DSLR Workshop – Going from Woe to Go with DSLR Photography
The workshops and courses that show you how to use your DSLR effectively are proving to be very popular!
Last week, Greg Perry and I conducted the first “Maximising your DSLR” photography workshop for Perth photographers this year. It didn’t take long for this course to fill after we announced it; so much so that we may have to organise another DSLR workshop in the middle of the year if interest levels persist.
This day-long workshop is designed for those who have taken the leap from compact camera photography to Digital SLR photography. The prospect of going from a point-and-shoot medium to one where you suddenly have so much more control over each and every element of picture taking can sometimes confuse the average entry-level photographer!
Greg shows how to use exposure compensation when dealing with high contrast scenes
The trick lies in breaking down the DSLR photography process into manageable chunks. We start at the very beginning — with using the diopter to make sure that the focusing screen in your viewfinder is clear. It came as quite a surprise that a few workshop participants were completely unaware of the diopter. Next, we looked at auto-focusing options — Greg recommends the use of the centre focus point: that’s where the lens if often at its sharpest and you will be assured that if you use the centre focus point, the image at the point of focus will be absolutely tack sharp.
The workshop covers a wide gamut of DSLR controls and functions and how you can use these to take better photographs. My suggestions for the Top 5 DSLR controls to master are:
- Metering modes – learn what each mode does (evaluative metering, centre-weighted metering, spot metering).
- Auto-exposure lock – a very hand method to lock your exposure, recompose and then take the shot.
- Exposure compensation – work out quickly when and by how much you need to dial up or dial down the exposure.
- Single vs continuous focus – they each have their uses; if you like taking action shots, then learn how to use continuous focus.
- Read your histogram – it’s a good, quick way of gauging the exposure in your image (don’t trust what you see in the LCD preview as ambient light around you can influence the brightness of the image on the LCD).
We included a guided photowalk in Fremantle as part of this course — it was important that participants be able to apply what they have learned to real world photography. The walk took us along High Street to the West End of Fremantle, where yours truly took a turn at “modelling” for the participants (thankfully, I didn’t break any lenses with my attempt at providing a human model for workshop participants! 
).
The photographs were shooting me, so I shot back!
For those participants with speedlights (external flashes), there was opportunity to learn more about using the speedlight in outdoor portraiture work. Greg suggests dialing down the flash compensation to -2/3 exposure (or -0.7) so that the flash subtly fills in shadows, while allowing natural light to light your subject.
Stay tuned for news about a future “Maximising your DSLR” workshop!
Share on FacebookAustraland Coogee Jetty-to-Jetty Swim 2010
While most people were enjoying a relaxing and lazy start to a beautiful morning, more than 600 doughty open water swimmers gathered at Coogee Beach to participate in this year’s Australand Coogee Jetty-to-Jetty Swim,
The Swim is an annual event, organised by the Cockburn Masters Swimming Club, sees swimmers partake in one of two ocean swims: a 1.5 kilometre swim from jetty to jetty; or a 750m swim from the mid point between jetties.
When I arrived, the beach was jam packed with bodies in an array of swimwear. Unlike other ocean swims, the Australand Coogee Jetty-to-Jetty swim is open to all ages; the youngest swimmer was 8; the oldest in their 80s.
It’s always good fun photographing events like this — participants get into the spirit of things and joke around with you. Big tip for the blokes: If you want to suck you gut in at a photo opp, don’t just suck it in, but take a deep breath; this puffs up your chest and brings your gut in, making you look athletic and heroic! 
Here is a selection of images from the swim. The final photo shows the last swimmer to come in — certainly a tale about the indomitable human spirit!
For photos from full coverage of the swim, visit The Snapshooter website.
Girls at registration
Warm-up stretches
Gathering at the beach
Large crowd
Boys in blue
The beach hike to the 750m and 1.5km starting points.
Swimmers prepare to start
And they’re off!
The finish line
Taking a well-deserved break
This bloke gave his all. While he was last in line, he emerged from the water to a standing ovation!
Silent auction at “Sons of Ganga” to support OUR HOME Charity
Four framed prints from Sons of Ganga will be offered for sale via a silent auction, with all proceeds from the sales going to OUR HOME Charity.
OUR HOME is an organisation based in Kerala, India, that cares for and educates orphans and homeless children. OUR HOME provides is a permanent home for orphans and homeless children. The OUR HOME Charitable Trust currently manages two children’s homes, and a local primary school for children who in many cases, would not be able to afford to attend school. The organisation works with the local community so that no child is denied the right to an education, adequate shelter, love, care and a nutritional diet.
OUR HOME’s mission resonates with my very own values. Having come from a background in teaching, and having also seen and experienced the conditions in which the underpriveleged in India live, I’ve come to realise that education is the way out of the oppression of poverty and desperation. If we can offer underprivileged children opportunities to grow and develop as individuals and valuable members of the community, then we provide them with a way out a life of poverty and neglect.
Children of the Ghats – A photograph from Varanasi, India
It’s my hope that visitors to Sons of Ganga will recognise the value in this and be able to support OUR HOME through their participation in the silent auction.
For more information about OUR HOME, visit the organisation’s website, or Facebook page.
Share on FacebookWorkshop – “Practical Portraiture”
How do you take GREAT portraits?
I know many new photographers who find the prospect of portrait photography daunting! Not only do you have to contend with the technicalities of lighting your subject, controlling techniques such as depth of field and subject-background isolation, but you also need to set your portrait subject at ease, to pose them in the most natural and flattering way, and to direct them so that they give you their best smiles, their happiest expressions.
No wonder so many of us start off photographing landscapes and buildings! At least these subjects don’t require direction.
“Practical Portraiture” is a photography workshop/course for Perth photographers that will show you how to bring out the best in the people you photograph. If you have a hankering for portrait photography, whether because you love photographing people or you plan to make some income from doing portrait photography, then this workshop will give you the confidence to make beautiful and natural portraits.
You don’t need to know the intricacies of studio-lighting to take beautiful portraits. In fact, this workshop is geared to show you how the best portraits can be done using natural light (window light, ambient light outdoors) and common photography tools such as a speedlight (external flash) and a reflector!
The “Practical Portraiture” photography course emphasises both the approach and the techniques for taking brilliant portraits — portraits that you will love, and more importantly, those that your subjects will treasure.
Workshop facilitator, Greg Perry, and I will lead you on a number of portrait shoots in the studio and the streets of Fremantle, where you will work closely with our portrait models Matt and Kat to learn the ins and outs of effective portaiture:
- Approaches for relaxing and engaging people at the photo shoot.
- Useful dress guidelines for clothing, make-up and accessories.
- Understanding and managing people’s concerns about their own appearances.
- Helpful techniques for corrective posing and lighting (or how to get your subjects looking natural and at their best!)
- Tips for posing couples, families and other small groups (eg. that bridal party at the wedding).
- Camera to subject positioning relative to the light source.
- Subject to background relationships.
- Setting a custom white balance to get the right colour cast in your portraits.
- Exposure metering for portraiture – external vs. internal light meters.
- Controlling shadows using fill-flash, reflectors and scrims.
- Managing difficult back-lighting issues.
- Using flash exposure compensation (FEC) for balancing natural light.
- Working with high-sync flash in bright ambient-light conditions.
- Working with slow-sync flash in low ambient-light conditions.
BOOKINGS
Places in this workshop are limited to 10 participants. You can book this workshop at the Workshops in a SNAP! website.
Have a look at the photographs below for works by students and by Greg from previous Portraiture workshops:
Photograph by Greg Perry
Photograph by Greg Perry
Photograph by Gareth Nealon
Photograph by Gareth Nealon
Photograph by Greg Perry
Photograph by Greg Perry
“Sons of Ganga” – a FotoFreo Fringe Festival Exhibition
Things have been mighty busy at the Snapshooter headquarters. Not only am I capping off a busy season of surf-rowing photography and launching the first of this year’s photography workshops, I’ve also been busy organising my fourth solo exhibition, Sons of Ganga which will show as part of the FotoFreo 2010 Fringe Festival.
Sons of Ganga is an exhibition for those of you who enjoy documentary and travel photography. These are photographs taken from my staying in Varanasi while on a trip through northern India. I hope you can join me in this look into life on the banks of the Ganges, in the oldest inhabited city in the world.
Sons of Ganga, by Seng Mah
The Cracked Gallery (in Behind the Monkey, 479 Beaufort Street, Highgate)
March 13 – 31
Opens daily – Mon-Sat: 10am – 5.30pm; Sun: 11am – 4pm.
In Varanasi, the ancient city on the banks of the Ganges, the river is an intrinsic part of spiritual life for Hindus – she is Ganga, the mother goddess. Bathing in the Mother allows one to wash away the sins of lifetimes. The dead are cremated on its ghats, their ashes returned to Mother Ganga, their souls released from moksha, the cycle of rebirth.
There are also more pragmatic purposes to the Ganges – its water is used by countless dhobi wallahs who launder on its banks; boatmen ply its surface taking pilgrims and tourists from ghat to ghat, the locals wash, bathe and swim in her, and, ultimately, she becomes the repository for every piece of refuse, sewage and waste that comes from human and animal habitation of the city.
The Ganges at Varanasi is so heavily polluted that its waters are septic. Undeterred by this, the people of Varanasi continue to bathe in the Ganges and to use her banks and her ghats when praying. Mysteriously, Ganges water is mysteriously rich in dissolved oxygen – a remarkable phenomenon given its pollution.
In visiting Varanasi, I was immediately struck by its contrasts. The images in Sons of Ganga show these contrasts and explore the seamless intersection of what people in the West often deem to be a division between the religious and secular. In Varanasi, this distinction is blurred, often to the confusion and, sometimes, revulsion, of visitors from the West.
When you stand on the ghats overlooking the Ganges, a tremendous sense of calm and serenity settles upon you. Yet, just metres ahead, men and women splash in the turbid waters of the river, seeking to cleanse themselves of physical and spiritual stains. Behind, large cattle low and defecate on the steps, while touts linger within earshot. The air is heavy with the acrid scent of funeral pyres on the cremation ghats. The hubbub of life by the river is suddenly broken by the ringing of bells and chanting as another corpse, swathed in marigold, is borne towards the pyre, where it will be immersed in the Ganges before it is ceremonially immolated before the burned remains are returned to the river.
I was responding on a quietly instinctive level to this confusing and complex kaleidoscope of the spiritual and unsanitary. As a visitor, it was impossible for me to understand the centuries of cultural and religious tradition that normalised life on the banks of the Ganges. Instead, driven by a desire to create my own understanding, I found myself entering spaces usually occupied by the people of Varanasi:
I walked the ghats and explored the alleyways of the old city. I sat down, waited and was invited to photograph inside akharas (wrestling arenas/gyms) on the banks of the river. I conversed with a retired banker on an evening stroll by the river, a boatman who lived in a shack on the ghat, children who wanted to be photograph and then asked for baksheesh (donation) in recompense, Shaivites who prayed and bathed in the river and a band of young men who washed in the river, exercised in the akhara before heading out to their work in various IT and business companies in the city.
Sons of Ganga shows my exploration of these spaces.
