Back in September 2010, I had the opportunity to attend a few of the panels at Aussiecon 4. One of the panels was called “The best SF novel you’ve never read” and was chaired by three panelists: Claire Brialey, Gail Carriger and Mike Scott. I’d taken some notes during this panel and kept telling people that I would dig them up, so here they are finally. I think I managed to get all of the novels that they discussed.
The blurb for the event went as follows: More than 350,000 books are published every year. With such a vast amount of material flooding the market across the world, it’s easy for great literature to get lost in the crowd. What are the best under-appreciated novels of the past ten years, the books that – despite immense originality and quality – never found the proper audience. A panel of experts point to some diamonds in the rough.
Last month, I was commissioned to take a photo of the “Vinegar Girl” sign in Richmond. The intention was to capture the beauty of the sign that it will ultimately hang on someone’s wall.
The sign itself has two different “looks” because at 8.30pm every night it lights up with animated neon. So I checked out both to see how it looks in each case and also how it interacted with the sky and the surrounding architecture. After I’d seen this, I felt that sunset would be the best time to capture it. I’d suspected this before I’d even embarked on this venture. Without question, the choice for me was to use a particular Ektachrome film: Kodak E100VS. The “VS” means “Vivid Saturation” but that’s not the reason I chose the film. A few years ago I discovered that this particular film responds to colour in a unique way during the twilight part of the day. The film appears to amplify a particular kind of warm purple that I find is quite beautiful. I’ve had this colour even appear in scenes where there was no visible purple at the time. Here’s a few examples I’ve taken in the past. In each case, no colour adjustments have been made from the original scans.
The resultant shot, the one that was the favourite with the client, did end up being the sunset shot. The final print was even made from a completely unaltered scan of the slide, which can be seen here.
It’s hard to believe it’s been so long since I posted on here and surprising to also see that my last post was in May. Photographically, it all feels so recent but that’s probably because I haven’t done much photography since June. I couldn’t really explain the reason why either. It’s the same on my Flickr though; get to the third page and you’re already in 2009.
I shot my first roll of film a couple of weeks ago, motivated by the fact that it was my first and last chance to use some Kodachrome. So I shot it in a borrowed Exa 1b. Not only is it the first left-handed camera I’ve ever used, but it also has a maximum shutter speed of 1/175. Both of these elements slowed down the process of shooting and… it was a lot of fun.
Last week, I bought a Fuji Instax 210. I haven’t finished the first cartridge but it’s been a promising camera so far. I’ve yet to discover a way of disabling the flash, so I don’t know when that thing is going to go off which is a bit annoying.
Here’s a shot from the camera, taken whilst holding a FL-W filter in front of the lens.
Last Thursday night after work, I wandered into the Melbourne CBD with fellow photog mate, Jeren, to spend a few hours to take some photos and video. This is the result of the video I shot. The idea was simply to experiment with “motion photographs” – an image that is primarily static but with secondary elements of movement. I’d be meaning to do this for ages but had never gotten around to it, so I definitely plan to try and do some more of these.
I recently watched a music performance in Beijing by a group from the province of Inner Mongolia. The performance was of traditional music by the indigenous (or minority) people from the region. The music was totally amazing so I filmed the last part of it.
Having uploaded it to Youtube, I was able to work out the name of the performers (in Chinese only) and the name of the song. Here is another complete performance by them of the same song for Chinese television.
Last year, Scott Alexander and Stuart Moulds of Aquafruzzl Films asked me to be a cinematographer on their next short film called “The Business Trip”. It was something I’d never done before but was very grateful for the opportunity as it’s another form of storytelling I’m keen to explore. We did the shoot over three days in November 2009 using two Canon 7D cameras, which proved very useful for filming in cramped spaces and the fact that most of the shoot was in low light.
Here is the finished product! Visit the film’s Aquafruzzl page for more info.
This is the printed flyer for a short film I did stills photography for, called Red Water Red. The key image here is one of the photos I took on the first night of shooting.
In November 2009, the film was selected for the 2009 Stockholm film festival. Many congrats to the director, Qing.
So I think it was about a month ago that I finally upgraded my digital camera to a Canon EOS 5D Mk II. My previous digital was an EOS 350D and, these days, rarely used; so why upgrade when I mostly shoot film anyway? That’s certainly something I thought about a lot beforehand, but there were a few things that influenced my decision.
1> Video. DSLRs have created somewhat of a revolution in filmmaking and is something I’m very interested in. Introducing time into an equation of storytelling has been something I’ve wanted to do and this appeared to be the perfect chance to do it. Recently, I was cinematographer on a short film which used two Canon EOS 7Ds and it was a lot of fun. Definitely will be doing more in the future.
2> Digital helps me shoot film better. My digital camera was crucial to me learning and understanding photography in the first place and in improving my photographic skills. Also, due to the technology of digital, things such as the ever-increasing ISO ratings, allow a digital camera to do things that can’t be achieved with film (of course, the converse of this argument also still applies).
3> Professional work. Due to the nature of paid work, a digital camera is a much more useful tool to have (particularly when shooting in low light on a film set). So hopefully I can pay it off over time too.
Having said all that, my digital camera isn’t a replacement for my film cameras. Shooting with film is still a lot of fun and something I think I will always enjoy.
