent