Keith Rowell Photography Weblog

Project 365 is back

keith — Tue Oct 14 22:52:25 +1000 2008

Apologies to those who've been hanging out for more 365 images. I've had some technical problems with my LRMogrify export plugin but that's all fixed now. Of course, I was taking the pics every day as per the rules, I just wasn't able to upload them.

And to all those who pester me when I am late uploading daily images, keep up the good work :)

Anatomy of a Dump and Burn Shot

keith — Sun Aug 31 12:10:28 +1000 2008

The shot I took last night of a Royal Australian Air Force F-111 is such a hard shot to get, I thought I'd run through how it was done.

The hardest thing is to know where to point the camera. Because the shot is a long exposure shot, it must be done with a tripod which means you have to have the camera pointing in the right place, with the right focal length and exposure settings before the jet is anywhere in sight.

You get exactly one chance to press the shutter button once. Just once. If you get that wrong, you come back next year.

I was lucky enough to have information about the precise timing, location and direction of the dump and burn (thanks Ange), so I didn't have to guess so much (unlike last year). Still, it remained to be decided how long the shot should go for to get the plane to fill the frame.

The second hardest thing is having a good vantage point, but that's the case with any photo. Although on Riverfire night in Brisbane, with hundreds of thousands of people lining the river banks on all of the obvious good spots, vantage points are very hard to come by. Thanks to Dave and Con, I was able to stand on a very well situated, vacant block of land in West End that happened to have a great view of the city.

Then there is exposure. There are no test shots of your subject to work out how much exposure you want. You must make all the decisions ahead of time. Last year I guessed that the fire bellowing from the back of the jet would account for about a 2-stop exposure difference and that worked out about right. This year, I knew the jet would pass between the city and where I was standing so it would cast a lot of light on the city. So I went for about 2 and a half stops of exposure difference. That is, 2.5-stops under exposed, based on what the city looked like without the jet throwing flames overhead.

I estimated that I wanted a 5 second shot to get the jet to fill my frame as it traversed it's path, so I adjusted ISO and aperture accordingly to get the required exposure. Here's a shot of what it looked like with everything set before the jet arrived

5 seconds, ISO 200, Sigma 30mm f/1.4 @ f/11

Then it was a matter of waiting. I knew the jet would light up the sky at precisely 19:03. You don't hear them coming as they are well on their way past by the time the sound reaches you. At 30 seconds to run, I was ready with my finger on the button, to do the only thing left to do.

Right on time, the sky lit up.

Click.

Here's the result.

5 seconds, ISO 200, Sigma 30mm f/1.4 @ f/11

As soon as the 5 seconds were up, I grabbed my gear and made my way to my next planned vantage point.

Project 365

keith — Fri Aug 29 22:04:16 +1000 2008

If you haven't noticed already, there is a link on my blog for my Project 365.

As you might guess, this project involves me posting exactly one photo per day for 365 days. There are no rules, other than that the photo must be taken on that day. I can't take two photos I like on one day and use one the next day.

The project started on August 18 2008 and will finish on August 17 2009.

At the time of writing I am 12 days into it. So far, it's been fun and challenging at once. I am learning some interesting things about photography that I didn't expect. The most difficult things about it so far have been finding the time in a busy life to take a photo each and every day as well as finding inspiration.

All of the shots to this point (except the sugar lips) have been taken with my R-D1 but I expect I will go through phases where I will restrict myself to one particular camera-lens combination for a few days to see what I come up with.

So drop in from time to time to take a look or subscribe to the the RSS feed to keep up to date.

I have no idea what I will take a photo of tomorrow, let alone the other 352 days.

Time will tell, one day at a time.

The Parking Cop

keith — Tue Aug 19 17:22:53 +1000 2008

This afternoon I took a photo of a parking cop placing a ticket on a car. She noticed that I took the photo and approached me.

"How ya doing?" I asked.

"Did you just take a photo of me?" she enquired.

"I sure did."

"Well I'd like you to stop it!" she coughed.

"Sure, no problem, I won't be taking any more" I assured her.

"You can't take photos of me anyway, I'm working." she claimed.

"Ah, no. I'm in a public place and you've viewable from a public place so I'm free to take photos. Do you know anything about law pertaining to photography?"

"Can I have your film?" she asked. I was using my R-D1 which has its design closely modelled on that of a 1959 rangefinder camera so it certainly looks like a film camera.

"No way!" I said with a look on my face that said something more like "Are you fucking crazy?"

"What's it for and why are you taking photos?"

"I'm a photographer. I take photos." was the natural response. "And don't worry, it's only for personal use. In fact, I would need your permission to use it commercially."

"Well I've had a lot of photos taken of me and I don't like it."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, you know, people don't like us." she revealed.

"Well that's got nothing to do with me. Have a nice day."

Victory Hotel Burns

keith — Sun Jul 27 12:41:38 +1000 2008

The good old Victory Hotel in Brisbane burned down this morning. Well not completely but the inside of the building is apparently just a big smouldering pit.

When I heard about it, I figured there might be a good picture in it so I went to check it out. Here's what I got:

Gracie Jayne

keith — Fri Jul 18 20:00:14 +1000 2008

Here are the first pictures (that I have done) of David and Berlinda's young Gracie Jayne, sister of Sambo. What a cutie she is. I'm looking forward to getting many more shots of her in the future. More pics here.

Of course, if there's a camera around and Sambo is anywhere in the vicinity, he's got to get in a shot or two.

New High-tech Toy

keith — Thu Jul 03 20:33:04 +1000 2008

I have a new high-tech camera. High-tech in the mid 70s at least.

It's a Polaroid Land Camera 1000 and it's the way of the future. You take a photo and you get a print in your hand just minutes after. None of this downloading to a computer, post processing, exporting for print and waiting a couple of days for prints to come back from the printers.

I remember playing with a camera similar to this back in the 70s when I was 4 or 5 years old. Not sure if I took any shots (read: wasted any film) with it or not, but it might well have been the first camera I got my hands on.

I have managed to find some film for it so stay tuned for when I post some pics.

Lalieu 71st (21 + 50)

keith — Wed Jul 02 22:24:54 +1000 2008

On the weekend I had the pleasure of doing photos for a 71st birthday party. In fact it was a combined 21st and 50th party. It was a great party and everyone had an awesome time, myself included.

It was actually the first time I'd even done any flash photography. Until now I had only ever done available light work.

It is about time I started getting into some lighting work so I got myself an SB800 speedlight, a diffuser and an umbrella reflector. I didn't get much time to try out the new equipment beforehand, just a few shots the night before and about 15 minutes reading the manual before the party.

Although I've been quietly studying photographs of flash photography in the last few months, it's fair to say that I was throwing myself in at the deep end.

I'm quite happy with how the results turned out and I'm very excited about doing more flash work.

Here are some of my favourites form the Party:

Mortn

keith — Tue Jun 17 22:06:46 +1000 2008

Well, I've been to Moreton Island yet again. I love that place. So close to Brisbane yet when you are there you are in another world, even though you can see Brisbane from there.

This time it was a trip with friends but, of course, I always make time to get some shots. Here's a selection:

Adventure

keith — Tue Jun 10 18:51:35 +1000 2008

This Week in Photography, a US based website and podcast that I follow, regularly runs photography competitions and I thought I should throw an image in the ring to see how it goes.

So I did. The theme of the competition was "Adventure". I was happy to see that I got runner up with the image I posted. Here is the page that announced the winners: TWIP’s Photo Assignment Competition

Here is the image:

I've had a few requests asking how the image was captured or whether it was heavily edited. The thing that people find strange or interesting is that the shadows of the sand boarders indicate that the sun is to the left of camera yet the sky seems to indicate that there is a light source from front-right of camera over the horizon.

Well, in a future post, I will describe exactly what I did to achieve that effect. No one has guessed right so far :) In fact, I will send a free 8x10 (inches) print of that image to everyone who sends me an email describing the technique(s) I used (be they in-camera or in post processing). Send your guesses to keith (at) keith rowell (dot) com.

Broken Camera

keith — Tue Jun 10 17:51:14 +1000 2008

A few weeks back, while I was doing some photos at Moreton Island, my camera broke. Specifically, the autofocus crapped out and I was left the rest of the weekend having to manual focus. Here's my first picture from the weekend, before I knew the autofocus was broken:

Good practice and all but not really what I wanted form a camera less than a year old. Just.

Turns out that my camera broke the day before it was 1 year old. I didn't realise this until after I had contacted Nikon about the issue some days later. By then the camera was technically out of warranty.

I have to give credit to the service guys at Nikon and in particular David Flegg. He was most helpful and was very reasonable with the warranty period.

Even more credit should go to the guys who actually fixed it, Anderson Camera Repairs. The normal quoted turnaround time is 3-4 weeks but these guys had it done for me in less than a week. They also fixed a small problem I had with the rubber grip coming loose.

Perhaps I should have sent them my fuzzy image to see if they could fix that too.

Moreton Island Again

keith — Mon May 26 17:10:39 +1000 2008

There's so much good stuff for photography at Moreton Island. After my last trip, I wanted to get back there to get some more shots.

Over a weekend (arriving Friday night and leaving Sunday morning) you only really get two morning sessions and one evening session for photography. The middle of the day I use to find things that I might want to photograph at a later time when the light is good.

For my first morning session I visited my old friends the Bulwer Wrecks. My first photo looked quite nice on the small LCD screen on the back of my camera, but on closeer inspection it was out of focus and fuzzy.

The auto-focus on my camera was broken! Not a show stopper as I can manual focus although it's very difficult when it's almost dark. But why is my camera, not even 12 months old, broken? I guess I'll be taking it back to Nikon for repairs. I'll take my fuzzy photo with me and see if they can fix that too. Here's the fuzzy pic:

At least I got some others that are in focus:

After shooting the wrecks, I went over to the east side to see what I could find:

Cape Moreton has some very interesting terrain:

Then in the late afternoon I went to The Desert:

Some sand tobogganers walking along the ridge of the sand dude they'd been hurtling down cast a shadow for me:

Then I hurriedly got myself back to the wrecks for the last part of the sunset:

Early the next morning, I went over to Cape Moreton to see what it would look like in the dawn light.

The waves over there were massive. I didn't hang around there too long.

So there's a weekend at Moreton Island.

Faker at The Zoo

keith — Mon May 19 20:18:26 +1000 2008

Here are some shots of Faker doing their thing at The Zoo in The Valley, Brisbane. More shots here.

Saturday's Storm

keith — Sun May 18 23:13:27 +1000 2008

Saturday afternoon, whilst working on the images from the Grafton Primary gig I covered on Friday night I heard the rumble of thunder. I checked the weather on a radar image and saw a promising looking front rolling in. So off I went to Wilson's point with the hope that the sky would do something interesting for me.

Oh yeah! It was a good show.

The above images are multi-shot, stitched panoramas printable to about 2.5 metres wide. Here is a crop of one of the images to show the level of detail captured.

Minutes after I took those shots, the rain arrived and I barely had time to put my camera in the bag before it bucketed down. 20 seconds later I was soaked to the skin and happy about it.

Elephant Rock

keith — Sun May 18 19:24:52 +1000 2008

This morning I got up at 0-dark-hundred and went down to Currumbin to get some shots at Elephant Rock.

This is Elephant Rock

I got a few other shots from the area

This one looks like it has a face in it

I saw this guy pluck a fish out of a rock pool about 5m in front of me. Too bad I wasn't ready for him but I caught up with him a bit later

Grafton Primary at The Zoo

keith — Sat May 17 15:05:55 +1000 2008

Last night I shot the Grafton Primary gig at The Zoo in The Valley, Brisbane. Wow, those guys are smoking hot! If you get the chance to see them perform, take it.

The night started off with me forgetting to bring my Nikkor 50mm f/1.8, so I was left with a 30mm f/1.4 and an 85mm f1.4. Both awesome lenses for the job, but I did miss the 50mm which would have rounded out my focal length range. I'd been sick the couple of days before and due to lack of sleep and maybe a little too much cough medicine, I was a little forgetful. Luckily I had my trusty assistant Tripod Brad to help me out with paying attention to details.

The guys were awesome to work with and very accommodating in allowing me to crawl around on stage to get my shots.

Here are some of my favourites from the gig:

Reef Trip

keith — Wed May 14 18:21:52 +1000 2008

Late last year I covered a reef trip for a Japanese Family visiting Far North Queensland. It was a great day out on the reef and they were great people to hang out for the day. We visited Michaelmas Cay and Green Island off Cairns.

To get onto Michaelmas Cay, I had a 50m swim from the boat with all my camera gear in plastic bags over my head. Let me tell you, it's hard work swimming with about 3 kilos of gear above your head. If it were, say a brick, that was not worth thousands of dollars, I might not have made it.

Here are some shots form the trip:

This one was taken with the camera wrapped up in a plastic bag, just before I jumped into the ocean with all my camera gear.

Some of the same shots with a Lomo style of processing:

Fraser Island

keith — Mon May 12 21:30:52 +1000 2008

November last year I spent a weekend with friends at Fraser Island. In terms of photography, it was just a perusal - a chance to get an idea of what was there to be shot. I saw plenty of opportunities for landscape shots that I will get on an upcoming trip when I can spend the time required to get the right conditions for each subject. But, of course, while I was there, I wasn't without my camera.

It wasn't all roughing it in the bush, there was a pool at the resort.

Some great rain forest

Sigma 30mm

keith — Tue May 06 22:26:39 +1000 2008

I recently got my hands on a Sigma 30mm f/1.4.

It's very nice and a very versatile lens. It's great for portraits and has a nice focal length for general walk-around type shooting. It is well suited for street photography and reportage.

I haven't had a lot of shooting time with it yet, but here a a few shots that it has produced so far.

Facebook Terms of Service are Unacceptable

keith — Sat May 03 13:50:43 +1000 2008

Many people download my images to use them for personal use (which does not include printing by the way) and I am totally happy about that. I'm also aware that some of my images get uploaded to facebook so I thought I would check out their Terms of Use.

Man, was I shocked!

Their Terms of Use are wholly unacceptable for me and I will never grant permission to anyone to upload any image of mine to facebook. Not at any price. Any permission I have given in the past for people to upload images to facebook has now expired.

Let me point out what I find so distasteful about the facebook Terms of Use. Firstly the paragraph that relates to copyright for "User Content Posted on the Site":

When you post User Content to the Site, you authorize and direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate the posting and storage of the User Content on the Site. By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content. Facebook does not assert any ownership over your User Content; rather, as between us and you, subject to the rights granted to us in these Terms, you retain full ownership of all of your User Content and any intellectual property rights or other proprietary rights associated with your User Content.

Basically what they are saying is whenever an image (or any content) is uploaded to their site, they own the rights to do anything they please with it.

Here is the important part:

By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.

Why is that bad? I think it's pretty obvious. They can do anything they like, including modifying or making money from my work. They can sell my images if they like!

When a photographer takes a photo, he or she owns that photo/image and all rights associated with the instant it is taken, regardless of who is in it (as long as it was legally obtained, of course). Commercial use of those images sometimes requires model releases and so on, but that's a whole other issue.

As soon as anyone takes an image of mine and uploads it to facebook, facebook gain the rights that were previously held only by me.

Of course, that's bollocks and unacceptable and I won't stand for it.

UPDATE: It seems I am not alone in calling shenanigans on facebook's Terms of Service. Here are just a few of many links on the topic:

To see just how much has been written on the topic, see this google search on Facebook Terms of Use. Thanks to GarnerWeb for the google search link.

ND Grad Filters

keith — Fri May 02 23:36:18 +1000 2008

Because a camera has a limit to the range of brightness it can cope with (much less than that of the human eye), I often use an ND Grad filter (Graduated neutral density filter) to reduce the range of brightness in a scene to something more manageable for the camera.

To see what an ND Grad filter looks like, here's a reasonable article: Graduated neutral density filter

ND Grad filers are probably my favourite filters to use. They allow me to capture scenes with bright skies yet still retain brightness and detail in the foreground.

The next two images show the same scene, without any filters, exposed differently. One is exposed for detail in the foreground and the other for detail in the sky.

So you can see that neither image really works and it's certainly not how I saw it with my own eyes while standing there.

To help the camera see it how I see it, I need to tame the difference in brightness so I can get good exposure (and therefore colour and detail) in both foreground and background of the scene. That's where the ND Grad filter comes in.

This next image shows the result. I was using manual exposure and everything is exactly the same as the image above, except for the 3-stop ND Grad filter attached to the front of my lens.

That's much more like what I saw and wanted to capture on camera.

Here are some more shots from the same outing.

The Office

keith — Mon Apr 21 21:56:19 +1000 2008

Due to some difficulties with plane tickets (read: I screwed up and booked the wrong date), I am stuck at Calmwater Landing for a couple of extra days. Calmwater Landing is my Dad's place at Yungaburra in North Queensland.

While I am here, this is my office.

It's tough, but I'm getting through it.

Of course, I managed to get a few shots over the weekend while in the area.

Some old shots from the local area:

Keith McMillan - A Time and a Place

keith — Mon Apr 21 06:28:07 +1000 2008

On Friday I attended a photographic exhibition by Keith McMillan - one of Britain's most recognised and prolific socialite photographers.

It was a fascinating exhibition of photographs spanning 3 decades from the 60s onwards. Just some of the people photographed include Margaret Thatcher, John Cleese, Spike Milligan, Rupert Murdoch, Rudolf Nureyev, Man Ray and Dame Margot Fonteyn.

McMillan's work has a unique style that I very much admire and take inspiration from.

While at the exhibition, I was thrilled to be able to have the man himself sit for a photograph.

Some links to more information about the exhibition:

The Secret to Night Photography

keith — Thu Apr 03 23:12:19 +1000 2008

People (mostly other photographers) often ask me how I get such great night shots of city skylines or landscapes.

There are some really basic techniques that make creating these kinds of shots quite easy.

Don't shoot at night.

Sounds paradoxical or even obvious depending on how you look at it. Photography is about light. At night time, there is not much light around and what light there is, is not very nice. However, in that last little bit of twilight, just before it goes dark, there is some extraordinary light available. This is not that obvious to us as the naked eye doesn't see this light like a camera can over a 30 second exposure time. If you keep the shutter open long enough, you get enough light coming in to make a bright picture and you also capture the amazing colours that the twilight sky has to offer.
Use a tripod

Whilst it is possible to get longish shutter speeds without the use of a tripod, it's quite difficult to get good shots that way. So a tripod is almost a must.
Use manual exposure to be in complete control

Using manual exposure give you complete control of your images. Exposing too brightly and you'll sacrifice colour, too dark and you'll sacrifice detail. The exact exposure you want, will depend on the scene you want to create. If you leave your camera on automatic, you will tend to lose some colour.
Try using ND Grad filters

ND (Neutral Density) Graduated filters are great for correcting an imbalance between a sky that is too bright for your foreground.

Here are some example of night photography.

In this one, the sky was practically dark to the naked eye but an 18 second exposure brought out some nice colour.

This one was for 7 seconds at ISO 100 and hand held resting on a bridge railing.

13 Seconds at ISO 100.

A 30 second exposure of two helicopters flying over the Story Bridge at Brisbane's River Fire 2007. The choppers were flying past for the second time so I guessed that 30 seconds would be about right and I also had a rough idea of where they would fly so I could frame my shot (hard to get them to do it again if I didn't get the shot)

Another one from River Fire 2007. 8 seconds to get a little movement from the fireworks.

This is hand held standing on a pontoon. I took a bunch of shots to maximize my chances of getting a sharp one. The shutter speed was 1.3 seconds.

This panorama is 6 shots stitched together at 8 seconds each and using an ND Grad filter to get a little more exposure out of the water.

20 seconds shutter speed to get some brightness out of a very dark dawn sky. The long shutter speed also smoothes out the surface of the water. Again an ND Grad filter was used to bring more exposure out of the water.

Barra Bash 2007

keith — Thu Apr 03 22:31:58 +1000 2008

Each year my family has a get-together at my dad's place in Yungaburra. It has become tradition that this weekend coincides with the Barra Bash which is a local fishing competition.

We're all crap at fishing, but really good at having a good time.

These images are of some my favorites from the weekend. Needles to say, I sure am looking forward to the 2008 Barra Bash.

Sam and Uncle Cam

keith — Sat Mar 29 07:17:43 +1000 2008

Sam, one of my favorite photo models, had his uncle Cam visit and Cam wanted some shots together with his nephew.

We only had about 10 minutes for the session and with Sam more interested with looking at the photos on the camera's LCD screen than standing in front of the camera, time was precious. Here are the results:

Shooting Kayakers

keith — Wed Mar 26 19:17:43 +1000 2008

Over the Easter weekend I did an impromptu shoot of my brother and a couple of his kayaking buddies while they were kayaking in the Brisbane River.

Some shots of the morning:

A Day with the Wellses

keith — Wed Mar 19 07:10:00 +1000 2008

I recently had the pleasure of spending the weekend with some great friends of mine up in Coolum. We'd planned to fit in an informal photo shoot during the weekend.

It was a fantastic weekend spent with the Wellses and I had great fun getting a few shots while we were at it. Here are some of the results:

Early Morning Shoot at Coolum

keith — Sat Mar 15 09:59:07 +1000 2008

Some weeks ago, I caught up with some good friends, Wellsy and Sonya, while they were on holidays in Coolum, Sunshine Coast.

We'd arranged to do some photos of the whole family over the weekend but given the beautiful location of Coolum, I decided I would also get some landscapes while I was there.

Not having been to Coolum for probably 10 years, I had to use google maps' satellite feature to find a good spot for getting a landscape shot.

Wanting to be there just before dawn began, I rose at 2:30 am, left Brisbane at 3:00 am and arrived to find Coolum still in darkness.

My chosen feature for the landscape shots was a rocky outcrop between Coolum Beach and 1st Bay. It was somewhat treacherous walking out over the jagged rocks in the dark (with no torch) "feeling" my way with an extended tripod leg. Once I almost stepped into a rock pool that looked like sand but was actually water covered with sea-foam.

Here are some of the shots of that morning:

I was lucky enough that the surfer in this shot stayed reasonably still for the 25 second exposure.

How to Add Borders to Photos using Lightroom

keith — Thu Mar 13 21:36:17 +1000 2008

A few photographers have asked me how I put borders around my images so I thought I'd share my techniques and tools used. One technique that has gotten a lot of coverage is to use Lightroom's Print Module with overlays. I found this to be a clumsy method, especially for varying aspect ratios and it does not work well when exporting images for the web.

After a lot of research, I settled on a method using Lightroom's export function coupled with the LR/Mogrify plugin.

In a little more detail, it's like this:

The Tools

Adobe Lightroom (sorry, I won't call it Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, that's just silly)
LR/Mogrify
ImageMagick (ImageMagick includes the mogrify script which does all the work)

The Setup

I won't go into detail of installing each of the components. That's covered by many people who know more about it than I do. But I will talk about the configuration of the tools.

Once you've installed the LR/Mogrify plugin, the Lightroom export dialog offers a choice of Export Actions.

LR/Mogrify makes many options for image manipulation available, but the ones we're interested in here are Borders and Watermarks.

Border Settings

I have a different setting (stored in a preset) for each different size I want to export to. So I have one for flickr, one for my blog website, one for 30 inch prints and so on.

I usually find a border width of about 3.5% of the longest side length works well, but that's just for the kind of borders I have gone for.

Logo Settings

As with borders, I create a different sized logo for each export size. The size of the logo is arrived at by some calculations based on the pixel height and dpi but a certain amount of trial and error is required to get it just right.

Once you have your images set up. just use the LR/Mogrify Watermarks and Annotations settings to specify your logo placement.

Conclusion

Setting the whole thing up is a little bit of work, but once it's in place, you can export a bunch of images for your chosen target medium with the borders automatically being added. It's a real time saver.

Be sure to tinker with the Mogrify file quality settings to ensure your file size is acceptable for your target medium. If you're not careful, a 3MB export can blow out to 6MB just with the addition of the border. However, of you get the right settings, adding a border does not nesseccarily add a lot to the image size.

Of course the LR/Mogrify plugin can be used for many other uses so be sure to check out all it has to offer.

Here's an example of the end result:

At the Outstation

keith — Mon Mar 10 19:41:22 +1000 2008

Recently I spent the weekend with some good friends Luke and Ailsa at their property, The Outstation, west of Toowoomba to do some shooting and to catch up with them.

It was a great weekend. We had some great food, a few drinks and some good laughs. I also did plenty of shooting.

I had a couple of 4am starts to get shots of their house and surrounds as the sun was coming up. I also got some shots of various family members who dropped in for a visit.

Here are some of my favourites from the weekend:

Moreton Island

keith — Sun Mar 09 22:30:00 +1000 2008

A few months ago, I went on a camping trip to Moreton Island with some friends. Moreton Island is a beautiful place and has some spectacular scenery and many shipwrecks.

We arrived at our campsite after dark so I had to wail until the next morning before I could do any shooting. I woke an hour before sunrise to head off in search of the Bulwer Wrecks that I knew were a few kilometres north of our campsite. I didn't really know how far as the map I had was not very detailed and it was hard to know exactly where we were anyway.

I set off and after about 30 mins of walking, the sky becoming lighter, I could see the wrecks in the distance. With sunrise - and the beautiful light it provides - rapidly approaching, I ran the last couple of kilometres as fast as I could with the gear I was carrying. I had the company of many dolphins feeding just metres off shore all along the beach.

When I got there I was so excited to have such beautiful surroundings and such great photographic subjects to shoot. I worked quickly to create the shots I was after with the rapidly changing light.

Later that day, before sunset, I returned to the wrecks to get some more shots in different light conditions.

Here are some of my favourites of the day.

My Beginnings as a Photographer

keith — Thu Feb 14 18:28:22 +1000 2008

I took my first photos in 1999, with a 1.3 Mp point and shoot. Without knowing what I was doing technically, I discovered I had a an eye for interesting things and composing images. I would have become a "photographer" there and then if were not for the high prices of digital SLRs (at the time they were 20 - 30 thousand Australian dollars). These are some of my favourite images from that early period.

I kept taking photos as I travelled but I was just another happy snapper with a point and shoot. I upgraded a couple of times over a few years to slightly better point and shoot cameras. These are some of my favourites from that time.

About 8 months ago, I took the time to sit down and look at all my photos collectively. I was impressed to see a number of shots that I was proud of. It was then that I realised I was a photographer but I just didn't have the technical know-how.

I went out and bought myself a decent DSLR and began learning all about it. Aperture, depth of field, shutter speeds, composition and so on. I read everything I could and took photos of anything I could think of (ask my friends and family). Since then my technical abilities have improved vastly and I feel I am coming to a new phase in my photography in which I can get back to concentrating on the photo again without thinking of how the photo is made because all the technical aspects of it are now automatic.