Dismantling the exhibition

The truck guys will be arriving at the High Court at 11am on Friday December 11th to whisk away the panels and computers. You need to be there on the knocker of 9:30am to pull down your prints and anything else that is yours. It shouldn't take long but we'll appreciate any help in pulling down the panels from the windows.

All VELCRO should be removed from your panel as well. Try to be very careful when doing this, no knives, axes or machetes please.

If you cannot be there please arrange for someone to do it for you, any work left on the panels will be removed by staff but we cannot be held responsible for any damage or loss. Then it's 'all over red rover' and you can go off and enjoy your break (or release) from CIT. Have a wonderful Christmas.

Geoff, Silvia, Dave and Julian

Borrowed gear and outstanding printing bills.

Dave has asked me to remind you that all borrowed gear should have been returned by Friday Dec 4th. and all outstanding printing bills should have been paid by the same date.

Please make it a priority to return and pay as soon as possible. Dave needs to close the books

Exhibition costs.

Howdy Stage 4, you'll remember that Silvia flagged some months back that a bill would be coming to cover the costs of the end of year exhibition, hire, music, security, materials etc. Penny has arranged for an invoice for $65 to be printed over the next day or so. You can pick yours from the office or wait until your assessment session, either way the invoice is due on the 27th of Nov. If you have any problems meeting that due date please see Penny to make other arrangements. Don't forget that invitations are available in the finishing room.

Aerial inspirations

I came across this amazing aerial photographer, Alex Maclean. He will inspire you for/after the aerial workshops.

Exhibition

Just a gentle reminder that the exhibition comes down tomorrow afternoon at 4pm. If you cannot be there let me know and we'll place your work in a safe place. As always, all care, no responsibility, the safest way of course is to remove it yourself. Also one of the responsibilities of the users is to return it to it's original condition, that doesn't mean we have to paint it in lime green however. Sarah and Sam you are off the hook, you helped out with the repaint on Monday. There shouldn't be much to do, Lars has some filler but mostly there will only be pin/nail holes to cover. Tape might present some problems but we'll see when we see. Thanks again for making it a wonderful show, every time I see staff from other areas they comment on just how fantastic the work was. Those who with Tas Neg Study will be seeing a result within the next week.

Food shoot de-brief

Well, clearly things didn't go entirely according to plan and although I was expecting some challenges there were others that were not expected.

Wednesday's shoot was fairly relaxed and problem free although it almost didn't happen. I was contacted by the head honcho to tell me that they were full and we couldn't be accommodated (despite our discussions the week before) and that the chef didn't even know about it. In the end we were accommodated but it turned out to be the restaurant and not the Cafe as requested. The restaurant had better lighting and table settings it has to be said but I feel the Cafe would have beeb more relaxed and we'd have had more room. Our head waiter allowed us to choose whatever we wanted from the menu, 1, 2 or 3 courses and the chef in the kitchen was absolutely fine to have us shooting things. We could move the tables, eat standing up, sit wherever we wanted, all pretty relaxed really. The room wasn't even full! The food was quite passable as well with no mix-ups with the orders. The waiter let us complete the orders ourselves and we were left to get on with shooting. The shots for those that are interested are on the studio computer and there were some very successful ones at that.

What a difference a day makes.

Thursday and (forgive me but I guess I just expected that we would get a repeat of Wednesday) on the surface everything appeared normal but there were some mines, snags and sharp pointy things just below. Milan was a bit particular about his seating but assurred me that "my place is your place", and YES you can go to the kitchen to shoot. For some reason the pick and choose menu became a set three course menu although after numerous requests Milan allowed us to choose single items if that is what we wanted. Ordering was not without its dramas, I ordered gnocchi followed by Barramundi, the waiter repeated the order and wrote it down. Later Milan and the waiter returned, apparently his English is not good and he was confused by the order, it happens. I repeated the order, Milan repeated it, the waiter repeated it and he wrote it down. 'Gnocchi' came without the gnocchi. Waiter said it was but there was none, it was just a glug of cauliflower, greens and cheesy floury mush, Dale had the same problem. Barramundi came and it walked like lamb, talked like lamb, looked like lamb and tasted like lamb but I was told that was what I ordered. Barramindi turned up later sans bag, yes bag, it was to be cooked in it. Nathan and Sarah got a bag with theirs but as it turns out I was the lucky one. Sarah couldn't eat any of her IJ Cook-in-bag meal and Nathan felt obligated to point out how bad the fish was, and it was. 'Cook' said "no-one else complained", well that was a bad start. Christina and Kristi were given the heave-ho from the kitchen by 'Le Chef'. I spoke to him and it turns out that no-one told him to expect us. I smoothed things over and Christina (good on you for going back) went back and shot some more. Clafoutis came and was horrendous, normally a light batter like substance that is transformed into a soft and delicate tart like form with a tiny amount of bite. This was a a floury uncooked glug that tasted like uncooked bread, ergh.

OK so this is not all about photography but is relevant and we can learn from it. The location and the lighting was fine, we have evidence of some really good work. Location shoots are always full of the unexpected, be that good or bad, useful or unuseful. What matters is how we deal with it. There was nothing that happened today that should keep us awake at night. There is always potential for misunderstandings, miscommunication and of course there are the egos to deal with. A professional photographer would just try to get the job done and you did. It was great to see you continually shooting each time food arrived (or that extra beer). Again, good on you Christina for going back to the kitchen, you would have to do that in a real job, there would be no excuses, well done.

Please blog your best work for the rest of us to see. (that cheesy cauliflower thing just came back again)

Location Food Workshops

Hi Foodies, the Hospitality department at CIT has agreed to help us with our 'location' food shoots this week. Organising an off-campus restaurant for us to shoot in is not easy so we'll do it on-campus. In any case it is still out of the studio and that's what I want. The plan is as follows;

1100 Meet in the studio to discuss what we'll do. We'll need to take some mono-bloc kits and/or small portable flash units and large reflector boards. These are to supplement the poor lighting in this location. We will NOT be lighting the food/table directly, the intent is to bounce one of these off a reflector board or wall to help illuminate the table. Again, trying to ensure we maintain a fairly wide aperture and the lighing is relatively soft and from the side-and/or rear.

1130 Arrive at the Cafe (NOT Cafe Yala), choose a location/table and set-up cameras, tripods and if needed supplementary lighting. Although the Wesdnesday group is quite small and the Cafe is pretty well fully booked for tomorrow so we will be mostly shooting own food upstairs above the Cafe. You won't need props, the tables will be properly set for us.

1200 Choose a dish from the menu, we'll try to stagger this a little, and in small groups go into the kitchen and photograph its production (available light only and no tripods). When the food is cooked you'll shoot some fantastic shots of the dish on your table, order a drink to sit provocatively in the rear of the shot and then EAT AND DRINK what you've just shot.

What a doddle.

Thursday's group is a little bigger but the Cafe is not so heavily booked, I'm expecting however we'll again do most of our shooting upstairs.

Exhibition

A very big thankyou for today, I'm overwhelmed. The book is very special and such a great way to remember the trip. I'll be stealing the idea and having one made for each trip from now on. Back to business, we'll need to be at the design space gallery at 5pm tomorrow for a 6pm opening. We need to setup some tables, buckets of ice, glasses etc. Also if you wish to sell any of your work please get me the information tonight, you can email me at julianineke@grapevine.com.au All I need is a contact number and individual or whole set price. This info will go ionto a sheet that people can pick up on the night. If you don't want your number to be made public we can use the office number instead or say 'see staff'' If you cannot make it tomorrow at 5pm due to other committments we'll cope but better to have too many than not enough. Each of us will need to spend some time serving drinks tomorrow night as well, nothing too arduous. Cheers.

Tas 09 exhibitors

Hi, don't forget I need $20 from each of you tomorrow for drinkies. I have made name tags and an A4 page of exhibition info. If you'd like to sell any please tell me what your price(s) are tomorrow morning. If prices are different please make sure you identify the image and its price. I'll also of course need names/titles of images. I'll add all of this info to the exhibition info page.

Tasmanian Exhibition

Just a reminder that from 9am on Monday September 7th we'll be hanging our work in Design Space. You'll need to bring your own hanging materials. We also need to purchase drinks for the night and I have suggested each participant contribute $20. I'd like to collect that at the latest during the hanging so I can get it for the Tuesday opening at 6:00pm. I will buy wine and beer. Lars has offered to chase up glasses and ice so I'll check with him this week. The consensus is for a low key affair and I will have an e-invitation by tomorrow for you to send to friends etc. Bob Brown has not responded so it won't be a black (green) tie affair. I will be in Sydney from Thursday to Saturday next week so will not be able to immediately address any concerns you might have. Again, this will be a relaxed affair so I'm sure you can make some executive decisions about work and help make it happen. Please tell me if you have any objections to the invitation below. If I don't receive any by 1200 noon on Monday August 31 I'll send them out to you as a pdf for distribution as you like.

Studio fun...

A evening in the cold...

Thanks for putting in so much effort on such a cold evening.

And one more, interesting what you can find after sunset even without trying.

Vehicle shoots this week

Wednesday, August 26th: Location shoot

1400 - 1530 Briefing and presentation in G14 of Location Photography, more funny shots and wise cracks from your teacher including a potted history of the 'genre'.

1600 Meet at the lake side where Andrew Gash held his shoot. We'll identify some locations along the shore and setup cameras while we wait for the magic to happen.

If the weather is bad we'll know by the end of the presentation in G14 whether we should continue to the lake.

Bring cameras, flash units, tripods and anything magical that you think you can use to light the inside or outside of the car during a long exposure. Think laterally. We also need a selection of bright shiny cars - any age, so long as they look great. The alternative is my old Camry wagon, yep, dead cool!

1800 ish, we'll finish around this time. I'll inform Jorge that you'll be a little late for his class.

Thursday, August 27th: Studio shoot

I have arranged for a new Mitsubishi and a new Holden to be dropped off at CIT before 10am. on Thursday. Well shoot one in each studio, one for interiors and the other for exteriors. I'm considering getting you to lob your overall exterior shot into a location photograph, more on that on the day. Again, the shoot will start with a bit of info, pictures and then we'll get into it, swapping studios half way. J

Jorge's non-trip

Bad news I'm afraid. Jorge cannot change his Brisbane visit and I cannot organise at short notice alternative accommodation for a big group so the formal trip is off. Jorge will discuss an alternative on Thursday night which will be a completely private arrangement that doesn't involve CIT. So something will happen!

TASMANIAN Exhibition, September 7-11th.

We have booked the Design Space for a short exhibition from September 7-11 with an opening on Tuesday the 8th. for the Tasmanian Field Trip group. We'll each have around 1.5m of horizontal wall space. I'm suggesting we hang the work on the morning of Monday the 7th of September, although I'll check the availability of the space on the Friday before. You'll need to provide all your own hanging materials. I am happy to make name tags for us but if someone would like to produce a poster and invitation with a suitable name for the exhibition that would be great. I have emailed Senator Bob Brown to ask him to open the exhibition but have had no response so far. I'll follow this up this week. I'd like some ideas for what you'd like as an opening, do you want a big affair, food, drink and speeches or a small affair (if I can't get Bob) with just drinks and snacks and more drinks and no speeches, or something in between? Please get back to me with your thoughts ASAP. For those that are completing a Tassie Negotiated Study this will draw a line under it and you'll earn a result based on the work hung.

Food Photography

You know how I said we couldn't cook in the studio, well I've kind of had a rethink. If you want to bring things that can be reheated in the microwave, that's fine. Could be soup, noodles, curry etc. We just won't be able to cook from scratch. So beat yourself up, bring lots of interesting stuff, you may also need something refreshing to place with the food.

Check the food photos on Kate Luke's website, some lovely shots of simple things...even a cabbage can be made to look great.

http://www.katelukephotography.com.au/Food.html

Styling, what's that?

An important part of the food photography team is the 'stylist', horrible word but that's what they do, they 'style' the shot. From the client/publisher's point of view it's mainly the stylist's responsibility to ensure that the feel, mood, theme, style or concept is maintained throughout the shoot, series of shots or book by using appropriate plates, cutlery, napkins and so on. For example, how would you 'style' a photograph of a plate of sushi? A book concept might be 'slow food', and the styling would therefore need to be earthy and rustic perhaps. The photographs below were all taken from different books that had distinct themes or concepts, can you match them to the book name and themes, concepts listed?

Real Food - Healthy, Delicious, Easy to Prepare

Danks Street Depot - "Jared Ingersoll's rustic recipes reflect the seasonal offerings of growers' markets and urban providores" (A Sydney restaurant)

Italian Country Cooking - "is about the real food of Italy,.... the more you spend the worse you eat".

Secrets of the Red Lantern - "stories and ....... recipes from the heart"

Fresh and Healthy - The all new Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute Cookbook.

Alan Benson - ACP Publishing

Alan Benson - Murdoch Books

Alan Benson - ACP Publishing

Alan Benson - Park Street Press

Alan Benson - Murdoch Books

Can you pick the era, decade, century?

The following photographs have been sourced from the early 1970's through to the present. Can you identify which decade each of the photographs comes from. Good prep for the workshop next week.

Images: Murdoch Press, Australian Women's Weekly, Landsdowne Press, ACP Publishing.

Update on the Handout distributed in class this WED/THURS. For the workshop next week you may not drag your dodgy peanut butter sandwhich from your pocket and shoot it. You need to bring items like those identified in the handout. The workshop will last all day so please don't plan anything else. The morning will be info, presentation, discussion then you'll be shooting from 1pm until 4:30pm. Well review all work at that time and close shop at 5pm. Oh, and you cannot use the crockery and glasses in the kitchen, they are awful anyway, you gotta bring everything.

Saturday Fashion Shoot with Andrew Gash

What a fantastic day, everyone was raving about the great job that you guys did. It really was a taste of the real world of professional photography. Lots of hard work, heaps of adrenalin, teamwork and great satisfaction at the end. Thanks to Jason, Scott, Pamela, Sarah, Jeremy, Nathan, Amy and also to Tate for being invaluable as usual.

Friday's Fashion Shoot

Let’s start with some basics.

Flash Synchronisation Speed: DSLR with focal plane shutter, no higher than around 1/250th sec (depending upon camera). Film SLR with focal plane shutter, older models around 1/125th sec (depending upon camera). Camera with BTL/Leaf shutter, all speeds to maximum of 1/500th sec. For the shoot on Friday that means a shutter speed NO higher than 1/250th sec.

Daylight Exposure: Daylight exposure is controlled by BOTH shutter speed and aperture and as you know it is possible to capture the shot with numerous combinations that provide the same overall exposure, eg, 500 @ f8 is the same as 250 @f11 and so on.

Flash Exposure: Flash exposure is NOT affected by your choice of shutter speed (not talking about flash synch here). Flash exposure IS affected by your choice of aperture.

Flash unit: Most flash units have variable output that can be raised or lowered, ie, more output or less.Interestingly this occurs because the duration of the flash can be controlled as opposed to its intensity. The effect is the same however and will not affect our discussion here.

There are two paths we can take when using flash on location, we can use it to fill shadows slightly to increase detail in those areas or we can use it as a main source and let daylight be the fill, this latter choice is effectively what you used on Friday. This choice allows us to create a lighting scheme rather than to simply accept the location lighting as we find it.

Using Flash as Fill: Take an incident reading to determine daylight exposure, let’s assume it to be 60 @ f11, then adjust the monobloc flash unit output and/or position until an incident reading of the flash is 2 stops less than the daylight, f5.6. Your exposure will still be 60 @ f11 but the flash will provide some light to fill shadows only.

Using Flash as Main Source: (what you did on Friday) The task here is to underexpose the daylight by 1-2 stops compared to the flash. Lets assume you wish to underexpose daylight by 2 stops and the daylight incident reading was 60 @ f11, set the camera to 250 @ f11. This does two things, firstly 250 UNDEREXPOSES daylight by two stops, thereby reducing daylight to a fill level, sky is dark etc. Set-up your desired monobloc unit and adjust the position, size and output until an incident reading of the flash on the subject is f11.

Result: Subject is lit with flash which is correctly exposed, daylight exists at a level ¼ that of flash (due to the faster shutter speed) which results in it being a fill light, this has the added advantage of the sky and other background areas to be rendered darker and perhaps richer with the subject cleanly illuminated by the flash, your preferred lighting, size, quality etc.

You’ll remember that Andrew tended to use f11 or at least was aiming for that, depth of field is an issue so f11 would be a good choice. He also recommended you set your DSLR ISO as low as possible. A higher ISO could result in a faster shutter speed than 250 being required to keep daylight exposure down but of course this would be outside your flash synch speed limit.

Summary:

Set ISO as low as possible, ISO 50 perhaps

Calculate daylight exposure and underexpose daylight 1-2 stops with shutter speed ensuring you don’t go higher than the flash synch speed, ie, if daylight is 60 @ f11, use 125 @ f11 or 250 @ f11

Adjust flash size, position and output until your daylight f-number is achieved, ie, f11.

You could also start by setting either 125 or 250 on the camera, calculating a daylight exposure that used a shutter speed 1-2 settings slower and then set-up the flash to match whatever the daylight aperture was, it’s exactly the same just approached from a different angle.

Looking at the metadata on the files from Friday and recalling some discussions about cameras used on the day there were some limitations on flash synch and ISO which affected the exposure decisions.

Remember: daylight is controlled by shutter speed and aperture, flash is controlled by aperture.

FASHION SHOOT TOMORROW

Reminders:

Be at the Studio at 10am, bring cameras (lenses etc), warm clothes and lots of enthusiasm.

Job reminders:

Contact Co-ordinator: Christina
Food and Drink: Nathan, Tegan, Sarah
Care of Models: Emily and Jenna
Image Co-ordinator: Matthew
Image Editors - CD/DVD Prep: Jeremy, Julian L, Elmo
Video: Amy

We will be moving lots of gear so if you have a large vehicle bring it. If you have an even larger vehicle we need a change room!!!

See you tomorrow.

Fashion Workshop for Photography 4

As you may be aware we are running a number of specialist workshops in Photography 4. They will most likely include Food, Vehicles, Aerial, Furniture and Fashion. As in previous years, Sydney photographer Andrew Gash will be running a fashion workshop just for Photography 4 students. Normally that would happen a few weeks into the semester but this year Andrew will be in Canberra to run a public fashion shoot as part of the National Portrait Gallery's celebration of fashion photography through the 'Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913-2008' exhibition which runs until August 30th. This shoot will happen at the NPG on Saturday August 1st.

As you also know your scheduled class times are Wednesdays and Thursdays, although exact attendance times are currently being arranged around workshop requirements. However, since Andrew is going to be in town for the Saturday NPG shoot we have negotiated a Photography 4 workshop with him on Friday July 31st (all day). It just wasn't possible for him to come down on Wednesday or Thursday as well, hope you understand.

As well as running the workshop for the entire Photography 4 group on the Friday, Andrew will choose a number of students to assist him on the Saturday National Portrait Gallery shoot. This could be a fantastic opportunity for those really interested in fashion photography.

How do you get chosen, that's really up to Andrew but my best guess is that he will choose people who demonstrate skill, enthusiasm, initiative and above all a professional attitude during the Photography 4 Workshop.

At this stage your first Photography 4 class will be that Friday, July 31st at 10:00am. We will keep you informed of progress during the coming week.

Back to original class structure

Last week we discussed the possibility of changing the class structure by splitting it up into two smaller groups. Unfortunately this will not be possible as I will be away during May and the person taking my classes would not be available to do both groups. So we will stick to the original structure for the time being.

Reflection on class

I have been reflecting on the comments made by Jenna and I would like to reiterate some of the points I made last week. I think Jenna is right in saying that I could have handled the issue of lateness by addressing the whole class at the end. As I said, I did not mean to single anyone or any one group out, so I do apologise for having addressed only some of the late comers. In hindsight it would have been better to do so at the end.

However, as we are training you for industry we do need to apply some basic rules about how and when we meet. I fully realise sometimes we are late, and it is totally out of our control. In those cases it is enough to just apologise for the lateness as you come into class. But you are about to enter a fairly competetive industry where being late for appointments might lose you clients - which is why it is important to have these structures in place.

The other point made about 'favouritisms' is a serious one as myself and all teachers at CIT have a very clear mandate to be fair. Since we are not robots we will obviously engage with every individual differently, but that does not mean that there are favourites or better treatments at assessment. If you do feel this is the case you can speak to our Education Manager, Penny Boyer or a CITSA representative and they will investigate further.

Links to OUR CLASS

Last week I sent you all an email on how we want your individual blogs named and structured so we can find you and all your classes. Once this is completed by everyone I will add the linked list to our class. Please follow the instructions and if you have questions ask me soon.

Tonight you will be preparing the group presentations for next week.