Retouching faces is a tricky business. A magazine might prefer skin that looks like a plastic doll and is clearly air brushed. Another client might prefer a more natural look such as the one I've tried for in this photo.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Balinese Temple?
No, it's not a statue at the gates to a temple in a steamy tropical garden somewhere in South East Asia. In fact, it's a 6 inch high garden ornament!
By laying on my belly to take this shot I not only made the ornament look larger than life, but I was able to use the fern plant at the back of the garden into a great background.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Shells
I try to keep my eyes open for pleasing patterns - naturally occurring repetition on a theme. Once I spotted these shells I zoomed in and out, and panned back and forward until I I found the composition agreeable.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Yarrangobilly Caves
Trying to take nice photos while on a guided walk in limestone caves is tough. There is typically little room to move and frame shots, using tripod is impractical with so many people and so little space, and you need to move at the same speed as the rest of the group. Hopefully I'll get the chance to take shots -without- those constraints one day.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Grass
My partner Julie took this great shot recently at Broken Hill. Great use of back lighting and the stunning deep blue sky to show the grass seeds off to best effect.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Guided Walks
I've been playing around with CoolIris photo galleries that can be embedded in your own blogs, facebook, web page, etc.
It's an amazing interface and does much more than initially meets the eye. You soon realise that if you slide the blue button or click on the "<" and ">" buttons the wall of photos will fly left or right. But wait ... there's more. Scroll the mouse wheel in-out and the whole wall moves closer-further away. Click one photo and it gets enlarged. Click the diagonal arrows icon at bottom right and it becomes full screen photo. Click the icon bottom center when enlarged and it becomes a full screen slide show. Very cool.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Another baby in the family
I'm now the proud owner of the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM. I'm looking forward to playing with this baby, and will post some of the resultant photos in a few days time - once I manage to get my wife to let me have a turn with it!
Monday, January 10, 2011
How to change Depth of Field
Depth of Field, originally uploaded by Ian Champ Photography.
Here's a series of photos that show the variation in depth of field by taking the same shot several times but changing the aperture for each shot.
At f 32 the iris hole is tiny and less light gets in. This gives you plenty of depth of field.
As the iris hole gets bigger (that is, the f number gets smaller) more light gets in - AND you get much less depth of field.
In this series of shots the "brightness" of the shots is kept more or less the same by speeding up the shutter speed as the hole in the iris gets bigger (bigger hole for the light to get in, but open for less time).
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Clontarf Rolling
I got to try out a GoPro Hero waterproof camera yesterday. It's not the world's highest resolution or highest quality video/still camera, but it does what it aims to do very well. It's easy to use, it's well and truly waterproof and it's unobtrusive once you put it on and hit record.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Repetition
Keep your eyes out for repeating patterns, both natural and man made. Repetition is pleasing to the eye and what we typically rush past every day can look stunning when frozen in a photograph. I have this image as my PC wallpaper - it looks terrific blown up large on my monitor.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Klixus
Wow - I've won the Klixus Photography Challenge, Best Album Award for my photos of the Woden Valley Festival.
Thank you very much to Richard Block and Klixus for this much appreciated vote of confidence, not to mention the prize money.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Rebel
Meet Rebel, a gorgeous Miniature Fox Terrier. When photographing pets take the time to immerse yourself in their world. To help viewers of your shots feel they have stepped into the animals private life, get your camera down to their eye level.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Angles again
As promised yesterday, here is another take on yesterday's photo. It's easy to just think "get close" once you have a fixed focal length lens on, but in this case a very pleasing photo was achieved by stepping back just a little.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
More on angles
Here's another example of thinking about angles and framing. With this shot I had found an interesting flower and I zoomed way in as far as my macro lens would go to get a close up of the center.
That has certainly given me an interesting photo, but then I tried a few more more angles and different framing options. Tomorrow I will post a different shot of the same flower which is - in my opinion - a better photo.
Monday, December 27, 2010
A different angle
Same flower as yesterday, but from a different angle. When you find an interesting shot try to take a few different shots of it ... frame it differently and/or change your viewing angle. Never dress in your Sunday best when you go for a photo shoot because you may just want to lie down on the ground to get the shot you want.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Ulladulla
Had a great time today wandering around Warden Head at Ulladulla and my dad's garden. Took lots of shots with our 100mm lens. This shot was the obvious shot (from above, looking down on the flower), but it also made a stunning shot when I lay on the ground and looked up through the flower at the blue sky.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Cradle Mountain
With all the work I've been doing tweaking my web site and doing family Xmas things I've had no time left to take photos, so here's a picture from long, long ago. It's my good friend Ian Ferrier climbing a boulder overlooking Dove Lake so that we could recreate a famous shot by Fred Smithies.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
My Website
I registered http://www.IanChamp.com and started making my own website today.
There are still a few broken links and loads of work to do but there is enough in place to make it more or less functional.
Giddy Up
Trying to take action photos in low light situations can be challenging.
My preferred approach is to select a high ISO setting with the camera into shutter priority mode, and then choose a shutter speed that is fast enough to freeze the action.
This shot has ISO 3200 and shutter speed of 1/125 sec.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
The Low Down
Having found something interesting to photograph, have a quick look around and try to find the most interest position to take the shot.
Getting down low so as to make best use of the lighting and background made this a much more interesting photo.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Warehouse Circus
It's been a privilege over the weekend to take photos of Canberra's Warehouse Circus performers. I got some really cool pictures of these talented young performers and I've a had a great time taking them :)
Friday, December 17, 2010
Photographing People
When photographing people, always try to focus on the subject's eyes and use light and shade to draw attention to the face. In video images the viewer would probably pay attention to the flying balls or the blur of hands, but when the moment is frozen in time we are drawn to the eyes and the concentration on the juggler's face.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Jingle Bells
Bah. Humbug. There's no escaping all this Christmas hoo har. Even Mother nature has her Xmas decorations on display.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Nicely focused flower
My "secret" to getting nice hand-held macro photos is to use the Live View screen of my Canon DSLR rather than try to focus using the view finder. I compose the shot and then press the little magnifying glass button which zooms into the center of the screen.
If I hit the zoom button twice I will zoom into the middle 10% of the screen. I make sure that is focussed then click the shutter.
To further improve the chances of getting a great shot I also set the camera to continuous shooting mode and click of 5 or 6 shots. That way, even if the breeze is moving your subject around you still have a good chance of getting at least one nice, crisply focussed shot.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Pretty in pink
I got some absolutely gorgeous photos at Canberra's Botanic Gardens today. This little beauty looks like a flock of flamingos dancing.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Strawberry seeds
This is the same photo I blogged on Monday, but zoomed in a little more. You can actually see the individual cells of the the strawberry if you zoom in a little more ... now that's what I call macro.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Back yard sunset
The view from our back yard is pretty boring ... but the sunset tonight made it look a million bucks.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
King Parrot
A family of King Parrots live in the front garden at Birrigai Outdoor School. This male was pretty relaxed about posing for me, but the click of the mirror moving made him a little nervous.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Strawberry
Strawberries have to be one of the best things about summer in Australia :)
Please vote for this photo at Ted's Cameras
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Today's cameras are pretty amazing!
I thought I'd post a photo taken with our relatively inexpensive waterproof camera today. Digital SLR cameras certainly make it easier to take great photos, but the photos you can take with cameras costing only a few hundred dollars are pretty impressive too.
This was taken from my sea kayak as I paddled under Anzac Bridge on Sydney Harbour with our Panasonic Lumix camera.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Fern
I'll be working on the wedding photos for an eternity yet, so I'm going to blog some old favourites in the mean time. This is a fern at Canberra's Botanic Gardens ... a great place for photo shoots. I can't wait to get back there with the new macro lens.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Friday, November 26, 2010
Patterson's Curse
Jemma's wedding is tomorrow and every power point in the house is busy charging batteries for an armada of audio visual gear. The ceremony is at Wallaroo and the hills out there are awash with the purple flowers of Patterson's Curse.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
A Cute Joey at Birrigai
I snapped this little cutie right outside the staff room while working at Birrigai.
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