Have Camera Will Travel

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2012-02-03T10:39:00.001+11:00

Recently I had the opportunity to spend some time up on the beautiful Atherton Tablelands on assignment for the Mercedes Magazine, a stunning publication sent out for free to owners of Mercedes cars.

Part of my assignment was to photograph Lake Barrine, part of Australia's most biologically diverse national park, the Crater Lakes National Park. (that title swings between it and the Daintree as more species get discovered in different areas!)

One of the great things to do on Lake Barrine is a boat cruise around the lake. Here you'll spot heaps of wildlife out sunning itself on the banks of the lake - snakes, ducks, turtles,eels and these beautiful Bearded Forest Dragons. This fellow wasn't perturbed in the least about us coming right up to him for a close-up and I love the detail and subtle colours the soft lighting has pulled out in his scaly skin.

So if you have a chance to pop up to the Tablelands for a day trip, or even an overnighter, then I definitely recommend a trip to Lake Barrine.

For more of the images I shot on that day head over to the Lake Barrine images on my website.

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2012-01-27T11:50:00.000+11:00

One of the great joys of living in far north Queensland is the wildlife.

Not only the wildlife found in the bush mind you, but that which lives all around the house.

It's the time of year where the green tree frogs keep you awake at night.

They climb up on the kitchen window to catch insects attracted to the light.

They get into your toilet and give you a heart attack when you lift the lid!

And they help the postman deliver the mail. This fella may look like he's sitting on the edge of a leaf but it's actually my mail box.

My boys were never so keen to go get the mail for me (even in the rain!) as when this little fella decided to take up residence. So whether you live here or are just visiting, keep an eye out for these cute little frogs around your property. And maybe bring a set of earplugs for a good night's sleep!

Are you following us on Facebook? I often post links to interesting articles on photography and great images there that I don't get around to posting here so if you're on Facebook pop on over and Like our page!

Paul Dymond to offer private photographic tuition in 2012

2012-01-23T15:11:00.000+11:00

Jump for joy! Well those of you who live in Cairns anyway. If you haven't been following the Have Camera Will Travel page on Facebook.
here's letting you know that as of February I will be offering private tuition in photography for those in the Cairns area. People have been asking me to do this for a while for various reasons - hard to make it to a course, need one on one help with specific problems, would like feedback on their images. Wel I've finally pulled my finger out and got myself organised to offer this service and I am really excited about it. You can find all the details in the press release. Hope to be working with you in 2012.

Why I want to be around creatives.

2012-01-13T09:47:00.000+11:00

As we start a new year there's a lot of optimism floating around. People all over the world always consider this a great time to re-evaluate their lives, make promises to themselves that they may or may not keep, and generally start off 2012 with a wave of enthusiasm.

I love being surrounded by creatives because they keep that feeling of optimism throughout the year. They don't need a date on the calendar to fire up their enthusiasm, it seems to pervade their every waking moment. And I think I know why. It's because they have dreams. Not regular I'd like to pay my house mortage off kind of dreams, but huge, life altering dreams.

Of course one dream that they all have involves the crazy notion that they can build a career and business out of what they are passionate about. When I first decided I wanted to be a travel photographer it never occurred to me that it was a crazy thing to do. I didn't personally know anybody who'd done it, but there were obviously people who were doing it. Ergo it must be doable.

Whether I had succeeded or not i think the most important thing was having the dream. Having a lofty goal that spurs you on, fuels your enthusiasm and ignites your passion. There are so many people in the world who have no goals outside of their immediate vicinity. They want to pay off their houses, get a new boat to go fishing in, take a month's holiday every year. Nothing wrong with that at all, just not inpiring enough for me.

I want to be surrounded by people who have dreams that seem impossible. Dreams that seem as crazy as trying to grab the stars in your hands. People who want to change the world, not just their own situations. And that's why I love being surrounded by photographers, writers and other creatives. The people who remind me that you don't need January the 1st to put crazy ideas into motion. You can do it any day of the year and ideally should be doing it every day of the year. Dream big, dare to fail. Go for it. The dreaming is more important than the result. Without the dream you may as well just resign yourself to a life of mediocrity and who wants that? Not me.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T14:20:00.000+11:00

Wherever you are in the world I hope you had a fantastic New Year's Eve and that your 2012 will be absolutely wonderful. What do I have planned? More photography work that I absolutely love!

I'll be honest, last year was a big challenge for me. It was my fourth year as a stay-at-home Dad and all the fun and enjoyment that entails. It was also the first year my youngest son went to school, which suddenly left me with week days between the hours of 9 and 3 to myself. I envisioned myself getting back into work full-time but life is never what we plan. Instead I found myself trying to determine exactly what kind of photography work I can do in these limited hours, and discovered that it doesn't look anything like what I imagined, or what my previous decade in the industry had me doing.

So this year will be all about trying new things, mixing it up and gradually transitioning my business away from the spend a lot of time overseas pattern that I've known up till know. I want to photograph far North Queensland in-depth. I want to photograph interesting people and their stories. I want to work on finding my voice and my niche in a city which has more 'professional' photographer than you can poke a stick at!

Last year I ran a private photography tutorial or two and I'd like to continue doing that. I really enjoy teaching, and if the feedback is to be believed, I'm pretty good at taking complicated concepts and putting them into layman's terms. I'd also like to run a few more courses - maybe even organise a day trip or two. Most of all I want to focus on my core competencies. The stuff wild horses couldn't drag me away from. I have stuff that I'm really good at and stuff that I'm not so hot at. I want to pass the not-so-hot stuff on to colleagues and concentrate on hitting every assignment out of the park.

What about the blog? Well I'm going to try and post more regularly but it will still be my usual rants on the state of the industry, the spiritual side of this amazingly creative profession and lots of pictures from my travels around the local area and the world. I'm thinking of making things longer. No more of these short posts that are nice to look at but ultimately don't cause you to think too much. I want to spark some conversations, some thoughts and hopefully help launch some creative dreams.

So as we go forward into 2012 I wish all of you a fantastic twelve months and hope that all your wildest fantasies come true (just don't tell me about the ones involving animals!).I hope you'll join me every so often to keep up with what's happening in my world, and come and follow me over on my Facebook Page - see the link on the right.

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2011-11-25T11:16:00.000+11:00

Welcome to Fantastic FNQ photo Friday, the regular day of the week where I pay homage to the sights of beautiful Far North Queensland - or FNQ as we call it locally.

As a Cairns photographer perhaps more well known for my jaunts to foreign lands it's nice for me to be able to show pictures of the place I call home, and remind everybody that I photograph locally as well.

At the recent Queensland Tourism Awards in Brisbane this place, the Daintree Discovery Centre, won the Qantas Award for Excellence in Sustainability. I've been in here a few times over the years and it just keeps on getting better and better.

This image is of the giant aerial walkway that leads to a 23 metre tower that lets you get up above the rainforest treetops. It's a spectacular view and one usually only seen by our feathered friends.

If you make it up to the Daintree then this is definitely one place you should put on your bucket list. And if you come during the wet season make sure you bring your umbrella - or handy plastic poncho as these folks have! Click on over to my website to see more of my photos of the Daintree.

Woe is me.....no, really just confused.

2011-11-21T13:31:00.000+11:00

There is a lot of negativity in the world of professional photography. And probably a lot of it is justified. I mean rates haven't gone up in decades, many clients are demanding if not your copyright then at least unlimited rights. There are more photographers than you can poke a stick at (that's 'a lot' in Australian!), many of whom have no knowledge about how to run a photography business apart from the fact that they know where the ON button for their camera is.

But I don't like to buy into all this negative bullshit. Photography has always been a hard business, competitive and full of people who think that it seems like an easy way to make a living. I can only control how I run my life, not how the world around me does. But one recent phenomenon has got me a bit baffled.

And I've only really noticed this in the last few years - mostly coinciding with the introduction of digital capture. Potential clients (and I use the term very loosely!) honestly seem aghast at the thought that they have to pay me money if they want to use my photographs.

Maybe I'm just naive but isn't that the way business is supposed to work. You provide a product or service, customers pay you money to use what you're selling and the world goes on its merry way. Yet for an increasing number of people, it seems that making money should only be an option for other kinds of businesses.

Maybe it's because photography is perceived as fun. Maybe if we enjoy our jobs we don't actually have the right to get paid for it? I'm pretty sure Brad Pitt loves what he does, and last time I checked he gets paid pretty well. Lady Gaga looks like she's having a ball out there on stage. I don't think she's doing it for free? So it can't be that people expect it for free because I enjoy creating beautiful pictures.

Maybe it's because digital is free. After all I only have to buy expensive digital cameras (every two years!), lenses, fast computers (that also need to be upgraded every couple of years), thousands of dollars worth of hard drives to back up my precious images on to. And let's not forget all the time and money invested in learning how to be my own personal photo lab. Digital is a hell of a lot more expensive than film ever was so it can't be that.

Maybe it's because if I give all my work away for free I'll get really good publicity. Hell, everybody knows that a credit line is the road to fame and fortune. Hate to burst your bubble but I don't really know anybody that has had a credit line on a free photograph lead to anything other than more requests for free photos! Actually here in Australia it's now federal law that if I want a credit line the client has to put it in there anyway. I took some tearsheets in to my bank the other day and asked the manager to pay my mortgage with those. You can guess what his response was! Then I went to my accountant and proposed to him that if he did my taxes for free I would make sure I told all my friends what a great accountant he is. He wasn't playing ball - bugger.

You know what I think it is. A plain old lack of respect. For both photography and the photographer. A thought process that says "I have the right to promote my business and make as much money as possible. I have the right to use beautiful pictures (because I know they are the first thing a potential customer sees of my business) but if I can get it for free than why the hell should I have to pay anyone?"

I don't know that this is always the case because I've met a lot of seemingly really nice people who just don't understand why they should have to pay for photos. So I guess I'm stumped as to why businesses understand that they need to pay for: their electricity, their printing, their graphic design, to place ads in magazines, to advertise in the Yellow Pages, to build a website. So why do they have to pay for all this stuff, and yet not comprehend that they should pay for the glue that holds it all together - beautiful pictures that show their business in the best possible light.

I gotta say...it's beyond me! I have no idea whatsoever. I'm just really confused. The only thing I'm not confused about is my answer to requests for free pictures - 'because it'll be really good exposure'. Sure I could get snarky and mean and abusive but who would that help? I've got better things to do with my time, and the last thing you need is to be abused for what might be an honest mistake.

Just be aware that if you come to me looking for free pictures, it ain't gonnna happen. There will be a charge for all uses big and small. The fees won't be astronomical but they will be respectful. Respectful to me that is. I don't set my prices according to your budget, I set it according to my bottom line. I'll try to be flexible and help you out when I can, but going to zero isn't in my vocabulary, or my best interest. And at the end of the day that's why we're in business - to make a profit so that we can do what we love for the rest of our working lives. Forgive me if I put my family's needs before yours but that's the way it's gotta be. My wife has a big stick!

PS I'm not talking here about donating my time and services to charities whose cause I really support and I know get no external funding, or have tiny budgets. I love to help grassroots organisations doing good work in the community when I can. Compassion makes the world go round. My compassionate streak just doesn't stretch to those running businesses for profit at my expense. Sorry but them's the breaks.

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2011-11-11T11:12:00.000+11:00

An old primary (elementary) school friend of mine was up here from Melbourne the other week for a holiday with his fiance. They asked about must-sees while in town and I couldn't not mention my favourite little piece of rainforest in this whole area.

Mossman Gorge is a little north of Port Douglas, just off the main highway from the town of Mossman. It's a magnificent stretch of pristine rainforest with a beautiful swimming hole and a 2 hour or so walking track on the other side of a swing bridge.

I could spend hours in here with or without a camera, just walking around and enjoying the tropical lushness. So if you've only got time to visit one bit of rainforest whilst you're in far north Queensland this would be my pick.

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2011-11-04T11:21:00.000+11:00

A friend of mine is up visiting at the moment and headed out to Green Island yesterday. The weather was beautiful and it reminded me of this image I took of Nudey Beach on nearby Fitzroy Island a while back. There's a reason why people choose to holiday here and this is definitely one of them!

The difference a few minutes can make.

2011-10-31T15:05:00.000+11:00

When we first arrived at the giant Merlion on Singapore's Sentosa Island it was early evening and the setting sun had lit the giant statue up lovely and golden. The light was certainly lovely but the statue lacked a certain zing.

So I decided to go and take a look inside the lion. There's a lovely view out over Singapore from between those lovely fangs.

By the time we looked around, bought a couple of souvenirs and just generally enjoyed ourselves 45 minutes had passed. The sun had well and truly gone down and this is what we found.

Same statue, totally different light.

We often think of light in terms of contrasty, not contrasty, soft, harsh, golden, blue.

But often we don't realise how such a short period of time can have such a huge impact on the look of our subjects. With the mouth and eyes lit up it is a much more dramatic image and all it required was killing 45 minutes.

Don't just assume that because something looks really nice in the light that you see when you first arrive that it's not going to look even better at a different time of day - even the same time of day on a different day!

Whenever possible try and explore photographic subjects that enthrall you again and again, in all different types of light. There's no way of knowing which light you'll prefer unless you try and experience as many different varieties as possible. Oh and I'd love to admit that I totally planned to photograph the Merlion when it was lit up at night, but to be honest I was on holiday and just happened to be there at the right time! Nothing like a bit of Merlion serendipity. :)

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2011-10-28T11:47:00.001+11:00

I don't get down to Townsville as much as I'd like. It's got a different atmosphere to Cairns, and heaps to see and do - especially for families. One of my favourite views is one that I got thanks to the wonderful staff at Townsville Jupiters.

Right down on the waterfront, I was there on assignment for a magazine and really wanted a lovely shot out over the marina towards Castle Rock. The management kindly let me go up to the roof one early morning to capture this beautiful view. If you never ask you never know!

Go to my website to see more Townsville photos.

Trekking in Nepal

2011-10-27T12:59:00.000+11:00

Trekking in Nepal - Images by Paul Dymond

I guess I must be in a photo mood! When I cant think of anything deep and philosophical (!) to say then I think it's just better that I shut up and let the pictures do the talking. This slideshow (FLASH based I'm afraid for those of you on an iPad) is of a month I spent trekking in the Himalayas - a truly life-changing experience as I'm sure anybody whose done it can attest to. One of my goals in life is to take my boys trekking in Nepal and show them this beautiful country.

Hokkaido - so much more than the cranes!

2011-10-26T13:20:00.002+11:00

Hokkaido - Images by Paul Dymond

A friend just sent me a link to another photographer running wildlife photography tours in Hokkaido. The scenery up there is truly beautiful and the wildlife indeed stunning. But the island has so much to offer at any time of the year. I just thought I'd offer up some pics that show different facets of my home away from home.

Why mastering a technique makes us masters of precisely nothing.

2011-10-22T22:01:00.000+11:00

I've seen a few cover bands over the years. What is it about music and photography? Many of us photographers also seem to have an affinity for music - in all its wonderful forms. Anyway I'm a pretty big fan of a lot of sixties music and the only chance I will ever have to hear that music played live is to see somebody else playing it. All the greats seem to have been taken by drink, drugs and other excesses way before their time. Janis, Jimi, Jim Morrison.

But I've been able to see some pretty impressive impersonators over the years. Good enough that they really made me believe that I was seeing the real thing. Only I wasn't. And it wasn't because their technique wasn't any good. They all had the guitar licks, the drum beats, the vocals down brilliantly.

So what's the difference? The cover bands didn't write the music. They didn't get the flash of inspiration that created the intro to Foxy Lady. They didn't write 'the scream of the butterfly' after seeing a marquis for a porno movie of the same name! (The Doors in case you missed that reference.)

All the best technique in the world still makes them nothing more than pale imitations, no matter how good their technique may be. And it's the same with our photography. Buying an 85mm f1.8 and travelling overseas doesn't make you Steve McCurry. Buying 50 SB900's doesn't make you Joe McNally. And perfecting some post-processing method don't make you Chase Jarvis.

And that's a good thing. Because there's already one of all those folks in the world. We don't need any more. Just like we only needed one Jimi Hendrix, we only need one of each of us. If we want to be more than photographic cover bands we have to use our technique to create something that only we can. To inspire the world like only originals can.

So practice your off-camera flash to your heart's content. Create an image with 52 layers in Photoshop, all with some funky effect on it. And buy all the 85mm f1.8 lenses you can carry. But then do something magic with them. Wow the world. Amaze us all. And let everybody else follow us.

Oh and you're welcome to imitate this shot above but you're going to need a model as beautiful as this one!

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2011-10-21T10:55:00.000+11:00

One of the thing I often lament about 'travel photography' put out by some tourism bodies and PR agencies is that it's often 'tourism photography'. Which is understandable I guess. Getting people to invest in spending their money on attractions and tours when they arrive in a destination helps keep the local economy alive. But I often wonder whether pictures of models pointing at fictitious birds in trees with big cheesy grins on their faces is the only aspect of a region that people want to see before they decide to visit.

Frankly I don't give two hoots about whether a pretty blonde looks good sitting on a rock on the side of a pristine rainforest stream! I'd rather see the local pub owner, toothless smile and all, as he welcomes people into his friendly watering hole.

Take this image above. I was on assignment for the Mercedes Magazine covering the southern Atherton Tablelands. I'd come to Lake Eacham looking for something interesting to photograph when I noticed this young man, with another, jumping into the lake with joyful abandon. Not only did it make me want to join him, but I knew it would make a great photo. So I went down to introduce myself and found out that he was a young man with autism who was with his carer.

They were having a day at the lake and he was more than happy to do a couple of extra jumps for me to take his photo. Up until that point he'd just been doing his regular bombs but I think the attention must have inspired him because he opened up his hands to the heavens and jumped in with this fantastic pose.

Sure he'll never make a male model but he's the real kind of character I love to discover and photograph. For me the major interest in a destination is the local people and culture, and the only real way to discover that is to get out on your own and meet them.

Whilst I can value the importance of tours and attractions to keep a local economy viable, especially one that is so reliant on it as is far north Queensland, if this is all you see of this beautiful region then you're missing out on its greatest asset.

So rent a car, a bike, get out and walk. Take the time to meet and photograph the locals. You'll come away with a far better understanding of your holiday destination, create wonderful memories and even better portrait images of the people you meet.

Oh and if you're looking for some blog posts on how to photograph strangers just do a search in the little box at the top of this page. And on my website you can find more images I photographed for that story on the southern Atherton Tablelands.

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2011-10-14T12:00:00.000+11:00

As I look out from my back yard patio I can see my little creepy-crawly pool cleaner doing its thunka-thunka dance as it makes its way around the pool keeping it nice and clean. Heading towards summer and the rest of the nation is getting ready to head to the beach - all except for those of us here in the tropics.

Our beaches are indescribably beautiful. Pristine, tropical stretches of sand lined by picturesque palm trees and crystal clear blue waters filled (during the summer months) with deadly jellyfish and the odd crocodile! The Chinese may have their water torture but this is ours. You can look but not touch.

Only during the summer months mind you. With a balmy winter we all head to the beach while the rest of the country is freezing their bums off in sleet and snow. And in the summer? We all head for the swimming pools, freshwater creeks and croc-free lakes.

Sure we have stinger nets designed to keep the bigger jellyfish out. Last summer a woman at one of our local beaches shared her early morning dip in the nets with a crocodile! I'll stick to the pool and the creek during summer and leave my beach trips to the winter thank you very much.

Show a newbie the ropes.

2011-10-12T11:37:00.001+11:00

This is Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo. An amazing place at any time of the day, but to see it at its best you need to be there at the crack of dawn for the giant tuna auctions. Why this picture today?

It kind of ties in with my post on Monday about how to earn a fortune in travel photography. Up-and-coming photographers need to know this stuff. They need to know about proper business practices so they don't make all the same mistakes that we made.

My cousin lives in Tokyo and is a photographer. Not a professional one at this stage but he's working on it! Laurence was born in LA and his Mum is my wife's mum's sister. So he's half Japanese and technically my wife's cousin not mine. Neither here nor there. He's a great guy and a really keen photographer. You can see his website here. Anyway he sent me a long email the other day asking for some advice on how to move his career forward and I penned a big, long reply with a whole bunch of tips.

More importantly I put him in touch with a mate of mine who's a well-established photojournalist there in Tokyo as well, somebody I know will give him some sage advice about working as a foreigner photographer in that amazing part of the world.

If you're already established as a professional it's really important to show a newbie the ropes if they come looking for answers. Showing them how to price themselves properly, license their images and keep their copyright, and why they need to do so to survive in the industry, will help them stop undercutting you. Look what happened with stock. Digital created a whole bunch of eager photographers who wanted to license their images the traditional way. The big agencies wouldn't let them in and Microstock was born - and look where that's got us!

It's not about price fixing. It's about giving people the knowledge to make good business decisions based on more than just the fact that they have a passion to take pictures. I'm about to head off to have coffee with a local real estate and architectural photographer who's graciously agreed to meet me to give me a few pointers. Hopefully I can give him a few on travel photography.

It's all about passing it forward and trying to make sure that we all end up competing on skill level and style, as opposed to the current method of seeing who can charge the least amount possible and still eat more than a single meal a day!

So if you're an established pro in any art form I would encourage you to reach out to aspiring professionals. Take them under your wing a bit and show them what a great, long-term career this can be if you play your business cards right.

Do you want to make a fortune as a travel photographer?

2011-10-10T11:39:00.000+11:00

I've seen this headline on the internet a few times over the years and it always makes me laugh. In travel photography, simply put the best way to make a small fortune is to start off with a big fortune! Many travel photographers take the editorial route of combining their travel photography with writing about the places they visit. Their main clients are still magazines and newspapers, with the occasional foray into writing for online sites such as Yahoo and NineMsn.

But here's the clincher. This kind of travel work, which many travel photographers of my generation grew up on, won't have you rolling in clover financially. In fact of all the friends I have who still make a living this way, all except for a bare few are either single, have a second job, a spouse with a job, or another business to help support their love of travel.

In other words if you're thinking you're going to be supporting your family of four with a mortgage and a couple of cars living in a major capital city then you might want to think again.

But for many of my colleagues this doesn't worry them in the least. Because they get to travel for free. When you write articles for major publications your travel expenses are usually covered by companies that work within the travel industry - for the most part PR companies and state and national tourism bureaus.

Getting your name in print gives you legitimicacy in their eyes and a few well-timed introductions can lead you to the inner sanctum where you receive emails and phone calls out of the blue asking if you'd like to go here or there.

If you saw my Facebook Wall you'd see my friends traipsing everywhere from PNG to Antarctica, Japan to Europe. And that's just this month! Next month they'll all be on the opposite side of the globe having more adventures.

Sounds pretty glamorous doesn't it? But the reality is that it is of course very competitive, a lot of hard work to meet deadlines and pull interesting stories out of sometimes very uninteresting places, not to mention the fact that you actually need to be able to craft a feature article! And of course there's never a guarantee that what you write will get published.

The reality is that you often stay in hotels and take part in tours the likes of which you could never actually afford in your 'real life'. The gap between the luxury you enjoy with work and the frugality you survive at home can be huge.

Add to that the fact that in this modern age of cost-cutting and budget constraints the fact that many magazines are now refusing to pay for all those beautiful photographs you take (why bother when they can get them for free from the aforementioned tourism bureaus?) and you might get a bit frustrated to discover you've become a writer and not so much a photographer any more. If you love writing then you'll be more than happy. If you write as a way to get your photos published you might not be so content.

Licensing stock images from trips used to be a good way to help pull in extra passive income to help balance the books but thanks to Microstock and a general collapse in the state of the stock industry that's not such a viable option anymore.

This all sounds like I'm trying to dissuade you from following your passion. Far from it. If you're young and single or a bit longer in the tooth and the kids have left home, and you don't mind being away from your friends and family for a large part of the year then go for it I say. Not all of us need a big paycheck to be happy with our lot in life and you will have more adventures in a year than most people will have in their entire lives.

Just have your eyes open going in. The headline of this blog post isn't very factual for the vasy majority of travel photographers. It's a lifestyle choice. A fantastic, adventurous, wonderful lifestyle. But with as little as $300 being paid for a travel article you are going to have to publish a hell of a lot to break even, even with free travel.

Oh, and what was the second option I was talking about. Shoot other work that pays a lot better and use the profits from that to go and indulge your passion for travel photography. In other words make enough money from other photographic ventures such as commercial work, photography tours or workshops to be able to pay for it yourself. You can still claim your travel expenses on your tax if it's a legitimate work trip and you can prove that, but you won't be so worried about how much money you're spending while you're away.

Documentary-stule travel photography is a passion. A beautiful, exciting, often spine-tingling passion. And it is a wonderful way to live your life. I honestly can't imagine doing anything better for a living. But beware snake charm sellers telling you you'll be the next millionaire as you sell your travel photos all round the globe. It ain't gonna happen. Love it for what it is, just don't do it because you want to be on the next Fortune 500 list.

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2011-10-07T14:38:00.001+11:00

Sometimes you have to accept the gifts the universe throws your way.

This shot was totally unplanned until about 3 seconds before the plan flew overhead.

It was taken on the main drag leading into Cairns from the North - the Captain Cook Highway. And this is Captain Cook himself. The statue has been there for decades and looked like being demolished at one point. But on it lives, constantly pointing to the sky.

Anyway I was sitting on top of my car waiting for a young guy on a pushbike to come along the road. A Swedish tourist whose name escapes me, he was riding his bike for charity, or at least planning to when he got home.

Anyway while I was waiting I looked up to see a Qantas plane coming in to land. I saw the red in Captain Cook's vest, the red in the tail of the Qantas phone and my little brain synapses yelled out 'picture'.

I had a brief instant to bring my 28-70mm lens up to my eye and snap the shot. Sometimes all the planning in the world can't provide you with as good a photo opportunity as pure serendipity.

Final Photographer's Intensive for 2011

2011-10-06T11:04:00.000+11:00

Well the dates are set for my final Photographer's Intensive for the year and things are all ready to go for a November of intensive photography immersion here in Cairns.

Over the period of a month we’ll have a series of four hour lectures, running two days a week at Hambledon House in Edmonton. The days (Wednesday and Thursday for 4 weeks) are:

9/10 November

16/17 November

23/24 November
30 November/1 December

and the lectures will run from 10-2.

The cost of the full month’s tutorials will be $550 (incl GST).

In between lectures there will be an online discussion group and area to post pictures so that you can get critique from the other members of the group as well as full access to myself. I will be available all month to answer questions and personally guide you to improving your photography.

With a small number of students (maximum 10) we will be able to tailor the course so that you get the most benefit out of your four weeks. To really learn what you need to to improve your images. We’ll concentrate on the technical side of things to the extent that it helps you improve the creative side of your art. To create photographs that share your own vision and way of interpreting the world.

Starting with topics such as lenses, light, flash, photographing strangers and developing it from there we will definitely cover a lot of ground. And this is where the inspiration for the intensive came from.

I received a lot of feedback over the years from people that they enjoyed my weekend workshops but wanted something that lasted longer and helped them keep up the momentum and enthusiasm. This is it.

For those who don’t know me I have been a professional travel photographer for more than a decade. I am represented by Lonely Planet Images and my pictures have been featured in more than 50 of their guidebooks ranging from Thailand to Tokyo, from Nepal to Southern Africa and lots of places in between. My images have been published in magazines such as National Geographic Traveler and TIME (US) and I have been teaching photography workshops for most of that 10 years.

What past students have said:

Hi Paul

I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the photography course we have just completed. I must say at first I was a bit worried about the length going for 2 days a week over four weeks but in the end I found myself wishing it went for longer. Not only was it most informative but you made it very interesting. Your passion for photography is quite infectious and your willingness to share your extensive knowledge made it a pleasure to be a part of.

I now have reinvigorated my love for photography and I look forward to being a part of another one of your courses sometime. Thanks again.

Kind regards

Warwick Bourguignon

'Paul's course is well worth doing, no matter what your interests are.
It was really enjoyable and a great learning experience. He is an
excellent teacher and had plenty of time for individual queries and
critiques. We covered so much, including flash photography which I'm
now hooked on! The spread of the sessions over a month worked really
well, allowing time to practice in between. This course has opened up
so many new photographic opportunities for me - I am so glad I did it!'
Jackie Hammer, Cairns

So if you think you’d like to improve your photography and really delve into your creative possibilities and would like to find out more please contact me at info at dymond dot com dot au or check out my website .

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2011-09-23T08:21:00.016+10:00

Deep in the heart of the Aurukun Wetlands, in Cape York, I could hear them calling in the early morning breeze.

The only problem was that we were on a charter boat in the middle of a river and they were somewhere on the land.

So it meant getting the speed boat out and going searching for them. And then needing a very long lens because there was no way we would be able to get anywhere near to this warbling couple.

Whenever I can't get close enough to a wild animal to fill the frame I always look for an interesting place to put them within the frame.

I was watching them as they walked across the plane towards the distant trees and was hoping against hope that they would walk towards this strand of really interesting looking melaleuca gum trees.

Fortunately for me they walked to exactly the right spot and then proceeded to raise their heads to the sky and call.

There is nothing quite like the call of wild brolgas and it's even more special in the early morning in the wilds of far north Queensland.

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2011-09-16T11:41:00.000+10:00

Today at my sons' school they are having a heap of activities to celebrate NAIDOC day. NAIDOC stands for National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee and is a day to celebrate the culture of Australia's indigenous people.

Growing up as a kid in Melbourne I honestly didn't have much to do with aboriginal culture at all. My school was mostly caucasian with a healthy smattering of Greeks, Italians and Vietnamese immigrants.

Up here in Cairns my children get the wonderful opportunity to get more in touch with our indigenous culture. They both have Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids in their classes and get the chance to learn all about their cultures.

Of course Cape York, to our north, is home to many indigenous communities that retain strong ties to their traditional cultures and every year they host the wonderful Laura Dance Festival, where this image of the Mornington Island Dancers was taken.

Wherever you are in the world I am sure you are surrounded by people of different cultures, both indigenous and imported. I've always found my cameras provide great access to people and places I otherwise would never have had the chance to explore. Why not take the time to photograph a culture different from your own? You'll improve your photography skills, meet new people and discover a side of your own community that you may never have known existed.

Click on over to my website to see some more images of indigenous culture from Cape York

and come over to Facebook and join me on the Have Camera Will Travel page.

Watering dead grass

2011-09-14T11:45:00.001+10:00

Today's post comes from the sick bed! A dreaded flu has come to render me basically useless for anything other than lying down and doing not a hell of a lot of anything. So for today's post I'm going to hand you over to the always acerbic, painfully truthful, no holds barred Kirk Tuck. I've got a couple of Kirk's books - one on lighting and one on the businesss of commercial photography and they're both great reads. But I love his blog because he says what many of us are thinking.

So hop on over to his blog to find out why we might all be watering dead grass.

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2011-09-09T09:49:00.001+10:00

People often forget that the road north doesn't stop at Cairns, or even Cooktown for that matter. In fact it goes all the

way to the very tip of Australia. The pristine wilderness of Cape York is truly spectacular and one of the most amazing

sights up there are these giant termite mounds on the flood plains. This beautiful mound was deep in the heart of the

Aurukun Wetlands, on the banks of the Archer River.

Cape York is one of this country's last wild places and if you ever get a chance to drive off the bitumen north of Cooktown

then I definitely recommend you do it. Click over to my website if you'd like to see more photographs of

the beautiful Aurukun Wetlands.

Oh and if you'd like to follow me on Have Camera Will Travel's Facebook fan page come on over! There's plenty of tidbits

that get posted there that don't make it to the blog and it's an easier place to have lots of great conversations

about photography.

It doesn't have to be flashy to be good.

2011-09-08T13:26:00.000+10:00

Last week I had a couple of editorial portrait assignments for the latest edition to the Cairns' magazine world - Cairns Life magazine.

Just like the boy scouts I always like to be prepared - and when it comes to photography that usually means being able to light your images.

Often relying on natural light just isn't an option unless you happen to be blessed with some really good luck! And that rarely happens indoors.

So I come armed with a bucket-load of speedlites, light stands, umbrellas, gridspots, snoots, gobos. Lots of paraphernalia that fortunately all fits into one long sausage bag that I can fit over my shoulder.

And I'm always ready to do something dramatic with the image. Tight beams of light, dark backgrounds. Creating contrast where none exists.

And the danger in that is you can let your desire to play with your gadgets take over the purpose of the picture - which is to bring out the inner quality of your subject. As soon as I met Joann Pyne, the Director of the Tropical North Queensland TAFE I immediately knew that her gorgeous outfit and the fabulous artwork on the wall was way better than anything I could artificially create with dramatic lighting.

So this is an homage to great portrait subjects and simplicity in our lighting. One speedlite through a see-through umbrella and the rest natural light. Sometimes we don't need to be fancy to produce flattering portraits. The geek in us hates it but our clients love it.

Phottix Strato II Radio Triggers

2011-09-07T10:43:00.000+10:00

I don't tend to do gear reviews. One because I'm not really a gear head. I tend to buy equipment and use it as it was designed, a tool to help me create images that I love. And two, I'm not particularly technically minded when it comes to that equipment. I don't read DXO charts when evaluating lenses or cameras. I give them a whirl and pick the ones I like the best.

But every so often I come across a piece of gear that intrigues me and I lay down some cold, hard cash to figure out if they're as good as they seem. Sometimes I get it right and sometimes I get it wrong.

In this particular case I definitely got it right. As long-time readers of this blog will know I fell in love with off-camera flash a couple of years ago after being converted by David Hobby over at Strobist. Not much revolutionary there - many of us followed the same path.

But I was always a TTL guy. Before I really knew what I was doing I bought the Canon infrared trigger (known as the ST-E2) and have been using it pretty successfully for a number of years. Sure it has its limitations but Syl Arena's book Speedliter's Handbook: Learning to Craft Light with Canon Speedlites showed me what I could do with a long TTL cord from Flashzebra.com. (Wow I think I've just mentioned more gear in one paragraph then I usually do in a whole year!)

Anyway for the most part I was managing to work around its limitations. But I had an environmental portrait shoot the other day where I needed to light the inside of an ambulance whilst the portrait subject was outside the ambulance. And I found it really difficult to get line-of-sight with that interior flash and ended up having to put it in not-quite the optimum position. It still worked OK in the end thanks to a bit of ingenuity but I thought 'there's got to be a better way'.

But I didn't want to sacrifice the advantages of TTL and run everything manually off radio triggers. And I couldn't justify spending a small fortune to have a whole series of Radio Poppers. I sat down and worked out what I really needed, and that was a TTL fired key light and fill, with the option to manually trigger background lights in awkward places. But I couldn't find anything that would let me do that.

Until I stumbled across these. Again, I'm not the most technical of photographers so forgive me if I mess up the mechanics of how these babies work but in a nutshell they have some sort of TTL pass-through system which lets you place the trigger on the hotshoe of your camera and the receiver on a remote flash. The remote flash will be fired in Manual mode by the radio signal from the trigger. No biggie there - that's how all radio triggers work.

But here's the thing that I fell in love with - the trigger (which is on my camera) has a hotshoe on the top of it into which I can then plug a TTL flash or a TTL trigger. So I can fire my TTL flashes the same as I always have, whilst at the same time firing hidden flashes manally. A beautiful combination of TTL and radio trigger technology.

It's enabled me to pull a couple of Canon 540EZ flashes (which don't work in TTL on digital cameras) out of my cupboard and bring them into my speedlite line-up. And it works brilliantly. I've tested them successfully up to about 100 metres or so through walls not a problem. I can't wait to think of new compositions I can make now that I'm not limited to only using line-of-sight flashes but still having the convenience of using TTL for those flashes that are close to the camera.

Oh, and the triggers can also be used to remotely fire the camera. I haven't thought of a way to utilise that function yet but believe me I've got the thinking cap on!

The real value of beautiful photography

2011-09-06T11:39:00.000+10:00

What is our motivation for photographing something? More importantly what is our motivation for photographing something well? I think it's all about love and respect. We want to show all those positive emotions we feel about a place, a person, an event. I'm sure there must be people who photograph things they hate but I photograph things I love.

And I'm not satisfied until I produce an image that shows my subjects in the best possible light. The kind of image that when people look at it they'll understand how wonderful I think it is.

I think that snapping a mediocre image of something is akin to showing a lack of respect for it. You don't have enough love for it that you can be bothered to make the effort to create a fantastic image. And let's not beat around the bush here. Fantastic photography takes a fantastic effort. You can't just expect to get up at 10 and pop out and take landscape photographs that are going to wow people off their seats. And you can't just walk up to a loved one standing in harsh midday sunlight, push the shutter and expect to come away with an image that does them justice.

So why are we surrounded by so much mediocrity? If you look at your own pictures and you don't well up with emotion when you remember how beautiful it was, chances are a judge looking at your pictures isn't going to be moved either. If you're a company and you look at your own advertising material and it doesn't make your heart skip a beat when you see how beautiful it looks...well I don't think your customers are going to feel anything either.

Photography has never been easier or more accessible. Point and shoot and something will turn out. But like newspapers that have a life of one day, how many of your 'snaps' will stand the test of time. How many of your cheap photos will increase your bottom line? To get the supreme photograph you need to make the supreme effort. And it might take more sweat and cost more money (though probably less sleep!) but at the end of the day you'll have created an image that truly shows the love and respect you feel for the things that you want to share with the world.

Night time festival photography - it's a breeze!

2011-09-05T09:43:00.001+10:00

I love photographing festivals. The light, the colour,the action. And one of the great things about photographing at night is that it's often easier than shooting during the day! A lot of people think that it must be harder but using a couple of tricks can set you up to concentrate on catching the action without having to worry about your camera settings.

Because you'll be shooting with a flash the first thing you need to do is match the light coming from your flash with the surrounding ambient. Many festivals are lit by the kind of lights that show up orange under a daylight white balance. But the light coming out of our flash is a cool blue colour in comparison and looks really unnatural. So the trick is to put a little bit of orange gel (or cellophane) over your flash head to get closer to matching it to the surrounding light. That way your flash won't look so unnatural. The trick is find the right shade of orange - too strong and your subjects will look like oompah-loompahs! But find the right shade and your night time flash pictures will look great.

Speaking of that ambient light - there's nothing worse than gaping black backgrounds. As much as possible you need to let that ambient light burn into your exposure - which means that you'll need a slow enough shutter speed for the background to be bright enough, without being so slow that your subjects are blurred. To do that you'll probably need to bump your exposure up as well.

But once you've found the right settings for the lighting conditions here's the great thing - they often don't change. The same lights are used for the whole festival so, once you've found the right ISO and shutter speed to give you a nice bright background, if you then put your camera into Manual Exposure and dial those settings in they'll last you the whole night. I often dial in an ISO of 400 and an exposure of 1/60 second or so and and aperture of about f8 and that lets enough light in to capture the background.

So you've gelled your flash, your ISO shutter speed, aperture and ISO are set and you're ready to go. Unless you suddenly find yourself in a much brighter or darker place you should be able to use those settings all night and all you have to worry about is your composition and look for those great moments.

Pop over to my site to see more of my festival photographs.

And come on over and follow us on our new Facebook Fan Page

Let's hang out on Facebook!

2011-09-02T14:16:00.000+10:00

So I tried the Twitter thing and it just wasn't me. I'm just more verbose than 140 characters and I find it hard to have a conversation when anything you post gets swamped by other stuff in less than 5 minutes.

But I wanted somewhere I could talk with those of you who bless me by reading the blog. I've been using Facebook for years but only to keep in touch with friends and family. Now I've finally got around to setting up a Fan Page for Have Camera Will Travel.

I hope that this can be a place where the discussions will flow freely, my postings will be hilariously funny and photographically informative and I'll be able to share great tidbits I find on the web much easier than I can with the blog. So come on over to the Have Camera Will Travel Fan Page and join in the conversation.

You can see what my son thinks of the whole idea!

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2011-09-02T09:52:00.002+10:00

Mossman Gorge is one of my favourite rainforest spots in the whole of north Queensland. Located just north of picturesque Port Douglas, Mossman township itself is a quaint little country town with a pub or two, sugar train tracks and some lovely trees that form a giant botanic guard of honour over the road out of town on the northern side.

But for nature lovers the real appeal is just outside of town in the beautiful Mossman Gorge. Many brave souls take a dip in the water even during the winter months when it has to be one of the coldest bodies of water in the country! I was looking for a different way to capture the swimming hole when my friend Dave decided to go for a dip. He's Victorian what can I say?

So I decided to photograph him underwater with a slow shutter speed to give a sense of movement and motion to an otherwise static image. If you take a look at my other photographs of Mossman Gorge you can see why I love this place so much.

Back up for air!

2011-09-01T13:41:00.000+10:00

Apologies for the scarcity of blog posts recently. Things have been very busy for me with assignments, stock sales and just coming to the end of my second Photographer's Intensive course. On top of that throw in weekly baseball games (and practice!) for my two little boys, school parades and regular skate park outings and - where has August gone?

Anyway I will try and be a bit more regular around here so that there's something regular to see and you don't all wander away to the dpreview site for your gear fix. :)

A kind of a theme for me this past month has been passion and practice. I've been exploring multiple flash work with both TTL and radio triggers to light interiors and I'm loving it. I find if I'm not constantly practicing both new and tried techniques I quickly get stale and settle into the known without pushing my own boundaries.

I had a couple of editorial portrait assignments where I got to push my off-camera flash beyond my usual style as well as pushing myself through the challenge of finding something new and interesting to appeal to my students every Monday and Tuesday for four weeks.

So it's been crazy busy but in a really good sort of way. I hope you've all been out practicing and honing your photography and feeding your own passions in life and all is well with the world. Stay tuned for a return to regular programming!

Cairns photo course in August

2011-07-28T12:12:00.001+10:00

Well the dates are set for my second Photographer's Intensive and things are all ready to go for an August of intensive photography immersion here in Cairns.

Over the period of a month we’ll have a series of four hour lectures, running two days a week at Hambledon House in Edmonton. The days are:

8/9 August

15/16 August

22/23 August
29/30 August

and the lectures will run from 10-2.

The cost of the full month’s tutorials will be $550 (incl GST).

Hi Paul

I now have reinvigorated my love for photography and I look forward to being a part of another one of your courses sometime. Thanks again.

Kind regards

Warwick Bourguignon

It's not about how many mediocre frames per second you take.

2011-07-26T11:07:00.000+10:00

Now I'm still in my 30's (by the hair of my chinny chin chin mind you!) but I grew up in the pre-digital era. And while there's a lot of things about the film workflow that have simply gone by the wayside, there's one habit that I've never wanted to shake. And that's placing a value on each individual image I shoot.

I took this photograph on a month-long trek through the Nepalese Himalayas with my wife. We started walking after a short bus ride out of Kathmandu, hiked all the way up to the Gokyo Valley near Mt Everest and back to a little town called Lukla where we caught a plane home.

We went without porters or helpers of any kind - just the two of us with small daypacks on our backs filled with clothes, water purification tablets and film for our cameras. Seeing as neither of us are exactly body builders the amount of film we could physically carry was limited. In my case it was 25 rolls of Fuji Velvia. Think about that for a second. That's a mere 900 pictures for a whole month in the most picturesque place on earth.

But that's the situation I was in and I had to live with it. What it did mean was that I had to be very particular about what I photographed and what I didn't. I didn't shoot willy-nilly in the hope that I would get something good. I stopped, I waited, I anticipated. I valued each and every single time I pushed the shutter.

And I think that thinking has partly been lost in the digital era. Because the individual images themselves are pretty much low cost, and we often have the attitude that we can delete what doesn't work, we tend not to value each individual image as much.

I see it in both the amateur photographic world as much as the professional world. Go to Flickr and you'll see 50 different variations of the same photo. Vertical, horizontal, different focal lengths. There's probably two maybe three wonderful images and the rest is mediocre in comparison.

In the commercial world I see it when photographers offer to supply the client hundreds of pictures from a shoot. But how many of those pictures will ever see the light of day? The reality is not many. If the client has a good eye then they will pick out the best and use those, or they might let their graphic designer do it. Either which way the photographer would be doing their client a much better service by perfecting and presenting only the really fantastic shots and letting the other stuff fall into the virtual trash bin.

At the end of our photographic lives we won't be remembered for how many times we pushed the shutter. We won't be remembered for all the nearly-there pictures we took (at least I hope so!). We want to be remembered for the amazing images we took. Don't be so quick to take as many pictures as you can in as short a space of time as you can. Give situations time to develop and learn to click the shutter when the best of the best appears in front of you.

Just because pushing the shutter thousands of times a day may not be costing you much money it could be costing you a lot more.

Go on through to my Nepal photo gallery to see more images shot slowly and decisively on film.

Why the digital photographer should get paid more than the film photographer.

2011-07-18T10:55:00.000+10:00

This image was shot on Fuji Velvia slide film. In fact this whole campaign shot for Quicksilver Cruises was shot on film. As the photographer I would pre-purchase the film and then once the job was over I would hand the film into the lab and come back the next day to pick it up. Then all I had to do was take it in to the client with a light box and loupe (if they didn't have one) and we would pick out the best shots to be used in the campaign.

And that was how simple film photography was for the photographer. Of course it meant you had to get your exposures smack on target or else the image was useless, and you never really knew what you had until the film came back so there was always an element of risk that isn't so prevalent in digital photography.

But in terms of handling and charging it was a pretty easy process. You would charge a certain amount per roll shot and developed, which included a small mark-up for profit and also to cover the time needed to pre-purchase, drop and pick up the film from the lab and other incidentals such as the electricity needed to keep the film cold.

Of course the expenses for the client didn't stop there. All those individual little pieces of transparency film had to be put into digital 1's and 0's for them to be printed and that cost a lot of money. Depending on how big you needed the scan you could pay up to $40 per image - more if there was post-processing work needed. None of that got paid to the photographer because we (for the most part) didn't do it.

Now with the advent of digital we do it all. Even though we don't need to provide the film any more we instead need to provide CF cards, computers, hard drives, DVDs and the security of back-ups to ensure that those vitally important files aren't accidentally lost or destroyed. We need to have accurately profiled monitors to ensure the colours are what the client expects. We need to be knowledgeable about colour spaces and gamuts, CMYK and RGB and file formats such as TIFF, DNG and JPEG.

These are all costs that we never had in the film days. Hell if your computer could run your word processing software and get you on to the internet that was enough. All these extra things cost extra money to buy and maintain. Digital cameras need to be replaced more often than film cameras ever needed to be.

And now that we're the lab we need to spend more time in front of the computer to make sure that those files look absolutely amazing for our clients. Not to mention the time (ie money) needed to educate ourselves every time a new piece of software comes out. The days of being able to shoot wonderful pictures and then pop off to the pub for a beer while the lab did their thing are long gone.

And if you don't charge for that stuff you're actually making less money than you would have done shooting film! So before you get into that mindset that it doesn't cost you any money to shoot digital once you've bought the stuff - think again. And explain it to your clients. They'll understand. They're not paying more money over all for digital because they do save on the film and developing costs. All that's happened is that instead of paying their local scanner or graphic designer to do their digital work they're paying you.

So either feed those costs into your CODB and thus your creative fees or add it as a line-item in your quotes so that clients know and understand the costs involved. The choice is yours but if you work together with your clients we can all collaborate to ensure that everybody comes out a winner.

Click on the link to see more of my film images from around the world.

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2011-07-15T13:03:00.000+10:00

I recently had an article published in the latest edition of Mercedes Magazine - a beautiful glossy publication given for free to owners of Mercedes Benz cars.

The story was on the Southern Atherton Tablelands and one of the first places I visited was the tranquil Babinda Boulders. Only a short drive south of Cairns this town was famous for its sugar mill, which unfortunately closed down earlier this year.

But for visitors, of even more interest is the beautiful swimming hole and the national park surrounding it. The waterhole is at an entrance to the Boulders which is a spectacular landscape of giant rocks and steeply dropping rivers surrounded by thick tropical rainforest.

For this image I had my camera in an Ewa-Marine bag. It's like a big plastic PVC bag with screws to keep it tight and you'd think it was dodgy as all get out but it works brilliantly. I always keep this on me when out and about just in case there's an excuse for me to jump into some beautiful waterhole somewhere and take photos.

Pop over to my website to see more images of the Babinda Boulders.

Are we taking it all a little too seriously?

2011-07-14T11:22:00.001+10:00

Taking a few weeks off gave me a chance to read a few photo blogs, take a look at a few photo forums and just generally do some photo reading that I don't generally have time for.

And after a bit of perusing I came away with the overwhelming feeling that there's a lot of really anxious photographers out there.

Sure there's the obvious ones who are turning pro and worried about how to get work. But there's a huge number of amateurs out there who are fretting and gnawing their fingernails about things such as their vision.

I often tell my students that once you attain a certain level of technical proficiency - ie you get stuff in focus when you want to, use the aperture you want to get the effect you imagined and get your exposure and composition good, well everything above that is kinda subjective.

It's art people. It's meant to be subjective. Just because 100 people on Flickr tell you it's great doesn't make it so. Likewise just because that same 100 people might tell you it's crap doesn't make it so. It really is very subjective and at the end of the day the person you have to please more than any other is yourself.

When it comes to vision the simplest path to finding your own is to know yourself. Understand what you really love to photograph and how you like your images to look. You don't need to box yourself into any one particular style though. Musicians, painters, poets. They all change their style over the course of their lives. Why should photographers be any different?

My advice? Get as good as you want technically and once you've got that down then go out and shoot whatever takes your fancy. And I mean whatever. Don't think about whether it's right or wrong, good or bad. Just photograph it and if it's fun, if it makes you happy - well keep on photographing it. If it doesn't then stop and find something else. One of the worst questions I get asked is "what should I photograph?". If you don't know that then you've got a lot bigger problems then finding your vision!

Home Sweet Home

2011-06-29T20:58:00.000+10:00

Well I'm back in the land of Oz after a pretty relaxing time in Guam and Japan - well at least as relaxing as it can be with two adrenaline-junkie toddlers! What with waterslides, snorkelling, windsurfing, giant obstacle courses, baseball, video game arcades and other general adventures I think we managed to tire them out pretty well.

I'd show you some photos but I haven't got that far in my post-processing yet. In the meantime I thought you might be interested in the kind of gear I travel with and my workflow. It's pretty much the same whether I'm on assignment for a client, a self-assigned stock shoot or on holiday. We photographers are never really on holiday anyway!

I had a pretty minimal kit (for me) this time around and carried it in a Lowepro shoulder bag. Just a single body, 10-22 wide angle, 24-70 and 70-200. All f2.8's except for the 10-22. I limited myself to one flash as well as an infrared trigger as I always prefer to use my flash off-camera whenever possible. I have a small hard-drive/card reader gadget that lets me download cards during the day if I fill them all up but this time around I didn't need it. It also doubles as a back-up drive for my images. I also had a polarising filter for each of the three lenses as well as my trusty old Manfrotto tripod and a cable release.

These days I travel with a small 10 inch Acer notebook. It's a groovy aqua colour and is just the right size to fit into my little day pack. I don't have Photoshop installed on it because I don't like to do any post-processing whilst I'm away. Maybe I'm just weird but when it comes to the end of the day I just wanna sit down with a good meal and a cold drink and not spend hours looking over pictures. I know when I've got what I need and don't need to start playing around with pictures until I get home.

Which isn't to say I don't look at stuff. I have Expression Media loaded on and I download all my images on to the netbook and then catalogue them. I cull out any obvious mistakes and add metadata to the rest - copyright info, location, any pertinent keywords. I find that if I do this on a regular basis (usually every day), whilst it doesn't take long it saves a lot of time trying to remember names and places afterwards.I then back up those images on to external hard drives just for safety's sake.

When I get home I load everything on to the main computer and start working on them in Camera Raw. I leave the copies on the netbook and external hard drives until I've finished finessing the images and make permanent back-ups, then they can be deleted from their temporary homes on the netbook and external hard drives.

And that's about as complicated as I like to get! I'm sure if you're on an advertising shoot with a tight deadline you must have to work a lot more quickly and process images on-site but not many of my clients really demand that. So I keep it light, simple and leave myself ample time to enjoy time away from the photography.

Stay tuned for some pictures from Guam and Japan!

Keeping it natural

2011-06-16T23:37:00.000+10:00

You'll have to excuse the lack of posts in the last week or so. Between hanging with the kids on the water slides in Guam, and watching them play baseball with the local kids here in Japan I've been flat out having fun!

Today I was out and about doing one of my favourite things - checking out the giant bookstores here in Sapporo.

There's one thing about Japan that we photographers love. They love their photography. There are rows and rows of books and magazines on every aspect of photography. I can spend hours just looking through all the different books and being inspired by the incredible imagery from both professional and amateurs alike.

I'd never really thought that much about what it is about Japanese photography that appeals to me so much but today it kind of hit me.

I was looking through a book which had the winners of an annual photo competition and something immediately struck me. So I picked up some more magazines and found the same thing. It is almost as if Photoshop had never been invented, or at least never made it this far East.

The overwhelming majority of images look like they've never seen the inside of a computer. Which of course is not true because if you look at all the captions a lot of it is shot digitally (although medium format film nature photography is huge over here). But even the images shot digitally are processed to look as natural as possible. A lot of it could have been shot on trannie film and you'd never know the difference.

I was having a look at the technical section in the bookstore and expecting to find a horde of Strobist-style flash tutorials in amongst the thick tomes on landscape photography, nature photography, portrait photography and umpteen hundreds of camera manuals. Nothing. Zilch, zip, nada. I found one book that purported to talk about small flashes but it wasn't very in-depth at all. It seems like the off-camera flash phenomenon hasn't even taken off here. Japanese photographers love their light to come from that great big yellow ball in the sky and they are incredibly skilled at finding it in various shades, form and colour.

And I find that by taking away this element from their photography they tend to concentrate much more on the content of the image. The subject rules. Emotion, moment, capturing a fleeting glance, a smile. You look at the pictures and say 'what a great moment', not 'what great post-processing skills'. And I find that really refreshing and almost nostalgic in its simplicity.

And all the years I've been coming here I'd never really thought about it before but now that I have it's really hit me. So today's book purchase was one of the many fantastic books by nature photographer Hoshino Michio. He was tragically attacked and killed by a grizzly bear in Kamchatka a few years ago now, but he is without a doubt one of my all-time favourite photographers. You can feel his love for nature permeate every single one of his images. And I feel it every time I look through a Japanese photo magazine.

It's nice to remember that not everything has to be put through Photoshop to be a great image.

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2011-06-03T10:26:00.001+10:00

Lake Barrine is one of the beautiful crater lakes up on the Atherton Tablelands, about an hour or so south-west of Cairns. The Tablelands is close in distance but a lot way away in temperature from the tropical coast. At this time of the year when we're complaining about it dropping down to 11 centrigrade they're down to 0 with frosts!

The best time to be at the lake is in the early morning when hopefully you'll get some lovely mists across the water. The ducks are out on the water, the pythons aren't yet awake and it's beautifully quiet.The rainforest walk around the perimeter is simply stunning, although there are only a few places where you get a clear view out over the lake which is a bit disappointing.

The image above is of the teahouse on the shores of the lake. It's been run by the same family since the 1920's and the boat there takes people on a wonderful one hour tour around the crater lake. On my trip out I spotted pythons galore, bearded dragon lizards sunning themselves, a pair of mating black snakes and lots of waterbirds.

I'd definitely recommend a trip up there to see the lake, and don't forget to indulge in the lovely scones, jam and cream!

Have a great weekend!

Finding the balance between family time and camera time

2011-06-02T10:00:00.000+10:00

One of the hardest things as a photographer is family vacations. If you've got kids then you'll know what I mean straight away. If you've got a partner who doesn't love their photography as much as you do then you'll be nodding your head in agreement. If you have neither then you're probably not sure what the fuss is all about.

The fuss starts when you start to get shutter button withdrawal symptoms. Mine start usually about two or three days after not having a camera in my hand and creating some images. But you're torn. You want to go off by yourself for a few hours and capture the local architecture at twilight but that impinges on getting the kids fed and to bed, or breaks up the booking at that romantic little local diner down the road.

In other words you have to abandon your family or siginificant other if you want to create anything more than 'been there, done that' snapshots. So here's what I do. I don't know if it's the best way to do things and if other people have suggestions I'm all ears. So far this seems to work for me.

The most important thing I find is to include your family in your photography as much as possible. But it's not enough just to have them stand with their hands held out looking like they're holding the Eiffel Tower in their palm. If you don't put as much effort and creativity into pictures of your family as you do your other 'more important' pictures then they're going to feel pretty left out.

Make it fun. Show them what a blast photography can be. The photo above is me and my youngest son going down a slippery slide at Takino Park, on the outskirts of Sapporo. In order to bribe my way into a little bit of 'me time' photographing the birch trees in the forest I kept him entertained with multiple (multiple, multiple, multiple!) turns down the slide. All the time with me holding a camera and a wide-angle lens above my head and shooting as we went down.

Killing two birds with one stone. Well three really. My son had a blast both sliding and looking at the photos afterwards (let's try that again with a different lens Daddy!). I got some really fun pictures of stuff that I don't usually photograph, and created some great memories to boot. And my wife (at the bottom of the picture) got a break from looking after the kids. Everybody wins.

So whenever I go away on a trip with my family I always try to fit them in to my photography as much as possible. When they can see images that far outshine the point-and-shoot efforts that most family albums contain, and when they can have a blast taking part in the shoot then they're much more inclined to let me go off on my own and do 'work photography' as my boys call it.

One more hint as to what not to do: never try to hold your family up while you wait for the best light, the perfect opportunity, the search for a better angle. If they're not actively involved they'll be bored and no matter how exciting the resulting pictures, all they'll remember is how boring it was for them and you'll be in the doghouse again. Keep them involved, keep them excited, create exciting pictures for them to remember your holiday by and she'll be apples (Australian for you'll be doing well!)

If you'd like to see how I balanced family and "work photography' on this particular day you can take a look at the Takino Park, Sapporo images on my website.

New layout and iPad friendly

2011-06-01T20:08:00.000+10:00

I didn't really make a big song and dance about it when I changed it a couple of weeks ago but I hope you noticed and like it. I changed the format of the blog a little bit so that I can show bigger pictures. I also figured out how to link the images here on my blog directly to my Photoshelter website so that if you click on one of these lusciously big pictures you'll be taken to a larger selection of images.

Only thing I hadn't realised was that the photos weren't iPad friendly because the links were embedded with Apple's arch-enemy - flash. Anyway that's all been fixed now. The pictures are low linked with plain ol' HTML so all of you who've been seeing big blank spaces in my blog for the last couple of weeks, well things should be back to normal.

Oh and how did I find out? I was just browsing on my iPod Touch today when I just wanted to see how the new layout looked on the little screen. Needless to say I wasn't too happy with the big blank spaces! Anyway, problem fixed. All of you should be able to see the pictures no matter what device you're browsing on and I hope you like the new layout and bigger pics.

Hot Springs here we come!

2011-06-01T10:37:00.002+10:00

Getting ready for a little hot-springs dreaming in a couple of weeks. This is the view from the window of my hotel on the shores of Lake Toya, just south of Sapporo, which is the capital of Japan's northern island of Hokkaido.

The area is highly volcanic - Mt Usuzan, on the shores of the lake last erupted in 2000. Lots of volcanoes means lots of hot springs and there's nothing more pleasurable than sitting in a steaming pool of water with a glorious view out over a huge lake. I particularly love the outdoor pools - known as Rotenburo - because you can sit in lovely warmth while all around you the snow might be falling. Pure magic.

This image was taken early in the morning after a rather raucous night with colleagues from my English teaching days. Just to show that even a little hangover shouldn't stop you seeing photos! Another attraction of the area is the nightly fireworks display out on the lake. Fired off a little boat that runs along the shore, you can see the fireworks from the balcony of your hotel and because the show runs the length of the shore it pretty much doesn't matter where you stay because you can see them as they come along. If you'd like to see some fireworks shots as well as volcanoes and the wild deer on the island then you can pop on to the website to see Lake Toya images.

20 minutes a day to recharge your photographic batteries

2011-05-30T10:10:00.002+10:00

I'm not sure if this is just a professional thing, although I suspect it might apply to all photographers - and artists in general. Do you ever get caught up in what you think you should be doing, what those around you are doing and what the experts on the web tell you you should be doing?

Do you get so caught up that you sometimes forget why you fell in love with your art form in the first place? I know I do. Don't get me wrong. I love what I do but creating art can be pretty draining if you don't take the time to recharge the batteries, refill the creative well so to speak.

I've tried lots of cross-training exercises. Getting the ol' guitar out. Writing. Drawing. And while I enjoy all those things I never really find that they rekindle my passion for photography. If anything I almost feel like they're taking me away from my photography.

So here's what I do, and if you think it sounds like a good idea then you might like to try it too. Give yourself at least 20 minutes a day and go for a walk with your camera. Shoot anything and everything that catches your eye. It doesn't matter what it is, how good or bad it is or anything else. You don't even have to look at the pictures afterwards if you don't want to.

The aim of the exercise is just to sink yourself into the world of your own creative vision without worrying about anybody else's influence. If you're a pro don't think if it's going to be a portfolio piece, sell or whether clients will like it or not. If you're a photographer more for love than money then try something new perhaps, a style you've never bothered to think about before.

You'll find that the more into your twenty minutes you get the more in tune with yourself you become and the easier your image-making will become. If you visit a place you've been a million times before you'll find yourself seeing it in a new light. Why 20 minutes? I have to admit to getting the idea from Julia Cameron in her wonderful follow-up book to the Artist's Way - Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance (Artist's Way)

And she suggests that 20 minutes is a good time to spend with your art every day because most of us would find it pretty hard to procrastinate about such a short amount of time. Try to set yourself an hour or so a day and you'll come up with lots of excuses not to do it because it sounds oh so hard. So I work on 20 minutes and if it goes a bit longer so be it.

The above couple of images are from a walk I took along the Esplanade here in Cairns last Friday. Nothing spectacular but just a bit of fun. A lovely piece of sculpture and my brand new bright red Converse sneakers! (Don't anybody say mid-life crisis. Haha) Enjoy and get out and enjoy your camera whenever you can.

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2011-05-27T13:36:00.001+10:00

I took myself down for a walk along the Esplanade this morning. Why? Because I needed to recharge my creative batteries and get re-acquainted with my camera. I find it wonderful to be out in nature and just take a walk somewhere beautiful to see what my eye will find. It helps get you more in sync with your vision and makes you more creative and productive when you get back to work on assignment for clients.

Now this image was taken on Townsville's version of the Esplanade - known as The Strand. I was walking along and saw these great, almost silhouetted palm trees and just sat and waited for a bicycle to come along.

Sometimes all a photographer needs to get the creative juices flowing more freely is to get out for a good long walk and just photograph whatever comes along. And can you think of any place better to do it? Have a great weekend from sunny Cairns, far north Queensland.

Oh and click on the link if you'd like to see what else Townsville has to offer

Good pictures can be found anywhere.

2011-05-26T13:38:00.001+10:00

Good pictures really can be found anywhere. You just need to know what you find interesting. In some ways I'm writing this to myself as much as I am to you folks out there. As a photographer who has spent a great part of his life hopping on a plane to somewhere else, I really felt disconnected from my local community here in Cairns.

I hardly ever went to events (that my kids didn't want to!) or photographed festivals, gatherings. Anything really. The lure of the exotic was always far more appealing to me and I didn't really tend to get my cameras out until after I got off the plane. Or if I did photograph locally it was when I was on assignment.

But in the last few months I've started work on a couple of long-term projects. One a collaboration with an author friend of mine, and the other a personal project. And they've both required me to be more proactive in thinking of areas of interest that can be photographed locally.

Now here's the important part - you have to be interested in it not just as a photographic subject, but as an actual subject full stop. The more engaged and interested you are, the more perceptive and insightful your images will be. And the more passionate.

Now I live in a tourist town. We've got the Great Barrier Reef, we've got the Daintree up the road, Cape York, the Atherton Tablelands. We get millions of tourists a year visiting us and you're thinking 'but hey nobody ever visits my town'. Well these two projects I'm about to start work on have nothing whatsoever to do with travel or tourism. So they could be done anywhere.

Don't pigeonhole yourself in terms of what you want to photograph. I know I fell into that trap as a 'travel' photographer. But for now I'm sticking close to home for a little bit and walking down a slightly different avenue. One that I'm really excited about and can't wait to explore with my cameras.

Discover what it is that moves you and work toward photographing it. Get involved in it. Find the story, find your angle, discover what you personally can bring to the project. And go for it. No matter where you live there are stories dying to be told with your camera. Worry about an audience later, or not at all. Your choice but just get out there and do it. I know I will be!

Follow your dreams before it's too late.

2011-05-25T10:12:00.001+10:00

Today's post is inspired by Sharon Cohrs. I've never met Sharon, only read about her in the paper. She's a local Cairns woman, a breast cancer survivor, and has just climbed Mt Everest. You can read about here in the Cairns Post article on her amazing feat. That makes a couple of Cairns locals who've knocked the big one off now. A couple of years back one-armed Paul Hockey made it all the way up and came back down safely to tell the tale.

The closest I got was a valley over. This image was taken from the top of Gokyo Peak - a mere molehill at about five and a half thousand metres above sea level. Still it took my wife and I three weeks to walk there from just outside Kathmandu and has to be one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

I spoke about my father-in-law yesterday. One of his life's big dreams is to get to Everest one day. Just to see it with his own eyes. My Mum's is to see the Taj Mahal. Neither of them have got there yet. I've been to both and count my blessings every day. If you have dreams - follow them. Don't let them go until it's too late. Do what you have to do to put them in place. If it's all too big and scary do it one step at a time. Just make sure you do it because before you know it there'll be, in the words of John Cougar Mellencamp "less days in front of the horse than riding the back of this cart' and you'll never do it.

If you'd like to see how following my crazy dreams got me to the Himalayas in Nepal then check out the link.

The difference between amateur and professional travel photography

2011-05-24T11:56:00.001+10:00

This is my father-in-law. He's a spritely mid-70's, loves his mountains and his photography. Needless to say we get on like a house on fire. I was chatting to him on the phone last night as we wanted to let him know we'd be coming up to visit soon, which he was obviously pretty pleased about. Sapporo is our second home really, and I just adore the nature of Hokkaido.

Anyway Dad suggested that we take a trip to a small town in the middle of the island which has a small waterfall and take some photographs together. And I hate to admit it but my first thought was 'will the pictures sell?'. And there in a nutshell is the difference between a professional travel photographer and an amateur.

Whereas when I was an amateur I would just photograph everything and anything that struck my fancy willy nilly, I now find myself being a lot more selective with my time and subject matter. At the end of the day my images need to feed my family and so I have to think about the commercial return on investment. Sounds like a horrible way to think about a holiday doesn't it?

But there it is - if you decide to go pro then travel is no longer a holiday. It's work. Just like showing up to the office every day from 9 to 5. Yes it can be a lot more fun, yes it's probably a hell of a lot more rewarding spiritually. But it is still work.

If there's anything I really can't stand it's a non-professional attitude in those photographers purporting to be professional. Make a decision. You are either in business or you're not. You can't pretend to be one or the other.

Either go pro and wholeheartedly and enthusiastically embrace a life where travel and having new experiences becomes your vocation, but accept the limitations that this brings (ie you have to choose your destinations and subjects based on what will sell). Or if that sounds terrible then stick to being an amateur. You'll get to holiday where you want, photograph what you want and not give any of it a second thought. It's all about you, and worrying about whether the pictures will sell or not is irrelevant. That's how I spent the majority of my 20's and I loved every minute of it!

Oh, and what did I tell me father-in-law? Sounds great, let's go. After all, I'll be on holiday! Even for us workaholics the occasional travel jaunt can be non-work related after all.

Oh and if you'd like to see some more images and see why I love this part of the world just pop on over to the website to see some Sapporo pictures.

Laura Dance and Cultural Festival

2011-05-23T10:47:00.001+10:00

Unfortunately I'll be away for this fantastic event this year. Without a doubt one of my all-time favourite festival experiences is the wonderful Laura Dance and Cultural Festival which is held in the small Cape York town of Laura.

Only a few hours north of Cairns it really is a world apart. Aboriginal dance troupes gather from all around the state for three days of competition to find the best dancers. Held in a small ring under towering gum trees with no accommodation but plenty of camping space, stalls from various groups such as National Parks and other community groups.

It's a no alcohol event and I don't know if that is part of the reason but when I attended I found a wonderful, friendly atmosphere with no aggression whatsoever. Everybody is here for a good time and everyone is made to feel welcome to this intimate glimpse into indigenous Australian culture. Definitely a highly recommended even for anyone about between the 17th to the 19th June.

You can click here to see a couple more of my images of the Laura Dance and Cultural Festival.

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2011-05-20T07:33:00.001+10:00

This weekend is the wonderful Port Douglas Carnivale. One thing that Port Douglas is rightly famous for is its wonderful array of restaurants and cuisine. From the iconic Iron Bar with its nightly cane toad races to upmarket eateries frequented by movie stars and Presidents, Port Douglas has it all. The image above was taken on assignment for an airline in-flight magazine doing a feature on the local restaurants and was taken at Salsa Restaurant.

All Port has to offer in terms of food, fun and frivolity is on display this weekend with a grand parade, lots of activities down on picturesque Four Mile beach and a fantastic sand castle building competition. If you're in the area head to Port Douglas this weekend, if you're a long way away plan it for next year!

If this image whets your appetite then have a look at what Port Douglas restaurants have to offer. Or if you'd just like to see what Port Douglas looks like - we've got that covered too!

Festival time in Sapporo

2011-05-19T10:41:00.001+10:00

Well even though it's cooling down here in the southern Hemisphere (although Cairns is still a balmy 25), up north things are warming up. Sapporo up in Hokkaido never really gets hot. In fact their summer is kind of like a north Queensland winter. But it's warm for them after six foot snow drifts and freezing all winter. So that's when you want to get the festivals happening and it's a time of year I love in this fabulous city.

One of my favourite festivals is the Yosakoi - a giant street procession with competing teams of dancers from all over the country, and even a few international ones. They all have to dance to the same traditional fishing song - although they can arrange the song however they like. So you have the teenagers dancing to rap versions and the oldies dancing to traditional versions. It really is a great party and one not to be missed.

It's great to photograph events like this because people are happy, have usually had a couple of beers and are more than happy to ham it up for the camera like these two. Whenever I'm shooting at night I usually put my camera in to Manual Mode. I set my shutter speed for something that will let enough ambient light in while not being so slow I can't hand hold it. Somewhere around 1/20 second or so at ISO400 or above. I set my aperture at about f5.6 and use my flash. My little secret is on the flash I have a little bit of orange gel to blend with the ambient tungsten lights on the parade street. Then it's just a matter of getting out there and looking for opportunities.

Hop on over to my website to see some more hams at the Yosakoi Festival in Sapporo.

Wallaman Falls - Queensland's highest waterfalls

2011-05-18T10:54:00.003+10:00

Wallaman Falls is one of those places that truly blows you away the first time you see it. And to be honest I'd lived up here in Cairns for a long time before I ever got a chance (ie off my lazy butt!) to go and photograph it.
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Mareeba - definitely worth a day trip up from Cairns

2011-05-17T10:59:00.004+10:00

One of the advantages of being a Cairns photographer is that there is so much to see and do in a small area. One place I love to get out to on a spare day is Mareeba - up on the northern end of the Atherton Tablelands.

It's full of amazing places like the Mareeba Wetlands bird sanctuary, Granite Gorge with its cute rock wallabies and this place. Beck's Military Museum. I have to admit I'd driven past this place a zillion times and never knew what it was.

On assignment for Qantas, this place was on my list to photograph and I got the shock of my life. A giant hangar full of military planes, helicopters, jeeps. You name it, they've got it! The owner, Sid Beck, even let me get up on the roof of one of the bombers to take some shots.

"Don't fall off though, the bloody public liability wouldn't cover it!"

Good ol' far north Queensland humour. If you some spare time next time you're up this way definitely pop up for a look. It's only an hour or so from Cairns and a world away. To see more of what Mareeba has to offer take a look at my Mareeba photos .

Why you need to keep the copyright in your photos.

2011-05-11T10:34:00.000+10:00

This image was part of a series shot on assignment for Weldon Owen Publishing. It was used to illustrate a school book on festivals around the world - I was in charge of the Japan book.

I chose the festival, lined up the models (my wife's sister's family!) and organised the day of the shoot.

Not that they at any time had asked for it, but if I had given away the copyright for all the photographs I took I wouldn't be able to show this one to you. It wouldn't be mine any more. I could actually get sued for showing it to you, or using it in my portfolio to show potential clients the kind of work I do.

If I had given away the copyright my assigning client would then own all the rights to that picture, meaning that they could then license it as stock and make a profit off of it and wouldn't have to pay me a cent.

As it is they have used it in another couple of books and I, of course, get paid every time it gets used. I have licensed it to accompany articles on Japan written both by myself and other writers. It's even been used in an ad for a major Japanese travel agency (I needed signed model releases for that one).

All in all my income from stock sales of this image have far outstripped the original assignment fee. And none of that would have been possible if I had relinquished my copyright.

I saw an ad for a wedding photographer the other day boasting about the fact that he gives the copyright to the couple. Does he realise that he can no longer use those pictures in his own portfolio? Does he know that he could get sued for putting it on his website? Methinks if the couples he photographs knew this and they were in any way dodgy they could leverage this legal loophole.

Chances are that your clients have no intention of selling your photographs to third parties. But if they're a major publishing house they might think about using it in others of their publications. They might think they need copyright to prevent you licensing it to their competitors. They might think that if they own the copyright it will save them having to come back to you to pay for extra rights that they might need down the track.

These are all legitimate concerns but you can argue against any of them and reassure your clients that they will get what they need while protecting your own business interests. Have something in your contract that promises you won't license the images to competitors. Put in your contract what you will charge them for any possible future licenses that will go beyond the initial contract. Explain to them that there's no point in paying extra money for usages they may never need. Show them how it's cheaper to just pay for what they need now.

The photographer-client relationship should be a collaboration. We provide great photographs at a price the client can afford with a license attached that they need. This isn't necessarily always what they want but such is life - I want a new Ferrari but I'm sure the dealer isn't going to give me one for cheap just because I want it. Work with your clients and if they're interested in working with you and willing to see your side of the coin as well as their own then I know you can see a way beyond the 'we have to own it' argument.

And remember that as soon as you give your copyright away you have no rights whatsoever to show those pictures anywhere in your own portfolio or website. Think about that one for a minute. I can't imagine any client wanting to put that kind of a restriction on their photographer, or any photographer who would knowingly admit to those conditions. But that's what you're doing every time you agree to hand over your copyright.

Oh and if you needed any more persuasion, a recent survey of professional photographers in the UK showed that photographers who kept their copyrights made an average 33% more income than those who gave it away! Now doesn't that appeal to your hip pocket?

A new resource for professional photographers in the developing world

2011-05-10T12:25:00.002+10:00

One of my all-time favourite pieces of software is Expression Media. I've blogged about it before and probably will again. Anyway I found the software through the wonderful book on Digital Asset Management by Peter Krogh. Peter has a website and a blog which you can find at The Dam Book site and on today's post he mentioned what looks to me to be a great resource.

Put together with a number of prestigious photographic bodies, including the World Press Photo people, the just-launched Shutha site has a host of really instructional videos on professional photography. As they say in their blurb, you already know how to take pictures, their site is designed to help you turn it into a profitable career you will love.

So if you're an aspiring or newly-minted professional photographer, especially if you're living in the developing world, then I would definitely recommend you pop over for a look because there is a lot of really valuable information there. Great to see somebody looking out for the rest of the world, and let's hope it helps photographers from all over the planet to show their own visions of the world around them.

Daintree looking lush, green and tropically tantalising.

2011-05-09T09:38:00.004+10:00

Daintree National Park Photos - Images by Paul Dymond

The wet season in this part of the world is long, hot and very, very wet. Plus there's usually a couple of cyclones and the humidity levels go through the roof. But when it's all over and far north Queensland has had its life-giving top up of water then we find out what it was all for.

At this time of the year the forests are lush and green. The creeks and rivers are clear and flowing with all the run-off from the surrounding tropical rainforest-covered mountains. And it just looks spectacular.

Arguably the jewel in the crown of our tropical rainforests is the world-heritage listed Daintree National Park. Enjoy these images and if you're local consider popping up to take a look - the ferry over the Daintree River is free for us! Yay. If you're from out of town then now would be a great time for a flying visit. My one tip for rainforest photography - leave the polariser on and don't forget the tripod.

Photographer - choose your clients with care, and vice versa

2011-05-05T11:56:00.000+10:00

I hear a lot of negativity around the traps these days. Horror stories about the client from hell. Or the photographer who just didn't come up with the goods.

I'm happy to report that I don't really have too many horror stories of my own and I think that partly comes from being picky.

Yes I know that for many of us times are quiet and beggars can't be choosers. But if you don't actively choose who you work with then I think you're letting yourself in for some heartache, or at the very least a sense of dissatisfaction.

I mean would you let the guy who took this photograph shoot your wedding? You might end up looking like a camel? And yet I often get people asking me if I'll shoot their wedding when I've never done one in my life. My first question to any client I haven't met before is "Have you seen my work?" It often amazes me that people would even think of hiring a photographer without having an idea of the style of their work but it happens all the time. If their answer is no then the first thing I do is send them to my website. If they're sitting in front of a computer or their iPad then I do it there and then on the phone.

Often if the subject they're asking me to photograph is like nothing on my site at all then the first thing I hear on the other end of the receiver is "Ahhh. I guess you don't do weddings then?" Nup. But I can recommend some great wedding photographers for them to go and have a look at - and I place the emphasis on look before they bother to call.

I always know that if somebody hasn't looked at my work then they're not invested in having ME as their photographer. They'd basically be happy to have any shutter-pushing monkey who will charge them the least amount of money. And they will mostly likely get something that doesn't live up to their expectations if they give me the job. I don't want that and the client certainly doesn't want that.

I was chatting to a graphic designer friend of mine the other day and we were lamenting the fact that anybody with a new dSLR (in my case) or a MAC and inDesign (in his case) can hang out their shingle without having any idea of the costs involved in running a professional business. And how many of these people run themselves out of business and take quite a few more-established professionals with them.

And it occured to me that in order to not have to compete on this level you need to pick and choose your clients carefully. And to do that you have to know what it is you want to shoot and how you want to shoot it. And you have to be confident that every job that comes in you will be able to put your heart and soul into and create the type of images that will have clients knocking down your door. Not just any clients mind you, but the clients who choose you. The clients who love what YOU do and are more concerned that they can work with you then what you charge.

I have clients that I have collaborated with for more than a decade. We're more friends that clients now. Many of them are interstate and overseas but we always make it a point to catch up socially when in each other's neck of the woods.

When Cyclone Yasi hit many of them called me up to make sure I was OK and whether there was anything I needed. One even offered me free accommodation in one of her hotels if my house was damaged. They're the type of clients you need to cultivate. The ones that love you and love what you do and wouldn't dream of abandoning you for the next cheap wunderkind that knocks on their door.

But you only get that by being great at what you do and only choosing to work with the clients who fit in with your vision. And clients, beware that you're only going to get mind-blowingly fantastic work when you work in collaboration with your photographer and come together as creative minds and friends. Take any old client that comes along, or work with any old creative who can meet your budget, and you'll never experience the absolute joy of being in total harmony with the other creatives on your team. Let's get rid of the negativity and concentrate on cultivating our own great relationships people.

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2011-04-29T09:34:00.000+10:00

Cairns Esplanade - Images by Paul Dymond

I thought for today's post I'd show you all the crowning glory on Cairns' foreshore - the Esplanade Lagoon. Now that the wet season is over this is how it will look for the next 7 or 8 months. There's nothing like being down here on a balmy night, watching your kids play and enjoying a BBQ with a couple of cold ones and good friends. There's a reason why people flock here - actually there's quite a few - but this is definitely one of them. Enjoy!

Where would a travel photographer take his kids on holiday?

2011-04-28T12:41:00.000+10:00

A fair enough question I guess. With a little over 50 countries under my belt my most oft-heard question is - what's your favourite country? And I never have an answer because I really do love them all. Especially the one I'm headed to next.

But when it comes to where would you take the kids on holiday I think I've narrowed it down. Now keep in mind that I live in Australia and visit Japan at least once, sometimes twice, every year. So there's nothing new for my two boys there. They're both kinda home.

In fact my eldest remarked a couple of years back that he'd never been overseas - despite the fact that he'd been to Japan 5 or 6 times! He was honestly surprised to find out that Japan was 'overseas'.

So coming from that perspective I would say my definite recommendation is Nepal. I love the food, the culture, the people. I would start them off in Kathmandu. I'm sure they'd get templed out pretty quickly but I would take them to Swayambunath and Bodnath. Let them play with the local kids in the street.

Then take them down to Chitwan National Park to look for rhinos and tigers on elephant back. I don't know if I could keep them quiet enough to actually find any wildlife but I know they'd have the time of their lives.

Then for the piece de resistance I would take them trekking. Mt Everest style. I'm sure they're still too little to do giant treks but maybe I'd hire a local yak and driver to carry them! I've seen it done and it looks like a great way for the kids to travel. Mind you those things are a bit mean and nasty at times. I'd have to think that one through.

But if there's definitely one place I recommend you should take your kids if you can it is definitely Nepal. So why haven't I done it yet? Well my youngest has anaphylactic dairy allergies which he's just about grown out of but I'd feel a lot safer if he was clear of them before we headed off. So in the meantime they'll have to be content with 'domestic' destinations like Japan!

Take me out to the ballgame - Japanese style.

2011-04-13T13:52:00.000+10:00

In honour of the fact that, after quite a break, the Japanese pro baseball series is back on again I thought this would be a good opportunity to post some images I shot last year.

I went to a game of the Sapporo Fighters. My wife is from Sapporo and one of her friends from kindergarten is a rabid fan - whether of the tall, muscley players or the game I couldn't quite tell!

Anyway I got to sit in the stands with her just-as rabid friends and we had a great old time of it. With all the horrible things that country is going through at the moment I thought it might be fun just to post some nice pictures.

For those who are curious I took just three lenses a 10-22, 28-70 and a 70-200. So not quite enough reach to shoot the players up close but close enough to give my friend pictures of her heroes where she could make out their faces! Hope you enjoy them!

You'll only ever be as good a photograher as you want to be.

2011-04-11T10:50:00.001+10:00

I've spent the last week or so doing some enthralling reading - all about converting images from RGB to CMYK via Rick McCleary's book CMYK 2.0: A Cooperative Workflow for Photographers, Designers, and Printers and on how to optimally sharpen my pictures via the late, great Bruce Fraser and Jeff Schewe's book Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom (2nd Edition)

Not exactly as boring as watching paint dry, but pretty dry stuff nonetheless. Certainly not one to take to book club on a Friday night. But I find it really interesting. I find myself getting quite excited as I realise why this or that thing happens to me every so often.

Take this picture here. I once had it printed in a magazine a couple of years ago and the bright reds turned out yellow! Now this picture has been published a lot and I had never seen it yellow before and I got to thinking that it must have had something to do with the conversion to CMYK for printing. Now, after doing a bit of reading, I know that it was most likely caused by the reds being out of colour gamut and they used Relative Colorimetric conversion instead of perceptual which would have been better.

Now that I'm feeling really geeky my point is this. How good a photographer do you want to be? How much effort are you prepared to put in to being the best you can possibly be? Because this decision will greatly affect how good you're ultimately going to be. The best position to be is in one where you're constantly trying to be better than you are - never satisfied. Competent, confident but always hungry for more.

I met a photographer once who said to me that she was amazed at how good I was at using apertures and shutter speeds to control the look of a photograph because she had no idea how those two variables worked. And, yes, she was working professionally and selling her services. Now that's an extreme case, and perhaps boning up on CMYK conversions and sharpening is another extreme case but if you give up learning you'll never be as good as you can be.

I remember chatting with a good friend of mine about his work - a travel writer and photographer just like I was for nearly a decade. And he mentioned that he was busy working on being a better writer. And at that very moment it clicked. I didn't want to be a better writer. I was quite happy at the level I was. I was getting published widely, making a living and pretty much cruising. But I suddenly thought I had no right to. If I wasn't striving to be better then I was letting not only myself down, but my clients as well. Didn't they deserve the best possible collaborator they could get?

In the digital era being a better photographer doesn't just mean learning new flash techniques, getting a better camera, or even developing your vision and finding your voice. Sure it may be all of those things, but also so much more. It means understanding all about colour spaces, image file formats, monitor profiling and a whole bunch of other stuff we never needed to know about. And yes, even sharpening and CMYK conversion maybe. Do your eyes gloss over at the very thought of having to learn that boring stuff? Rather be out taking pictures all day and leave that stuff for the geeks? Or are you chomping at the bit to glean any bit of extra knowledge that will help you improve your craft?

Search your heart and the answer might surprise you. How far do you want to take this? How dedicated are you? Your answer might make or break your photographic career. At the very least it will determine how good you'll ultimately be.

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2011-04-08T10:53:00.001+10:00

You can tell I'm over the wet season, and the stingers! I'm ready to hit the beach. How appealing is this?

To enjoy the same relaxing dip you'll have to take a short plane flight from Cairns over to stunning Lizard Island. I was on assignment there for Destinasian magazine.

It was a pretty short trip to get images to accompany an article on the island and it was all shot on print film. Yep I still have my film cameras - both 35mm and Mamiya Medium Format. And believe it or not this is the only client that I use them for, but that alone is worth keeping them around for.

The shoot was mostly interiors of the room and close-up shots of various decorative elements - a la Vogue Travel - but on the morning before I was due to fly out I managed to go for a walk up to a bluff overlooking the coast.

And what a spectacular view it was. It's really hard to appreciate the beauty of ocean like this unless you can get up above it. I had actually put Fuji Velvia in the camera that morning because I always take some slide film along with me whenever I'm shooting a film job. It's always nice walking toward the future, but sometimes it can feel really comfortable just to slip back into the past for a bit.

Lizard Island has an amazing resort which I would thoroughly recommend but if it's a bit out of your price range there's also a National Parks campsite on the island. Only problem is that you have to take in all your supplies with you because there are no facilities whatsoever. But if it's adventure on a pristine tropical island you want this is where you'll get it. Oh and keep an eye out for the giant Monitor Lizards - they're the reason the island got its name in the first place!

I don't get Social Media!

2011-04-05T13:10:00.000+10:00

People - Images by Paul Dymond

Well, I guess I get it. I mean I blog here and that somehow magically links to my Twitter and Facebook accounts. What I mean to say is that I'm probably pretty ordinary at leveraging the power of it compared to others. So here is a little play and attempt at delving into it via my Photoshelter website. You see they have these buttons whereby you can post your galleries to your Facebook and your Twitter accounts - would woulda thunk it? So if you go to my Twitter page, or my Facebook page you can see the above gallery on my website. Or you can just enjoy the pictures here on my website. Confused? I know I am. :) But I like the fact that I can share a whole bunch of photographs with you all so easily so I will persevere through my cloudy fog of lack of knowledge!

The Shuffle function isn't just for iPods but photos too

2011-04-04T13:26:00.001+10:00

One of the things I love about my iPod is the shuffle function. I often like to set it to play every single song I have stored on there in a totally random order. I make sure that I exclude audio books from the playlist and keep it at just music.

Of course it's all songs that I've put in so (hopefully) it's all stuff I like, but you know those times when you just don't know what kind of music you're in the mood for? That's when this function comes into it's own and I always feel a moment of trepidation just before the next song comes along, simply because I have no idea what it's going to be, but I know it's bound to be something I love.

And I often do the same with my photos. There's lots of advice out there about how if you're putting together a slideshow, or a portfolio, then you should stick to a theme, or an orientation (all verticals or horizontals) or at least have some central point of cohesion that the presentation hangs off.

But sometimes you just wanna have fun. You want to remember the pictures you've taken in the past but you don't exactly know which pictures you want to look at. Play a slideshow on random I say. Go back six months, a year, two years, further if you're brave enough. Pick your favourite cataloguing software of choice and just play every single picture randomly. You might be there for a while but I guarantee you'll have a blast!

It really is so much fun reminiscing about past photographic adventures whilst having no idea whatsoever what the next picture is going to be. And why this picture? It came up randomly when I was searching for an accompanying pic. This is inside the Roger Rabbit ride at Tokyo Disneyland. A look at the metadata tells me it was taken at 1/5 second at ISO 3200. I knew I probably wouldn't pull it off but wanted to see what would happen. Sometimes you've gotta let go of the controls and just put it in 'Random'.

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2011-04-01T13:14:00.000+11:00

Is it any wonder people want to come up here on holiday? With the fun these two are having how could you not want to visit?

I always forget to say that if you fly into Cairns one of the first things you'll see as you drive out of the airport is a giant billboard on the left hand side.

The billboard is an ad for Quicksilver Cruises and the picture is one of mine. Done a little while ago it is used to promote their outer barrier reef cruises, which leave from lovely Port Douglas.

My boys love dropping Mum off at the airport because they get to see 'Daddy's picture' every time they come back. I know my usual FNQ Friday is slightly different but every so often I have to take a moment to take pride in the images I produce, and boast just a little! :) And it's not often you get to see a picture you've taken twenty feet high and passed by tens of thousands of people every year.

Don Quixote cows

2011-03-29T10:24:00.000+11:00

With what's happening in Japan so far to the fore of everybody's consciousness at the moment, and in light of all the talk about the benefits or otherwise of nuclear power I thought it might be a good time to post an energy picture!

Of course with the usual Paul Dymond twist. You see north Queensland is home to the state's largest wind farm, just a couple of hours west in the small town of Ravenshoe.

I've driven past Windy Hill quite a few times but had never really thought about how I wanted to photograph it. And then it kind of clicked. I remember reading somewhere that one of the arguments that opponents to the farm used was that it would upset the cows and they would hate the things. Here was my angle.

I'd seen plenty of pictures of the windmills themselves - in sunny weather, cloudy weather, atmospheric stormy weather. But I'd never seen any pictures with the cows in them. Come to think of it, every time I'd been past, the cows were nowhere to be seen.

So one day when I was driving past and noticed a herd of cows all milling around near the base of the giant turbines I knew this was the shot I wanted. I put on a wide-angle lens so I could have the cows big in the foreground with lots of green grass, and still have the windmills visible in the background kind of blending in (if you can possibly blend a big white spaceship into the natural environment!).

I have to say, the cows seemed more perturbed by me than they did by the wind turbines. Not that I'm an expert or anything but they seemed as contented as any cows I've ever seen before. Just saying...

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2011-03-25T11:07:00.000+11:00

I couldn't resist posting this image today because that's what it looks like around here at the moment!

All those months of tropical downpours seem like a bad dream on days like today when the sun is shining, the ocean is crystal clear and calm and it doesn't get any better than Cairns.

This was taken just slightly north of town at a little beach known as Ellis. Home to a cafe and caravan park there's not much here but miles and miles of beautiful sand and water, and a lot of mango trees that drop fruit galore in the season.

It's probably one of my favourite beaches to visit because there's hardly ever anyone there. You can usually find a whole stretch all to yourself. Unfortunately the stingers are still out so it's not quite swimmer-ready yet but give it another little while and the lifesavers will give us the all clear and then look out beach, here we come.

So if you're sitting in your cold, drab office today I hope this picture gives you a spark of inspiration about where to plan your next holiday. You could certainly do a hell of a lot worse than this place!

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2011-03-18T14:16:00.000+11:00

Just recently the Babinda Sugar Mill closed down. With nearly 100 years of history, and one of the main employers of this tiny community just south of Cairns, the loss felt will be huge.

A while back I had the opportunity to photograph inside the mill. It was hot, dark, steamy and (funny enough) sweet-smelling. I'm sure working there was terribly hard but photographing it was a ball.

I was doing some work for the Canegrowers magazine. This became one of their front covers. With its halogen lighting, steamy machines and intricate pipework it looks pretty Orwellian doesn't it.

Sugar cane is still a big part of what makes the far north of Queensland unique and it is a shame to see such a major part of local history relegated to the scrap heap of history. Hopefully the town can find a new use for the land that will help it to thrive and prosper. In the meantime we photographers can do something useful for our communities by photographing anything and everything as a record of what is now but may not be in years to come.

Photography as stress release?

2011-03-17T11:47:00.000+11:00

This little fella is probably very lucky that I'm a photographer. If I weren't he (she?) mightn't be looking so happy.

I like birds, I really do. One of my greatest joys is sitting out on my back patio and listening to the morning serenade of hundreds of birds in the trees around my neighbourhood.

During the recent cyclone we lost our biggest tree and my back yard is nowhere near as noisy as it was even a couple of months ago.

A pity I can't say the same thing for my front yard! This lovely tree is in full bloom at the moment, right outside my bedroom window. Adorned with these beautiful yellow flowers and a (very rare) blue sky it attracts lots of birds - in particular lorikeets and these birdies here. The Noisy Friar Bird.

Apparently they get the friar part of their name from the tuft of white feathers around their neck, giving them the look of a member of the clergy. The noisy part? That comes from screaming at the top of their lungs outside my bedroom window at about 5 o'clock every single morning.

So why are these birds lucky I'm a photographer? Because if I wasn't I'd be a bird hunter for sure! I figure shooting with them with a camera is better than a BB gun. :)

Photographers aren't charging for their time

2011-03-14T13:21:00.000+11:00

I had a shoot last week which really brought this home to me. When photographers charge for their services the time it takes to do the shoot is often one of the least important parts of the quote.

Sure it's important in terms of you need to cover your overhead costs (including wages) for the time involved, but if you purely charge by time you could be doing your clients and yourself a disservice.

Last week I had a shoot for an agricultural magazine up at the Mungalli Creek Dairy on the Atherton Tablelands. We had scheduled an hour there to photograph the founding brothers for the front cover and four or five inside images. I had planned to set up some light stands and lights inside the factory before moving outside to shoot in the fields. Guess what? Life doesn't always work out like we plan.

When we arrived we found out that they could only give us about 25 minutes or so before they all had other appointments. So we had to move quick. And the factory we hoped to photograph in? Well due to it being a highly sanitised area anything we wanted to take in that would touch the ground would have to be dunked in a sanitising bucket of water. Which basically meant with the time limits we wouldn't be able to use tripods, light stands or any other supports. So we needed to shoot with small flashes and people to hold the flashes for me.

The third and final spanner in the works was that it was pouring down rain outside. If we wanted to complete the shoot in 25 minutes, and in particular get the cover shot I had already seen when we first arrived, we would have to try and time things between the showers.

Can you see a pattern here? Firstly the time had been cut short by more than half. Had I been charging merely on time then my fee may have been cut. "Weren't there for the complete hour? That means less money I'm afraid", is something that the budget-conscious client might bring up. Think that's not possible? I've heard it before.

But I had already negotiated a rate based on the entire assignment. The number of images provided, the usage of those images and the amount of time I estimated it would take. I was being paid to produce photographs, or more to the point I was getting paid for the photographs I had published. And more importantly I was paid to overcome any problems that got thrown at me.

A photographer charging only on time might have needed much longer to do the set-ups, might have panicked at the sudden shortening of the predicted time he or she would have to shoot. Might have felt lost at the sudden inability to shoot using a tripod and light stands.

Don't think about just charging for the time you're on assignment. Take into consideration the fact that you are reliable, dependable and professional. In the end knowing that a photographer will come back with publishable pictures is something worth paying good money for. Something far more valuable than the time spent getting the pictures.

Take care Japan

2011-03-13T15:02:00.000+11:00

Regular readers of this blog will know that Japan is my second home. Ever since living there for a year as a teenager in the late 80's, doing a university degree in Japanese language, living there on and off over the years and working as a Japanese medical interpreter, my connection with this amazing country and its people has grown deeper and deeper.

My wife is from Sapporo, my kids' first language is Japanese (which makes school here in Australia fun!) and we visit at least once every year, sometimes twice.

The scenes unfolding on the TV and the internet are beyond frightening. The wall of water crashing through the homes and lives of innocent people, the swaying office blocks, the leaking radiation. My heart just weeps.

My wife was in Japan when the earthquake hit. She flew out that night and is home safe and sound. But she flies back to Japan tomorrow with work, staying only a few hundred kilometres from the nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture. They say the year of the Rabbit is supposed to be quiet. So far we've had a devastating cyclone, followed by floods and now vicariously caught up in an earthquake. Something tells me those Chinese astrologers are playing a joke on us.

For what it's worth I wish everyone in Japan the best of luck in these terrible times and know that the rest of the world is watching and praying to whatever higher power they believe in that you will all pull through this and go on. And of course I hope that my family and friends will all keep safe and well.

I was reading a Japanese photography magazine yesterday and marvelling at the beautiful photos of the cherry blossoms in Fukushima and Miyagi Prefectures. May those trees flower once again in the years to come.

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2011-03-11T12:17:00.000+11:00

I'm working on putting a new portfolio together which shows more of my people work across various industries when I came across this image.

It was taken in the caves of Chillagoe, a beautiful area a few hours north-west of Cairns. Home to a historic iron smelter and beautiful countryside, the area also boasts some beautiful caves that you can get a guided tour through.

To get really interesting images in there you'll need to take a tripod. It's dark. Not for the naked eye maybe, but definitely for a camera, and you don't want to be using your flash because it kills the atmosphere. So a long shutter speed and crossing the fingers. This pictures is entirely lit by the members of the tour group shining their torch lights on the wall. I didn't co-ordinate it or tell them where to shine or anything - it was all about opening the shutter for a long enough time and hoping it looked good. Sometimes the photo gods smile upon us. :)

Thank you David Hobby

2011-03-09T14:48:00.000+11:00

Ever since I picked up a camera at the age of about 12, right up until roughly three years ago I was an entirely natural light photographer. Flash scared the crap out of me, I hated the look of it and I just didn't understand it.

I remember a pitch black night in the mountains of Uttar Pradesh in India. I had an automatic Vivitar flash and had never really used it. I knew where it went (but had even that wrong as I now know! On-camera flash bad, off-camera flash good) but not really how it worked.

So I bought a roll of print film and shot a whole heap of photos at different apertures to see what the difference in the photos would be. Turned out there was no difference. That's why the flash was alled automatic - it was designed to give you the proper exposure no matter what the aperture was. D'oh. It wasn't TTL but it did a pretty good job. But I was still pretty terrible at using it.

And then about three years ago somebody pointed me to the Strobist site run by an ex-newspaper photographer, the aforementioned David Hobby. To say it changed my world would be an understatement. It completely turned it upside down. I never knew that you could take the flash off the camera. I never knew you could control multiple flashes at once. Hell I had no idea you could modify the light coming out of those things.

Here was a totally new mindset for me. Going from being a passive documentary photographer who spent a lot of time waiting for beautiful light, to a proactive photographer who now preconceptualises a shot before I head out the front door. I've gone from dreading having to photograph anything indoors to actually looking forward to indoor shoots because it gives me a chance to create beautiful light.

The outdoor midday sun now no longer gives me the willies now I know how to overpower it and still have soft beautiful light on my subject. And I can make my son look cool in a way I never could before which gives us quality time together as he actually enjoys having his photo taken.

Why am I mentioning this now, so far down the track? Because I had an assignment yesterday to photograph inside a factory. A factory that required the sanitisation of every little piece of equipment before taking it in. So tripods, light stands and anything else was going to be difficult if not nigh on impossible. So I took in some speedlites (yes I'm Canon hence the spelling) and crafted some mighty fine looking light on a wing and a prayer. With no stands, modifiers or anything just a helpful writer to hold the flash and some nice white walls and roof to bounce it off.

And every prayer I said was a thank you to the great master Hobby. Mind you I'm a definite TTL convert and I know he loves his manual so I'm digging the Syl Area stuff and Joe Mcnally stuff but the person that started it all off is Mr Strobist. There is no possible way I could ever thank him enough for what he's done for my photographic life and career but recommend any of his products or workshops. If you want to learn to use your flash better then this is the place you need to start. Thank you David Hobby. My youngest gives you a big two thumbs up!

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2011-03-04T12:01:00.000+11:00

One of the great things about photography for me is the entree it gives me into the lives of people I would otherwise never meet.

This was one such assignment to Weipa, up on the western coast of Cape York. The very tip of Australia for those of you who don't know it.

Coincidentally I'd just come back from there on a week-long assignment and got a call to head back there again. Only this time with a special guest.

Olympic champion and all-round beautiful lady Cathy Freeman was filming the second series of her hit TV show Going Bush. In the first series she'd been accompanied by one of my favourite actresses, Deb Mailman. In this second series she was joined by young actor Luke Carroll.

What made it so special was the reaction from the young aboriginal children in the communities she visited. To say that she is a hero to these people is like saying Superman is a little bit special. They were all waiting down on the beach when we arrived and a quick yell from one of the elders and they just came running from everywhere.

We filmed it in quite a secluded location because, basically, we didn't need a riot on our hands! But to see the absolute joy, pride and honour on these kids' faces was very humbling. And Cathy took it all with total aplomb. Cathy is quite a shy person and seemed to feel uncomfortable with all the attention, until she started playing with the kids and organizing running races on the sand. Then the fun was on for young and old.

Fishing with spears, face painting, totem pole painting. We crammed a lot in in a short period of time but it was an experience I will cherish forever. The camera really is an amazing gate key to so many incredible experiences and this truly is an incredible part of the world.

The art of collaboration

2011-03-03T11:15:00.000+11:00

For many years (more than I care to remember!) I have been both a photographer and writer. Sometimes I do one or the other, many times I do both. But whenever I do both - ie create an article package - it's always travel or photography related. That's where my strengths and my knowledge lies. Whilst I enjoy photographing lots of different things I enjoy writing about just two things - photography and travel.

So that's why I actively seek out writers in the local north Queensland area, and beyond. To collaborate. There are writers out there with some weird and wonderful specialties who cover topics that I have no knowledge of whatsoever.

Take this image here of a young lady in a pathology lab. Making the photos and meeting the people is the best part of the job. But while I love reading about the research being done, I'm not particularly interested in writing about it. Best to leave that to the experts.

A writer friend gave me a call to let me know she had an assignment to write about university graduates working in the pathology field and whether I'd like to take the images. There's nothing I love more than creating compelling images of ordinary people in their work environment. It's just so much fun and always really challenging. How to make four pathology labs which are all basically the same visually (to the untrained eye!) look individual.

Next week I'm off to photograph a bio-dynamic dairy farmer on the Atherton Tablelands for a national business publication. How did that come about? A local writer I know gave me a call. He'd gotten an assignment to write the article and the editor said he needed a photographer for some professional shots. So by me knowing the writer I get to work on a great collaborative project, and I get to work for publications that would otherwise never have heard of me.

So if you love editorial photography like I do, but you have no particular desire to write, then look at hooking up with some local writers. You'll find the scope of your assignments will really broaden and you just might discover a passion for a totally new industry.

Teach what you know and pass it forward

2011-03-02T11:04:00.000+11:00

This post is inspired by a Facebook message I just received. A good friend of mine, Clive Hutchison, used to be the head of the photography department at James Cook University in Townsville.

We met when he was doing a thesis and his subject was local photographers in the far north Queensland region. He would interview us and spend a day with us out in the field to photograph us as we worked. You can see a PDF of his interview with me on the Mirror to Mirror page at the JCU website. Scroll down to page 112. There's some great interviews with other local photographers there as well so definitely take the time to look at the other PDFs.

Anyway every year Clive would fly me down to Townsville to speak to his graduating class about travel photography. I used to prepare a slideshow of my work and talk about what it was like to work in the industry.

One year I couldn't get time off to fly down there so I did my talk via video link. It was great fun and quite a few of the students sent me email questions afterwards, as they do most years. I always give freely of my time and advice for those who want to make their way in this crazy game. I think it's really important that we educate up-and-coming photographers about what it means to be a professional. Too many photographers complain about how screwed up the business is but do nothing to help those who might not know any better improve their own business practices.

One of the students at that video link, Heather Grant, just sent me a wonderful message to let me know that she had taken all my advice on board and had just spent a long period of time travelling through Canada, the US, Europe and Thailand photographing all these projects. Now she's planning on heading back to Canada at the end of the year and spending her weekends seeking work in New York. She still references the big, long email I sent her when she makes career path decisions and just wrote to thank me for being so sharing with her.

From my perspective it was nothing. Happy to help. But to receive such a lovely letter and words of thanks was truly humbling. And to know that I've just helped one person follow their dreams is a truly amazing feeling.

So I would encourage you to share your knowledge with those who would seek it. Whether it be business-related, photography-related or just life-related. Pass it forward. Remember what it was like when you were learning and pass your knowledge on. The rewards will come back to you tenfold.

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2011-02-25T10:25:00.000+11:00

One of the things I love about my job is the amazing people I get to meet. I've always been fascinated by the other professions that people choose to follow in life.

One of my longest and favourite clients is James Cook University. They always seem to come up with these amazing lecturers and researchers to photograph and send me out there to do my thing.

A morning out on the ocean with jellyfish researcher Matt Gordon was one of those assignments. The sun was out, the ocean was glassy calm and Palm Cove was looking like paradise on earth. Only we were just off the beach scouring the pristine waters for deadly box jellyfish. A total contrast if ever there was one.

Jellyfish are a fact of life in the tropics during our wet season. You definitely don't ever want to be stung by one, but these guys catch them on a regular basis so they can study them to find out more about them, and possible ways to cure people once stung.

So my job was to follow Matt and photograph him while he worked. My aim was to show the serious nature of the work, highlight the scientific equipment they used and provide images for the marketing department to promote the great work they're doing.

But I also wanted to show the environment. I'm big on environmental portraiture. I love to show the surroundings that shape a person's work and life. So when we were cruising up the beautiful coastline it was a no-brainer to contrast a serious looking Matt, looking for box jellyfish, with the beautiful tropical scenery in front of us.

Sunrise over Four Mile Beach, Port Douglas

2011-02-24T15:09:00.000+11:00

One thing about photographing sunrise here in far north Queensland is that it's usually cloudy. Actually to be more precise, there's usually a big bank of clouds right in front of the sun.

The rest of the sky can be totally clear and there'll be a great big cloud right in front blocking the sun coming through. Or maybe that's only on the days when I get up early!

Either which way it completely changes the way you want to photograph at this time of the day. When the sun is nice and clear and shining beautiful light on the beach where I'm standing (and it's usually a beach - what can I say!) then I often reach for the wide-angle lens.

But when it's cloudy like this then usually the area where I'm standing is just really ordinary. There's no golden light, no nice long shadows. Just plain ol' ugly, boring light.

And that's when I reach for the telephoto lens - the longer the better. Because often all the action is happening way out on the horizon. Even if the sun is hidden behind the clouds you often find it sending shafts of light down over the water. Lots of beautiful light in the sky, just none close to where I'm standing. And because of the huge range of contrast between the sky and the ocean, it often turns a really dark shade - almost black - allowing you to create some really graphic compositions.

So if you're up this way on holiday and disappointed because it's a cloudy sunrise - consider it par for the course and reach for the telephoto lens.

Using your photography skills for good

2011-02-23T12:29:00.000+11:00

If you're searching for things to photograph, just not inspired by anything why don't you think about helping somebody out who could really use it?

I have a general rule about donating my photography. I only do it for groups whose cause I passionately believe in, and everybody else working on the project has to be doing it for free as well.

A lot of charities have budgets and can afford to pay for quality photography. Indeed if they don't pay for the best they don't get fantastic images which help them bring in much-needed donations. But there are small, local charities run by volunteers who need all the help they can get. And seeing as I'm not a particular expert on tropical frog diseases I figured a great way to help out would be to donate some time to go in and photograph sick frogs.

This shot is one of the only ones I have that doesn't show yucky diseases (well visually yucky anyway). This images shows a normal, healthy frog on the right versus the small, yellow frog on the left which has an unknown infliction which causes it to go this colour and impeded its growth.

It was taken at the office of the Frog Decline Reversal Project which very conveniently happens to be just down the road from my house. I'd read about them over the years and knew they did great work and so I gave them a call to see how I could help. Turns out they don't really need pretty pictures of frogs for advertising but they do need someone with a knowledge of off-camera flash techniques to highlight symptoms of the diseases they've been discovering.

So now I go in every few weeks and photograph new cases for them, which all contributes to them being able to share their knowledge with scientists all around the world and help cure the frogs. Pretty pictures? Not by a long shot. Make me feel good to be able to help someone? Without a doubt.

So if you're feeling a bit lost with your photography and not really sure what to point your camera at then why not consider helping somebody who could really use it. You'll hone your skills and generate some good karma all at the same time.

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2011-02-18T10:53:00.000+11:00

An hour or so south of Cairns takes you to the Palmerston Highway, just before Innisfail. Turn right here and as you wind your way up over the mountains you enter a world not very far in distance but a universe away in terms of scenery.

Tropical rainforests give way to bucolic dairy country and gently rolling hills. And the waterfall circuit.

A 10km dirt track leads you around three picturesque waterfalls - the most famous of them being Millaa Millaa. But for photographers I think the beautiful Ellinjaa Falls is a better option.

A short path down the hill from the car park leads you to a small stream. The water is clear and filled with tiny rocks and boulders which all make great leading lines for wide angle shots. The falls themselves are surrounded by the lush green of rainforest plants and, especially during the wet season, the waters flows in a majestic pattern down a pitch black rock face.

All wonderful subjects for landscape photographers and not as busy as Millaa Millaa. You could easily spend hours here and not run out of wonderful things to point your lenses at.

Cairns Photographers- show the world we're still here!

2011-02-17T11:46:00.000+11:00

Last week I spoke about whether or not you should go out and photograph the aftermath of a natural disaster. And I put forward the idea that if you're just doing it for yourself then maybe it's better to do something more constructive for the victims - like helping clean up or something.

I also talked about how if you have a blog or another way of publishing your images then taking pictures in order to show the rest of the world what is happening could definitely be seen as a good thing.

But photographing those kind of traumatic situations is certainly not for everybody and it takes a certain kind of tact and compassion to stick a camera in the face of people who have just lost their every possession - no matter how noble the cause. So there's another way that photographers can help.

Show the good stuff. The media tends to feed on misery. The day before Cyclone Yasi hit us one of the TV stations was playing scenes of destruction from cyclones around the world ad nauseum, all with a soundtrack of horror music. There was expert after expert saying how nothing would survive and we were all headed for Armageddon.

Well hello? We're still here. There were obviously some hard hit areas and many people have had great losses, but by some of the media reports anybody would think that everything along the far north coast of Queensland had been wiped off the map. I even heard one report that CNN was saying the entire state had been evacuated! Sheesh.

So as a photographer you can do something really positive by taking lots of beautiful pictures of the area. Sure there are leaves missing from the forest in parts, trees down in others. But for an area still so reliant on tourism we need people to visit. And to do that we need to show that things are getting back to normal. People are getting on with their lives and we need the income that tourism brings in.

So I would encourage you all to get out there and share your photographs of the beauty. Show the world that we're not closed for business. Use the power of social media to negate the misery being shown by the major news outlets. Sure it might not sell papers but it will help keep our local communities alive.

Hit the Re-Tweet button at the top of the post and let's get the word out there that Cairns and far north Queensland are doing OK. Let's not just leave it to our tourism bodies to try and tell the world what a great place this is to visit.

Should you photograph tragedy?

2011-02-11T11:31:00.000+11:00

News all around the world has reported on the giant cyclone that hit us recently - Yasi. The biggest cyclone ever to hit Australia literally wiped many small towns just to the south of here off the map. Hundreds of people lost their homes and it will take them years to recover.

I'm not a news photographer. I have no desire to photograph people's misery. While I understand there is a need for images of this story - to inspire people to donate to those who have lost everything, to help tell the story of the victims, to prompt governments to help prepare for when this might happen again - I don't feel it is my story to tell.

In situations like this I often hear amateur photographers say they want to go and photograph the destruction. And I ask myself why. What possible good could it do? If you plan to use the images in slideshows or prints used to raise money for the victims that's fantastic. If you have contacts who can publish those images for you, or indeed if you plan to publish them yourself on a blog to show what is happening then I think that's a noble idea. But if you just want to photograph it because it's there I would urge you to reconsider.

I can imagine how I would feel in a similar situation. And if it weren't for the cyclone swerving south at the last minute I could very well have been. I would be happy to be photographed by a news photographer wanting to get the story out there but less impressed by rubber neckers driving past just to snap my misery.

I had a similar situation years ago in Africa. I was in Zaire at the time the war started in Rwanda. We turned down a wrong road and ended up driving past the UN Refugee camp. Tourists were leaning out their windows and photographing the displaced people and the terrible conditions from the comfort of their vehicles. Why? What good did those images ever do anybody? Did they take the time to get to know the stories of any of the victims? See them as anything more than fodder for their cameras?

When things like this hit us here - which they tend to every year or so!- I like to photograph my family's reaction to the aftermath. The kids playing in the flood waters in the back yard. Their reaction to the leaves spread out all over the road. The destruction the cyclones leave on the rainforest. Ways in which the natural disaster affects our lives but hasn't left sadness and desperation in its wake. I prefer to leave the hard stories to the photojournalists amongst us.

Remember just because we own cameras doesn't give us the moral right to be able to photograph whatever we feel like. So please leave the camera at home when passing victims of natural disasters unless you plan to put your images to constructive use. Otherwise your time would be a lot better spent helping people clean up their devastated homes.

Does your photography make your heart skip a beat?

2011-01-09T16:15:00.000+11:00

Often in the chase for technical perfection - am I using the right f-stop, shutter speed, lens? - we forget about the emotion. Photography is meant to be an expression of creative art but often we forget about the passion and concentrate on the technicalities.

But when we do that we lose that feeling of passion. Our heart no longer skips a beat when it's supposed to. We may have created an image that is technically adequate - and now by looking at our metadata we can see what all our settings were at the time we pushed the shutter button - but our hearts won't be singing

Maybe we all need to think a little less about the settings and a bit more about our own feelings. For me there are a number of ways that photography makes my heart skip a beat. The most obvious one is when you capture an image that simply takes your breath away. The one that you look at and don't even stop to consider what f-stop it was shot at, but what an awesome moment you experienced. How your image managed to capture exactly what it was that impressed you about the sight in front of you. That feeling usually comes when I manage to capture an image of something that happened unexpectedly, or beyond my control. Amazing light, an animal doing something incredible or maybe just a wonderful smile on the face of a portrait subject. In other words it wasn't something I created but reacted to and managed to photograph.

Another time might be when I'm trying to learn a new technique, or experimenting with a new look. I don't quite know what I'm doing and all the reading of technical books in the world isn't going to help me achieve what I see in my mind's eye. Only by getting the camera out and experimenting and experimenting and experimenting some more will get me where I want to go. In those situations my heart beats faster before, during and after. Before is when I'm imagining the types of pictures I want to create. During is when I'm out in the field actually trying to create what I imagined. And after is when I get the pictures on to my computer screen and find I either did, or often didn't, achieve what I was after. In this case my heart beating faster is caused by getting out of my comfort zone and just revelling in the fun of photography. The joy of trying something new and the feeling of anticipation to see whether I can do it or not. Whether I succeed or fail is irrelevant.

And the third way photography causes my pulse to race is when I show it to other people. In this case it's not so much a result of excitement but more fear! Well some excitement maybe. I have some work that resonates with me and I feel excited to share it with other people, but also fearful that they might not feel the same way about it as I do. At the end of the day I know that the opinions of others won't affect my desire to photograph, or my need to express myself in images, but it still is nerve-wracking to share your work with other people.

How about you? Does photography make your pulse race? And if it does do the same things cause that feeling as me? Or do you have other situations that make your heart beat faster? More importantly, if your photography doesn't excite you then how can you expect it to excite anybody else? The only people who get excited about an f2.8 zoom lens are other photographers. Don't get caught up in letting the technical details tell you whether an image is great or not. Let your heart tell you. If it stops beating for an instant than you've done your job.

February Photography Intensive

2010-12-16T08:32:00.000+11:00

Well the dates are set, the price is fixed and things are all ready to go for a February of intensive photography immersion here in Cairns.

Over the period of a month we’ll have a series of four hour lectures, running two days a week at Hambledon House in Edmonton. The days are:

31st Jan/1st Feb

7/8 Feb

14/15 Feb

21/22 Feb

and the lectures will run from 10-2. The cost of the full month’s tutorials will be $550 (incl GST).

Starting with topics such as lenses, light, flash, photographing strangers and developing it from there we will definitely cover a lot of ground. And this is where the inspiration for the intensive came from. I received a lot of feedback over the years from people that they enjoyed my weekend workshops but wanted something that lasted longer and helped them keep up the momentum and enthusiasm. This is it.

So if you think you’d like to improve your photography and really delve into your creative possibilities and would like to find out more please contact me at info at dymond dot com dot au .

cheers

Paul

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2010-12-03T12:50:00.001+11:00

It's looking like being a big, big wet season this year in far north Queensland. The forecasters are predicting up to 6 cyclones to cross the coast.

That will mean lots of rain and lots of flooding. Hopefully it won't affect too many houses, but at the same time hopefully it will produce some wonderful photo opportunities.

This photo was taken during one such flooding. I went out into the pouring rain and stood on top of an overpass, which looked down onto a small road which was pretty much underwater.

I was waiting and watching as cars tried to make their way through the floodwaters when all of a sudden a couple of kids on bikes rode out from underneath the bridge I was standing on.

I sent a little prayer up to the god of photography for them to go somewhere near the bike track sign and sure enough she must have heard me. Things like this you can't really plan for - you just have to be out and about with your camera. Even when the weather is foul and everybody else is cowering indoors. Especially during those times.

In a world saturated with images making yours stand out will often come down to putting yourself in front of photographic subjects that other people ignore. Showing the world in a way most people wouldn't think of. Getting out in the pouring rain when every fibre in your body says to stay indoors and watch the Plasma TV.

Sorry about the long space between posts. I have been busy re-evaluating my photography. After being a full-time Dad to my two little boys for the last three years, as of January 24th next year my youngest will start school. That means I'll have from 9 till 3 five days a week to photograph again. I won't be doing much travel stuff that's for sure (unless someone can lend me a teleporter to get me to Tibet and back in a couple of hours!) so I've been searching my soul to try and come up with some subjects that I'd be interested in photographing. Stay tuned for more about that journey!

Calling all travel writers! Wanna collaborate?

2010-10-02T14:35:00.000+10:00

For more than a decade I worked as both a travel photographer and writer. And thoroughly enjoyed it. But during that time I also worked on many projects where I just photographed, often working in collaboration with a writer.

And I always really enjoyed those assignments because they took me out of my comfort zone and let me work with interesting people, and often in areas that I wouldn't think of writing about myself.

The photograph here is one example. I worked with a young writer in Sweden of all places. She had been out here to Cairns and worked on a banana farm in a little town called Tully, a couple of hours south. Anyway she'd written an article about the experience and needed some images to go with her piece. So I drove down to Tully and spent a day photographing the workers and the farm in her article.

Collaborations like this work really well in situations where the writer really doesn't enjoy photographing, or doesn't feel they have the skill to do the job justice. Or in cases where the weather doesn't co-operate and they need better pictures. Sure there's plenty of free offerings from tourism boards and other sources, but often they are generic pictures that don't really fit with the story in a neat package.

So here is my call out to all my readers there in cyberspace. Have you ever been, or know anybody who's ever been to far north Queensland - that's ranging from Townsville in the South up to Cape York in the north? Do you know somebody who wants to write an article on the experience - doesn't have to be travel related mind you, I do all sorts of editorial work - but needs photos to go along with it? Would you be interested in collaborating?

I bring to the table a deep collection of stock images from this part of the world and an ability to do assignments locally, and hopefully what you bring to the table is a knowledge of the markets where you live and an idea of where you could publish your piece. I've never tried something like this before, and honestly have no idea if it will work. But I'd like to give it a try. We live in a global community and I'd like to tap into that a bit more and thought this is one way I could do it.

So put your thinking caps on and if you come up with anybody please let them know. Or if you yourself are interested please let me know. Far North Queensland is my main specialty, with my sub-specialty being Hokkaido, Japan. If you want to write a story on either or those places and are looking for images not found anywhere else please let me know. You can comment here on the blog or send me an email at info at dymond dot com dot au.

I look forward to seeing how this little experiment goes! Here's to producing some wonderful collaborative art. Please feel free to pass this on to all your social networks via the Retweet button above or any other way you think might help.

How can you envision photographic respect?

2010-09-30T10:29:00.001+10:00

In my last post I talked about showing your photographic subjects respect. And I wrote a bit about tuning in to your own feelings about a photographic subject to help you determine how to show not only your subject respect, but also your own feelings. I thought I should add a little postcript because a lot of talk about photographic vision concentrates on finding your own personal inner way of seeing. By necessity the way you envision a photograph will come from within you and help set you apart from other photographers. We're all individuals and obviously see the world in different ways.

But a lot of those theories don't really point to what I was alluding to - which is that the subject of your photographs deserve just as much respect as your inner vision. After all you could find yourself in some tropical paradise and take a whole bunch of abstract pictures of grains of sand, overexposed pictures of cocktail glasses and landscapes with tilted horizons (because you couldn't think of any other way to make the picture interesting!). And all those would be valid interpretations of how you felt. But would they be showing respect to your subject?

I would err on the side of saying no. That they would appeal as fine art to people who shared your sensibilities, but that true respect for your photographic subject involves thinking about how other people interpret the pictures as well. And by other people I don't necessarily mean photographers.

I live a cloistered life. The vast majority of my friends are photographers. All of them are passionate, some of them pros, some of them amateurs. They all love their photography. And they love their tech-speak and gadgets. But only a very few of them would I trust to a conversation about the merits of a picture in terms of respecting the subject. They can all point to the fact that I should have had more depth of field in this picture, or avoided the lamp post coming out of the subject's head in that one. But sometimes they miss the mark when it comes to talking about the impact of the subject itself. For those opinions I tend to prefer people who have no interest in photography whatsoever.

Because those people wouldn't know an f-stop from a bus stop they can only focus on what's in the picture itself. And they're a great guage for telling you whether your images are hitting the mark or not. So keeping them in mind is one of the first things you can think about when you're trying to show respect to your subject. Would a non-photographer find this an interesting image? Would they be more interested in the subject of the picture or the how (or why) I took it?

Another way of getting that inspiration is to think less about yourself and more about the legacy your pictures will leave. With travel photography one of the first inspirations is 'I will never be in this place again so I'd better take a lovely shot'. That might be all the motivation you need to get up before dawn to capture a landscape in beautiful light. But if it isn't take the focus away from you for a minute.

Imagine that the landscape you want to photograph is due to be strip-mined. Turned into a quarry for the minerals beneath it. And you will be the last photographer ever to capture it. Indeed, depending on the ability of your pictures to move people you might even be able to save it from the mining. Now would that be inspiration enough for you to do more than show up at midday and grab a quick snap? You see how taking the emphasis away from you and putting it on the subject helps provide you with inspiration?

Imagine a beautiful building is about to be demolished. You're there in the afternoon and it's facing east. If you knew that in a couple of days it would be rubble would you be more inclined to come back in the morning when the first rays of sunrise hit it?

With travel portrait photography one of my greatest sources of inspiration is imagining the look on the subject's face when I show them the picture. Do you think they'll be happy with a high-contrast snapshot taken out in the midday sun showing all their wrinkles? Do you think they'd be thrilled if you take the time to move them into softer light and really create a beautiful portrait?

Imagine how happy they'll be when they see the LCD. Imagine how thrilled they'll be if you send them a print. Imagine that it might be the only photograph of themselves that they will ever own. That their children will ever have to remember them by when they're gone. Their one legacy to the world after they depart. In many parts of the world this is by no means a stretch of the imagination.

Don't you think that in all of the above cases you owe it to your subjects to be the best photographer you can be? Without a doubt photographic vision is hugely important. It's the reason we spend so much time concentrating on it and refining it in an effort to remain true to ourselves and (if professional) differentiate ourselves from our colleagues. But just as important in what we do as travel and nature photographers is to consider the importance of paying respect to our subjects. For without them we're just overexposed pictures of blurry grains of sand on a beach. We might appeal to the artsy set and satisfying our inner vision but are we paying enough attention to what our subjects would want?

How can you show your subject respect?

2010-09-26T16:17:00.001+10:00

A lot of travel photography is shot in an editorial, documentary style. We travel to places both near and far and attempt to capture with our cameras what it is we experienced. But just showing what we saw isn't enough to move our viewers. We need show what it is we felt, or what we thought about our experiences. And we owe it to our subjects to do it truthfully.

When I say truthfully however, I don't mean truthfully according to other people's opinions. I mean how you as the photographer truthfully felt. Which is always going to be subjective. No matter what you think of how an individual's opinions shouldn't shape a documentary image, the truth of the matter is that in travel photography our opinions will always shape our images.

Firstly we decide where to travel to. That's a subjective decision based on where we think looks interesting. Travel photography by its very nature tends to be of places that the photographer has travelled to because they wanted to. So our subjectivity leads to our first showing of our respect for our subject - we're interested enough in it to shell out dollars to visit. The second way we show respect is by finding out as much about our subject in advance so that we can capture it in the best possible light.

Let's say you'd always wanted to visit the Taj Mahal - a lifelong dream. You get there and discover that it is just as beautiful as you'd ever imagined. To truly respect not only the Taj but your own feelings about it you're not going to photograph it in the middle of the day with its harsh light, millions of tourists and a total lack of emotion. That would be showing a lack of respect for not only your subject but your feelings about it. So you'd come at sunrise or sunset when there are hardly any people around and the light is beautiful. You'd look for different angles to show the beauty that captivated you. You would treat it with as much photographic reverence as the architect who built it. To do anything less would be disrespectful.

But let's say you had the opposite reaction. You were annoyed at all the millions of other tourists, the fact you had to leave your tripod outside. You were disappointed by the greying marble caused by the smog of India's notorious traffic. Basically it wasn't anything like you expected. Whether these opinions could be called petty or not they are yours. Own them. Be true to yourself. In this case I would argue that it would be more respectful to show all the things about the Taj Mahal that annoyed you. Just because you started off with the intention of showing the beautiful doesn't mean you have to let it cloud your photographic judgement. If you chose to ignore what you were feeling you might still come away with 'beautiful' pictures but they wouldn't be yours - they would be facsimiles of other people's cliched expectations.

Who knows, by the time you've photographically worked your annoyances out of your system you might be able to finally appreciate the beauty and think about coming back at sunrise. Or you might not. Either which way both photographic interpretations would be correct because they're both being true to yourself.

The same goes for people as well. I often think that photographers are nervous about approaching strangers to photograph because they're not treating it as a way of showing respect. Sure you might not know anything about the individual you'd like to photograph, but if you've shown respect then you'll know something about their culture. You'll have learnt a couple of greetings in the local language. You'll be able to show that you're interested in them as something more than just a pretty picture, and that you respect them.

Not only that but you'll see the portrait as a gift from them to you (by posing for you) and as a gift from you to them (by capturing the best possible portrait of them). So you won't photograph them in harsh light but will move them into the shade to avoid creating harsh shadows and emphasising wrinkles. You'll attempt to make some sort of human connection so that you can capture an image that captures their spirit. You won't snap and run but will take them time to have some sort of limited interaction - no matter how short or limited. The more you get to know them the more respectful and insightful your portrait will be and the more respectful the interaction will be.

In other words, as a travel photographer to differentiate yourself from the millions of tourist photographers you need to show respect. For not only your subjects, but for yourself and your individual feelings about what it is you've chosen to photograph from the millions of subjects around the globe. The more opinionated you are the more those opinions will shine through in your images and the more they will resonate with others. Don't be afraid to be yourself.

Changing direction in uncertain times

2010-09-05T21:10:00.001+10:00

Hi there loyal readers, for those of you who stuck around while I was away thank you. It really does mean a lot to me to know that I can produce something that is helpful to people, and that you appreciate. There's a couple of reasons for my absence.

One is that I've just been plain flat out busy. Like full-on crazy get up at half past five in the morning and get to bed at half past nine at night kind of busy. I wish I could tell you that I've been traipsing around the world on some glamorous assignments for travel magazines but, as we all know, not too many of those jobs are floating around these days!

What I have been doing is looking after my kids, writing a lot and reading a lot. I've mentioned it a few times on the blog before but I've been working through The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. I first heard of this book from my personal goddess Selina Maitreya. It's a 12 week course on re-discovering your creativity. Not that I think my creativity had ever disappeared but it was probably a bit jaded, and I was intrigued.

Anyway a big part of the course is something Ms Cameron calls the Morning Pages. It basically means that when you get up in the morning you write three pages of stream-of-consciousness thought. Whatever pops into your head you write it down. That means everything - warts and all. It's the one place to totally get to be yourself. No place for political correctness or worrying about hurting people's feelings. Just write down whatever you think.

It's supposed to help you connect with your inner artist and inspire creative thoughts to pop into your head. And I found it incredibly helpful. I admit to being skeptical at the start but, now that I've finished the course, I'm a total convert and get up at half past five to write every morning. I've come up with thoughts and ideas that really have me excited. I've re-discovered my passion for photography, and many other artistic pursuits that I enjoyed when I was younger but sort of fell by the wayside over the years.

Again, I don't think I ever lost my love for holding a camera and capturing images of the world. But. to be totally honest, the business side of things was wearing me down. I live in a town where a lot of the other photographers don't really understand copyright or usage (or maybe they do but just prefer to ignore it for simplicity's sake). As a result mention 'usage' to a local client and they tend to look at you very suspiciously as if you've just invented a new way to rip them off royally.

Add to that the increasing number of magazines that either don't want to pay for photos, or if they do the rates are so low and they want to take your first born kid and house as well (just kidding but it's not far off) and I was feeling pretty down about the commerce side of things. So you know what I did? I went and did something for somebody for free!

Now any of my colleagues will tell you that I'm the original copyright hard case. I defend my images to the death and demand respect for my work and my copyright. But going through the Artist's Way and writing my morning pages made me realize a few things. One of those was that I'm a generous person by nature. I love to think of really worthwhile gifts for people and I love to see the expression on their faces. I remember when I was in Uni there was a wondeful friend of mine who loved elephants. So I sponsored an orphaned elephant baby in Kenya for her as a birthday present. Needless to say she was pretty stoked.

Anyway I digress. I haven't suddenly decided that there's no money to be made in photography so I'm going to go out and undercut the entire market by shooting everything for free. But I did decide that there were some local groups who are entirely staffed by volunteers, rely 100% on donations to continue their great work and just really need a break. And I figured I didn't have lots of money lying around to donate so maybe I could donate some of my expertise.

So I rang up the people at the Frog Decline Reversal Project. I'd read about them in the local paper over the years and I knew that this was the kind of group that did really great work researching various diseases in frogs and I wanted to help. You know what. They don't really need any photography! Well the kind they do need I wasn't really qualified for - they wanted close-up pictures of very specific species of frogs. But they did need their website images watermarked because they've been getting pics stolen left right and centre.

So this last week I've spent hours individually watermarking, adding copyright metadata and attaching colour profiles to pictures of diseased frogs. Not the most glamorous of work but something that has made me feel more proud of what I'm doing than anything else I've done in quite a while.

And just doing this has gotten me thinking about lots of other possibilities for both donated and paid work. You see I don't want to go down with the sinking ship if the travel photography industry continues to dive. It may come back up again, maybe it won't. Either which way I don't want to be so attached to one photographic subject that prohibits me from pursuing other rewarding projects.

So I'm getting back to basics. Trying to re-discover what I fell in love with before I started taking money to do this. And I'm loving it. I've discovered that I want to be a story teller again. To photograph real people and real places and show people the beauty that exists all around us. And some of that will be travel related and some won't. And I'm cool with that. For somebody who's spent the last 13 years or so saying, "Hi I'm Paul Dymond, I'm a travel photographer" that's a big step. But it's an exciting one.

So, as this blog is my gift to all of you (plus it's cheaper than a shrink!) I want to thank you for sticking with me and I hope to continue to regale you with anecdotes, tips and general claptrap of this individual photographer.

The death of professional travel photography?

2010-08-12T14:07:00.000+10:00

There's been a bit of flutter lately on the blogosphere about the death of travel photography. First it was mentioned on Andrea Pistolesi's blog - a great post entitled A Requiem for Travel Photography. Then it was picked up by my colleague Bob Krist on his post entitled Is Travel Photography Dead?

Well I don't know if it's dead, and I'm sure the situation varies from country to country, but is is definitely changing and not what it used to be. There's been a lot of talk about the demise of magazines and how they're losing ground to the internet. The younger generation wants everything on their iPad.

I don't know about you but I still prefer to see beautiful photos blown up as double page spreads in glossy pages. But the emphasis has to be on the 'beautiful' part. In this country I see too much mediocre stuff being printed simply because it's available. Rather than sending a talented photographer out on assignment to capture unique, one-off images, the bean counters at newspapers and magazines demand that their editors source free pictures from the tourism bureaus.

Or they publish the images that travel writers submit, not really caring if those are the best possible pictures they can publish, but rather grabbing what is the most convenient. As somebody who has written their fair share of word/photo packages I'm here to tell you that the travel writer's schedule isn't always conducive to great travel photography. You get what you can and submit it. And it gets published. And I don't know about you but I (the travel magazine reading I, not the travel photographer I) feel ripped off.

Why should I spend good money on a publication that doesn't consider me valuable enough to provide me with the best possible content. If I can see better quality images online, pictures that take my breath away, why would I pay good money to look at the same photograph I've seen in a hundred other magazines with articles on the same area?

Personally I think that if the same bean counters are in charge of everything at the (sure to be coming soon) online versions of these magazines and newspapers then we're going to be in for the same problem. How to get people to pay to view images that don't blow them away. How do you compete with the millions of fantastic pictures found on the net if you grab the cheapest, most convenient, least differentiating picture you can? The answer, I think, is you can't. At least not photographically speaking.

So what is the answer? How do we, the consumers, get to see great travel photography whilst supporting the work of great travel photographers? And how do we travel photographers get to have our work published and make a living?

To tell you the truth I don't think anybody has it figured out yet. But I can tell you this, as long as the major publishers continue to run their current course the answer isn't going to lie with them.

For all you budding travel photographers I can give this bit of advice. Unless you want to write articles to accompany your photos the answer is not going to be to travel to as many places as possible and have a small number of images of each place. That's a rapidly dwindling market. As more and more people travel to the far reaches of the globe and capture it on their prosumer digital cameras your chances of selling an odd picture here and there of somewhere you visited for a brief stopover is rapidly dwindling.

No the answer, until somebody comes up with a way of convincing the traditional publishers to go for quality rather than convenience, is to specialise. Know a place, subject, people so intimately and deeply that you will be the only person to go to for photographs in that area.

Use your unique photographic skills and ways of seeing the world to transition across into other areas. Environmental photography. Conservation photography. Cultural photography. Get back to your storyteller vision and jettison the desire to create stand-alone beautiful images. Create a body of pictures that will tell the story of your particular place of expertise.

Find commercial travel clients who love the way you see the world. Hold exhibitions. Think outside the box. Just don't think that you're going to make a living shooting for travel magazines any time soon. Advertising may come back, readership might go up, the web might be the saviour for the publishing companies but if the bean counters still tell their editors to 'get it cheap, take all rights, it's good enough' then we're all doomed to mediocrity.

Just as a little aside before I wrap this rant er...post up. Before everybody emails me and lets me know that there are some great travel publications out there who support excellent travel photographers - I know. And I also know that there are fantastic travel and photo editors who do their damndest to get great photography published and for them I am truly grateful. And that it's not in any way the fault of the frontline editorial staff doing their best to put out a magazine within budget constraints.

I'm speaking in generalisations about an entire industry here. Do yourself a favour, grab your favourite travel magazine or in-flight magazine (or general magazine or newspaper which features travel) and look at the proportion of really fantastic photographs provided by an individual photographer (or stock library) compared to the number of obviously free, cheap or mediocre/convenient pictures. And honestly evaluate whether you think that magazine has done its best to provide you, the reader, with the best possible pictures you've paid for. And then imagine whether that will change when the magazine goes online and whether you'd want to pay for that or not. Yes there are some shining examples of great publications and I wish them all the success in the world because they're the ones holding the beacons out for all of us. But there are also a lot who don't look to be trying to raise the bar very much and I don't like their future behind the coming paywalls.

Photographing stage shows

2010-08-09T20:09:00.001+10:00

One of my favourite things to photograph on my trips are stage shows. Yes they can sometimes be a bit corny and obviously put on for the tourists, but they're usually colourful and vibrant and very welcoming of photographers.

If the stage show is happening at night then it's most likely going to be under tungsten lighting - which shows up as quite orange on daylight white balance. If you put your camera on to its automatic white balance or even the Tungsten setting you will get a more neutral, blueish colour.

In situations like these, even if you're regularly a Jpeg shooter, I recommend that you shoot Raw. The reason for this is that, like many things in this art, white balance is a subjective decision. The colours that you capture are supposed to represent how you felt, not necessarily a strict recording of exactly how it was.

Tungsten lighting is the perfect example of this. Here you can see the look I got with a daylight setting (only in this case it was daylight balanced film). It has quite an orange glow to it but you know what? I like it. I think it gives a sense of welcome and friendliness. It adds a nice warm glow to the faces of the children and looks inviting. A 'correct' white balance with tungsten can often look cold and clinical. Anything but inviting. But sometimes the daylight setting can be just too orange. So if you shoot Raw you can look at the images later and decide on a colour temperature setting that you find visually appealing.

If you're like me you'll probably find that you use different white balance settings for different images depending on the look you want. For close-up portraits where skin colour is more of an issue you might prefer a slightly more natural look, whereas for wide-angle shots of the whole stage you might prefer that warmer, orangey glow. At least when you shoot Raw you can pick and choose what tickles your fancy.

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2010-08-06T12:06:00.000+10:00

Far North Queensland Green - Images by Paul Dymond

Need a bit of green in your life? Well we've got in in spades. If you had to pick a colour to describe far north Queensland then it would have to be green. From the golf courses of Port Douglas to the wetlands of Mareeba. From the parks of Townsville to the thick, tropical rainforests of the Daintree. Throw in some Cooktown mangroves, Port Douglas pizza parlours and Yungaburra markets and you have a world of green. If your day is feeling a bit drab and concrete-like I hope this cheers you up.

Why I love stock photography

2010-08-04T21:53:00.000+10:00

As photographers we tend to be like sharks. We have to constantly keep moving, keep producing new images. Constantly looking to better our previous efforts. And that's a good thing. Like sharks, if we don't keep moving we tend to die - if only creatively and not physically.

But there's a downside to this constant moving forward. We forget to look back. If you have children you'll know how quickly they grow. You might not notice it every day but an easy way to have it hit you over the head is to flick back through the pictures you've taken of them over the years. Start the year they were born and move forward.

I'm sure I'm not the only parent who has suddenly realised it's way past their bed time as they spend hours flicking (well scrolling these days!) through nostalgic images that bring a smile to the face and a tear to the eye.

But how many of us do this with our 'real' photographs. The ones we make to feed our creative souls. This thought process was partly inspired by the boys over at PhotoNetCast
In their latest podcast #49 their guest is Jim Pickerell, he of the Negotiating Stock Photo Prices book fame. And they were talking about Steve McCurry shooting the last ever produced roll of Kodachrome film. And Mr Pickerell mentioned that a lot of film images weren't commercially valuable in this day and age because they just don't look as sharp or as clear as digital images.

And he may be right. But for me my stock photography archive has so much more value to me than just commercial opportunities. And I hope it's the same for you. Maybe if I was shooting products in a studio the feeling would be different but I'm a travel photographer. And every image, no matter whether it was shot on Kodachrome or Sandisk, no matter whether it was taken yesterday or 24 years ago has incredible value. They are all reminders of amazing journeys, incredible experiences and the events that have shaped my life and my sensibilities.

But we forget that value to us in our constant need to move forward to the next assignment. So take a break from shooting new stuff. Go back and look through your archives. Revel in the joy those pictures bring you. Relive the amazing moments and the feelings that were running through your head and heart when you clicked the shutter. Go travelling vicariously through your pictures all over again.

The photo at the top of the post was taken on the slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro. It was shot on Kodachrome film. It's probably not as sharp as it could be given that Kodachrome 64 is pretty slow and it was pretty dark. But I look at this picture 24 years later and I can vividly recall the rain, the mud, the smell of the wet forest and the strain of the porters' muscles as they carried our food up the mountain. And that's the real value of this picture. Oh, and it's been published quite a few times over the years but that's almost irrelevant.

The greatest new travel magazine on the web!

2010-08-01T21:42:00.000+10:00

Every so often life throws you amazing opportunities and you have to grab them with both hands and hang on. One of these serendipitous snippets happened to me a few months ago when my good friend Ewen Bell
asked me if I was interested in being the photo editor for a new website he was putting together.

To tell you the truth the first time he asked I said no. What with running a business, writing a blog, looking after two young kids and trying to make sure I see my wife more than once a week I just didn't think I would have the time. And then he asked me again. And I sat down and had a think about it and put my trust in my instincts.

I've always had a tremendous amount of respect for not only Ewen's photographic and writing capabilities but his integrity and drive. The man has his heart in the right place and is always coming up with great ideas. And he was putting the site together with veteran travel writer Tom Neal Tacker, Vice-President of the Australian Society of Travel Writers and all-round nice guy. And I was getting more interested.

And then he told me the name - Naked Hungry Traveller. And I was hooked. And so I now find myself the photo editor of a groovy new travel website which launched today. We plan to tell it like it is. We love travel as much as you do, and hate blatant travel ads as much as you do. And that's why we felt the time was right to put our souls on the line and start this new venture.

So to help us mere minnows in the travel publishing world make a go of it I would like to ask a favour of you dear readers. I would like you to hop over to the Naked Hungry Traveller and read some great articles. And then I would really, really appreciate it if you could leave a comment on the article you like the most. Hell if you like 10 articles leave 10 comments! Or you can Like it on your Facebook account or Retweet it. Whatever you like, but if you could help us get the word out there we might have a fighting chance of making a go of what promises to be a great website for lovers of travel writing and photography.

Oh and the photography is a bit light right now but don't worry we've got lots of plans to integrate more and more images. Just to give those damn writers a run for their money. :) So, in case you missed it before the site is called the Naked Hungry Traveller so tell all your friends - if they love travel then this is the place to be. Plus the photo editor is a pretty cool dude and if you ask me nicely I can introduce you. :)

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2010-07-22T21:19:00.001+10:00

Here in Cairns we're right in the middle of the annual Cairns Show. Some people call it a carnival, some a fair. Whatever you call it it's a fun place filled with animals, rides, showbags and lots of sugar-filled treats.

The Friday is always a local public holiday and thousands turn out to enjoy the day. In fact it's Australia's largest regional Show and a photographer's paradise.

The hardest thing about photographing the show is having enough equipment to be able to cover all kinds of lighting conditions without weighing yourself down so much that you can't walk! This image was taken late at night using a slow shutter to give that blurred effect, followed by a short, sharp burst of flash to freeze the motion of the people on the ride. Which means that I carried a tripod around all day. No way you can get out of it I'm afraid! This image was featured in the Australian Society of Travel Writers' annual calendar a couple of years back and is one of my favourite pics from one of my favourite events.

My boys will probably be up at the crack of dawn raring to go. You see they came with me the other day to wait around while I judged the photographic competition. None of the rides or anything were set up but the show bags were being laid out and they saw the Super Mario Bros. one and that's all I've heard about every since!

I've judged the photographic competition at the Cairns Show a few times over the years and it's always a great pleasure to get together with a couple of colleagues and express our (often vocal) opinions on which images deserve a gong. This year was no different and my fellow judges Frank Harrison and John Cornwell were great fun to judge with. Frank's a nature photographer so he had strong opinions on that section, me being the travel photographer became pretty opinionated when any image was taken overseas, and John is an expert in portrait photography.

At the end of the day when it comes down to the top few places it's pretty much always subjective. It's not really the judge's job to say categorically whether one photograph is better than another, just which one appeals to them more. So just because you don't get first with one set of judges doesn't mean you won't with another set.

I noticed something about the way I viewed the photographs this year. I've always been a sucker for sharpness in photographs. For me photographers like John Shaw with his rock-solid technique and razor sharp images have always been something to aspire to. So I found it interesting this year that I tended to be attracted to those which struck an emotion with me first and foremost, and very often that was the picture that was quite soft.

I also gravitated to those taken in beautiful light, which is something that has always been appealing to me. I don't care how spectacular a beach is, if you shoot it in the middle of the day it's just not going to appeal to me. Get up before sunrise and show me some spectacular light though and I'll sit up and pay attention.

If you go along to the Cairns Show pop into the photo competition and you can see which ones we liked. It would be great to hear if you agree with us or not.

Forget about the big steps in your photography career

2010-07-18T20:46:00.000+10:00

As artists, and I hope you all consider yourself artists no matter what stage you are in your photography learning curve, we tend to the dramatic.

Yes, no matter how sensible and calm we may seem on the outside when it comes to our photography, and in particular our desire to share our work with the world, we can tend toward the melodramatic.

By that I mean that we're often thinking about the 'what if' and letting the fear of what might happen hold us back. For example we might have a wife and kids. We'd really like to work as travel photographers but what happens when a magazine calls and wants to send us away for two weeks to Outer Mongolia. What will my family think? Will I have to give them up to follow my dream? Or will I have to abandon my dream to be with my family?

Or maybe you live in a non-capital city area - even a rural town. You'd like to submit your work to a stock library but if it takes off then will you have to move to a big city to make a proper living. What if you don't want to live in a big city? What if you're happy where you are? How will you ever choose?

Even if those two examples don't ring true I'm sure you can think of some other great drama you've created in your head that stops you doing what you really want to with your photography. Guess what. It's all in your head. I know because it's often in my head as well. That's just how we artists are.

It's that fear of who knows what that's really talking to us. By imagining some diabolical moral dilemma down the track it makes it easier to put off doing something positive today to set us on the right path. Yes some time down the track you might get a call to go to Outer Mongolia, or you might not. One thing's for sure - you'll never get the call if you don't do something today to set you on that path.

The trick is to forget the grandiose plans. The real answer is in the little details. The step-by-step progression that sees your photography improve, your confidence increase and your horizons widen. I don't know anybody doing this who one day decided to become a pro and the next day all their wildest photographic fantasties came true. Instead we all got here over a long period of time, with small boosts to our careers (along with our fair share of setbacks) and confidence that got us to a position of full-time vocation.

So instead of worrying about whether you're going to have to break up your family, move to a new city or shed your current life in some way, shape or form take a deep breath. And make one small, positive step towards where you want to go. Choose some pictures for your portfolio. Order some prints. Look at some magazines to see which ones use similar work to what you shoot. Keep your eyes out for interesting subjects in your local area. Work on your off-camera flash technique. Doesn't really matter what it is as long as it's small and doable.

Then get into the habit of doing it every single day. Don't worry about the big picture, just concentrate on the little details. And before you know it you'll be on that escalator where working towards your dream becomes a part of your persona, rather than just dreaming about what might be and being afraid of it.

Oh and why this picture? This is a sculpture on top of the Asahi beer building in Asakusa, Tokyo, Japan. It's affectionately known as the Golden Turd. I bet the sculptor in his wildest dreams never imagined something he put his heart and soul into would be named after faeces. And if he did I don't think he would have started to create it in the first place. Sometimes it's good not to know what your future holds!

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2010-07-16T08:07:00.002+10:00

Aurukun Wetlands Photos - Images by Paul Dymond

Well this week's fantastic FNQ photos come from a really remote part of Australia. Up on the western side of Cape York, the Aurukun Wetlands are about as far from civilization as you can get. An amazingly pristine area of wilderness that boasts such giant, majestic rivers as the Archer and the Jardine. It's also home to the Wik people, the aboriginal custodians of this beautiful part of the country.

I had a chance to spend a few days with some of the elders who gave us a glimpse into their traditional way of living. From fishing for barrimundi to weaving baskets. From getting honey to cooking our freshly caught fish in traditional pit ovens in the sand.

But for me one of the highlights was the chance to go stingray fishing in crocodile-infested waters! Considering the night before I'd been out spotlighting for crocodiles and had seen more glowing eyes than I would care to remember I don't know what convinced me to get in but there you go. I felt pretty safe with my guide Jasper and figured if he thought it was safe then I'd believe him.

The skill and grace with which he glided through the water before launching his multi-pronged spear into the water again and again until he speared his catch. A large spotted stingray that he quickly dispatched, cut up and put in the fire to cook for lunch.

Afterwards one of the younger women said to me, "Do you know how to tell if there's crocodiles in the river?". Figuring I was about to be let into some local aboriginal secret I was all ears. "If the water is cold there aren't any crocodiles, when it's warm there's a crocodile nearby". I assumed that that meant that crocodiles don't like cold water. She broke into a big grin as she explained. "If the water is warm it means that the crocodile has peed in it!" If I am ever close enough to a crocodile in water that I can feel it pissing on my leg I'm in big trouble!

The fine line between the starving artist and the capitalist money grabber

2010-07-13T20:29:00.000+10:00

I'll be honest, one of the reasons I've been a bit quiet on the blog lately is that I haven't been really sure about what to write about. About what I can add to the plethora of blogs out there that would help you all on your quest to be better photographers.

I seemed to have covered so much over the last few years that I was feeling a bit lost. And part of the reason for being lost was that I had forgotten that I'm also writing this for myself, not just my readers.

And then it struck me what I need to write about. What is important to me - photographically speaking that is. You see I'm not the most technical of photographers (I've never even been in a studio! although I use on-location lighting all the time), I don't own the most expensive camera and I don't even really know any famous photographers (although I do like to name drop that Bob Krist and I get along pretty well!) . In short I'm just a regular ol' (well still in my 30's so not that old!) photographer. Or am I?

I've been to a few meetings and weekend retreats of a professional photographic group here in Australia over the years and every one I've ever been to I'm the only travel photographer. Bar none. No others. And every other photographer I meet always says to me "I always wanted to be a travel photographer but gave up because it was too hard/competitive/low paying and went into weddings and portraits". OK so maybe I am a bit different from other working pros. That gives me some ideas.

So here's something I know about being a professional photographer. You need to make money. Don't give me any of this honour of the starving artist stuff. Noble it may be but it won't help you support your dreams. If you want to continue to share your art with the world you need to make money. And the more money you make the better. On one condition.

If you really want to survive long term both financially and spiritually you need to continue following your passion. If your passion is just to photograph anything that moves then you're set. But if you're like me, and can only imagine photographing certain things, then you've got some pretty hard decisions to make. You can either try to follow your passion and then, if it doesn't work out just move into another area of photography (read: more lucrative area of photography) and hope that you become passionate about it. Or you can continue in your day job, night job, part-time job until you find a way to make your area of passion pay - and pay well.

One thing I've always stood on is my integrity. If I don't think I can technically handle a photographic assignment, or put all of my passion into it, no matter how well it pays I always pass it on to a colleague. I never refuse a client outright but I always send them in the direction of a qualified professional I know can do the job brilliantly. And without a doubt that has caused me to turn down some really well-paying jobs at times when the money would come in handy. I'm certainly not trying to be the starving artist here - I've got a family to help support. But I've found over the years that the jobs that have given me the biggest headaches, and the ones I still have nightmares about to this day, are the ones early in my career that I accepted because the money was astronomical but my heart wasn't in it. The photographs themselves turned out fine - I continue to see them pop up all over the place - but they were pretty soul-destroying personally.

I spoke about being Mr Mum a couple of posts back (scroll down to find it) and how that has meant I have to re-evaluate my photography career. Well you can guess where my re-evaluation is coming from. First and foremost my passion. I want to continue to tell stories about people and places that I find interesting. To photograph for companies that have ideals and aims that gel with my views on life. Do you think this is overly-idealistic? Too much dreaming not enough being sensible.

Well I think that being sensible is probably the wrong way to be for an artist. Passion is never sensible. Following your dreams is never sensible. I'll leave sensible to those people who don't enjoy what they're doing but are too scared to try anything else. If I was a 'sensible' photographer I would have learnt to use studio lights or talk to brides. I certainly would make more money. But when it comes to listening to my inner artist I'm just not the sensible type. (When I have my business hat on that's a different matter. I'm all sensible then but that's for another post.)

So here's what I bring to the blogging world. I'm a photographer who has followed their passion come hell or high water. I've managed to turn that passion into a money-making venture without having to sell myself short doing work that I don't feel I can deliver 110% on. And I do that by listening to my inner artist and paying attention to it rather than a pay cheque. We all enter the photography profession because we love the art form. But be careful not to lose that love by walking down alleyways that might be financially lucrative but will kill your passion over time. Money comes and goes, once your passion dies it may never come back.

Where do your pictures live?

2010-07-11T22:39:00.000+10:00

Back in the day when transparency film ruled the professional photography world storing pictures was a simple business. You just stuck them in a plastic, 20 slide sleeve in a drawer of a filing cabinet.

Finding said picture again took a bit more work! I used a simple lettering and numbering system. For example all my shots with people as the main subject started with the letter P. The first people person I catalogued was P001. And up it went from there. Mammal shots started with an M, bird shots with a B and reptile shots with an R. Oh and rivers were an RV just to avoid confusion! And I had a computer database to help me find specific pictures and then I'd just go to the cabinet and fish them out.

In those days we didn't have the option of loading pictures into the computer database so you had to have a text description of the slide to find it again. So my description for this picture was: A wide-angle frontlit shot of a woman (Chiharu) in a bikini sitting on a giant swing on the beach, with a family on another swing in the background. And in another column I had details of the location, whether it was a horizontal or a vertical, the year and the season. To find the picture again I just had to do a search on any of the words.

Nowadays the physical location of our digital files isn't so important. It doesn't matter where the picture is, as long as I can find it again. And whereas with my film pictures it was kind of important to have the file names classified according to subject, with digital it's totally irrelevant. Why? Because we no longer need to search for pictures using the name of the file.

Instead we use the metadata embedded in the picture. I'm sure you've all heard of metadata - it's that information that is embedded in all the digital picture files that come out of your camera. Much of it is stuff added at the time you push the shutter button - the type of camera, focal length of the lens, ISO rating, time (down to the second), date and lots of other information.

But for our purposes there is more important metadata and that's the information you put in yourself. Some of it can be put in in bulk. The first bulk metadata you should put into all your pictures is your contact details and Copyright information. Once your pictures leave the safety of your house it's pretty hard to stop them being used here, there and everywhere but at least you can show people whose pictures they are by putting that information in there. Any time somebody opens up one of your pictures in Photoshop the little Copyright symbol will show up before the filename letting them know that the photograph belongs to somebody and they won't be able to use it without permission.

But more importantly for your own reference is the metadata about what the picture represents. Where it was taken - continent, country, state, city - go as detailed as you want. You might also want to include the names of any people in the picture. If you photograph wildlife then you'll definitely want to include the common as well as latin names of any species you photograph. In short you want to put any information in the metadata that you think will help you (or other people if you plan to put the images online) find your picture.

And when you do this you can use any one of a number of cataloguing programmes to search for those pictures afterwards. Want to find all the pictures of your Aunt Mary taken in 2008? Just do a search for Mary and the year 2008 and they'll all come up instantly. Need to do a slideshow on your local forest using pictures taken over the last 15 years? Just type in the name of the forest and they'll all come up.

By using the metadata and cataloguing software it doesn't matter where the physical files themselves are stored, or what they're called. This leaves you free to name the pictures in any way that makes sense to you, and to place them in whatever folder you feel like. All your pictures of one subject don't have to live in the one folder because your software will find them wherever they are. They don't have to be named with whatever the subject is (Aunt Mary 001 etc) because you've already put Mary in the keywords. Call the file whatever you want.

If you're posting them online and want people to find them many sites recommend you name them with basic information type words to help in Search engines. So a picture of Asakusa Shrine in Tokyo might be Asakusa_Tokyo_Japan_001 or something like that. Because I mostly deal directly with clients and my images are often either sent out on DVD or FTP'ed I have a naming system that includes my name so that no matter who is looking at the image they know straight away who the photographer is. I also use the date it was taken and then the camera file number. So a picture taken today might read Dymond_100712_2614 or something like that.

The file name gives you no clue whatsoever as to what's in the picture but that's OK with me. All the information I need is in the metadata of the picture so it's always easy to find again. And most clients are metadata-savvy enough to know to look there first for a description of the picture they're looking at. I also use the metadata area to put in usage terms for the picture as well so the client knows just exactly what rights have been licensed.

So when you think about starting on the giant task that is sorting out your pictures don't get too hung up on where you should put them in terms of folder structure on your computer. Don't worry about re-naming everything either. Just work on getting some really good, helpful-to-you metadata in there so that you can be confident of finding them quickly and easily.

Those damn Mums with a camera - oops I'm one of them!

2010-07-02T21:05:00.001+10:00

This is me in the east African country of Burundi. I'm at an orphanage for gorillas and chimpanzees. As a travel photographer and writer you get to do some pretty damn amazing things. It really is a dream lifestyle that, while not always being the most profitable venture around, is always full of adventure and excitement.

And then marriage and kids happen. And things change - sometimes dramatically. A colleague of mine, Daniel Scott, has a new blog over at Daddy Travel Writer. He's only just started but I'm sure he's going to regale us with tales of what it's like to balance being a travel writer traipsing around the globe with trying to raise a couple of kids.

But that's the viewpoint of someone who's still working. What happens when you put the cameras down for a bit and put all your effort into raising the little beasties? Well here's my big secret - that's what I've been doing for the last two and a half years. As you can tell I haven't given up work completely but I am a full-time Dad to my two little boys - 7 and 5 (as of next week!)

This all came about when, after over 10 years of working as a professional travel photographer and visiting more than 55 countries, my wife got an opportunity to work for an airline. As in flying overseas up to five times a month. As in away for six months of the year. Hmmm. So do you stick your heels in and say, "Hang on a minute. I've got the best job in the world. Why on earth would I give that up?" Or do you say, "Go for it honey. I've had a good run and you need to follow your dreams as well'.

I chose the latter. And boy did the shit hit the fan! I had no idea what I was in for. In the blink of an eye I was a DWAC - Dad with a camera. The object of all that hatred on various forums around the world wide web. And I've never really read anything about what it's like to suddenly go from being a busy creative artist to a multi-tasking nappy changer. So here's the reality.

It's really hard. And I don't mean the looking after the kids from 6 in the morning till 8 at night, cleaning the house, cooking all the meals and being tied to a little person 24/7 every day of the year. It goes without saying that that is so hard it's not funny. There are a million books about that. What you don't find written about much is the sudden drop into non-creativity.

Photography is a passion, and when it's your job as well it really is a vocation and can become an obsession. I didn't realise how much photography dominated every aspect of my life until I gave a big chunk of it away. One of the biggest shocks I found was the loss of self-identity that you have as a creative professional. You become your job. You're known as the travel photographer and that's who you are - until you just become so-and-so's Dad.

It's really difficult to give up checking your emails to see what work requests are coming in. To keep up with what's going on on Twitter. To keep tabs on how the industry is changing. But I came to the conclusion that if I kept on looking at my computer/laptop/iPod Touch to check in during the day - well every minute I was doing that was a minute I was ignoring my sons. So, as hard as it was, and believe me it is still incredibly hard, I have to let it go until the kids have gone to bed.

The other hard part is not resenting your kids or wife when an editor calls you up and wants to send you to Tibet for a couple of weeks. Or to Japan for a week-long hot springs tour. To remember that it's no longer about me, me, me but them, them, them and us, us, us.

What I've found really important to me is to stay creative in some manner. It's not like an office job where you can take a few years off and then slide back in again with a bit of re-training. Our creativity needs to be constantly nurtured and used. Our skills need to be honed and improved upon. We need to keep that creative spark alive lest we lose it.

So I write (this blog as well as personal writing every morning), I play music, I read and I caption and edit metadata for my more than 7000 images of the local area. Anything to keep that inner artist active. And I photograph as much as time will allow me. And I've found that the more that I listen to my inner artist the more I am honing in on how I want my photography career to develop. Because things will change. That is inevitable. Next year both boys will be in school and I will be free during the weekdays.

And whilst I won't be jetting off to outer Mongolia in a hurry I will definitely be looking for local stories and people that interest me and photographing them. And I'll continue to photograph this amazing part of the country in a way that satisfies my need to have a camera in my hand. Because I'm not the sole breadwinner any more I'll basically be listening to my heart to judge what projects to work on. I don't need to take the big, well paying commercial jobs if they don't interest me spiritually. I can really concentrate on the work that will keep my inner artist happily fed. But it's still going to be really hard to balance that constant desire to photograph but keep it on the back burner while trying to be a good father and husband.

So spare a thought for those damn Mums (and Dads) with a camera. We're photographers just like any other. Only we've decided to make a huge personal sacrifice and donate a large part of our entire being to help raise our children and let our partners follow their dreams.

And remember that what we're doing is really spiritually and creatively draining. NOT photographing for those who love it is a damn site harder than photographing. Not having a camera in your hands all day every day is a lot harder than it sounds when you're obsessed. And that's something the manual doesn't tell you.

Oh, and I do solemnly promise that I won't dress my kids up in fancy clothes and photograph them any time in the next million years, but I will consent to recording their scootering exploits with a camera every so often. And sharing them on the blog once in a blue moon, with your permission. :) Just to keep that inner artist happy.

Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

2010-06-25T14:33:00.000+10:00

Mapoon Turtle Rescue Project - Cape York Photos - Images by Paul Dymond

A while ago I had the rare and privileged opportunity to take part in a conservation project up on the western side of Cape York, near the very tip of Australia. Just outside the small town of Mapoon, a dedicated band of workers tries to save endangered wild turtles from predation by wild pigs, dogs and human pollution. Volunteer ecotourists can take part in this worthwhile programme, and spend a few days combing the beach for washed up nets, monitor turtle nests and help young hatchlings break out, as well as see mother turtles come ashore to lay their eggs. It is a life-changing experience and will reaffirm your belief in the benefits of eco-travel and the things we can do to give back in some small way to the environment. For further information you can find their website here.

Many of these photographs were taken in the dark of night. Some of them were taken at around midnight under a full moon with high ISO and pretty short shutter speeds considering the conditions. I hope you enjoy these images and if you're looking for a place to take your next holiday that's pretty special definitely consider this part of the world.