Innholdsfortegnelse for September - November 2022 i Photo Review

The Silo Art Trail is often described as ‘Australia’s largest outdoor gallery’. It encompasses more than 21 silo art locations and one Mobile Silo Art location throughout Victoria and stretches across more than 8,500 kilometres, from Northam in Western Australia to Three Moon in Queensland. It’s impossible to see all the artworks in one trip, so most people concentrate on a single, manageable area. Silo Art has had a welcome effect on the small rural communities that host it, bringing an influx of visitors to stimulate local businesses and creating both national and international attention. The initial Victorian Silo Art Trail was conceived in 2016, following the success of the first artwork at Brim. Since then it has gained support from local and state governments as well as the Federal…

As photographers one of the first things we learn is the importance of capturing images that are ‘correctly’ exposed. While this rule applies to most subjects, there are times when it may be a more creative approach to over-expose with the aim of rendering the subject as a high key image – one in which lighter tones predominate. High key lighting originated in the film industry, where cinematographers used the term ‘key light’ to define the main light used for a particular scene. When high key lighting was used, the lighter tones in the scene were prioritised over mid-tones and blacks. The desired effect was to evoke an optimistic, upbeat reaction. While both high key and low key lighting (which prioritises darker tones) are commonly associated with studio portraiture and…

For many of the shots I’ve taken, the guide secured me on a rope while I used an ice axe to stabilise myself and steady my tripod in position. It’s especially difficult if it’s windy… How would you describe your landscape photography? Do you have a particular style, or is there a philosophy behind it? I’m not sure about style, but I have been influenced by two cultures [having grown up and been educated in China before coming to the University of Sydney in 1990 to do his PhD in artificial intelligence, and living in Australia ever since]. There are similarities and differences between eastern and western culture. In the art aesthetics of eastern culture, they are more interested in harmony, balance and coherence of images to create a certain…

If you’ve read our Locations feature on Victoria’s Silo Art Trail you’ll be aware that many of the silo images have been adjusted post-capture to remove these distortions. In this feature we’ll explain how to go about it if you don’t have special perspective-control (PC) lenses. When you photograph a tall vertical structure – whether it’s a silo or other type of building, a statue or a tree – if you tilt the camera upwards to fit the subject into the frame you’ll notice the structure appears to become narrower at the top than at the bottom. In addition, its sides will be tilted inwards. This effect can also occur if projectors (slide and digital) aren’t placed perpendicular to the horizontal centreline of the screen. The effect is known as…

What’s really hard to learn is - why are you taking it? What are you trying to say? ‘Bushfire photography is like being in the ocean,’ says photographer Matthew Abbott. ‘You don’t want to be where a dumper wave is cresting and breaks on your head. You’re okay further along the wave where you can float over it, and safely take a photo looking towards the barrel where the action is. ‘If a fire is pumping through, you want to know the direction it’s going and be on the side of it,’ Matthew says of his experience shooting during Australia’s devastating 2019-2020 bushfires. ‘You never want to feel out of control. It was day in and day out, high adrenaline. I’m a good driver. I’ve got a good car. I…

While dynamic range is a general term that is frequently used for marketing the latest cameras, many camera buyers have a poor understanding of what the term actually means. Wikipedia defines it as the ratio between the largest and smallest values that a certain quantity can assume. This is fair enough, since it can be used to describe all kinds of signals, particularly sound and light that photographers work with. Although the dynamic range of human vision extends from starlight to bright sunlight, we can’t detect the entire range all at once. Our brains must adapt at either end of the scale, a process that may take several minutes if you go from a place with high signal levels to one where signals are faint. Dynamic range in photography In…