Yesterday at lunch...

I love a little bit of Montrachet for a leisurely weekday lunch.

Photographic Inspiration - Tim Walker

It's that time of the year again where we start to plan next season's lifestyle shoots. In my research I came across Tim Walker whose elaborately styled shots I just love. Sadly our client has an odd aversion to props, but maybe some of these images could inspire even him to give props a go..

My grandmother's garden

My grandmother's husband is a passionate gardener, always plugging away in the backyard, growing fruit and vegies, and beautiful flowers. We arrived shortly before cold weather set in, so we caught the last blooms of autumns before they withered and faded away.

Nostalgia

There is nothing like a holiday in one's country of birth to make one wistful about childhood. This is especially true when one is lucky enough to still have grandparents to recount their memories of one's glory days of youth. I find I'm getting more sentimental each time I return, and even if the same story is recounted for what seems like the hundredth time, I don't really mind so much these days, because who knows for how long these grandparents can continue to tell these tales.
On our last day in Germany my grandmother's husband Hans pulled out a box of photos, letters, drawings and other paraphernalia - anything I've ever sent him. Amongst all this we found some lovely photos of our many hiking trips my brother and I used to take with Hans.
I've decided to post a few of those (I do hope my bro doesn't mind..) because I think they offer a lovely snapshot of a happy childhood, and I really love old photos from a creative/designer point of view, too.


I think I was about 6 or 7 in this photo, taken on one of our many smokos we took during our hikes.

As a child my brother could be a bit of a sook (sorry, it's true!), and this story gets told and retold to illustrate this point. In our day of hiking he somehow managed to get a splinter stuck in his hand here is Hans trying to coax it out from under his skin with a needle; my brother's pained expression cracks me up to this day!

Undoubtedly my favourite of these photos. In Bavaria beer is jokingly referred to as own food group, and Hans would always let us have a sip of his beer for a special treat. Whilst I don't drink much beer usually, when in Germany I drink almost exclusively Weissbier, which is what is pictured here. I just love the slightly cheeky expression on our faces!

I hope you all enjoyed this trip down memory lane as much as I did. The original photos are back in the box of tricks at my grandmother's house for now, but one day that box will reside in one of my cupboards at home, periodically dusted off and wistfully rummaged through.

Brisbane City of Lights

 As part of the Brisbane Festival there is a nightly laser show over the Brisbane River. Last Thursday we happened to be at South Bank at the right time. I didn't have my tripod with me, so the longest exposure is about 1/3 of a second or so, with me leaning against a pole for some stability. Hope you like.

Cute visitor at work yesterday

Summer in Cuba

This is the latest lifestyle shoot I worked on a couple of months ago, and it's out now. We came up with the concept of a couple hanging out in a run-down Havana hotel room on a hot Summer day based mainly on the colours and patterns from the clothes our client bought overseas to match the shoes for next season.
Client: Pulp Shoes
Set: The very talented Leo at Staging Dimensions
Photographer: Paul Giggle
Retouching: David Walden
Hair & Makeup: Tania Travers
Art Direction, props: moi
Talent: Alex F and Matt J from Dally's Models

Shooting with the Nikor 24-85mm f2.8-4 D

I've been looking at getting a new walking around lens for our European adventure in October, because as much as I love my 50mm, it just doesn't have the range I want for holiday snaps. Especially for architectural shots (like I'll be doing in Barcelona) I'll need something wider. I asked around for some advice and got put onto the Nikon AF-S 24-70mm f2.8 ED which is a beautiful lens but the cheapest I could find it for was $1700 so that was a no-go. For almost a third of the price I can get my hands on the Nikon AF 24-85mm f2.8-4D IF. Luckily for me a friend of mine owns this lens and kindly let me borrow it for the weekend. Exuberant, I put the lens on my D40x and I was immediately less exuberant as my camera failed to auto focus. I frantically searched for a button on the lens to switch to auto-focus but there was none. It seems my camera is too old and crap to auto focus on D-series lenses, I need G. :(
I'm not so good on the manual focusing, so this won't be the lens to take to Europe where I'll want to be able to focus fairly quickly instead of fiddling with my camera and missing the holiday.
The manual focus is a little touchy and I need a lot more practice, as can be seen from the orange flower in the images below. The lens might not be great for me for the holiday, but I had a play around with the macro function, which is absolutely awesome. I have bought a different lens (AF-S DX Nikkor 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED-IF) to take overseas, but this lens will stay on my to-buy list for when I get a new body next year.
A few macro shots below to show how sharp this lens is, and the bokeh. Enjoy.

Riverfire 2011

Some long exposure photography from my friend's balcony

Shadow

Refracted light

Focus

Night sky

A storm raged over Brisbane last night, but sadly I was stuck in traffic, so I missed all the potential lighting shots. I got home just in time to capture this strange shade that the sky took on.

Pink

Bright Lights

South Bank as seen from Victoria Bridge