Alpha Photography Blog

It’s been a bit of a lack lustre photographic week.  I haven’t made the time or effort to go out and find something to photograph, so this will be a pretty dull post.

This week has been one of those where very mundane issues seem to have forced their way in.  That will change this weekend though.  I’m determined to grab my camera, jump in the car and head out somewhere - maybe the beach…

Hopefully it doesn’t rain…

I’m sure you’ve had one of those periods where creativity just doesn’t seem to be as forthcoming.  That feeling change when I recently began reading Edward de Bono’s new book “Think: Before It’s Too Late”.  If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it to you.  What a great read.  He has an incredible mind and explains concepts which seem so obvious once you read about them.

He spends a chapter discussing creativity and how it’s not has devoid of logic as most of us think.  It’s newly inspired me to go out and look at my environment differently and take photos with this new outlook.

So, watch this space!

There’s nothing more glorious than the colours of nature.  Recently I had my film SLR with me, as I had to use up a roll of ISO 3200 colour film.  I hadn’t planned to use the film on nature photography, but I needed to finish the roll of film.

Wandering around the streets I kept seeing these gorgeous trees covered in pink flowers.  Then, as I looked closely I saw…

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Landscape photography seems infinitely easier than portraiture.  However, there are some locations that just don’t ‘cooperate’ - rainforests being the worst offender.

I love going bush walking and rainforests are extra special with their waterfalls.  The light that breaks through the trees doesn’t make for an easy subject…

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Like most people, I love fireworks.  Since they banned the use of fireworks in my state of Queensland, seeing fireworks has become a semi-rare event.

Every year, as part of Brisbane’s festival to the city, the fireworks kick off the festival with a bang (literally).  Usually, I haul myself to a prime location with my camera and tripod in tow.  But this year they predicted record crowds, so I decided to enjoy the sky show from the comfort of my balcony.

Granted, there is a TV antenna kind of in the way, but you’ll get the idea…

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Photoshop is a fun program to use for editing photos.  It can also be an incredibly frustrating program.  This post is only semi-related to photography, as I was recently trying to create a funky background for another purpose.  During this process I discovered a way of making some great, different backgrounds to put photos on.

Keep in mind that this experiment wasn’t meant for a portrait, this is just to illustrate my point…

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The concept of a self portrait, in a photographic sense, sounds a bit moronic.  I recently attempted to take a photograph of my mother and I, with me no one behind the camera - except for me, “in spirit”.  The results were quite surprising…

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This used to be a more complicated question that it is nowadays.  I remember the “good ole days”, when you had to make a choice based on the kind of film loaded in the camera - colour, or black and white.

These days it’s so easy - you don’t have to choose.  You can just take the photo in colour with a digital camera, then convert it to black and white with a few keystrokes in a photo editing program, such as Photoshop.

It is fun to play around with both, especially when photographing in-animate objects…

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Move over Willy Wonka!  For true lovers of chocolate you’ll understand the obsession.  There is a family owned chocolate company in Australia called Haigh’s, based in Adelaide.  Visiting family down in Adelaide recently I went on a tour of their factory and was in chocolate heaven!

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I haven’t flown a kite since I was a kid.  Recently I took my 3 year old cousin out to fly a kite and it was great fun!  They’re tricky things to photograph though - particularly on a windy day.  Here are a few hits and misses…

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This is how Queensland Tourism describes Queensland.  This is especially true in Northern Queensland - up near the Whitsunday Islands.

Recently, a friend got married and “unfortunately” she held her wedding up in Mackay at a place called Dolphin Heads Resort.

Coming from a busy daily grind, I instantly felt more relaxed as soon as I got off the plane and felt the cool, yet balmy tropical breeze.  The resort is right on the ocean, and here are some of the views…

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