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July 2019

24 Jul

Posted at 08:06h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

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...

23 Jul

Posted at 07:20h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

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...

22 Jul

Posted at 09:07h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

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...

19 Jul

Posted at 09:30h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

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...

17 Jul

Posted at 08:42h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

Well, it's a good start when you bring your equipment in to be cleaned and repaired and you don't bother to put the front, back, or body caps on. That'll get a smile. When he finds the lenses in the footy socks sans covers he'll bust right out laughing. He'll be positively hysterical when he sees the surface of your sensor and after you say you want all the dust and bugs taken out of the prism and focusing screen system of your DSLR it'll be all we can do to hold him down. We're not suggesting that you become the camera enthusiast that needs to put on a HAZMAT suit in a NASA clean room to change lenses - or the worried individual who shines Mag-Lights into lenses in an effort to find dust motes...

16 Jul

Posted at 07:43h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

Camera Electronic in Stirling Street used to have window shelves for people to look into. That was the way a lot of shops did it in the past - if there was a lot of passing trade going to do other things it was a way to arrest the gawker and possibly get them interested enough to come inside. But it had its drawbacks - the window could be a hot and dusty place for display and frequently you couldn't have a good looking pile of gear from front and back - you had to choose one or the other. That was the flaw in having two sides of glass. In Melbourne it doesn't get as hot and dusty as Perth and some of the shops are deep in canyon streets...

15 Jul

Posted at 08:31h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

You know all those places your Ma told you never to go - where she was sure you were going to get killed or worse? Well, Hugh Brown has been there already and broken his cameras in the process. Sometimes he broke them going in, and sometimes he broke them coming out, but they've always been interesting to look at afterwards.* I know - we've seen what they looked like after he went poking around up in the Northwest - or down volcanoes - or into desperate mines. Cameras are delicate things but Hugh is not, and something generally has to give...