Perth, Part 3: Photos at Point Walter

I'm going to preface this by saying that I am by no means an expert.  Everything that I do, everything that I've learnt was gleaned from talking to people and reading things and trial and error.  I've still got a long, long way to go and I would never dream of being prescriptive about anything.  

On one of the many drives I took with Beck and Marty, we headed out to Point Walter to take a look at where the wedding photos would be shot in between the ceremony in the afternoon and the reception at night.  It was a stiflingly hot day and I drowsed in the backseat until we pulled up along the shore.  

A dazzling white sand spit stretched and curved out into water that spit sparks in the afternoon sun.  I was instantly wide awake, thinking about all the photos I would take the next day.

Bec and Marty said that I could come with them if I liked, and I had fully intended to try and help as much as possible with the dress and with holding things.  I'm sorry to say that I ran off quite a bit, greedy to still and capture every moment that caught my eye.  

Jimmy, the photographer, put up with my running around a lot and even made some helpful suggestions for photos.  I know it must be annoying for pros to have random hobbyists skipping round them and constantly getting into the shot, and he was incredibly patient.  

I thought I'd talk about some of the photos here, both ones that I like and ones that I think could be improved.  Of course, like anything else, photography is very subjective.  These are just pictures that happened to catch my eye.

The Likes

This is one of my favourite photos that I took that day.

The spit was beautiful, but people tramping up and down it not so.  I wanted to capture the shape and scale of the spit and every straight-on shot that I took was nondescript and formless.  I tried to think about what I wanted to catch and it occurred to me that the light was falling onto the rocks in a very pretty way.  I thought about raising the horizon as high up as possible to convey length and the texture of the rocks and water and before I knew it, the two kids had crossed the top of the picture at exactly the right moment.

I love that they're wearing such cheerful swimwear and that the girl is clearly trying to goad her less gung-ho brother into exploring with her.

Another serendipitous moment when this boy ran into my shot.  I was practising with a repeated pattern and trying to think about capturing angles and movement.  Just when I thought the camera was perfectly positioned, the adorable little boy shot out onto the pier to look at the ducks.  Look at how eagerly he's leaning!

First of all, don't they look adorable together?

I like everything about this picture.  Jimmy set it up, so I can't take credit for that, but I enjoy the depth of field, the white on the brown and green, the fact that they're nuzzling - a moment I don't often see in wedding albums.  Because of the angle at which I'm standing, my ineptitude and my equipment, there's a shadow on her face but not such a strong one that I wasn't able to save it in post.

It might not be acceptable for professional level wedding photography, but I wouldn't call it a bad photo and I like enough about it that the lighting doesn't bother me... too much.

I love the fact that the boat blatantly says "Safety Boat" on the side.  I like the texture of the water, the fact that I caught a little wave crashing into the shore with some clarity and the framing provided by the dark rocks in the foreground and the light pier in the distance.  The same shot doesn't work nearly so well in a portrait setting or from a higher angle (I tried both).

I felt that my squatting position made the slight bob and rock of the boat a little more intimate and accessible.

This picture really amuses me because a) I got everybody in this lovely, soft afternoon light and it looks like a Greek island in the background and b) no one ever sees this part of the picture.  Wedding albums always look so lovely and clean and fresh and everyone is so perfectly scrubbed and coiffed and in love.

No one ever sees the photographer with a hundred and twenty one lenses on his belt, standing under the boiling sun in his long-sleeved shirt because "it's disrespectful to be too casually dressed at a wedding".  Bless him.

The pictures always look stunning, but no one imagines that there is a massive, very close camera pointed at the bride's schnozz as the photographer calls out weird instructions like, "Put your foreheads together!  Leaning in!  Closer!  As close as you can get!  Kiss!  Touch noses!  Nuzzle!" for a slightly unromantic two hours or so.

To be fair, Marty and Bec looked very much in love and the kissing didn't seem a whole lot like a chore for them!  Anyroad, I just liked the reality of the working man next to the softness of the dreamily happy couple.

Another Jimmy composed photo, but I'm proud to say that I had the same idea in my head the moment I saw the tree.  I don't know if I'm crazy about this picture.  The lighting's great, yes, and I like the way the couple is positioned and how their whites stand out.

But I was taking it slightly off to one side, I kept getting dogs and people in the shot and because I was in my bridesmaid dress, full hair and heels, I couldn't lie down on my stomach like the photographer did.  I'm dying to see how his angle turned out and how different the lighting was.

All the same, I do think it's pretty and I keep coming back to look at it.

The Much-to-be-desireds

Even though I managed to get some very palatable photos (in my opinion), this shoot is one of the most frustrating things I've ever done.  And happily, because it was frustrating, I learned a whole lot from it.  You never pick up as much from the things that turn out well.

To start with, I had to be very careful not to get in Jimmy's way, even though I suspect I did a fair bit.  That meant not getting into the shot, or standing too near where he was standing, or insisting on taking the exact same angle or asking the couple to stay put for a minute longer than was necessary.

That meant each time he got a prime location, I was always at least 30 degrees off to one side.

Secondly, stumbling round in heels and full garb can be slightly detrimental to how well you can hold a camera.  (Not that I'm complaining, I was happy to be there at all!)

At times, I felt like my equipment wasn't up to the tasks I was asking of it, and to recompose would have meant causing some small disruption.

Finally, I confirmed, as I've always suspected, that I really don't know light at all (a little Joni Mitchell humour for you there).  I mean, I'm getting there slowly and I understand it a little better than I did two years ago, but it's going to take a whole lot more practise in all sort of different conditions to really get me to where I want to be.

Take this pair of pictures for instance.  I love the lighting situation.  I even love the pose in the second photo, which is totally candid.  Bec and Marty turned to listen to Jimmy's instructions, but I love how the drama conveys the idea that something more interesting going on.

But because of the angle I was sitting at, there was all kinds of nonsense in the background and the shadows were falling every which way.  In comparison, the pro shot was a massively wide angle art shot, with the couple in the shadows in one corner and the energy of the rows of stark white pews surrounding them.

My picture was also horrendous in colour because of the intensity of the light and shadow.  I don't know if it's a lens issue or I'm just not metering it right, but I could definitely have done better.

This picture is great in theory and poor in practice.  There were a couple of boys kicking a ball around and I wanted to see if I could capture them in motion.  I had no problem getting them moving with the ball in the air several times, but the sun was an issue.

If I'd been positioned a little bit higher with a much better zoom lens, it could have been a really dynamic shot of a boy in energetic motion.  As it is, the trees are distracting and he's not in focus enough.  I'm not too fussed about the lack of zoom right now though.  This is a problem easily remedied with my legs.   

The three photos above didn't make the cut because of lighting issues.  Here's where I experienced the most frustration.  Obviously, the photos were all meant to be backlit.  I don't know if it's the angle I was at, my lighting incompetence or just my equipment, but anything that turned out to be nicely backlit was woefully dark in the front.

At one point, Jimmy pointed a shot out to me and said that if I took one from that angle, I could get some nice lens flare.  I took a picture and was upset at how dark the bride and groom were in the front.  Jimmy showed me his picture on the camera screen and the lighting was beautifully balanced, warm and almost creamy right across the picture.  The blown out sections were so gradual that they hardly called any attention to themselves and the trees were an impressive shade of olive green.

I kept encountering this problem again and again, walking round in tight circles trying to improve my perspective and it was driving me nuts.  The second picture is clearly meant to be a joke - the couple pulled faces for me in between snaps and I think they look adorable in it - but it still illustrates how far I have to go with lighting.

The third picture was a particular nuisance.  It almost works.  Almost.  Obviously I'm too short for it.  Had I been shooting from a little to the right, there wouldn't be the problem of the annoying, blown out top right corner either.

I tried to watch the way Jimmy worked - he walked round staring at the floor to check where shadows were falling and just how much light was coming through the trees.  When he positioned Marty and Bec, he asked constantly if the sun was in their eyes, a sign that their faces would likely be well lit.  He angled his camera upwards and downwards to check for a decent background.  And standing behind his shoulder and ogling his camera screen helped me learn as well.  

I've come to the conclusion that while I really do need to work more judiciously with shadow, my dinky kit lens, with its maxiumum aperture of 4, is partly to blame.  To run out and get a new zoom lens right away isn't my style - I prefer to try my best with the equipment I have first.  So I've decided that while I try to figure out how to balance the metering better, I'm going to work on composition instead so that my subjects aren't so aggressively backlit.  I'm not sure the lens can handle it.

At the end of the day, I think the struggle was good for me.  I was super grateful for the location and the chance to follow the pro around.  Plus, it's always good to know what you don't know.  Best of all, instead of being discouraged by the experience, I came away with steely resolve.

My friend, Wei-Yuen, also takes photos and we had a conversation the other day about doing things.  "If you want to do something, why not just do it well?" she said.  "What's the point of doing it halfway?"

I wholeheartedly agree.  I want to keep working on taking pictures and not half-assing them.  I don't think my pictures are bad, but I really want to push myself so that they look as nice they possibly can.  For this month, my resolution is as follows.

I'm putting the 18-55mm kit lens away for now.  I'm going to work solely with my 50mm, 1.8 prime lens for a while (except at concerts) because at a maximum aperture of 1.8, it should give me all the light I need.  To add to that, I want to push the lens to see just how much more it can take than portraits.  Then, I'll keep working on composing better so that I make the light work for me despite my limits.

Ultimately, I'm eyeing a mid-priced 28-75mm, constant 2.8 lens for when I actually know how to use the glass to kick things up a notch.

Not a bad plan, and I feel pretty good about it.

I hope you've enjoyed these photos (if not the long, random ramble!).  In the meantime, I leave you with a picture that's neither here nor there, but that I managed to get through good timing and that cracks me up each time I look at it.

I call this photo: Envy.