Cottesloe Beach Surfers

Winter has arrived in Perth which draws almost as many people to the water as summer, just the mix changes. With rough weather comes waves and wind, so out come the surfers and kite surfers. Still it amazed me how many surfers turned up at Cottesloe Groyne, which as it turns out many swim along for access to the waves.

Surfer by the Rocks, Perth, 2014, John Wiese

Couple on the Hill, Sydney, NSW

Sydney is a great city for photography, so many iconic locations and structures. The downside of course is that my recent visit there in May 2014 has only added to my image backlog. I am now part way through processing image sets from Perth, Kalgoorlie, Sydney, Canberra and Paris. Thus have decided to mix it up a bit by switching locations.

Found this spot the day before but not much was happening, so came back the next afternoon. Saw this couple sitting on the hill and after a moment they got up. Right place, right time, nice sky.

Couple on the Hill, Sydney 2014, John Wiese (c)

Couple on the Hill, Sydney, NSW, John Wiese (c)

Texting in Paris

I love this image, a Parisian texting. However this image took me forever to decide on a final crop, much longer than normal. Typically I’ll get composition very close in camera, but this image just had so many possibilities…

How many steps to leave in the image, should I crop out the observer on the right, should I use my first ever square crop (yes my first), there was an interesting set of objects in the foreground (which I lose in the “almost” square crop).

Anyway here is the image, this is one I think I could keep working on but others beckon me…

Texting in Paris

An Australian’s Take on Paris

Paris. Wow. March of 2014 I had the pleasure of spending two weeks in Paris. For this Aussie the city lived up to all of my expectations, the sites are amazing and you get a sense of history just not found in Australian cities.

Eiffel Tower, Paris

This post captures my experience through photographs, with tips to help anyone who visits Paris to get the most out of their visit based on thoughts from someone who has made the trip.

Places you must see in the order I recommend seeing them:

Eiffel Tower
Arc de Triomphe (climb it for the amazing views at sunset)
Sacre-Coeur (day trip, best tourist gifts, great food, ice-cream, arts quarter)
Musee d’Orsay (get to the Impressionists wing, top floor)
Versailles (day trip) – Palace, Gardens, Hall of Mirrors
Musee du Louvre (day trip) – I got lost here, so much to see

Tips for first time visitors (things that would have helped me if I had known in advance):

Learn to use the Meto, it is amazing, cheap, easy & fast. I used a “MOBILIS 2-Zone” ticket each day. I don’t recommend individual tickets because if you take the wrong entrance you waste the ticket, I just found single tickets a hassle
Taxi’s drivers in Paris – They want cash (hate or won’t take cards), and mostly don’t speak much English so write down addresses to show them
Day trips – know which places are really day trips, or you end up rushed and miss some of the best parts of locations
Clothes Irons – Paris hotels do not have an iron in each room…one iron for the whole hotel…what the! If you want wrinkle free clothes think about a travel iron.

Some of my favorite places, and as a challenge I’ve limited the images to those taken with my mobile phone:

Sacre-Coeur

Latitude/Longitude: 48.886665, 2.342565 MAP

My favorite spot in Paris. Great view, great ambiance, so many things within walking distance to see.

The Lock Bridge

Latitude/Longitude: 48.861784,2.32467 MAP (Leopold Sedar Senghor)

Before you leave home, buy a medium size padlock and get it engraved with the name of your sweetheart, then come here and lock it to the bridge with everyone else’s. Great spot for photos.

Raoul Maeder Patisserie

Latitude/Longitude: 48.88662153,2.29624549 MAP (Boulevards des Marechaux)

Unbelievable Patisserie. Paris has amazing pastry stores but it wasn’t until my last day in the city that I found my favorite. I would have gone to this place every morning had I found it sooner. The people were very friendly, the coffee was good and the pastries were OUTSTANDING!

Work in Progress – This post is being updated currently

Perth Skyworks 2013 – Fireworks

Another year, another great light show, thanks Perth…and a little less challenging to photograph with clear skys! Perth Fireworks 2013 photographed from South Perth.

Ballet at the Quarry 2012

This year I was taken along to Ballet in the Quarry by my wife who was after some original images of dancers for her art students to draw.

I shot hand-held and from quite a distance but managed to capture 50 or so shots I was happy with. Photography isn’t permitted during the performance so these are images of the warm-up.

The lighting was tricky but led to some great effects where the dancer’s shadows really add interest to the composition. Anyway a few of my favourites are below.

Digital Workflow – Exposure vs Brightness

The world of photography was forever changed with the introduction of digital workflow. It is simply amazing what can be done with post-processing in Lightroom and Photoshop, but with these changes comes confusion and complexity.

What do all those sliders really do and more importantly which ones should you be using and when…

A critical step is my digital workflow is to ensure my photos are “light & bright”, typically using the Exposure slider in Lightroom. However the tutorial below has changed my thinking forever. I recommend everyone check it out.

What you should know:

Exposure slider affects highlights more than shadows
Exposure slider is great to darken/bring down highlights
Brightness slider affects image tones evenly
Brightness control lightens evenly (less risk of blowing out highlights)

Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra

Recently I was asked by someone familiar with my work if I would do a photo shoot for the Perth Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra (MetSO).

I photograph predominately sport (outdoors with good light) but am always up for a challenge so happily agreed. I had initially planned to do a lot of flash work as both venues were indoors and the first (a rehearsal) was at night. Things started that way with some off camera flash.

Fortunately however the new Nikons are fantastic in low light so apart from a couple of portraits most of the 300 images were taken with just available light. This meant I was able to capture much more natural images of the musicians as a flash wasn’t constantly dazzling everyone and I wasn’t limited by the flash cycle time.

Plenty of other challenges on this one however. Really unexciting backdrop at the rehearsal venue, mixed fluro lighting and everyone was very serious. The concert shoot was actually much easier with some daylight via high windows, an attractive venue and good vantage points. Perfect really except for the fact someone turned on multi-colored stage lighting.

Even with photoshop I couldn’t get the purple light off the face in a great candid portrait. Only way I could save that image was a Black & White conversion (which actually worked really well).

Everyone was pleased with the results so it just goes to show you don’t have to rush for the flash with modern DSLRs. Save it for when available light just won’t let you catch the moment or for the really creative shots.

After such a large shoot, it was hard to pick my top five images….

Pictured are the soloist and conductor, all bar the colour image were action shots (ie- they weren’t staged). Off camera flash used for the first image, on camera flash for the last.

Perth Skyworks Photos used on Foti International Website

It’s great when people appreciate your work and sometimes you never know where your images will end up.

I received a request from Tino Foti of Foti International Fireworks a while back.

They are the team responsible for the Perth Skyworks and other national and international pyrotechnic displays. Tino spotted my images of their Perth show on Flickr and asked if Foti could use a series of the photos on their new website.

In the end 11 of my images made it onto their site. Below are a few of the images.

http://fotifireworks.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6&Itemid=5

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