Fantastic FNQ photo Friday

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

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

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

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!

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?

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?

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.