melbourne

Sian Holmes

In my eternal boredom I found a Facebook group for photographer, models and hair and make up artists, which is how I came to get in touch with the ever so photogenic Sian.

Sian was looking to get some pictures together for her portfolio and is also fairly new to modelling, or so she claims, she seemed to know what she was doing with her poses.

Towards the end of the shoot I had some problems with my speed light, not ideal but because of this problem we had to resort to available light, we found a good area with amazing soft light coming in, so disaster averted, it also made me think of more creative ways to shoot SIan.

Iron Lady (Cosplay Photography)

As you all know I'm really into cosplay photography so today's blog post will feature miss Alice Shortcake (check out her Facebook page here).

Today I shot with miss Alice Shortcake (a Melbourne based cosplayer). I saw her Ironman cosplay a few months ago and I was quite impressed, I just knew I was going to be able to go nuts in photoshop.

This shoot required a lot of research on my end. I wound up reading every Ironman comic ever made (by read I mean looked at the pictures) for inspiration of what poses. When we got together I brought an Ipad that had all the pictures I saved as research so that I could get the right poses out of Alice.

I was please with how this shoot came out, Alice and I have a good rapport and she gave me all the time I needed to get every shot I wanted. We had a lot of fun. I was also please with the locations around Melbourne we chose (we shot around docklands and the CBD).

Marcelo Silva.

Canon 24mm STM

I recently purchased this lens because it's cheap and I don't own any Canon STM lenses and the technology behind them has always fascinated me so I got the 24mm F/2.8 STM. Another reason this lens intrigued me was it's form factor (it's a pancake lens). I also like to shoot with primes so this lens and I where meant to be.

Canon 24mm f/2.8 STM

The silent stepper motor was something that I just needed to test out the second I got my hands on it. I'm happy to report it works well. You absolutely cannot hear it focussing in live view mode (it's great for filming). One of the down sides of this lens is that it's not the best at focusing, don't get me wrong it's it's good but it doesn't compare to the better lenses.

One of the reasons I wanted this lens is because my now ex girlfriend had an olympus OMD-EM-10 with a 17mm prime lens at the time and I was dead jealous about how easy her gear was to carry! I'm happy to report that this pancake has filled that whole in my life. This lens has become one of those lenses that I always have in my bag because it's so convenient to carry.

One of the things I don't like about this lens is that it vignettes like crazy so this lens isn't going to work well for those who don't edit their pictures. Like most wide angles this lens also suffers from distortion but it won't be a big issue for me as I shoot raw and process all my pictures.

Push come to shove I love this lens I've taken lots good pictures with this lens it's a great every day lens to carry on you.


Colin Hunter Jr.

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I recently realised my dream of taking a portrait of an Indigenous elder.

This is Wurundjeri Elder Colin Hunter Jr. The descendant of the Wurundjeri (they are traditional land owner of the city of Melbourne). 

I saw Mr. Hunter from the other side of the room and I had to get his portrait, I knew the detail in his face would make for a strong portrait.

I'm quite pleased with this portrait I didn't have a lot of time to get it right and I had to deal with available light. He was very friendly and patient with me while I was getting this shot (the perfect subject).

Students of Swinburne

One day in class I was showing I was showing my friend Nadir some of my pictures from my flickr account and he liked my pictures from my 100 strangers project and he as a less experienced photographer expressed an interest in improving his own photography. One day we spoke about doing a Humans of New York styled page for our University to teach him more about how to use his camera, how to compose portraits and how to approach people.

Not long after we created the page and went for a walk about campus to find people to shoot. To be honest I wasn't prepared happened later that night (but more on that later). We found several willing participants to photograph and  the project was on it's way to be a success. Nadir was learning too, he even wound up getting a pictures that I was jealous of.

I was expecting that only our friends would have liked the page and that we'd have about 20 likes all up but on the first night we got over a hundred and by the end of the week it was over a thousand. It was quite amazing and we where receiving amazing feedback and when we where shooting on campus people where recognising the fact that we where the Students of Swinburne photographers it was an amazing time for the two of us to be on campus at the time. 

I think this page was the reason this page was so successful is because of the community of students felt like they where a part of something special. There's an online community of Swinburne students call Swinburne Stalker Space and an active member of the group wound up posting about our page and that's when it took off.

Unfortunately the stories coming from Australian uni students weren't as deep as some of the stories from the Humans of New york page but the stories we where getting but that's what made our project unique there was some humour involved.

I graduated shorty after and Nadir kept on shooting to keep the page alive and I'd drop by to join if I when I could but then the time came for him to graduate and then came along a young lady by the name of Lois messaged the page to express he interest of joining and now she runs the page.

Check out the page and give it a like just click here.