Pinned Skin Collages by David Adey | Colossal.

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Sure I could, so using the Liquify tool in Photoshop, I removed the ‘imperfection’.  Except, really, it wasn’t an imperfection at all.  It was just a ‘natural’ part of her.  It didn’t stand out in the photograph.  No-one else noticed it.  Just her.    But was I going to tell her I wouldn’t do it?  Of course not.  She was my client and these were the photographs she’d look at for the rest of her life.  She had to be happy with them.

Except, then I saw this:

And it made me think that as photographers, we have a responsibility for what we’re selling.

On a recent millinery shoot, which was all about the hats of course, I Photoshopped the (very beautiful already) model by smoothing skin, enlarging eyes, making the lips slightly bigger, removing shadows under the eyes, brightening the iris etc etc etc.  Everyone said how perfect the image was, how it would look great in any magazine.   I thought about why I’d edited the image like that and came to the conclusion that I made the model look ‘more’ perfect so that hat would do too.  The image had to look ‘commercially’ good for the purpose it was intended.

But in the commercial world, especially magazines, it’s thought that most of the images are PS’d anyway.  Out of an entire magazine in front of me right now, there isn’t one shot I can find which doesn’t have retouching.

But where do we draw the line?  As photographers, we think nothing of smoothing skin, removing ‘imperfections’.  But we should.  Are we reflecting the person as they are, or are we in the industry of flattery?  What’s the aim?

Why are we pushing the ‘people can be perfect’ scenario when we well know that it’s not possible to be perfect?

Many of us ‘rave’ about old photographs.  Here’s one.

What are we going to do, 100+ years later?  Let’s pick the photograph apart.  Well for a start, we could ditch the shadows beneath the eyes… tidy up the hair a bit, get rid of that blemish on her face…. let’s smooth the skin and enlarge her eyes a bit….   But why would we do that?  Doesn’t the photograph stand on its own?  Isn’t it beautiful in its own right?  Isn’t it of its time?  Why mess with something like this?   Oh well, they didn’t have the tools back then.. well that’s right.   They didn’t have the dark room abilities that we eventually created.  But perhaps photography wasn’t about looking like you weren’t you, back then?

Perhaps it was about recording a moment ?

Doesn’t this photograph raise questions for you when you look at it?  Look at that dress, all the jet decorating it.  Beautiful.  Was it hers?  Or was it provided by the photography studio?  Or perhaps a relative?  Check out her face, that look…. what’s she thinking?  Obviously the fence there is a prop in the studio…is she nervously picking at the wood with her hand?  Perhaps it’s a pose that the photographer asked her to do, to show her vulnerability?  Who knows?  But over 100 years later, isn’t it still captivating?  It’s my great grandmother by the way.  I love the photograph.

What are we going to think, in 100 years, of the bland, pore-less, Photoshopped women who appear everywhere in our society?  What happens when a daughter looks back on her dead mother’s wedding album and feels sad that it’s not real… that her mother truly never looked like that.   What’s the point?   A moment of vanity?

Why are we so rubbish at accepting that we are all human, all different and that we should be celebrating our diversity, not dumbing it down?

Read this blog post on Anorexia.  All of the beautiful images in the world can’t make that worthwhile… and yet, we carry on smoothing and altering for the sake of what, exactly?  All those altered images are adding to the self esteem issues of those kids out there.  Is it worth it?

I feel we have a responsibility to show what’s real.  Don’t we?  Aren’t we merely adding to the problems if we all continue to smooth and primp?

I know there are good photographers out there who just rely on taking a beautiful photograph in ‘the moment’.  They actually don’t depend on PS to produce that beautiful image that a couple will look at for the rest of their lives.  But I also know there are photographers who will go to great lengths to create something beyond beautiful… something smoothed and brightened, that really represents not the truth, but an altered reality where we are all beautiful, line free and perfect.

It’s truly an unobtainable beauty.

What do you think?

I tried to think back… what had I done, what hadn’t I done, what did I wish I’d known, what people have asked me in the past….

Over a week I came up with this fairly random list which I added to when something occurred to me. It’s not perfect, it’s not exhaustive but it’s what I thought of.

Perhaps you can add to it for others?

1. Get a good camera and learn it inside out.
2. Know how to alter your camera exposure for the correct weather conditions.
3. Work on your style.  YOUR style, not one you’ve borrowed from elsewhere.  Be AUTHENTIC!
4. Learn how ISO, shutter speed and aperture work together.
5. Don’t upgrade your old camera until you know what every bell and whistle on your present camera does.  EVERY. SINGLE. THING.
6. Learn about light.  Without this, your photographs are nothing.
7. Master the art of the black and white.  Your shot needs to have a good balance of highlights, lowlights, shadows etc.  You don’t want to ‘blow’ your lights out and conversely you don’t want to increase the blacks so such that you lose your subject.
8. Don’t put ‘bad’ photographs on your portfolio just because you need to boost the amount of shots.  If you only have one brilliant photograph, use it.
9. If you’re shooting portraits, always, always have the eyes in focus.
10. Don’t use Photoshop, iPhoto or Lightroom to overly sharpen an out of focus shot.  If it’s not in focus, you can’t really rescue it.
11. Just because you have bells and whistles doesn’t mean you have to use them!  When you review your photographs SOOC (Straight Out Of Camera) and they’re good, LEAVE THEM ALONE!  You do not have to digitally edit your photograph just because you can… learn when to leave it alone.
12. Don’t dodge and burn eyes until your child shots look like little glassy-eyed aliens.
13. Don’t buy into fads… selective colouring, glassy-eyed alien children, big lollipops, babies in giant teacups, making hearts on a pregnant belly with partner’s fingers, many many more things that will make you shudder down the track.
14. Conversely, if your client wants a big lollipop, baby in a giant teacup, hearts on his partner’s pregnant belly, or selective colour, give it to them.  Not supplying what your client really wants is an economic mistake… They’ll just find someone who WILL do it and you loose.
15. Always have a Point of Interest in your photograph.  Try to have a ‘pathway’ to ‘lead’ the eye to that  POI, even better.
16. Learn how to run a business.  This includes tax matters, accounting, marketing, etc.
17. Stop looking at everyone else’s work and concentrate on your own.  Looking and admiring everyone else’s and fretting about your own will make you sad and you will lose focus.  Remember that your work is yours and it’s unique.  There is no ‘better’, just ‘different’.
18. Look at everyone else’s work and make contact with other photographers… we’re generally a friendly sharing bunch.
19. Stop using vignettes especially black ones on all of your work! (Pet hate!)
20. Learn that LESS is MORE!
21. Take risks.
22. Understand and use the Rule of Thirds.
23. Understand rules in composition.
24. Break all the rules you’ve learned.
25. If you can’t afford to buy new gear, rent it.
26. Find out what white balance is.
27. Shoot at the highest resolution you can.  Shoot RAW if you can.
28. The higher the ISO, the more noise.  Shoot with the lowest ISO possible.
29. If you’re shooting people, don’t be afraid to direct them to the pose you want.  You’re the boss.
30. Relax and enjoy yourself.  Be natural.  Be happy.  Play.  Laugh.  And smile.

Got any more?

My love for ice cream emerged at an early age – and has never left!
Ginger Rogers

When I was a little girl, my mother made some banana ice-cream.   This episode sticks in my head  (perhaps almost on a par with the home-made Sarsaparilla exploding in the pantry that time, but that’s another story) because at the time, we didn’t have an ice-cream maker.  The anticipation, therefore, of watching the delicious banana custard being encouraged into the Tupperware container  and placed in the freezer for HOURS nearly drove me to distraction.  I had to wait.

Every twenty minutes, she’d take the container out of the freezer and stir up the ice cream mixture so that the ice crystals didn’t freeze too large and this in the end, produced a lovely, velvety banana ice-cream which was savoured and shared that night.

In this family, bananas are a comfort food.  I don’t know why, but they are.  Perhaps it’s banana custard, or banana bread which creates this link for me.  Perhaps I ate mashed banana as a baby (I know all my children did and loved it) or it’s just the fast food factor of a simple pre-wrapped fruit which is full of delicious and healthy things.

Either way, I had a yen for banana ice-cream so I’m going to share my recipe with you.

You’ll need:

• 300 ml of single cream
• 300 ml whole milk
• a vanilla bean
• 6 egg yolks
• 175g caster sugar
• Approx 5 ripe bananas (depending on taste and size)
• A plastic box of about 1.2 litres for the freezer and an ice-cream maker are good.

I have a Cuisinart ice-cream maker which is perfect.  We keep the bowl in the freezer all the time so that it’s ready.  Some ice-cream makers have a compressor so that the maker itself freezes the ice-cream, but these tend to be expensive and frankly, they’re not essential to making really good ice-cream at home.

There are two ways of making ice-cream -

1. Churn together cream, milk and flavourings (Advantage – it’s egg free and can be dairy free if you choose soya/coconut milk instead and ditch the cream)
2. Create a proper custard using eggs (Egg allergy people take care!)

We’re going to create a custard  based ice-cream, which is soooo much more decadent and rich than a simple churned ice-cream.

• Firstly, put your milk into the pan along with the cream.
• Split the vanilla bean lengthways with a knife, cutting just one side open.  Try not to cut right through.  Now throw that in with the milk/cream mix.
• Turn the heat on low and warm the mixture through for about 10 minutes.  DO NOT BOIL.  You’re ‘steeping’ the mix to encourage flavours to come out.

• Next, break your eggs and separate the yolks out.  Keep the egg whites in the fridge and you can have pale scrambled egg in the morning for breakfast.  Great if you love white food.
• Now beat the egg yolks with the sugar.  You want the sugar to dissolve slightly and the mixture to become a light yellow colour.
• Take the bean out of the milk mixture and open it up on a board.  Take a knife and remove all the delicious vanilla seeds from inside the pod.  Just scrape them out by running your knife along the open bit and then pop them back into the mix.

• Leave the mixture to cool now, and when it’s just warm, you can mix in the egg/sugar mixture.  Any hotter and you’ve got scrambled eggs!
• Now squash your bananas with a fork.  Mash them up until they’re slimy and delicious!

• Throw the bananas into the pan with the milk/cream/sugar/egg but reserve about 1 banana or a little more in a dish until afterwards.
• Now gently heat the mixture.  You want the egg yolks to start thickening the mixture.  Make sure it doesn’t boil… just heat it enough and keep stirring.
• Eventually the mixture will thicken – it should coat the back of a wooden spoon and slowly move down it

• Once it’s sticking to the back of the spoon, you’re ready.
• Sieve the mixture and remove the banana bits.  This is because they’re now cooked and once frozen won’t be that appealing.  You can leave them in if you like, but I wouldn’t recommend it.  (I’ve made this before, can you tell?)
• Now add in the uncooked banana you separated before.  This won’t freeze oddly so you’ll get a lovely textured ice-cream.
• Now throw the lot into your ice-cream maker and churn.
• Once it’s churned but whilst it’s still maleable, using a spatula, move it into the plastic box, pop the lid on and put it into the freezer.

• IF YOU DON’T HAVE AN ICE-CREAM CHURNER….
• Get the custard mix, pop it into the box, throw the lid on and every 20 mins, whisk the heck out of it, scraping the sides of the box to ensure even distribution of the ice crystals.  This might seem long winded and time consuming, and you’d be right.  It is but oh my gosh, it’s worth it!  Keep mixing it and freezing it until you’re happy with the texture.  Really bash those bad-boy ice crystals up!  Eventually it’ll be too stiff to keep bashing, at which point you just leave it to freeze.

Good ice-cream needs time to ‘cure’.  Simply, it needs a good few hours in the freezer to gain the texture it’s meant to have.  In reality of course, you’ll be so eager to try it, you’ll probably throw convention to the wind and like me, manage to wait a whole two hours before you scoop the slightly melty, banana-ridden deliciousness out into a bowl….

By the way, leave the ice-cream for ten minutes to soften before attempting to scoop it.

And… enjoy!

30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself | CREATE YOUR GREAT LIFE.

If you do wish to snake hunt, wear really tough boots… I wear walking boots which also have a steel toe cap… I don’t know why but they do.  Hey, you never know when they’ll come in handy!
Anyway, your boots should come a decent way up your leg given that most snake bites are on the foot or ankle… if you want to be extra safe, a pair of shin pads is handy and cheap.

Snakes rarely bite with venom the first time… In fact, they’re quite happy to give you a warning ‘punch’ first, which can sometimes break the skin.  It’s happened to me once and I didn’t even know I’d been punched until I got home and found two marks on my shin, about the space apart that fangs are.  I do remember thinking at the time that something had hit my leg and assumed it was a stick, but sticks generally don’t leave fang marks. : )
It did take a long time to heal I remember.  So shin pads… and boots, and probably good trousers no matter how hot it is.

Our snakes are quite notoriously shy, the most common being the Red belly Black where I am.  We also have Brown snakes, but they seem to be more shy or less in number as I have real difficulty locating them.
Today was no exception.
I have several spots on my morning walk where I know they hang out, one is a sewerage cover which is concrete.  A large Brown snake loves this spot in the early morning and evening and I’ve seen him there several times, curled up in his glossy, fat brown rings to warm up before dinner.  This morning however, he wasn’t there.

In fact, whilst gently creeping through the bush, I found nothing except a pretty Bush orchid …

and a fairly juvenile Blue Tongue lizard, who’d draped himself over a branch to get more sun.

On my equally stealthy walk back along the track, a fat fly was trying to take a bite out of me, so I leant over to grab some grass to swish him away and there was a baby Blue tongue.  He looked a little dead, so I touched him to make sure and bingo, a big mouth and blue tongue flashed at me and he shoved his head under a pile of leaves and grass.

So no snakes this morning… Try again tomorrow.

After purchasing a macro lens some time back, I found that I became too busy to use it… until the other day when I took a well deserved break one morning…
The sun had just risen and the grass was wet with dew.
I took my camera and stalked my garden for tiny things to photograph.
This Mollis Azalea is one of my favourite flowers not just because of its beauty but also because of the perfect scent. Close up I was amazed to see the pollen sitting on the stamens.
Nature is so amazing when you get close up.

Enjoy the rest of your week.

I’m woefully behind on blogging. There’s a lot happening in my life right now and it’s just crazy!

Anyway, Katoomba held the Roaring 20′s festival a few months back and I enjoyed shooting many of the events.
One of my favourite shots is this one, with models from the Charlotte Smith ‘Dreaming of Chanel’ /Darnell Collection. These guys aren’t professional models, but girls who just ‘suit’ the clothing and era.

Check it out next year for awesome 20′s events, dress up, pop your tux or flapper dress on and come join us.

Via Flickr:
Part of the shoot for the Roaring 20′s Festival in the Blue Mountains.

Shooting a wedding is where I have to be bossy… ‘stand like this, shoulders back, big breath, look down the lens, and a little smile, look at your wife, and look at me… look at meeee…’ (Kimmy)…

I’m not naturally a bossy person.  I prefer to let the organic moments in a wedding take over so that there’s space for intimacy as well.
But on the other hand, this huge responsibility is yours… to give the couple their most precious memories and so being ‘bossy’ or directing the moment is totally imperative because if you don’t do that, you miss so much.

The real trick is finding the balance between that organic moment and being too directive.

‘Just ignore me‘ is my best advice at a wedding… because it allows the moment to take over, the intimacy to show and the beauty of two people truly in love to shine and that, for me, is what it’s all about.