Seizing the moment for that shot…
I came across this article about photographers who will do anything for the perfect shot, and it made me realise that I have some way to go in demonstrating ‘commitment’ in this area. However, last night I balanced myself on a ledge to take photos at Natasha Lester‘s book launch, and I’m pretty sure my friends were taking bets on whether I’d fall. I know Emily Paull, who was selling books and looking gorgeous in her 20s-style dress, was worried I’d fall on her book boxes!
Louise inspired me to challenge myself when she shared her slow shutter speed images at the beach. The light wasn’t ideal for slow shutter speed (middle of the day, too bright) so I opted for a fast shutter speed to capture waves crashing into and over rocks at Meelup Bay in south-west WA. The water in this image looks like glass – almost as if I could touch it and it might shatter. It was a great exercise – challenging yourself often leads to surprising results.
I didn’t take my tripod, so I didn’t have the worry about waves knocking my camera in the water, but there was a hairy moment when I stepped on a slippery rock!
Often when you’re taking photos you have to grab opportunities as they arise. Louise noticed the near-full moon when she was walking down the stairs, so she opened up the windows and set up the camera on a tripod in the stairwell. The clouds kept moving across its face, and sometimes it disappeared before slowly reappearing and filling the sky with light. Louise says: “This is another reason I love taking photos—I notice things that I never used to. I sat and watched the moon disappear and reappear for over an hour, something I’d never ordinarily do. And it was so peaceful.”
Because it was on high zoom, there’s some vignetting around the edges. Louise could have eliminated it, but she thought it gave the photo depth (I agree). She took over 300 photos, all very similar, and when she was clicking through them later, she noticed they made quite a good timelapse.
Another thing photographers do … take loads of pictures! Luckily we can delete the ones we don’t want.
What’s the craziest thing you’ve done to take a photo?
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Once a week, Louise (of Louise Allan: Life From the Attic) and I team up to share creative photos on our websites. It’s all part of our challenge to stretch ourselves creatively.
How does a website help rural fiction authors in Australia and NZ?
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0 Responses
I love the extents photographers will go to get a photo—I don’t think even I’d do many of those! Thank god these days we can shoot 300 photos, and just delete our blurry, uncentred shots—not like the old days when it cost a fortune to develop them!
I remember developing rolls of film and finding a handful that were okay, and the rest were no good. Into the bin they went!
Oh yes! It took up to two weeks to get them developed, and when finally you got them back and opened up the Kodak envelope, it was so disappointing! I still have my photo album from back then, and when I found it again, I got all excited—until I opened up pages of blurred photos, or photos with someone’s head cut in half, or with the object barely visible and stuck up in the top corner of the photo! And these were the good ones I’d saved!