A few weeks ago Perth was rocked by the news of yet another Shark attack this time at one of Perths most iconic tourist destinations, Cottesloe beach.  As the office is only minutes away and could hear the news and search helicopters overhead, i headed down with the camera unsure of what would be happening.

It surprised me as it seemed business as usual, though this was Bryn's bathers had been discovered at the bottom of the ocean (which would force the immediate closure of the beach).

This photograph is a 10 image stitch which has some nice cloud formations (perfect shark attack weather) as well as reflections of the sun bouncing of the glorious Indian ocean.  When you blow this image up you can see that below the Indiana Tearooms is closed off to police and there is both a helicopter and police boat within the scene.

The scene is nicely book-ended by the Tearooms and the boy gazing out to the ocean.

Western Australia's South West is well known for its picturesque beaches, old growth forests, world class wineries, spectacular caves and other tourist destinations.  What is not well known is that just south of Yallingup and Dunsborough at the end of a decent 4WD track is the amazing Quinninup Falls only a few hundred meters from the beach.

We were able to access the falls by taking what i believe was Quinninup Road which runs off Caves Road, though you can also apparently get there without a 4WD by taking Moses Rock Road.

It's quite surreal that this small valley appears out of seemingly nowhere.  Unfortunately i didn't have my tripod on this day so most images where taken by balancing my Camera on a rock with the aid of a towel to both protect the DSLR body from scratching and also to enable me to position the lens exactly where i wanted.

Fortunately on this day was relatively overcast which enable me to shoot waterfall which was facing into the sun. This was also helpful to reduce the tonal range and eliminate any harsh shadows that facing the sun would normally present. 

As with most waterfall photographs, the best results are often achieved with the slow shutterspeeds and motion of the water to create the soft white tones of the movement and impact of the water.  I used a 4stop Neutral Density filter to slow down my shutterspeed to roughly 1/3 second. 

My other shot of these falls wanted to indicate the scale and surrounds by taking a panoramic shot.  This image was a 10 image stitch taken vertically on 28mm Sigma lens.  Post production included work on the sky and tones on the rock faces.

For those that have been on one of the Perth Photography Tours that i run through the port city of Fremantle, Western Australia you may recognise this location?  It's our meeting point at the Fremantle Town Hall.

From this point I take photography enthusiasts for a leisurely photo walk through Fremantle passing iconic locations such as the Fremantle Markets, Historic Wedding Wall, Limestone Tunnel under the Fremantle Round House as well as taking in the fabulous heritage listed architecture that dominates the "West End" of Fremantle.

Along the way I aim to teach a series of creative principles and elements of photography that participants are then challenged to achieve in small groups with their cameras.

As well as hopefully imparting some creative tips that customers can take away, I mix this with a series of technical points to encourage participants to go beyond the Auto mode on their DSLR or compact camera and start getting a greater understanding of the modes and capabilities of these cameras.

If you're interested in coming along for what i believe is Perth's best value photography course, tours run every Saturday morning all year round.

As mentioned earlier, the meeting point is at the Fremantle Town hall at 8.30am and finishes down at the Fremantle Harbour near Little Creatures Brewery, which can be a great place to unwind and discuss the mornings events.

Perth Photography Tours run for 3 hours and is limited to a maximum of 10 participants to ensure plenty of one on one tuition and opportunity to ask questions and feedback.  These tours are great value at just $99.00

Please click this link to take you straight to the online and secure booking form.

Just out of interest i'd love to hear peoples opinions on which composition they prefer out of the two photos above. 

This shot was taken in the picturesque mountain town of Dalat in the south of Vietnam. Having taken a scenic cable car voyage to the top of the mountain where the Buddhist Monasteries dotted the hillside I came across this couple having their wedding amongst the carefully sculpted gardens which were meticulously maintained by the monks that called this place home.   I wanted to test out some of the colour profiles that were pre-set as a test to using this filter to batch process a series of portrait shots for future photography shoots in Perth.  I thought this would be the perfect image to shoot as I wanted to test how the fine details in the white clothes of both the bride and groom held when the remaining colours were enhanced.  

Overall I found the highlights stayed together quite well and was able to boost the saturation of the green tones of the foliage both in the foreground and background of the key subject matter.  This plugin is very kind to skin tones and naturally smoothes out blemishes and softens the skins complexion subtly without over doing it and becoming a glamour style shot.  I can highly recommend “Portrature” as photoshop plugin or a stand alone program.  I also believe its available on Aperture as well.

Round 13 of the WAFL saw the East Fremantle Sharks take on the Perth demons who after a stretch of great form came into the game with considerable confidence.  The game was an arm wrestle throughout the match with neither side being able to gain ascendancy until the fourth quarter when the East Fremantle Sharks turned a 3 point defecit into a 6 goal to 2 final quarter to run away with the game finishing 85-68.

Reece Palmer did his chances of being recalled to the Fremantle Doclers no harm with a tireless display through four quarters gathering 34 touches while former West Coast Eagle & Western Bulldog Andew McDougall impressed for the visitors.

Sports photography in varying lighting conditions can be difficult.  At East Fremantle Oval the best place to photograph from is near the large Grand-Stand as the sun is always behind you ensuring you don't get any lens flare and players faces are in sun not shadow when running towards the camera.  However this same grandstand starts to cause a large shadow over the field in the third and fourth quarters.  This means that my daylight light balance needs to change to cloudy white balance to account for the change in light temperature.  I prefer to do this manually rather than set to AUTO as i keep more control over the colour tones of the final image.

In a perfect world lighting conditions for sports photography would be for a "bright" overcast day.  A thin layer of evenly dispersed cloud ensures that you won't have to worry about harsh shadows in faces or bodies and enable consistent shutterspeed and exposure values.  My preference is for over exposing by 1/3 of a stop to get detail in the shadow parts of the image then bring back the highlights from my RAW (.CR2) file in Photoshop CS5.  If lighting conditions are consistant through the game i can then batch process the images to quickly apply pre-set RAW profiles and watermark's to all images.

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Last weekend saw the East Fremantle Sharks overcome a 5 goal deficit at quarter time to eventually overrun the East Perth Royals in the final quarter. 

Sports photography offers a wide gamut of photographic opportunites if look at the game from a different angle.  Normally sports photographers are concerned with whats going on between the start and the end whistle on the pitch, court of field of play.  Its true that this offer great opportunities to capture athletes at the peak of physical activity, tackling, shooting, running in what ever the sport may be.  However if you confine youself to this your missing out on some great opportunities in other facets of the game.

One of my favourite places for excellent sports portrait photography is in the team huddles between quarters.  It's here where a lot of emotion can be picked up on the faces of players and in particular coaches.  In the photos above i have included a picture of both the East Perth Royals coach Tony Micale and the East Fremantle Sharks Coach Steve Malaxos. The photograph of the East Perth Royals huddle is taken by putting a fish eye lens on the top of my monopod and raising over the huddle on the timer setting.  I particularly like this shot with Tony looking towards the playing group and his players circled around him.

The photo if Steve Malaxos was taken with him addressing his troops at three quarter time just before the fightback to overrun the Royals in the last quarter.  In this shot Steve was adjusting the matchups on the whiteboard.  The intensity in his eyes makes for a strong "action" portrait.

Finally I also like to photograph the crowd if i get the opportunity in a match.  The shot of this passionate sharks fan is one of my favourites and i love his expression jumping out of his chair after another goal.

RAW - Is an informative blog website run by Perth based professional photographer Tristan Judd.  A couple of weeks ago Tristan put the word out of an exciting competition based around the name of his website "RAW".  The concept was staggeringly simple.  The execution of the task...challenging.

Simply supply an out of camera image and the same image after post processing...simple right? To make the challenge all the more enticing there are some awesome camera bags up for grabs from Thinktank Photo. Check out Tristans review here.

So after deliberating for far too long what do i enter, how much post processing should i do. I ended up with the image above.  I wanted to take something new for the photography competition as i get bored of my photos very quickly, and i believe my best photo will be my next one.

It was Good Friday when i went for my first visit to the derelict and abandoned Power Station for the first time.  Such an incredible building to photograph in terms of its heritage listed architecture and then the abundance of graffiti throughout.  The challenge artistically was to find  a focal point in a landscape that was covered in glass and graffiti. 
It was so visually busy it was almost distracting.  Technically the biggest challenge i faced was the enormous range of stops between shadows and highlights.

I was pretty happy with this final image and i still cant decide if i prefer it in colour or black and white, though i've choosen the colour option to highlight the difference after post production in photoshop.  Regardless of the result of the competition it got me thinking about photography in a new way so its been a really enjoyable challenge.

The RAW photo blog by Tristan Judd is full of reviews and interviews and i was fortunate to be one of the first interviewed several months ago.  You can read my interview here.

Finally as a side note, does anyone recognise the "Monster Image" on the left.  It is none other than the internationally famous "Beastman" - Brad Eastman.  I love his style and iconic images that can be found scattered throughout Australia.

Full - Manning Mayhem - Skate gallery here

The City of South Perth along with Momentum Skate and their valued sponsors such as GMTA skateboards, butter and Modus put on an invitational skate competition of Perths best skateboarders all competing for some great prizes.

To say the show was epic was an understatement.  With the cream of Perths skate community all in the one place on a warm March afternoon was proof that the skating community in Perth is a strong and healthy one. 

With this series of skate photographs i have created a photoshop action to give them a slightly softer colour palette with a subtle vignette effect to create a aged look.  I'm really happy with some the photos grabbed on the day and i will be creating a specific photo gallery for this skate tournament soon so stay tuned.  I was keen to get some up ASAP and have chosen the following photographs including the "hero" shot of James Ahern tearing it up!