A Tropical Wedding

Some time ago, Mark emailed me asking me if I would come to Cairns to photograph his wedding to Melanie. What can I say? No? Never! I love a good wedding and the chance to see Cairns was one I could not turn down.
So, I flew up and stayed with Ingrid and Terry at their B&B called Nutmeg Grove. I know Ingrid as a result of her membership to my photography tutorials website, The Five Minute Photographer. She offered to also be my assistant on the day which made the whole thing even more enjoyable.
Mark and Melanie's wedding took place on a humid Sunday - the kind of weather we are not used to in Melbourne. I must admit to having sweated from start to finish. But I am very happy with the resulting images, and I am even happier to have made new friends in Ingrid and Terry and Mark and Melanie.

It is always an honour to be entrusted with a wedding. It is an even greater honour to have been given it from so far away. Thanks Mark and Melanie, and Congratulations!

Shooting Jeff Just Right...

Keeping the White balance consistent in a series of images can be difficult. Usually I begin each shoot by settin gthe White Balance manually according to the most approproate setting. Then I take a picture of the 18% grey side of my Lastolite EzyBalance and using the eyedropper tool in Lightroom I synchronise all the images to match that.
Yesterday, however, I found myself in a situation that completely bamboozled me. I was photographing a seminar in which Kodak Vice President, Jeff Hayzlett, was speaking. When you are working for the 'Big Yellow Box' you make sure to get the colours right! But! No matter what white balance setting I used, the colour was wrong and Auto White balance would not have kept the images consistent. In the end, through trial and error, I set the camera's white balance numerically to 2500 Kelvin and Voila! It worked! Even when I got around to processing the shoot in Lightroom I found that nothing needed to be done. Jeff saw some of the images on the back of the camera and was very pleased. He says he wants to use one of them himself. Look out for it on his Facebook site!
I have never used the numerical white balance settings before. I think I will remember the value of this lesson for next time. Perhaps I should add this little lesson to my photography tutorials site...

Its all on Island Time

Now, as a man who has travelled his share of the planet, I can say with authority that I understand the meaning of Island Time. Its an expression you come to appreciate when you actually receive the benefits of the concept - something which usually happens when you are on some tropical holiday island enjoying a well deserved break. However, when you are doing a shoot, the term assumes a completely different meaning altogether.
While doing another shoot for SEW Eurodrive recently, I encountered the Island Time concept in a most annoying manner. SEW are a fabulous company who sponsor a Samoan Rugby team, the Samoan Kangaroos. My brief consisted of an arrival time of 12:00 so that I would be ready to photograph the arrival of the sponsored team at 12:30. So, I arrived at 11:55. Ok, its unusual for me to be so punctual, but there you have it.

However, as we waited while firing up the barbeque in their honour, no team was anywhere to be seen. Finally, after a two hour wait I was told at 2:30 that I should just pack up and head on home. So...I did. I was just getting into the car when...a bus arrived. Yippee! Finally we can get these shots done.

Hold your horses there, Shelton. It appears the team wishes to partake the Barbeque first...Ok, finally, after three hours waiting, I could take my photographs. Now, anyone who knows me understands that I am six feet tall, skinny and with no aptitude for a fight. However, at this stage it did not concern me at all that I had to order around a group of Rugby players who would eat me for breakfast. Not at all. I was not in the mood to be waiting any more. So I gathered the team together and made them do what I wanted...and funnily enough there was little argument. None in fact.

Maybe I don't know my own strength....

Two Weddings, One Weekend, A Nikon D3

This past weekend I had the immense pleasure of photographing two weddings - something that doesn't happen to me very often - thank heavens! As much as I enjoy the process I don't think I could handle two every weekend! I tend to pour almost every aspect of myself into my wedding photography and find it exhilarating but exhausting.

Knowing that I was going to be up against the dark Melbourne winter days I hit up on Nikon to borrow either a Nikon D3 or a Nikon D700 for the weekend. I am going to be getting my D700 soon, but it hasn't arrived soon enough. In their kindness, I was given a D3 and the SB900 to use over the weekend and I have to tell you I have never found it easier to photograph weddings. First of all, there is little point to setting the Nikon D3 lower than ISO 800 for this kind of work. The difference between 200 and 800 in terms of noise are invisible, but the advantages of being able to shoot at ISO 800 are simply wonderful. This portrait of Princess, one of the bridesmaids, is taken straight from the camera and captured at 800 ISO. Click on the image to see a larger version. You can see for yourself that the noise is not an issue.

Naturally I pushed it a little and by the end of the night I was taking candlelit portraits at 6400, at which point you can start to see noise. However, its not bad at all. Being able to hand hold your available light images is one thing, but having them result as such clean, sharp, well exposed and well balanced jpegs is something else again. I have already posted threads at my photography tutorials website, The Five Minute Photographer.I can't wait to get my new Nikon DSLR!

Scrubbing Up Ok

I recently asked my friend and fellow Five Minute Photographer member, Richard Annable to join me on a shoot for a new hospital promotional brochure. It was a full day shoot with several scenarios attached to it and having him along made everything work faster, smoother and funnier! For one of the shots, he and I were required to get into 'scrubs' and photograph an actual operation. Naturally, we had to get a picture of ourselves..Dr Muller and Dr Annable, specialists in Human Imaging...

What Can I say?

Wow.
Sometimes I am honoured more than I can say.

If you wanna know what I mean, click here

All I can say is a humble, "Thank You" Melissa.
I am honoured.

Nikon D700 Pre-Launch

I was kindly asked by Nikon Australia and Camera Action here in Melbourne to be an integral part of the Nikon D700 Pre-Launch that was held here on Thursday night, 24/7/08. It was a great evening and a great event to launch a great camera. I cannot say how impressed I am with this latest Nikon offering.
Grabbing a D700 from the guys at Camera Action, I walked across Lonsdale Street and into a local cafe. It was quite dark by now, the sun having well and truly set in the wintry Melbourne sky. So, naturally I ramped up the camera's ISO setting to 3200.
The guys in the cafe were happy to oblige me, posing behind the counter for their portrait.
And here it is, fully sized at 3200 ISO. Click on the picture yourself and see if there is enough noise to worry you. It certainly wouldn't worry me. I have seen more noise at 800 in other DLSRs!

What a fabulous beastie this is...
Can't wait to get mine!

Wedding Photography Workshops

I have been looking forward to running my wedding photography workshops at Montsalvat for a long time. Being able to photograph an actual wedding at Montsalvat is a treat in itself, but its never enough. So, teaching wedding photography and being able to do as I pleased was fantastic!It was great to have a few people there who had been to my previous workshops and of course its always lovely to meet new people too. I hope you all had fun and learned more about the fine and complex art of wedding photography!

Nikon's new D700.

Those who know me know that I do love my Nikons. With the release of the latest in their line of fabulous DSLR's comes the new Nikon D700, complete with what Nikon call their FX sensor. This is a 35mm sized sensor that they have correctly referred to as FX and not 'full frame'. Every sensor is full frame. Its just that the size of the frame varies.
I have been kindly asked to host a pre-launch of this fabulous camera in Melbourne and as such have been asked to show how brilliantly the sensor in this camera provides accurate skin tones and how incomprehensibly well it handles in low light. This image was captured at ISO 3200 and, apart from sizing it down, is straight from the camera.

This is a close-up, showing the lack of noise at 3200 ISO.As you can see, there is such little noise that it took me quite a bit of zooming before I encountered anything worth mentioning.
It is said that photographers who have purchased the Nikon D3 rarely see the need to rate their ISO below 800 as it makes little difference to the human eye. That is quite something. I varely rarely like to rate my D200 anywhere above that, with noice becoming quite evident at around 800.
I will be getting a D700. No doubt about it.
For me, a person who likes to 'find the light and put 'em in it', it is an ideal choice of camera. In the brief time I have had to use it I have found that it prepares jpegs with accurate colour and perfect metering, meaning that with the hundreds of images I capture at each wedding there will require less time for post processing, such as white balance and colour corrections. It will save me much time and produce images that can be used straight from the camera. As yet I have not seen a camera produce such beautiful jpegs as I have from the D3 and the D700.

James and Elise

Well, its an odd time for weddings in Melbourne, it being so cold and wintry here. That didn't stop James and Elise from getting married however. Young love...who can stand in its way? Neither rain nor hail nor sleet nor wind...And here here I say!Actually, it wasn't that cold for a June Saturday. The main problem was how short the day was, leaving us little time for photography in Melbourne's lanes and streets. By the time we actually arrived in Brighton for the reception the sun had set completely. However, don't let a little thing like lack of light stop a keen photographer. That's why I have and use the Nikon CLS Flash system!This was the second wedding I had my son assist me on. The first was when we travelled to Edmonton, Alberta Canada together to photograph Tyler and Leanne's wedding. I am hoping Nathan wants to keep coming so I can train him up for a photographic future! He has a great eye and the perfect personality for people photography.

Congratulations James and Elise! Thanks for the honour of being a part of your wedding day. I had too much fun!

Creative Flash Photography Workshop 21.6.08

They say that 'those who can't do, teach.' If that is true, then I am in a quandry.

Why?

Because I love to teach.

I hope, however, that I can actually DO at the same time!
I had the rather exhausting pleasure of running my Creative Flash Photography Workshop at Montsalvat on Saturday. My flash workshop is perhaps the most difficult to run, seeing as there are only a few flashguns that can be accessed off camera and some rather eager photographers wanting to take as many photographs of our models as possible. But all seems to go well enough and everyone gets their share of a good time and good photographs.
I have more workshops to come at this fabulous location so let me know if you want to come and join the fun!

To see what some of those who have come accomplish, come to the Flickr site dedicated to my workshops and to those who attend. Click here.

New Workshops announced

I have a new series of workshops announced.

For more information, click here or email me directly.