2012 Retrospective

It’s hard to believe another year has already rolled around. It doesn’t feel that long ago that I was writing a post this time last year with photos from 2011.

This year my photography increased quite a bit over the previous year partly due to a little side project called the Art of Baking that I’ve setup with my girlfriend (more on this towards the end). I’m happy with the direction my photography is going in. Probably like you, I’m never happy with my photography and there’s always a little thing or two that bugs me when I go to look back as the months pass. But finally I feel that I have a grip on the processing and composition where it’s feeling natural and isn’t just riding the current trend like others are known for. I love with photography that there’s always room for improvement and we’re constantly learning and developing. This is what keeps me coming back to apply new things and styles I’ve learnt.

Some of these things I’ve learnt throughout the years I’ve tried to document in various articles on this blog. Just in case you missed any here’s a recap with links through to the articles:

• Waterfall photography guide

• Exploring the split toning feature in Lightroom

• The Magic Cloth Technique (DIY neutral density filter)

• Neutral density reference chart (or a long exposure calculator if you wish)

• Understanding the automatic exposure bracketing feature on your camera
• SEO tips for photographers
• Tips to improve your photography composition

 

Bay of Fires, Tasmania

The year started off on a huge high for me photographically speaking. I’d spent a lot of time as a kid around the St Helen’s/Bay of Fires area when I wasn’t into photography so it was always high on my list to take some photos around there with nice light and colour in the sky. My family booked a holiday house up there after the New Year and we spent a few days up there. We spent a lot of time as kids around Beerbarrel Beach catching waves on our foam boogie boards at the time. It’s some of my favourite memories so it was nice to go back with camera in hand and get some photos. This was the result from a spectacular sunset one evening.

Aami Park

After coming home from a few weeks in Tasmania over the New Year, I was itching to take a photo of Aami Park on sunset when an A-League soccer (err… football rather) game was on to capture the stadium all lit up. Lucky for me I didn’t realise they used fireworks upon a goal being scored. It was a nice way to start the year shooting in Melbourne.

Docklands, Melbourne

Photo Mingling

Last year I tried to make an effort to meet new photographers as it’s always nice to meet others that share our odd obsession for standing around as our cameras expose for a long exposure. After many emails back and forth I met Jon Sander, a talented designer from Melbourne. We shot a few times throughout the year and are hoping to pull our socks up and do it at least once a month over 2013. Here’s hoping! PS, you owe me a beer Jon 😉

 

Daily Carry

This year I tried to make an effort to carry my camera when riding to work or visiting friends for lunch of a weekend to capture things I might normally capture with my iPhone/Galaxy S3 on Instagram. These were a  couple of my favourite photos captured from randomly carrying my camera over the year.

 

Double Exposure Blending Tutorial

I’m always eager to read about new techniques whether it be in camera or in photoshop. One of these techniques was creating a double exposure blend which I created a tutorial about on YouTube. It’s a neat little trick that is worth a try if you have a close up photo of yourself and an image to blend over the top.

Landscapes and a Slight Mishap…

I also shot quite a bit with Ben Jensz over the year. Ben is someone I met when I first moved to Melbourne. We’ve tried to get around recent ish places to Melbourne as much as we can and this year was no exception. Although not shooting as much we would have liked, we got some photos in at Cape Schanck and various water falls around Victoria.

But there was one slight hiccup for me this year. The day my camera fell and went for a swim. It was all set up ready to capture a photo of Turpin Falls and was exposing for the minute until mid way through the exposure it somehow moved and fell into the water. As you can imagine I was devastated and had the camera inspected by Canon who declared it dead. Cutting my losses I quickly bought another Canon 5D Mark II to replace the camera so I could get back out shooting again and put the loss behind me. Sucks.

This was a photo of Turpin Falls captured just before the camera slipped and fell into the water…

But as I said, a replacement camera wasn’t far away and I quickly made sure to order a new one. Here I am with my baby 😉

Last Couple of the Year

Unfortunately there wasn’t a whole lot of shooting towards the end of the year and here’s a couple from December at Park Beach and Clifton Beach both in Tasmania.

 Art of Baking

We’ve had a lot of fun with the project with a rising amount of traffic coming through and features in a couple of local magazines. I’ve found it quite challenging shooting with lights due to the obvious difference over my normal style of long exposure photography. But for the most part it’s been a fun project that I’ve really enjoyed doing with Rani. Without her baking prowess it would be nothing. I’ve tried to separate the baking photos by presenting them at the end. Be sure to check out our little blog.

 Thanks!

And that’s it for another year. Thanks for all your continual support over the year. It never goes unnoticed and I appreciate it a lot. I hope you had a great year.

You might also be interested in my 2010 Retrospective and 2011 Retrospective posts from previous years.

If you have any comments or just feel like saying hi, be sure to drop a line. I always look forward to hearing from people so don’t be a stranger.

Thanks,

– Alex