A Photo Journalist For Two Days.

For the last couple of years The Sports Campus, a sports website that runs out of India, has used some of my Australian Open Tennis photos to accompany their reports on the Open. It's been a rewarding arrangement with TSC and I've enjoyed the rapport I've built up with them. So much so that TSC asked me if I would like the cover the Melbourne leg on the recent Everton FC tour of Australia for them. It was something I jumped at, the opportunity to gain press accreditation and become part of the media contingent following their stay in Melbourne.



www.thesportscampus.com/201007136188/english-premiership/everton-enters-the-heart-of-melbourne

www.thesportscampus.com/201007156225/english-premiership/melbourne-takes-heart-in-loss-to-everton

It was a fascinating experience to be part of the media pack for two days!

Google Beach Combing

The other day a friend told me about a clip on youtube...a recording of a T.Rex song played at their 1973 Sydney gig! As there was only audio the poster had compiled a slideshow to accompany it. Lo and behold there were images from the Melbourne gig included, photos another friend had taken that night and which I had posted on the net with his permission in the late 1990s. It got me thinking...were there photos I had posted on flickr which have been used elsewhere? I have been asked permission several times for images and I've usually been happy to oblige...after all as a hobby photographer it's a bit of a buzz to see one's photos out there...of course only if it's not for a blatantly commercial use.

I googled under Tidalpix and Tidalist and quickly came up with a few web sites where one or more of my photos had found another home. I don't recall these people actually asking permission to use them but at least they acknowledged me as the photographer and where they had originated...which is ok. Oh well, what can you do? I'd posted them on the largest photo site on the net!

I was especially pleased with the Whit Smith interview image. I met the Hot Club of Cowtown guitarist at a gig here in Melbourne last year and found him to be a very nice guy.

Here are the links I found with my images.

An interview with Whit Smith of The Hot Club of Cowtown
www.meandthee.org/blog/txp/blogspot/200/quick-q-and-a-with-whit-smith-hot-club-of-cowtown

Some images of the Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Texas taken in January this year.
dallas.wearenetwork.com/dallas_images/dallascowboys

A couple of images from a 2004 New Zealand holiday.
search.digitalnz.org

Not a site the title may lead you to think :-) It's a 1980s Melbourne site and there's two images: A photo of the Sphinx outside Flinders Street Station and the Station Hotel in Prahran with the train crashing out of it!
www.cleavagedownunder.com

Some images from the sea down at Blairgowrie, here on the Mornington Peninsula. This site seems to be linked to flickr. Have no idea how it works!
fiveprime.org/hivemind/Tags/beach,blairgowrie

And this one seems to be a Mexican/California bird list with a photo I took of a Pectoral Sandpiper included. Glad to do my bit for the ornithological world!
www.bajacalifornia.gob.mx/spa/vida_silvestre/Aves_en_BC.pdf

Now I wonder how many times my photos have been used and I haven't been acknowledged!

Tilt-Shift Miniature Fakes

I caught up with my son yesterday for a really enjoyable photography afternoon. We went to a spot outside the city where the television towers stand. He said it was a great place to view the city at night. Yeah it is...his comment brought back memories of driving up there with my friends when I was his age. :-)

The view immediately lent itself to trying out a favourite photographic photoshop technique...tilt-shift...the process of taking an scene from a height and transforming it into a model diorama, something akin to the model train sets many of us boys had when we were kids and some luckily still do :-)

The technique is best explained in a wonderful tutorial I found on the internet.

www.recedinghairline.co.uk/tutorials/fakemodel/

I've tried it out with various levels of success. The one below is one of my favourites:



The original photo:



As I said I've had various levels of success...it can take a fair bit of tinkering in photoshop but it's good fun and the results can be rewarding. As for the rule of taking the original shot from above...well it certainly is the most effective way but it is possible to achieve the 'model' effect from looking straight on as if you're looking at that 'train set from the little people' level.

Try it out...it's certainly a fun side of photography :-)