Recent photography of Wesley Place for NDYlight_studio 2024
Recent photography of Wesley Place for NDYlight_studio 2024
Portrait photography can be one of the most challenging forms of photography. Capturing a photo that appears natural and conveys the subject’s personality is a skill that takes patience and practice.
The first thing you need to do is to ascertain the market place that the image will be going into. Is it a quick online portrait or is it going to print as a large A4 image? A lot of portraiture I do is simple photography against a white background. his is the most effective if you only have a small image area to display the photography such as an “about us” page on a website. Here the portrait needs to be engaging and friendly.
Environmental portraits are often more compile in nature. Firstly you need to understand the subject and the intended use that the client has for the images. I have done a lot of photography for large organisations around Melbourne and Sydney where the images are displayed as A1 size posters around a factory domain. This serves two purposes, firstly it gives the company and image which should be consistent with its branding. Secondly and I often feel more importantly it gives the subject and immense sense of pride that they have been recognised by the company in their job.
Working with a designer is critical if they have a specific purpose for the image. I love shooting with a live tether onto a laptop so the client and designer can see what is being recorded in almost realtime with all of the adjustments on image quality made in a program like Capture One or Adobe Lightroom.
I like small portable lighting where i can respond to the environment and time demands of the subject very quickly. There have been significant improvements in the ability to control small portable lighting recently, in particular the Godox unit gives great control over lighting.
Recently I photographed Chadstone shopping centre using aerial drone photography (also called UAE photography) to record the mightily impressive new shopping centre under construction for Peri Australia (they did all of the scaffolding for the building). Peri Australia provide formwork and scaffolding systems. The images were also used extensively by Probuild the chosen builder for the project.
Drone photography offers a unique and easy way to get fantastic perspective on subjects viewed from the air. In industrial photography the use of drones to photographically record the progress of a major building work such as the Chadstone Shopping centre provides imagery that was never as easily attainable as it is now.
The construction photography was done on a rostered day off at the site and no workers were present.
The drone photography images were also used by extensively by ProBuild the builder for this project. The development has added more than 34,000m2 of space including a major 25,000m2 retail expansion and a 10-level, 17,000m2 office tower with basement car parking (which achieved practical completion in July 2016).
Each of the several thousands of glass panels were imported from Germany. Every panel is different and manufactured to very small tolerances. The result is magnificent.
David McArthur 2016
Parallax Photography
Photography of sculpture requires an understanding of the work by the artist involved and also a not insignificant ability to use lighting to bring out texture and colour. It is crucial to work in conjunction with the artist to ensure the look and feel is consistent with the way they see their work.
The lighting needs to show the three dimensional form of the object, easier said than done. Sometimes a hard light will need to be used to bring out all of the surface texture on the artwork and authorities a broad soft light is used. The light often comes from the top or the side but virtually never from the front. Maybe a reflector to fill the shadows is all that is needed.
I often gently digitally combine a number of captures and align the images in Adobe Photoshop where a reflective surface or other attributes of the artwork make it impossible to record in 1 shot. I guess this is like the “painting with light”technique of old.
I generally photograph small sculpture on a white background and use localised lighting often with the background going dark. I shoot with a Canon 5DsR onto a large screen calibrated monitor to check colour and contrast etc. My chosen software is Adobe Lightroom which I use to edit the images and find fast and acquire in the rendition of colour.
Have a look at a few recent examples that illustrate some of the techniques I mention.
Cheers,
David McArthur
Parallax Photography
I recently photography the newly completed Medibank building at 720 Bourke Street Melbourne in the Docklands for Norman Disney & Young
The building was designed by Hassell Architects and the Engineering was done by Norman Disney and Young who did IT infrastructure, Lighting, Communications, Fire Engineering
throughout the project.
For more info from NDY please see http://www.ndy.com/projects/medibank-720-bourke-street-melbourne-0
David McArthur 1/2015
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There is nothing quite like the feeling of getting on plane and venturing to international territory, especially when you haven’t done it in years!
I can’t remember who said it but the phrase “Seize the day” comes too mind when I think about our trip. An opportunity arose recently to travel to Marble bay in New Zealand In the September school holidays this year we headed to Auckland en route to Marble Bay about 3 and a half hours North of Auckland. Thats 3 and a half hours in a normal car but not in an ageing and very overloaded silver Nissan Wagon where everyone wanted to stop every half an hour.
We had a fantastic holiday in Marble Bay, very important for the family to spend some quality time together away from the rigours of our very busy Melbourne lives. The enjoyment was more than the sum of its parts, have a look at a few photos.
David McArthur 10/2014
Photographing Architecture may seem like an easy task at first. The ability to read the building and interpret buildings assists in giving the images life that communicate the building to its audience.
The static nature of architecture is great for photographers in that it means that we can really plan a shot and minimize potential problems. The level of control the photographer has is unmatched in most other subjects in photography.
Choose your time of day carefully. Direct light is rarely interesting. Oblique light enhances contrast. Dawn and dusk light are beautiful times of day. Many buildings lend themselves to twilight or night views if there is adequate interior and exterior lighting.
As with more areas of photography, lighting is a crucial part of architectural photography. In the case of architecture the photographer will likely have no control over the orientation and position of the subject and little ability to affect the physical lighting of the structure – leaving focus on the use of natural lighting paramount.
At Parallax Photography we beleive the secret to great images is liaising with Architects and the Designers to understand the building and ensure this is communicated in the imagery.
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