New blog...

Check out my new blog - http://throughthepinhole.blogspot.com/

Moving...

I'm moving!

Both in the virtual world and the physical world...

My new web address is www.ridgwaystudio.com and my new physical address (from July) is in Mirboo North, South Gippsland, Victoria.

Marion & I have been lucky to buy an old bank that was built in 1906. This will be our home as well as the base for my photography endeavours. I plan to shoot weddings and portraits as well as pretty much anything else for income, landscapes, flora & fauna for personal enjoyment (and to populate the gallery).

There is room at the bank for a gallery and over time I plan to fill it with photography and art works. There may even be the opportunity to start small courses to get people on the right track with their cameras and gear. The local scenery is stunning so I'm sure that photo opportunities won't be in short supply.

Oh! And the best bit... The old bank has a vault! As soon as I work out how to get plumbing and ventilation in there it will become a darkroom... I can smell the chemicals now!!!

AMAZING!!!

I was sitting at my computer thinking about the pinhole image from my last post. I was trying to decide how to show just how much and, strangely just how little detail was included in a pinhole image.

This image is a crop from the image below. I think that it is a beautiful, eerie image with just enough detail and looks awesome as a panorama on the wall.

Melbourne from Brighton Pier...

Some time ago I went down to Brighton pier and took this image of the yacht club marina with Melbourne in the distance...

I love my pinhole camera and I'm getting better at using it. The 5x4 inch negatives are so full of detail and I'm amazed at what a box with a tiny hole in it can do.

I've printed this image up to A3+ size (329mm x 329mm) and it looks awesome.

The one thing I am yet to work out is how to avoid dust on the negative. This one came back with so many spots and squiggles that I'm not sure I would even think about printing it in the darkroom. With Photoshop it's easy, if a little time consuming to clean things up.

Click on the image for a larger view...

The next step...

Wow! 2010 is turning out to be an awesome year so far...

Romance, engagement, wedding... Well, the wedding happened a couple of hours before the engagement party... :)

So we've now made an offer on an old bank building in a country town. We are waiting for all of the pieces to come together so I don't want to tempt fate but giving up all of the details yet. The plan is that Marion will work at a library nearby and that I can build up a photography business.

Being an old bank, the building (with residence attached) has a vault! Awesomeness!!! It is big enough to be turned into a darkroom (or cellar if that doesn't work) and I'm eagerly awaiting a chance to work out if there is a way to get plumbing into it.

So a tree change is on the way with chooks, a dog, bushland, Wilson's Prom nearby and an old (Ye Olde?) bank with a vault...

What a year! And it's not even halfway done yet...

On a related note; I finally managed to get to the third session of one of the basic darkroom courses at the Melbourne Camera Club on Monday night. I'm having visions of a photography business that has a component of traditional, hand printed, black & white imaging and maybe a gallery with local landscapes taken with my pinhole camera...

Hmmm? Bring on the rest of the year! :)

Wedding Bells...

Marion & I organised an engagement party quite some time ago and somewhere along the line (fairly early on) we decided to visit the wedding registry first. This bit was kept as quiet as we could and we managed to get quite a few very surprised guests on the night! :)

So, it's official, Marion and I are married. We've spent a few days away and here are some of the photos...

The proof...


The "engagement party"...


Some scenic shots from the Tuki retreat where we stayed for a few days...




PS: There aren't any photos of us both together at the Tuki retreat. To explain is unnecessary, I think... :)

World Pinhole Day...

It's almost here. World Pinhole Day... 25th of April...

A day to reduce technology to the barest minimum and to get out there and celebrate the original "camera obscura".

With all of the technology that goes in to cameras these days it's an amazing fact that we can still take images using a box with the tiniest of holes for a lens. The images from these simple devices are truly miraculous.

I have a need to get back to the basics that I feed with my pinhole camera. There are lots of options. You could build one from a matchbox or buy one ready made like I did. You can use 35mm film or large format film and there are even adaptors that replace the lens on your camera so that you could use your digital SLR.

The use of a pinhole camera is simple but you do have to understand the basics of composition and the working out of exposure times. Fortunately the basics are readily understood and after that it's all slow, contemplative art.

World pinhole day coincides with ANZAC day in Australia so I'm getting some ideas of what images I would like to get. I'll be posting the results in a few weeks - there's another difference to digital imaging, everything takes longer!

The ring...

It's been a couple of weeks now since I gave Marion "the ring". Since then we've both been busy so when I got a chance today to borrow it from her I took some photos.

This is the ring: White gold, engraved on one side with a parti sapphire. The enormously satisfying thing about the sapphire is that it changes so much in different light. A parti sapphire is a naturally occurring two-tone stone that is normally a combination of blue and yellow. So this particular stone sometimes looks quite light, sometimes looks quite dark and always looks good!

PS: She loves it!

What are you looking at?

This little guy seems to be asking...

I found him/her in the garden this morning...

Sometimes the planets line up...

Last year I shot a function for a client. They had a 1920's themed night and a significant number of people got right into it...

At one stage I walked out of the function to the foyer and this gent was standing in exactly the right light. It was a "hair standing up on the back of your neck" moment and I just had to capture it. The combination of the right light, the right mood, the right gear and the right face just worked perfectly...

This has to be one of my favourite images from 2009... I'm going to get permission to use it in my advertising.

If you click on the image you'll get a larger view.

It's an amazing world...

I just looked at my Clustrmaps page and found one little dot in the middle of Brazil, roughly in the middle of the Amazon... Isn't the world amazing...?

I wonder what they looked at? Did they just surf blogs to find mine? Did they have a reason to look?

I'm still amazed the a Google search for "weird/scary dog" has my blog entry listed at number 3 in the world!!!

I've got big plans for 2010. In no particular order yet I'm going to pull my finger out and get my photography business happening, I'm going to have a pinhole photography exhibition in a gallery, I'm going to make photography a full time occupation (as opposed to a full time dream)...

Now to plan it all out and start working...

Enjoy my photos as they pop up... Happy 2010...!

New Year Storms...

I had some time away over the new year and on New Years Eve and again on the night of the first of January we had some storms in the evening. On new years eve we had lots of rain but the storms on the first didn't rain on us but were all around us and the buildup was spectacular. Other farms in the area must have had lots of rain! The cloud formations, the colours of the clouds and the speed at which everything changed was a wonder to behold...

I haven't adjusted colour in any of these images...