July 2019

Remember Sunday sessions when you had to go way out of town to get a drink - WA laws being what they were? Well, thank goodness there are no laws about enjoying yourself with photography on a Sunday, and we could all go down The Novotel Langley and go mad. Not bad mad - the good kind. The workshops and lectures were well attended, I am told. I saw evidence of them as people streamed into the main show floor in between the event and then flowed out again for the next one. I am not sure if there were people who did every presentation there was, but I'll bet there were a few who tried to. And well worth it if your stamina held up as each one of the presenters was an expert in their field - a real, working, expert. As were the trade representatives on the main floor - interstate as well as locals. Note: the different firms are represented by salespeople who are basically in competition with each other for your dollars. But they know their wares...

Photo Live is coming again this Sunday. The Camera Electronic team will be working all weekend - on the pre-show fashion shoot on Saturday night at the Novotel Langley, and then all day in the display and lecture halls at the same venue.  You've been seeing advertisements in your email and Facebook feed for weeks about this and if you've not gone to one, this is a good year to start. The Expos have been very popular with Perth's photographers every time they have been held, as they are a combination of the trade show, bargain market, and photographic conference - all in one day. It's not just us at the Langley - there are stalls from all the major wholesalers and a number of Perth's dedicated photo businesses and photography societies. And there is a lineup of topnotch photo personalities to talk about their specialities in the lectures and shows. But a warning: the entry is a gold coin donation to Telethon and you can cheap it out for the whole day if you want to...

That's a good dog. Now just let me attach this harness to you and then we'll all have fun. You have to admire dogs for their love and their patience with their humans. They are far more tolerant of us than we of them. But you've also got to admit that they let themselves be put into the most embarrassing and difficult positions. Take the ones that haul milk carts in Belgium and the Netherlands. Or the malamutes and huskies that draw sleds in the Yukon and Alaska. Or the poor devils that were harnessed to machine gun carriages in WW1. Great job that - a dish of Alpo and a maxim bullet...

When I started shooting events in the field in the 70's I fell upon the electronic flash with glee - it was so much better than the bulb flashes that I'd used prior to that. Of course it gave a different look to the images - harder shadows for one, and a cooler and more consistent colour temperature. In those days, the WB was set by the film manufacturer and you changed it via filters...

Wow. Last night saw the presentation of pictures and commentary by Hugh Brown over at Friday's Studio. It was an event sponsored by Canon and Camera Electronic to showcase some of the work Hugh has done in desperate places throughout the world - mostly concerned with the human side of mining or mineral recovery in remote places. Note: " remote " is the wrong word. Every one of the places that Hugh photographed or showed us is plain old home to someone. If it is a hard and difficult home, that still doesn't make it alien ground. And the people who live and work there are all-too-human. Hugh has a penchant for mining as it forms part of his own background, and also has the necessary photographer's skills to make the business of photojournalism into an aesthetic exercise. His books and some of the images that were screened show this - but you can never go past the human conditions and the drama of the mines to get to just pretty pictures. Frankly, there were pictures we saw that were not pretty, but...