Alpha Photography Blog

Well, my birthday celebrations are now over - lasting 4 days is pretty good!

It was busy for a few days, and as my birthday is also Australia Day, there were lots of other celebrations going on around the city, which made it seem even busier.

Here is some local ‘color’ - an old-fashioned lifeguard scanning the horizon for struggling walkers (rather than swimmers) in the inner city area by the river.

Each year the Australia Day celebrations become larger and more patronized, which is great. It’s good to acknowledge such a day and to provide an excuse for family to gather and have some fun in the sun.

This particular day was very warm, so it was a good thing volunteers were handing out cold pieces of watermelon. I only saw these after lunch though, when I’d eaten too much!

Here are a few other images from my actual birthday day.

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It’s my birthday, and what better way to start, than by receiving gorgeous flowers.

Here is a photoshopped “portrait” version of the flowers. Later in this post I’ll show you the full color image, but here I thought I’d have a little fun changing their appearance in Photoshop.

I decided to emphasize the pink in the arrangement - especially those cute rosettes.

In a previous post I went through how to achieve color with black and white with Photoshop. In this instance I didn’t completely turn the photo into black and white, I just destaurated the colors slightly and brought back some of the original colors from a selection of the photograph.

I could have chosen a few different color backgrounds, but decided to go with black. I have a few different colored sheets of A1 size paper always handy - they are a great, quick way to create a professional look, and it only takes a few minutes!

Keep reading for some more photos…

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It’s inevitable that some photos will end up fuzzy. The lighting isn’t as bright as you thought, your hand slipped a little as you pressed the shutter, the subject moved…

Provided the photo isn’t too blurry, there are ways to breathe life back into your photograph and make it a little sharper - particularly for portait photos.

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What makes a good photograph? This is a pretty broad question. You may be thinking that it also has a different answer for every person, and you’d be right. There must be some kind of criteria though, otherwise why do some photographs win prizes, and others not?

How much of a difference does the subject make? Can a tractor, like this one, really be photographed in a way that would make it a good photograph? I guess that depends on your preference. For some reason I love old farm buildings and equipment - especially if they have some colorful rust on them - but that’s just me.

Composition is a term bandied around quite a bit - and it is vital - but sometimes an image that breaks all the rules can be outstanding.

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There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of books on photography. They are a valuable reference tool, and also a source of inspiration. This weekend in my home town, I went to a huge book fair that happens twice a year. It goes for 8 days and the stocks are replenished on a daily basis.

For bookworms, it’s unmissable. Everything is grouped into broad categories, and I went there looking for photography books…

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Photography expos are a great way to see what’s new for your favourite brands, and to test drive many different types of cameras, that may not necessarily be available in every retail outlet that sells camera gear.

The beginning of a new year is the perfect time to check out what’s going on when, and where.

Depending on where you live, here are some resources for finding photographic expos you might be interested in. (more…)

Floods are a natural phenomenon. They are also extremely unusal where I live, particularly as we have been in drought conditions now for months.

Well, this afternoon we had a spectacular (and fast) thunderstorm in the middle of the day. Lightning, torrential rain, and the result - flooding.

I had a particularly good vantage point from my balcony. Here is a photo taken shortly after the storm had passed, and the sun re-emerged.

Summer storms are gorgeous - so long as you aren’t caught up in them.

Up until the storm, the air was steamy and almost becoming unbearable.

Take a look at some of the other photos I managed to get. It’s funny what people find to do after a storm - especially when they are a novelty…

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Now the New Year is here I’ve started to think about different photography projects I can look into this year. Normally my travels provide a wealth of choice in terms of subjects, but 2007 didn’t bring new destinations, so for 2008 I’m going to be proactive!

Sure, travel is fun and it’s not just about photography, but if you’re away somewhere, it makes your eye tune into different scenes, looking for something interest. Having been to the same destinations mulitple times, I venture to look at the same things with a new perspective, but it’s not quite as fun as seeing something for the first time.

So, before this year gets too far away from me, I’ve started to think about different projects I can look at…

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Well, it’s now 2008. It’s difficult to believe that yet another year is over. Time to make those resolutions again. One of mine is to save more and upgrade my camera. At the moment I’m looking at the Canon 40D.

Sorry, just got a little side-tracked. Part of my scarce vacation time over the festive period was spent on Fraser Island - off the east coast of Queensland, Australia.

While there was enough sunshine for me to get a little bit of a tan, there was also a lot of cloud cover and rain - not the ideal conditions to photograph a beach holiday.

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