The Giant Economy Size

We sell lots of things in Camera Electronic that are intended to be small; Olympus cameras, Gitzo traveller's tripods, Metz LED lights. But we also sometimes lash out and get the Giant Economy Size. Case in point: The Premier Eco Print Shield cans.

These are a liquid coating for your inkjet paper and canvas prints that will stop the UV rays from messing with the colours - they also stop airborne pollutants and moisture from ruining the surface of the print. This may not seem important if all your pictures are on your iPhone or 6 x 4 postcards in a shoe box...but the big boys and girls who print out on large format printers and frame their exhibition work know different.

Now the statement that something stops UV damage completely is a difficult one to make - particularly in Western Australia where we manufacture ultraviolet radiation for export. You have only to listen to the weather reports every day to realise that our WA UV index scale starts at " Extreme " and goes up from there. About the only complete UV protection for anything is to put it inside the turret of a Sherman tank and close the hatch...

But the Premier Eco Print Shield does help. It can make the difference for an interior display between a year's safety and 5 years. If you are selling your work, that is important...it gives you time to get away.

Two finishes in stock - Matte and Satin, and you can spread it with bush, roller, or spray gun. If you choose the last mode of delivery you will need a gun with a wide throat to get this solution out...and make sure that you clear and clean your gun between applications. This is thick stuff.

If your needs are more modest, there is also the Hahnemühle spray in aerosol cans - some pros rely on this exclusively.

Note to those people whose entire portfolio is on their iPhones, iPads, or the 8-year old computer that seems to be a little slower at booting up these days...Start to print out some of your best work. The thrill of seeing it in the hand and on the wall is reward enough for your trouble. And people will think of your output in more concrete terms when it is hanging off the concrete.

Plus...for those with the entire portfolio on the Fisher-Price My First Hard Drive...remember the old Bond's underwear ad slogan..." One day, you're gonna get caught..".

Being An Upright Photographer

Last year I had a chance to see an exhibition of photographs prints that had been taken in and around the City of Perth. We might not necessarily think of our town as an exotic place for photos...but the vision of the photographers was acute enough to find dozens of unique and memorable sights. Some of these were historical but a complete mystery to me - I'm glad there were captions.

One point of amazement was how many of Perth's buildings are built with walls that slope inwards from the bottom. I think that the designers must have been trained on Mayan ziggurats...or maybe they just ran out of materials as they went higher and had to make the buildings narrower.

Of course, it may have been to counteract the forces of nature, as I noted in about 20% of the entries that the horizon sloped down from right to left or vice versa. Perhaps the buildings were only reacting to the shifting gravity. Amazing how well the ocean stayed on some prints, when it should have dripped off to the side...

Well, snide comments aside, it did point out the basic optical fact that when you point your camera up or down get in all of the top or bottom of a building, the structure will seem to taper away from you. Your eye sees it as well, but when your brain processes the information it lies to you and tells you the building walls are straight up and down, because it knows they probably are. The camera is a much more literal observer.

Pro shooters have known for years that they need to keep the camera level get the building walls vertical. Even if it is just the back of the camera, it has to be straight up and down to avoid distortion of the image. This means that the person taking the picture has to be far enough away or use a wide enough angle on the lens to get the part of the building they want on the sensor...and in some cases it means that they have to half-way up a building nearby their target to satisfy all the criteria.

Old timers like me who used view and field cameras with rising and falling fronts and lenses with a large coverage could sometimes fiddle this to perfection from ground level . Modern digital shooters with tilt/shift lenses (Nikon, Canon, Samyang) can also do it.

If pressed to it we can also go into many of the digital editing programs like Photoshop and Photoshop Elements and pick a portion of the filters that will correct this distortion. It is amazing to see how far a bad situation can be recovered, though not getting that far away from the correct shooting makes the repair a lot easier.

At this point I will admit that there are any number of photographs that have wildly converging verticals and have benefited from the look - they have been made with a deliberate use of the forced perspective to make an artistic statement. It is only the ones that have tried to be realistic and failed that we address with the special lenses or programs.

As for the tilting horizon? Well, Cullmann, Manfrotto, and Promaster all make extremely neat little bubble levels that will allow you yo shoot with the camera level to the horizon. Lots of camera s have artificial horizon indicators built into the EVF or LCD display. If you use them they work.

If your image passes through a computer between your camera and the printer...then take the time to correct that horizon in the editing program. Even if you have to measure the screen with a wooden school ruler you can still make your vision conform to the way gravity actually works.

Coyne Collecting - A Seminar To Treasure

I hope the subject of this column doesn't mind me using his name as a headline - I'm actually talking about Michael Coyne, the internationally renowned photojournalist. No disrespect meant.

How could I - the man uses the beloved Fujifilm cameras to document diverse cultures around the globe. He's lectured before here at our own Shoot Photography Workshops and that was worth hearing. Now he'll be holding a seminar at the Central Institute of Technology later this month to tell more.

We still get a look in - and you can look in as well - as there will be an exhibition of his prints at the Shoot photography Workshops - 232 Stirling Street right next door to the shop - from the 18th of April to the 29th of April. It will be seen between 8:30 AM until 5:30 PM on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays. It'll be well worth a viewing, particularly if you go along to see Michael at Central TAFE. The name of the seminar is " Capturing Humanity ".

Well, what will you hear at the seminar? The background briefing and inside story of historic moments - including his recent tour of Fukushima in Japan. Consider that he's been shooting assignment photos in over 20 countries and any number of sticky - and non-sticky - situations. There's a lot of stories and a lot of insight for the photographer who also wants to observe mankind.

The seminar will be held at the main lecture theatre of the Central Institute of Technology on Wednesday, the 27th of April. It starts at 6:00 PM and goes until 8:00.

Costs:

AIPP Member                 $ 65.00
AIPP Student Member    $ 45.00
WAPF Members             $ 80.00
Non-Members                 $ 95.00

There is a booking site on the web run by the AIPP - Please click over there or give them a ring to see about going.

Mr. Coyne is well worth listening to - and if you are a Fujifilm user, his insights into how our favourite cameras operate in the field are priceless.

Still Time To Go Fishing

We've been delighted with the exhibition of underwater photography here in the shop - many thanks to the talent and vision of the WAPF photographers. Apparently Sunday was a lot of fun. The pictures swim away at the end of this week - Friday in fact - so do try to get in and see them in the meantime.

And for those of you inclined to try your own fins at the this sort of photography may we recommend that you go look at the work of Darren Jew - the Canon AIPP technical, scientific, nature photographer of the year. he has a website that is positively dripping with beauty. You'll have a whale of a time...

Also - we do have small underwater cameras for sale. Of course, you can take anything underwater but the specialised ones keep working...

Note to self: mop floor after the exhibition packs up. Some of those pictures are too realistic...

WAPF Underwater At Camera Electronic

This Sunday - the 29th of September - is going to see the inaugural opening of the WAPF Underwater Photo Exhibition - right here at our shop.

If you come to 230 Stirling Street, Perth between 4:00 and 6:00 on the 29th you'll see a glorious mini-gallery of underwater shots from some Federation experts. A chance to talk photography with people who love it, as well as see what you can do in the water.

Won't be a dry visit, either...

See you here.

All Time Favourite = Escaping The Ghost

Internet bloggers love to make lists of things - it is one of the techniques that we are told will increase the hits on our site. The more outrageous the premise - or common the theme - the better. Everyone gets to relate to the list and then decide that the author is full of it.

I am more interested in seeing into the mind of the reader - in particular the visual mind. I want to know what has made the photographer take the photographs.

Sometimes this is obvious - the photographer has been given a dollar and told to go out and take a certain picture. Or the photographer has speculated that if they take a certain picture they can sell it later for a dollar. It is commerce.

Sometimes it is need - emotional need. The first picture of a long-desired baby...followed by 32,000 more of them. Or the last picture of Grandma just before she went over the top at Ypres. These are the basic photographic lining of our memory box, and we can all understand it.

But what about the...shhhh, don't speak loud...Art picture. The one taken to show, and shown until the pixels are ragged, but never paid for. And not a relation. Why? Or more to the point, what image was there in the mind of the photographer that influenced them? You can generally find out if you can get an honest answer to this core question:  What is your all-time favourite photograph?

You can answer that one for yourselves. Find the one that you have always loved and look to see if it is re-appearing time and time again in your images. Don't be ashamed of this - after all something has made you the way you are in every field of endeavour - even if it is just the memory of being knocked about.

Should you break free of it? CAN you break free of it? Can you do it better and make it the springboard of success - after all it is sitting there in your psyche whirring way anyway - might as well use the power.

Okay - now you know why there is an August Sander picture of the Konditormeister at the top of this blog. That's my prime image. I don't know why, but it has always made me feel good to see it. I don't really know if any of my own pictures exhibit all of the features but I can see some of it somewhere in my successful ones. I just wish that he had had the opportunity to work in colour.

Uncle Dick

Still Time To Get A Seat - Click West

Normally I would not advise someone to grab their seat in public...but tomorrow night is an exception. Mind you, you'll need to start searching for it today.

The WAPF is holding their second big exhibition of competitive photographs at Carousel's La Premiere cinema tomorrow night - the 6th of June.

This is the big one for WA camera clubs, with some of the finest photos by WA members shown on one of the biggest screens you will ever see. This beats setting up a bed sheet and a Hanimex Rondette in the CWA hall by a long shot...

The WAPF has a website dedicated to this competition - just Google on over to it and look up at the top of the page. There is a section that lets you book a seat for the night. There is reserved seating, seniors seating and lots of other things. Pop over there now and grab the telephone.

Note on the site that there are a number of big photographic names here in Perth associated with this competition - not least of which is us down here at Camera Electronic. We'll be sending one of the chiefs to the pow wow and I'll be reporting on the winners - with images I hope - afterwards.

A Day With My Scaley Mates

Did goe to the Reptile Expo yesterdaye and was greatley entertained.

It was held at Bogan Central - otherwise known as the Cannington Agricultural Hall. The reason for the nickname is instantly evident, but so many fun things happen at this venue - the toy car expo next weekend and the collector's fairs, etc. - that the occasional flannel shirt and uggs is a small price to pay for the pleasures. Even if you are the one wearing them...

So - yesterday was reptiles, and it was a typical Perth experience - and eye-opener as to just how many people are interested in a subject, how sophisticated their knowledge is, and how much trade and commerce there is out there to support it. It is the same with quilt sewing, hot rods, iron ore mining, and Lithuanian ferret racing - give them a day out and there are a million people there.

We took a stand of goodies that might interest a reptilian - DGK grey cards, Adobe image programs, Datacolor Spyder - and a some magic Nikon cameras and a coupla Cullmann products.

Well, the 10:00 lecture from me on wildlife photography was attended by me. And after ten minutes even I left. Everyone was having too much fun with the rest of the snakes to want to listen. In the event, they did come and ask sensible questions at the stand.

They ran a photographic competition that was won by three suitable shooters - first and second prize were a father and son team and son beat father. I should advise him to guard his prize - a Cullmann 525 tripod and big carrying bag - well as there was a predatory gleam in Dad's eye...reptiles do that to you.

One thing was impressive - everyone from the pure enthusiast all the way up to the two wandering officers from the Conservation Department had the interests of the animals at heart - none of the reptiles were ill-housed or ill-treated. Some of the pythons seemed to be exercising a wicked sense of humour when they were allowed to climb over pretty girls. The frogs looked nonplussed and none of them elected to turn back into princesses no matter who kissed them. The bobtail goanna in the terrarium next to our table was prosperous - his keeper obviously knew exactly the right diet for him.

The day was a success - next Sunday is toy cars and I am looking out my tracky daks and Jackie Howe shirt in preparation. I wonder if I have time to grow a mullet before then...

An Eye Opener In Melbourne

And I don't mean in Young and Jackson's either...

Did goe to The NGV Centre in Federation Square in Melbourne this last week and was greatley amused. By a Canadian, no less.

Jeff Wall photographs were featured in the Fed Square Level 3 gallery and as it was the first time I had encountered the name, and I had half a ticket, I took them in. I might have been nonplussed at the subject matter - life in British Columbia in the 90's - and I might have thought the treatment a little banal - but I was amazed and educated to see the presentation.

You see the large-format images had been printed as transparencies and displayed in especially-made back-lit frames. They reminded me of giant light boxes much like the Medialux light boxes we sell here in the shop.. Aluminium sides and mitred corners. The illumination hitting the transparencies was extremely even, and as it fell through the images rather than on them, you could appreciate it from a multitude of angles.

In the same exhibition, several frames were set out in the same way, but were paper prints illuminated from the front. Sorry, Jeff - they just lost the charm of the light boxes.

The other two amazing things were the fact that the pictures were in Melbourne on loan from the Art Gallery of Western Australia - and the video presentation of an interview with Mr. Wall. I could stand about four minutes of it before I ran. Photospeak is the same as Artspeak. But with f stops...I wonder if there are such things a Plumbingspeak and Ballbearingmanufacturerspeak.

PS: Did goe to Young and Jackson's and was also greatley amused...until the beer money ran out.

Tokyo From Ground Level - With Guy

Here's a good reason to go to visit Gallery Central at the Central Institute of Technology - that's located at 12 Aberdeen Street, Perth.


Guy Vinciguerra visited Tokyo and concentrated his photography on monochrome images. He mentions that it features the city, its people, and their built environment. He also characterizes the images as reflecting his own emotional dramas. I'm not sure what this means but hopefully he does not burst into tears or throw things at us in the gallery...

In any case, you can judge for yourselves on weekdays between 10:00 and 4:45 and on Saturdays between 12:00 and 4:45 - it will run until the 13th of November.

Simply Perfect Or Perfectly SImple

Have you ever had someone ask you what you thought of their photographs and then had to think really fast about what your answer would be? You tossed up whether to be kind or honest and generally plumped for the former. Then you thought about it all day...

I visited the Art Gallery of NSW today to see the exhibition of photographs by Eugéne Atget. These are not reproductions - Atget's method of working was so direct that enlargement or reduction would be pointless - the images shown were framed originals. As such they declared the vision of the man as clearly as they showed his subject matter.

Atget worked in Paris - France, not Kentucky - between 1880 until the 1930's. He viewed the city as a series of themes - shopfronts, street corners, tradesman's displays, vehicles, etc. and made images based upon these divisions. They were made with a 7" x 9.5" glass plate camera with movements, mounted upon a tripod, and I should say from the ones I saw, exposed with natural light. The plates were tray-developed and the prints made on POP fixed and gold-toned. The prints are contact type and are in tones that range from dark sepia to brown.

The Gallery matted and framed them quite simply and then Tek-screwed them to the walls. All three billion of them.

Well, it seemed like that - I imagine there were only two hundred but after the first fifty it all became a blur. I was left wondering whether it was a blur to Eugéne too.

Perhaps not. The literature said that he made albums and sold commercial prints of his work during his career. He seems to have derived an income, if the evidence of a couple of pictures of his sitting room is to be believed - he looks to have been a reader as well as just a peripatetic viewer of shopfronts. As his work is organised into divisions, I am willing to think that he intended these divisions for some artistic or commercial purpose. And I salute his technique with the negative - one of his plates is shewn over a light box and I can recognise real talent in exposure, composition, and development.

But oh, that brown murk of POP paper. It seems to veil everything and draws some subjects to a flat level that, frankly, removes any charm from them. Eugéne saw the artistry and the French academics see the history, but I am left looking at a dull brown picture of a street corner...

Different when he incorporates a person, or a Maison Close, or a vehicle - I was delighted to see the old Renault and note that the business of a parking brake on a sloping street was easily done with a brick under the back tyre. Interiors too, had their charm - they seem to bear more clearly the stamp of their occupier than a shopfront or a courtyard.

Am I being presumptuous in criticising one of the published greats? Yes, and you can poke fun at me for it. But I cannot help but think that a number of the images are best preserved in the French Roads Board scrapbook or as reference for some academic rather than being presented as masterpieces.

Perhaps a little experiment is in order. When I get home I shall look out a book I own on Atget (!) and illegally transfer one of the images into my computer via my scanner. Then I shall immorally redo it by losing the dull sepia and giving it a crisp black and white rendition. And I shall see if there is beauty there or just utility. I should hesitate to do this to most of the images I admire but in this case I am curious to know what would have been had the materials changed.

A Blooming Photo Competition

The orchid is a very strange flower - it is generally seen on three occasions; funerals, school proms, and field trips in the rain. Surprisingly similar circumstances, in my experience.

Well here's a chance to break the cycle. The Australian Orchid Council is holding a photographic competition this spring in conjunction with the 19th AOC conference and show. This would appear to be a good one as it has a fair prize offer and an open entry form.

Obviously they are looking for pictures of orchids - and I daresay orchids in relation to the wider environment. In any case you can get a more detailed idea of what they want and what the conditions of entry are by asking them at aocconference@dodo.com.au.

Looks as if they are splitting the contest into two sections; Colour and Black and White. They have mentioned that it is open to anyone over the age of 12 and the prizes on offer are $ 1000 for each of the divisions. They will want to use your pictures for promotional purposes, but you'll get a mention if they do.

They are asking for the works to be submitted mounted on A4 foam boards so that they can be displayed - the conference will be at the Burswood Entertainment Center between the 13-16 of September. As I said, go to their address or website and find out when entries will be required.

So get snapping - still time to take in a few funerals, dances, or days spent slogging through the bush to capture the image - there is $ 2000 and artistic fame ready for the taking.

Paradise Harbour

I must remember not to forget:

David Sargeant has an exhibition of Antarctic photographs entitled " Paradise Harbour " currently on view at 232 Stirling Street, Perth. This is, of course, Shoot Photography Workshops - just next door to our shop. You can't miss it as David has placed a large toned monochrome image on the front poster.

The exhibition is running from the 25th of March until the 13th of April and is open Tuesday to Friday in that period. Opening times are 10:00AM to 4:00PM.

It is an exhibition run as a part of the Foto Freo 2012 festival.

As you can imagine, images taken in Antartica are bound to be a good antidote to sweltering weather - but David has done more than just document the ice and snow - there is real artistry in the framing and processing. The exhibition is well worth a visit.