The Best Thing I Ever Did In Photography

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There are two things that have made more of an impact on my photography than anything else and that is the gear I now use and the processing styles I have chosen.

35mm

For the last two years I have almost exclusively been shooting in landscape orientation with a 35mm equivalent lens and a single, lightweight and compact camera, and this has given me an enormous appreciation for consistency in the photographs I make. My photographs finally feel like they are truly "mine".

Before 2013, it's like I had no vision whatsoever. It was a free-for-all of focal lengths, orientations and post processing styles. Other than my portrait work, the DSLR and zoom lens was the ultimate consistency killer in my pictures.

Fast forward to now and no matter what I take, if it's a good photograph it feels like it fits perfectly alongside entirely different photographs because the perspective is the same and my style of framing is consistent.

VSCO Film

Discovering VSCO also had a profound impact on the way my photographs feel. Before this, I would change all kinds of settings in Lightroom and as a result each photograph felt different, not a part of a whole body of work.

For a while I was using Kodak Portra 400 colour and Ilford HP5+ B&W emulations but have since swapped to Fuji 800Z and Kodak Tri-X. As a result of using VSCO, my colour and tonal range is consistent.

The added benefit is that I know what I'm going to get when I'm out in the world ready to make a photograph. It's like using film because the film decides the colours and black and white tone for the most part. You have to make sure the subject matter works, and you let the processing set the mood, and you only tweak one or two things like exposure.

Conclusion

There's nothing more disorienting than looking through a body of work and finding that it doesn't actually feel like a body of work. While it may not become your whole way of shooting, I strongly encourage anyone struggling to find their way to reduce all gear options to a single focal length and camera and shoot that way for a good many months.

You may hate it or it, if you're like me, it may transform your photographic journey entirely.

Springbrook Warrie Circuit

I was out in the forest again today with Dash, hiking the 17km Warrie Circuit down in Springbrook National Park. Legs are tired, but it's great to be out away from the city.

As I get more and more into hiking, I'm treating each hike as training towards bigger hikes. I'd love to get into overnight and multi-day hikes with camping eventually, especially in mountainous locations I'm inspired to visit from other photographers I follow.

Mount Cordeaux (North Peak)

This morning I left home at 4am with the intent of climbing Mount Cordeaux to the main lookout, about 1,100 metres above sea level. To my surprise I met another photographer named Fred McKie, who does anything from commercial photography to architecture, lifestyle and landscapes.

We both ended up walking the extra 30 minutes to Bare Rock north along the ridge from Mount Cordeaux lookout.

Melbourne Part 4

After seeing the Shrine of Remembrance, we headed back through the city to the hotel, stopping for soup at The Soup Place (Degraves St) and hot chocolate at Koko Black. I had a stunning sunset flight home to Brisbane.

See part three...

Melbourne Part 3

We turned around after dinner at Split Point, where the lighthouse is. They filmed the classic Australian TV show "Round The Twist" here. Then Hannah, Simon and I wandered Melbourne on my third and last day. I managed to get a few good street photographs in. More photos to come.

See part two...

See part four...

Melbourne Part 2

We stopped at Torquay and Anglesea along the Great Ocean Road, then had wood-fired pizza and dessert at Split Point before heading back to Melbourne that night. These are from the earlier portion of the trip.

See part one...

See part three...

Melbourne Part 1

I booked flights to Melbourne this year on a whim without any actual plans. What came together was one of my favourite weekends down there so far. I was still relatively sick with a cold on the first day so I wandered around, caught up with a friend then went back and slept the night off.

The next day I caught up with Genevieve and her friends before heading down the Great Ocean Road for a short road trip with Connor, Simon, Hannah and Lana. It was wild and raining at times but beautiful. The next post will have more of that.

See part two...