Capture by A photoblog

Last night, in case you were on Mars and failed to notice, there was a Perigee (opposite Apogee), something resembling, but not actually, #supermoon.

Having recently added 100mm to my telescopic lens, this seemed like a good time to get out there and 'Capture the Moon', as I posted on Twitter last night, after lugging the tripod around town on my scooter, looking for the perfect spot.

5 shots were then posted on Internet.

This morning Jackie alerted me to the NZHerald website, where two of my photos had turned up in their gallery 'Capturing the Super Moon'.   Uh-huh.  Good to know.

So I looked, and sure enough they'd posted two of my pictures, one wrongly attributed, and both without permission.

Then I posted this;

Seemed an innocent enough thing to do at the time.  But it started something, and soon I had a number of retweets, new followers (thanks) and some media savvy people (including of course Russell, Sacha and a few others on here) encouraging me to do something about it.

What can I do about it, I asked myself?

Then the Herald apologised, offered to fix it, and asked, retrospectively, for permission.  Which I granted.  Hell, they mentioned our blog!  What's a boy to do? (Although at this moment they are no longer there).

So what?

Well, photographs, like poetry, books, writing on your own blog, and all that other stuff is... I don't even want to use the term... copyright to the author/photographer/artist, is it not?  This, to my knowledge, is not changed by the fluidity of modern social media, or the fact many news outlets rely on people's desire for fame over fortune.  Which is particularly true when you're not making a living out of it.  'Hey, I'm in the Herald!'

But many of our friends do try to make a living out of it.  And several have had their images taken and re-used by profit-making media outlets without even a credit.  In my opinion we owe it to them, and others who struggle with earning a living from their craft, to make a bit of noise when this sort of thing happens.

What do you think?

ETA:  If you've got any more photos of the 'Super Moon'  [sic], please post them in the comments.  Just make sure they are yours. 

And could the irony police please sit down.

Pringles Pinholes Ahoy

When you have a crazy idea out loud (i.e. on the Internet), it would be pretty easy to pretend it never happened.  Twitter has a delete button after all.

But the idea of having a group of people making pinhole cameras out of empty Pringles cans, and then wandering around central Auckland peeling off electrical tape shutters, did really appeal to me.  Perhaps more than is healthy.

So today was the day, and all things considered, it went bloody well. 

Before we get into the photos, I'd just like to say thanks to the people who made it all happen.

Thanks to Jonathan and Sophie for running the darkroom for the day, and all the preparations beforehand.  Petra for planning and executing the camera making part, which went incredibly smoothly (all the cameras worked without any remakes).  Also Robyn for her advice and support in the build up.

Finally a special thanks to Jocelyn Carlin at Minnie Street for letting us invade the studio and darkroom for the day.

We'll be posting these photos, and possibly a few more, in the Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day galleries.  Check back tomorrow too, as we have a few more pictures to add as they are sent in.

On to the photos.

Edited to Add:  Michelle, who attended the workshop, has written this awesome blog post on her own blog TheJamJar.com.  Cheers Michelle.

Pinhole Camera Day 2012.

Beautiful People

Alex Efimoff describes his inaugural solo exhibition at the Mark Hutchins Gallery as his “first public step as a photographer”. Entitled ‘Beautiful People’, this exhibition encompasses 21 portraits of individuals he has photographed over the last 14 months.
 
While some famous faces will be included – among them, famed British actor and TV presenter Stephen Fry and pole and burlesque performer Andre Corey – the majority of the images will feature Wellingtonians, mostly members of the GLBT community. What do they have in common? “Well, they are all beautiful in my eyes,” Alex says. “They all have some kind of a very distinctive personality that I wanted to show.”
 
This exhibition is Alex’s first real foray into portraiture – his previous specialties were architecture and landscape photography. “I’d say [what draws me to portraiture is] the ability to view a person through my own eyes and create something ultimately new, something that even the subject of the photo shoot hasn’t been aware of,” he says.
Alex says that while some of the portraits are in colour, the majority are black and white as the use of colour can detract from the main idea of the image.
 
As for how he navigates the post-production process, Alex says there are no hard and fast rules. “I like to play with [my images],” he says. “I create a few different versions of one shot and then choose the one I feel a connection with. There is no particular algorithm! Very often the choice is dictated by emotions and feelings, [but] then I can easily change my mind and do another version.”
 
Among those to have posed for Alex recently is queer personality and self-described ‘Queen of leisure’ LaQuisha Redfern. “[Shooting with LaQuisha] was fun!” Alex says. “She asked me to take some shots during her regular

Leisure Lounge podcast and I said, ‘Yes! Why not!’ “She is a very interesting subject, though I wasn’t sure about the result until I saw it on my screen. The shot I have included in the exhibition was done when we went for a cup of coffee in central Wellington. I saw that place and asked her to stand there and take that very pose… and voila, shot is done!”
 
All photographs on exhibition are professional giclee prints in 12 colours of archival pigment on 260 gsm Kodak stain lustre paper.

Offline Exhibition Details

MARK HUTCHINS GALLERY
216/A Upper Willis Street, Central Wellington
PO Box 24408, Manners Street, Wellington 6142
Telephone: 04 385 9300 / Mobile: 021 722 839
mark@mhgallery.co.nz / www.mhgallery.co.nz

On the Inside.

If you're looking for something to do over Easter, or until Friday 13th for that matter, get along to Silo Park for the Cut Collective exhibition Public Access 5.

This is the first chance the public has had to get inside the silos, and if you're a bit fixated with them, like a few round here, then it's a chance you shouldn't miss.

Supported by the group who bring us the Silo Night Market, Silo Cinema (tonight is Exit Through the Gift Shop) and the Silo Sessions (tomorrow, in conjunction with Cut Collective and BaseFM, it's Shake and Bake), this is the first time the space has been used for an exhibition.  On the basis of what I saw today, I hope it becomes a regular feature of the Silo precinct.

While they seemed very happy for me to photograph the works (cheers Sparrow), it's worth remembering these are orginal artworks and the images should not be used elsewhere without the artist's permission.

Capture away.

It's become a bit of a cliche - bad photos of food on the internet. You know the sort - the enthusiastic photo of someone's dinner in progress that looks like it's already been digested. But no one sets out to deliberately take bad photos of food, it's just that it's an easy thing to do badly - things that smell and taste amazing don't always look amazing.

There's great entertainment to be had in bad food photos. Tumblr blog Cook Suck, rightfully takes the piss out of people who post photos of their rice, hard-boiled egg and mystery meat masterpiece, and Amateur Food Porn Has Got To Stop works with the thesis that "there has not been one single amateur picture of food on a social media site that does not look like a pile of grey-beige recycled meatloaf."

But how can you take nice photos of food? Well, I gathered up what I learned from my three years photographing everything cooked on the Good Morning show,  and then I got some more advice from food blogger Laura Vincent. Laura takes her own photos for her brilliant blog Hungry and Frozen, and was happy to share some tips.

Wait till it's cooked

Even though it smells really good when it's cooking, stay away from the pot. This is when food is most likely to resemble something that's been violently issued from the human body.

Laura says she's given up taking photos while she's cooking. "Unless you're very skilled they don't usually look great, and I'm not good enough to (a) make it look beautiful and (b) not screw up the cooking process by pausing for photos."

Put it on a nice plate

On Good Morning, I'd go to take a photo of food still in the pot, but the food presenter Astar would tell me off, quickly plating up the food. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. Just serve your food on a nice plate, and clean up any little splatters that won't look good in a photo.

Garnish

It's almost a cliche, but it's surprisingly how nice a little extra touch will make a dish look. This works especially well with dense brown dishes, most at risk of looking like poo. You don't need to go over the stop (and Laura isn't a fan of dressing the plate for photos), but a sprig of a fresh green herb or a wedge of lemon can bring a dish to life.

Look around you

A good setting makes all the difference. When Laura started out, she tried going for a "gritty and raw" look with "soy sauce stains on the wall, bulk toilet paper living on the kitchen table, it all stayed. After a while I got wise to how gross and unappealing this looked." 

Macro is your friend

If you're going to be getting close to your subject, then using the macro setting on a camera will work best, ensuring your food is in focus. A lot of modern digital cameras will figure this out automatically, otherwise it's the setting with a symbol that looks like a little tulip.

No flash

Using a flash can give your photos a flat look. Natural light is best, but if you're shooting at night, position your dish to take advantange of electric lights. One big challenge I faced at Good Morning was positioning dishes to avoid the strong shadows of the studio lights.

Pick a good angle

Try taking a few different angles. Looking straight down can sometimes have that police-evidence feel, so try a side angle. Laura has a favourite: "You generally can't go wrong with snapping the plate of food from in front of it, surrounded by table, from not too high or low an angle. 

Watch the filters

Instagram, a very popular iPhone photo app, is famous for its vintage-style filters. Some of the filters can make food photos look very styley indeed (Laura's also a fan). But Instagram filters look best when you're enhancing a good photo, not trying to improve a bad photo.

Think before you post

This is the big one - is this something you really want to share? Laura puts this nicely - "Actually look at your food before you photograph it. Is it attractive? Nice colours? Elegant? If it's a spoonful of loose macaroni cheese in an arcaroc bowl, you'll have to work hard to make it like something people reblog on tumblr. For the right reasons."

And while a picture speaks a thousand words, sometimes 140 characters can do a better job of describing the deliciousness of the barbecue pork roll you had for lunch, rather than a photo of a half-eaten mess.

Practise

Just like cooking, it takes practise to get good at food photography. Keep taking photos, think about which ones you're going to share on social media, and soon enough you'll have people salivating at their smartphones.

In the meantime, here are some photos to inspire. And as always, feel free to share your own food photography below!