Another challenging shoot with @perth_amateur_photographers. This shoot was a collaboration with @freethehounds, a charity that rescues greyhounds from racing. I forgot my flash and there was very little lighting in the studio, so I had to learn the limits of my built-in flash on the fly. I have many more photos, but this set here is a series of portraits. I find these to be the strongest of the series as they show the greyhounds not as an accessory but an active agent within the photo.
I have just returned from my trip to China. Just kidding. Believe it or not, these buildings are found in Perth, Western Australia. A Chinese millionaire was attempting to recreate a slice of home when COVID hit, forcing him to abandon the place in order to care for his family in China. There are no public details as to why he couldn’t return. But it is a great shame because these buildings were so close to completion. It was nearly sold in September of last year, but for whatever reason, the sale fell through.
Now the property sits abandoned, without even any gates to keep people out and sadly, it seems many have used this place as a wreck room, a rubbish bin, a toilet. It’s astounding to me that anyone could look at such a wonderful place as this and feel any inclination to vandalise it.
So what I have tried to accomplish here, as best I can, is an act of archaeology or preservation. This was a beautiful place and I want the world to be able to see it and enjoy it, before it is erased from this Earth entirely. But here’s hoping another eccentric millionaire comes along to complete this anachronistic wonderland and maybe keeps it open to the public.
Around April 2022, I did my first nude photoshoot, I waxed every inch of my body. I rocked up in a full face of make-up, long hair, heels and lingerie. I was trying so hard to conform to society’s idea of female beauty. Then I was hit by a car a couple of months later and I was reborn. It suddenly put my life into perspective and made me realise what it is that I actually valued.
It bugged me that my only nude photoshoot didn’t resemble the real me. So without any preparation, I simply set up my old DSLR and experimented with what it could do in auto on a self-timer.
Here I am, muscular, hairy, mulleted, bare-faced, and undeniably a woman. An adult human female.
It’s been a while since Ivy (the SAAB) and I went chasing waterfalls, and Hovea Falls was flowing wonderfully at John Forrest National Park yesterday. The shot I am most proud of is of the waterfall itself, I finally figured out how to do that smooth water effect.
I have long wished to find a cave behind a waterfall, common in fiction, but remarkably rare in reality, at least in Western Australia. I discovered Hovea had a tiny cave of sorts. The roof of it was an unsettling abandoned hive, possibly once belonging to wasps. I also marvelled at the black rock with the silver streak on it, it appeared that at some point in the past, there had been two waterfalls here. Impossible to say when that was, but the rock is forever stained by it.
The vines growing across my balcony have all died out for the winter, except for this one branch. I couldn’t believe my eyes at first. That has to be fake, it looks like someone hung an artificial garland onto the dead vine. But, no, it’s real, surviving and thriving and somehow looking absolutely flawless.
Here’s last weekend’s shoot with Perth Amateur Photographers Group at the Ruth Faulkner park. I don’t spend much time in Belmont, so I was pleasantly surprised by the beautiful park and fancy new library. I’m always happy to see a waterfall. I think this is my first shoot on an overcast day. I know some photographers prefer it, but I found it difficult to work with. I’ve since bought a speedlite, let’s see if that improves my next shoot. This is also my first time working with male models, and my first time using my 50mm lens. It’s much easier to get that shallower depth of field with the right lens, turns out.
My absolute favourite photos from that day were the photos of the bird. Before we began the photowalk, one of the photographers was telling her young daughter to not become too distracted reviewing the photos in her camera, instead she should keep her eyes up, ready for the next photo opportunity. “You never know what you might miss. While you’re looking at your screen a big…hawk could come along and you would miss it”.
Not five minutes later, I heard an unusual call coming from the pine trees. I took out my 250mm lens and zoomed in. No freaking way, she had summoned a hawk. Or at least, we think it’s a hawk, possibly a falcon. Damn it, Jim, I’m a photographer, not an ornithologist.
Models: Chey @chey_wynn Sanj @sanj_ranasinghe Kris @purvo28 Elle @xiellene
This was my first attempt at animal photography, it was very challenging, especially at a crowded zoo during school holidays. But hey, a free ticket is a free ticket. At the time, I felt the need to connect with my spirit animal, the rhinoceros; thick-skinned, and fearlessly charging through life. This was my first time visiting the zoo during school holidays. The experience I was accustomed to was a quiet, meditative one. Not so during school holidays, I felt sorry for the animals. Both parents and children were loud and obnoxious, screaming, and banging on the glass. Dreadful. The staff, at least, were all lovely. Thankfully, people would get bored with each animal quickly and move onto to inflict themselves on the next. Meanwhile, I sat with the rhino and tiger for hours waiting for them, observing them, getting to know them. The rhinos wanted to spend most of their time with their backs to the humans (don’t blame them), and marking their territory. The tiger was extremely challenging to shoot. Although he was an old fella and a long-time feature of the zoo, he was so elusive, I had never actually laid eyes on him. I almost believed the tiger enclosure was empty. But after waiting a while he emerged and began pacing. The windows were all covered with decals of trees to give him some privacy. So I was shooting through that and trying to get past the crowd that would spontaneously appear every time he did.
This was the first photoshoot I ever did, back in November 2022, with my friend Stephanie modelling her Regency costume for me. I can see how far I’ve come since then, and while I can do better now, these photos turned out well despite my limitations at the time.
Here are my top shots from the Perth Amateur Photographers Group (PAPG) shoot at Rolloways rollerskating centre last month. It was extremely challenging, low lighting, fast movements, plus an unexpected children’s party being held at the same time! I took a lot of bad photos, and these good ones have a lot of flaws, but they demonstrate how far I’ve improved in the three years I’ve been a part of this club. I have a stronger intuition for the manual settings and my lenses. I know about shooting and editing in RAW. Let’s see where I’m at in another three years.
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