- Probably a good thing.

As I excitedly await the start of uni, I decided I should do one last road trip since I may not be able to once uni starts. I love road trips. They’re probably my favourite kind of adventure. The best adventures I remember are driving across America, Denmark and Scotland. The rest just seem to fall into each other.

Visiting other countries is great and I’m fortunate enough that I’ve been to many places but it can be stressful and tiring with the expense, organising, flying and sorting out where to stay.

On a whim I decided to grab my best friend, Kate, jump in the car and head to Broken Hill for 3 days. From Melbourne it’s a 9 hour drive (which I really didn’t think about) and it’s the closest you can get to the Outback from here. I’ve always had a fascination with seeing red sand/the outback and this is the closest I could get in this ridiculously large county, in a short amount of time.

I didn’t really have anything in mind in terms of what to photograph but assumed there would be lots of choices in terms of landscape and architecture.

I found that when we arrived, I was tired after the long drive and it was about 38 degrees. This was problematic as I just couldn’t be bothered, even though we only had 1 full day there. I’m finding that ‘effort’ to be one of my biggest problems. Pulling out the bag, the camera, the right lens, the tripod (hoping I remembered the tripod head) and setting up. I decided later that it wasn’t so much a problem with me but as my friend Kate said, you’re just not inspired. I think this is true for any creative person. You need to be inspired in order to make that ‘effort’ in whatever you do.

I also believe this to be true because I remember the amount of times I have moved the heavens to get the right shot no matter how difficult or impossible it may seem at the time.

I also realised when we arrived that you need about 3 weeks to really do this area properly. It’s massive and within about a 400km radius there is so much more to see (and not much in between) including national parks and just pure nothing. I settled on seeing the town and the local sculptures (although it rained!) and was hoping for some clear star shots (again, it was overcast!) so I got what I could and am pretty happy with the results.

The best you’ll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way.

Janet Fitch, “White Oleander”

I’ve been to about 5 weddings this year and while I almost always take my camera and I do get some decent shots, I have never been the primary photographer (I always make sure to get out of their way) until I was asked by my good friend to shoot her wedding on New Years Eve.

I’ve always believed that shooting a wedding should be left to the professionals as I appreciate the pressure and how wrong it can go. When Sinead asked me I gave it a lot of thought and spoke to her about expectations and the fact that it wasn’t what I did for a living. I made sure she understood that I would do my best and that I wouldn’t have insurance for anything should my camera break, cards fail, batteries die (although that would just be stupidity), I wouldn’t really know what to do if it rained etc etc. I know Sinead pretty well and she understood all of this and was still happy for me to shoot her day.

It was incredibly hot at Melbourne Zoo (about 36 degrees celsius) and in the bridal party we had an 8.5 months pregnant maid of honour, 3 guys in black suits, blistering, kill me now sunlight, and a lovely guide (with an esky of beers!) to walk us through the photo hot spots which we were warned was quite a walk.

The maid of honour was amazing and soldiered on throughout the whole shoot, taking every opportunity to sit down. Sinead was also blessed with a fantastic bridesmaid who took care of the dress and making it look good whenever we stopped.

The most important aspect for me though and one that I am incredibly grateful for, was that a few weeks earlier, I met another photographer at a friends party; Lou Lou Nutt. Lou Lou offered her services and I gratefully accepted. We had a great day and worked really well together.

Lou Lou was AMAZING and I cannot stress enough the importance of having someone assist you. Being a very capable and experienced photographer herself (Lou Lou mainly shoots gigs), she didn’t just carry my gear when needed (she was happy to be the secondary photographer in this instance since Sinead is a good friend of mine), she was super professional and took some amazing shots, including shots I knew I had failed to get due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I am used to shooting at my own pace in controlled environments so I learned a lot on this day. I was very focussed on the heat and the fact that we had a very pregnant woman in the group so I shot fast and a lot and didn’t give enough attention to composition. Having said this though, I’m still happy with the results and will take a lot of lessons with me for the next time.

What I learned:

• I have to remember to take more ‘arty’ shots – bouquets, rings, shoes etc.
• Don’t shoot people too wide on a full-frame camera with a wide-angle lens or they’ll look distorted!
• Shoot a LOT of just the bride and groom – full length
• Be aware of harsh sunlight and filling in the shadows with the Flash or a reflector.
• 1 good photo is better than 100 OK ones. I need to be more patient.

I started with a 450d which was great when I started out but when I reached it limitations (shutter speed was what got me) I upgraded to the Canon 7D. I have only had it for about 6 months and I really, really love it but I’ve been informed I will be greatly limited if I study without a full-frame camera so bring on the 5D. Whenever I pick up my 450d now, it’s like picking up a toy camera.

It finally arrived and wow, it’s amazing to go from a small sensor to a large one. I didn’t really understand what all the fuss was about but of course I now know and I’ll never be able to go back. I actually thought it was broken when I heard the loud ‘clunk’ of the shutter. I Googled that shiz asap and discovered that it’s quite normal and due to the larger everything.I even shook it thinking something was broken. Ha.

I had a play with it last night for the first time with my Canon 17-40mm f4 lens which is soooo much nicer on a full-frame camera.

I was using it at up to ISO 2000 and it still looked sharped which I’m most impressed by. It started to get noticeably noisy when I went past 2000.

I grabbed a gaggle of friends and went shooting. I’m still getting used to it and have a lot to learn but I can definitely see now why full-frame is better. In simple terms (I’m a simple person) you can just fit more in in the frame.

1/640 secs at f 4.0, ISO 1600, 17-40mm L f4.0 (taken at 6pm)

The answer is basically, I want what they’ve got. RMIT uses Macs and I don’t want any hassles with compatibility so I bought one.

It’s very fancy and lovely looking but I think I will still rely on my PC to be my main workhorse. Reason being, it’s still far superior than the $2700 Macbook.

Since it’s how I roll (regardless of my financial position at any time), I bought the best specs I could get minus the extra RAM. I wasn’t completely convinced on the price or necessity of upgrading to the 8gb of RAM for 2 reasons:

1. Apple are notorious for overcharging on extras. For $240 for another 4 gb of RAM I figured I could buy and install that myself if I needed to for about $100
2. I just don’t know yet if I’ll need it and will find out next year so I’ll wait

So, other than enjoying the fancy two-finger scrolling stuff, I am not really using it yet. I’ll see next year how it performs and update.

I’ll be starting on February 6 and I’m very excited and stuff. I’ll be honest, I don’t really know what to expect since I haven’t studied since high school (although that was more about studying social events and sports). So, for now, all I can do is regurgitate what we were told in the information session.

I attended the information day on December the 11th where we were told general information about the course that included the following:

1. Expect about 28 contact hours a week
2. The course starts as a 1 year Certificate IV and then the next year is the Diploma. However, they’ve structured the course as one course over 2 years.
3. Expect to shoot, re-shoot and shoot again to get the perfect image (I like the idea of this, let’s see how reality goes).
4. While there’s contradictory information online, they do expect you to have a full-frame camera (hence my purchase of a Canon 5D).
5. We won’t receive a timetable until about a week before we start. This will be hard for a lot of people who work but we were told to expect to be in lectures or the studio at least every day, sometimes twice per day (morning and afternoon sessions).
6. We won’t get a gear list until we start but it’s going to be expensive. I’m pretty confident I’ve managed to collect most of it over the years.
7. The first semester will be spent learning film which I can’t wait for. The idea is to teach restraint and to understand composition (I tend to machine-gun the shutter at appropriate and inappropriate times. Ha). We’ll be using large format cameras. I don’t really know what that means but I know it’s good.
8. The rest of the course is all digital.