Smiles for the miles underbelt

A great photographer friend of mine (Colyn) asked me a couple of months ago if I’d like to trek Mount Bartle Frere with him. The answer was defiantly yes and since we’re fairly busy blokes we booked in a date as the 6th & 7th of May and you’ve heard the old saying ‘rain hail or shine.

I was already on the Tablelands visiting my dad and the weather was wet, wet. So I knew we were in for an experience. By 10:30 yesterday morning our saddles were packed and we started trekking up the mountain. Apart from being soaked Read more »

It’s been a massive week, long plane flights, extensive bus tours, cable carts, fancy old ships and just making myself looking like a tourist. That’s right I went to Japan to photograph the delegates of Metcash, experiencing Japan’s culture and historical sites, now I’m back.

My other role was to teach these newly aquatinted photographic enthusiast how to get the best out of their 350D Canon cameras All 200 attendees received a brand spanking new camera.. I was put in the deep end in teaching since I shoot Nikon and I only had the chance to hold the camera on the flight. I’m pretty sure I faired quite well, I always read my camera manuals and a big thanks to the many demonstrations on Youtube.

Of course I captured a great amount of images during the start of a short cherry blossom season, check out more images after the bump. Read more »

If you haven’t check it out yet I’ve been featured in the latest Pro Photo magazine (the magazine for imaging professionals).  That’s right I’m now famous and if you’d like my autograph or a photo with me…

Anyway the feature is the front page and two full page spreads in the middle of the mag showing off my extreme sport images; how to work in an extreme environment and a few tips from the temple (me).

Yep that’s me, in the photo with the white helmet and black/red jumpsuit.  Ten of us excited the Caravan for Wade (Wadedricks) 1000 jump, not a bad feat for a skydiver. Also thanks to BJ Adams for this brilliant photo.

More details after the jump.

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It’s time again and I’ve upgraded to Photoshop CS4, one of the best pixel bending programs on the market. You might ask was it worth it, well to me Yes. I know it has these all new fandangled 3D features, motion based content and analyst tools for scientist and engineers alike; but that’s not what I’m after at this point in time. Read more »

For the next three months I have created a project for my self and named it Off the Beaten Track. This will involve a few runners, joggers or just people who enjoy exercise, running through the various landscapes of Cairns or even North Queensland – if I get about. Off course I will document these athletic people’s with my trusty old Nikon.

So if your keen to model your running legs or think your friends got great legs get in touch with me and we’ll organize a shoot at some exotic location.

In case you were wondering that’s Neil Labinsky coming in 1st from this years Great Pyramid Race

I’ve been working with Smithfield Shopping Centre in Cairns for the last two years, they are entering the national shopping centre awards for 2008 and asked me if to capture certain aspects and angles to promote the centre. The above photograph is of the newly redeveloped southern entrance, with the advent of a new playground in the shape of a dragonfly thats their logo, large chess pieces, gardens, chairs and the addition of more shops along the front.

All of this might sound quite easy, just whack up your camera and wait for the right light… right? Well yes that’s the last part. First of all I organized that the cleaners left the chess pieces, tables and chairs out during Thursday night shopping, which doesn’t always happen. Checked with security to tell them I’d be creating havoc. Luckily dad left me his 4×4 Landcruiser ute while on his round the world trip, which I positioned over a medium strip and onto a park. Once the camera is lined up, this is where i run around moving trollies out of site, picking up rubbish and making sure every thing is in position like chairs and cars.

Now for pressing the shutter bit. I put my Gitzo tripod on the roof of the cruiser and used the bubble level to get a perfect horizontal pan. Placed the camera on the tripod head in portrait to get a wider (higher) angle of view, that means I put the camera on its side. I have a special bracket for that. Then adjusted the zoom,hyper-focal (maxium focus), exposure and ISO. The exposure settings were ISO 100 3.0sec @ f11 ending up in a nice sharp clean image. This shot comprises of nine separate images rotated 15% each time on the tripod. I processed this image in Photoshops>Photomerge but that’s a whole other story.

Thanks for reading this through my friends, please feel free to leave a comment. All the best Muz!

I find the perfect time to practice new techniques and if your lucky create some awesome images is on the weekends. This is when most enthusiast lay down their tools and pick up their hobbies. As you can see I went out to the local mountain bike (MTB) track for the fifth and final cross country (XC) round. It was pretty eventful with light showers and a keen 60 competitors slipping around the rainforest track.

The above photograph is of my friend Jay riding over the see saw (just like the ones you used as a kid but for MTB’s) at approx 25k’s/hr. To create this photograph I used a Nikon D200, 10.5mm fisheye lens and a SB-800 wireless flash held high in my left hand to illuminate his face. The camera is about a foot away and 6in higher than the see saw… & yes thats pretty darn close if he stuffs up. I had to bump the iso up to 800 because of the lack of light, swapping more grain in the shadows for a faster shutter. Before you ask these are the settings:

1/200sec f2.8 iso 800 and flash M 1/128 on camera, M 1/32 remote

The one thing I did learn while riding my MTB is not to scout new photo locations on the bike, a tree ran out of know where and hit me in the shoulder creating an eat dirt situation “bugger”, the second one this week. Make sure you leave a comment below. Thanks Muzza!!!

A friend of mine offered to take me up in a hot air balloon, funnily enough Jay (pictured above) is a crewman for a company called Hot Air. The deal was to meet him at 4:40am in Mareeba, which is an hours drive from Cairns so we could capture the setting up of the balloons.

1stly they put up a couple of party balloons you know the small ones at your kids party and attach a candle to check the winds direction and speed at different altitudes. Once decided on a launching location the guys lay out the baskets, rigg the balloons checked the burners, stretch out the balloons, fill them with hot air and just as the balloons were rising the excited clientele rocked up all keen and eager to jump in for there morning ride. These guys have this so finely tuned you could almost call it art.

The balloon ride was nice, although having done a heap of extreme sports myself it felt like the travel before you get to the climax of action. There was a mix of clouds on the horizon which the sun popped through occasionally being a less than average sunrise. Out of the whole experience I enjoyed the setup and early morning rise knowing most were still tucked in there warm beds.

After landing Jay latter told me while  a crewman in South Africa that, the lions would often watch the balloons like they were chickens in a basket.

An unbelievable five days of fun skydiving over the beautiful landscape of Tully, the wettest place in Australia. Why unbelievable?.. well the weather was blueskys spatted with cumulus clouds. Read more »

Every year a hundred keen competitors line up for the Great Pyramid Race. You have to understand this pyramid (mountain) is 3k’s from the start then goes straight up for 3k’s, the race is 12k’s in all. The short clip above is last years winner Neil Labinsky he won the race in 1:15:34 and broke the record by 45 sec.

This is a sequence of photographs converted to a quicktime movie Read more »