On a recent flight transiting through Auckland I had a fantastic view out the window of the plane as we were coming in to land. The following images were grabbed in about 30 seconds as we approached the airport.
These images were grab shots that I took when I was out taking photos at the Sign of the Bellbird.
I like the simplicity of these images. Both were photographed outside in natural light and I shot from down low using the bright sky to blow out the background. The exposure has been pushed further in RAW conversion to push the background all the way to white.
If you are a photographer, then chances are that – like me – you spend a lot of time reworking images in Photoshop. I really enjoy Photoshop work, but I enjoy getting to the finished product and I never want a task to take any longer than it needs to. For this reason, I am a huge fan of using keyboard shortcuts.
Photoshop is an incredibly powerful piece of software; however, it is only powerful if you know how to use it. Now, keyboard shortcuts won’t improve your Photoshop skills – but it will save you lots of time by making your work more efficient.
Keyboard shortcuts save a LOT of time by substantially decreasing the amount of mouse movement that is required to get something done. It only take a second to slide the mouse across to the side and select the tool that you want to work on; however, this time really adds up when you consider how often you swap between tools and change settings – especially when you are working on a large number of images.
I have posted images of Seb on my blog before. He’s the child of some good friends Dave and Jos and he really is an especially cute child.
These images were taken in November last year, but I had not looked through all of them until now. I was shooting with my partner Sharon, and we were wanting to capture images of Seb in his home environment. You can see some images created on the same day by Sharon on her blog.
This was a really fun shoot. Seb was relaxed in his familiar surroundings, and it was fantastic to be able to capture images of him interacting with his parents and just generally playing and having a good time.
Whilst working inside, an SB26 flash was wirelessly triggered and bounced off the ceiling to supplement the ambient light and provide fill. The key light is still provided by light coming through nearby windows. The images taken outside were created using available light only.
At the south end of Christchurch are the Port Hills – apart from these, everything else about Christchurch is flat. The Port Hills are a great place for recreational pursuits such as walking, mountain biking, rock climbing and sight seeing. The hills are apparently the eroded remnants of the northern rim of the Lyttelton volcano (who knew?). This area is also the beginning of Banks Peninsula, which is a mostly barren but very beautiful and mountainous area.
To get to the Port hills is a short drive, taking me less than 20 minutes. At the top of Dyers Pass road is the Sign of the Kiwi and from here you can either head down into Lyttleton or traverse the Summit road. I took a right turn and headed west along the Summit Road until I got to the Sign of the Bellbird – from here I had a beautiful view of the whole bay.
The weather was not very good, which made for some hazy visibility – but did create some dramatic skies.
Christchurch is a fantastic city. With a population of around 380,000 it’s fairly small by global standards, but New Zealand is not a very big place. Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island and is the second largest in the country after Auckland with a population of 1.3 million.
Over the last several years, Christchurch has undergone a significant amount of gentrification. This has led to a large number of alleyways and old buildings being revamped – which is great for us photographers!
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Lunchtime rolled around today and as per usual, I was starving. My stomach – rather than the clock – was telling me that it was time to eat.
But what to eat?
For lack of any other ideas, I fell back on an old favourite; a Spinach and Feta omelette. It’s hard to go wrong with one of these.
Spinach and Feta omelette
I live in a beautiful country. But not just any beautiful country; I live in the South Island of New Zealand – one of the most coveted, scenic and beautiful places in the world. I tend to forget this and admit that I don’t venture out nearly often enough.
A few years I saw a list of the top 50 places to go before you die, which had been created from a survey of 20,000 people. It listed the South Island of New Zealand as one of the top 5 places in the world that people wanted to visit. I try to remember this when I’m sitting at home on my couch and not outside enjoying the world.
Recently my partner and I were invited to a wedding which was ‘inconveniently’ all the way over on the West Coast. We live on the east coast, but what the hell, we decided to make a weekend of it – pack the camera!
We live in a modern age where computer graphics/CGI are so creative and believable that there is little left to the imagination. The line between what is real and what is not is becoming more blurred and seamless as technology is progressing; just take a look at what James Cameron has done with the movie Avatar.
In contrast to all this amazing new technology and CGI, I am that much more impressed when something is done really well using the old school, analog methods.
What am I talking about? Well, it only happens occasionally – but every now and again something is created using analog and old school methods, yet it is done so well that it rivals even the fanciest CGI. There is a certain aesthetic that comes along with something that was actually created for real. Knowing that somebody not only dreamed up the idea – but also managed to execute it so well – makes it even more amazing.
These images are from earlier last year. My parents are currently trekking around Australia driving a giant Ford F350 dually (dual back wheels) with a 23 foot Bush Tracker in tow. This rig allows them to be self sufficient and to head off road into some of the more remote parts of Australia – pretty awesome!
Last year they hopped over to New Zealand to come for a short visit with us in Christchurch. I took the opportunity to get a few nice images of them while they were here. Hopefully we will get to go spend some time with them in the Australian outback with the Bush Tracker sometime soon, and then I will be able to post up some images from that.
These images were taken in the lounge at home using two speedlight softboxes, further technical info is below the images.
