From the BlogContact Andy
I took nearly 1,000 shots at the Brisbane Holi Festival (organised by the Gujarati Association of Queensland and held at Sunnybank) – including nearly 200 headshots.
I loved these headshots because of the vibrant colours and the simple joy and fun that they show :
“Holi”, the popular Hindu spring festival, is one of India’s most important holidays. It is known as the festival of colours, (and sometimes festival of love) and is famous as a carnival of colours – where everyone plays, chases and colours each other with dry powder and coloured water, with some carrying water guns and coloured water-filled balloons for a water fight.
I have long been inspired by the amazing bright and vibrant photos that I have seen of this festival in India – so couldn’t resist the opportunity to attend a local (Sunnybank, Brisbane) festival. It was on a much smaller scale than the traditional Indian events – but had every bit as much enthusiasm from those attending.
Here are a selection of my favourite shots from today’s event :
Photo5 is a unique photography competition run by Canon each year where five everyday items in a simple brown box inspire a stunning variety of imaginative images.
Along with the everyday items (designed to provide inspiration), there separate “Briefs” which specify the criteria for each section of the competition. I’ve outlined below some of the shots I shortlisted for my submissions for each section :
Using flour, create a high contrast image with visual punch.
Make some cartoon eyes and use these to create an image that breathes life into something inanimate.
Create an image where light plays upon – or through – the distinctive qualities of jelly.
Create an image that incorporates light that’s filtered through the stencil provided.
Today’s Southside Photo Bugs meetup was an combined event with the Brisbane Dogs meetup – and provided a great photo opportunity for Owners, Photographers and the Dogs themselves of course.
It is often said never work with Children or Pets… but many of these dogs seemed to be “old pros” when it comes to posing for photos and were lapping up (sorry) the attention.
It was a very tough decision to filter out my favourites… so here are a few (but I have plenty more, so if I took your dogs photo on the day, and it doesn’t appear here, please feel free to get in touch with me for a copy.
Today I popped in to the Brisbane MakerCamp (at HackerSpaceBrisbane) and (of course) couldn’t help taking a few photos.
MakerCamp is a showcase of inventions, creations,arts,craftsmanship and anything that you can make yourself. It is in the “unconference” format (just like a regular Barcamp), but centred around Maker-Culture.
I was pleasently surprised to see so many people come along – and particularly pleased that there were plenty of families and kids along too. My primary interest was the 3D Printing, but I was also fascinated by the Blacksmithing demonstrations (which provided some great photo opportunities… there is just something about fire isn’t there)
This was the first time I had been to HSBNE, but I will definitely be back 🙂
This months Camera Club event started off at the Mt Coot-tha Botanical Gardens (an awesome place to spend a few hours taking photos) before heading up to Mt Coot-tha lookout for the sunset.
The theme at the botanical gardens was “macro” – but Sam, Susan, Rory and I arrived a bit early for a quick look at the Japanese gardens first.
Here are some of my favourites from the day (including some long exposures of the Summit Restaurant). Look out for an update with a timelapse video of the sunset.
I recently rushed up to Mt Gravatt on a particularly foggy morning – hoping to catch some spectacular city views as the fog dispersed. Well… that didn’t happen… the fog hung around for ages and by the time it had lifted from the mountain had already cleared pretty much everywhere else.
It did however, allow me to catch some nice “moody” fog shots, some lovely macros of water drops on plants, and some interesting action shots of cyclists riding through the fog… An excellent reminder I think that photo opportunities are all around us – we just need to look…
Mt Cootha is one of the favourite tourist spots in Brisbane as it provides a panoramic view over the city – with a good (if somewhat distant) vantage of the CBD. I’ve intended for a while to go and get some decent sunrise and sunset shots… but it is on the other side of the city from me, so not really possible to pop up on a whim, and therefore requires a bit more planning.
I recently did manage to find a spare afternoon/evening, and went up for a look. It was by no means an ideal night (was a bit hazy and windy) and certainly not one of the prettiest sunsets (the next day was spectacular of course), but I did manage some decent shots and an OK timelapse… and learned some useful lessons about how to do it better next time.
I setup a short timelapse sequence for a local food co-op/food buyers group – with the intention of highlighting the social and community aspect of this type of event.
I think the timelapse video below does this nicely.
(350 photos taken at 30 second intervals over a 3 and 1/2hr period)
I was given the opportunity to do a family portrait session for a young family with a new (6week old) baby. We took a bit of a mixture of family shots with some individual portraits and a “business” headshot as well.
We wanted a simple natural look without too much “posing” or staged situations. Always a challenge working with young children (and animals) we were all pretty happy with the outcome.
Here is a sample (thanks also to Rory for the assist).
