From the the Bush to the Stamford - A Wedding Photographer's Lot

Is it still called a "Busman's Holiday" when a photographer does it? As per a previous post, Jean and I have been living in a cabin in the State Forest 300 Kms north of Sydney. There isn't any TV coverage, no access to the Internet or e-mail, and no mobile phone carrier has penetrated into this region... So you will not be reading this "live" no matter how closely you follow the blog. What does work is our cameras. The cabins have electricity (though they are prone to blackouts), so keeping our camera batteries charged while we recharge our 'life batteries' is no hassle, which is a good thing given the rate at which we go through them; and the wildlife is a treat! Wallabies and roos abound (sorry about the pun) and the possums come up demanding a feed in the evening. Tiny forest birds tease us and challenge our reflexes and the speed of our autofocus lenses (manual focus wins out most of the time), and the lyre birds enchant us with their mimicry and song. Only a week, and then it's back to Sydney and the bridal scene, starting off with a ceremony and reception at the Stamford Grand in North Ryde, which should be beautiful. Locations like the Stamford offer advantages for wedding photography with their well designed function centres, but they present some challenges, too. With everything taking place in the same building, falling behind schedule is seldom a problem, but finding the principals can sometimes be tricky: the bride and groom will be getting ready in separate rooms, but it may not be their own rooms, and they aren't sure which ones they will be in yet - that is to say, they didn't know when I left Sydney two days ago. Kylie could be "getting done" in her own suite or in her mum's room. Peter might be in his room, but perhaps he'll be with the Best Man, or even in his Mum and Dad's room getting ready... Someone suggested I should check the bar first, but we'll take that with a grain of salt! Hopefully the Stamford's wedding organiser will have a handle on where to find them all, but in any case, I will have to be there pretty early to ensure things go smoothly! It is also the first wedding for my new assistant, Daniel. Daniel showed me a nice portfolio when he asked if he could assist, and he has been nothing short of professional leading up to the day ~ I'm sure he'll do well! Hotel rooms tend to be light with relatively low-ceilings, so bounced flash works a treat even if the window light isn't adequate for good photography- the room lights are always a disaster! The rather tight spaces bring wide-angle lenses into their own, too, and the busy melee of hairdressers, make-up artists, parents, bridesmaids and attendants can yield a rich harvest of memorable images for the photographer who can get the shot without getting underfoot. Sadly, lighting for the rest of the day will be more difficult: Wedding Venues like to mix their light sources: natural window light, candle-light, incandescent bulbs and even neon - often coloured for "effect". Flash here is not usually a suitable light source because it is distracting to the bridal couple and to the celebrant; using it is just bad manners. Establishing accurate white balance in advance of the ceremony is not always possible - the lights at other times may be quite different to those during the wedding- so working in RAW and dealing with the colour balance later is usually the best option. The Reception will present similar lighting problems, but this is more like a party, and flash is acceptable at a party. Anyway, odd casts from coloured lights and strobes, even lasers, can add to the party feel . Between the Ceremony and the Party, the more personal Couples Photographs will be taken in an area which the Stamford has designed for the purpose, with tired levels and an indoor/outdoor waterfall. With only about 80 guests, we should have space enough for the group photos in this area, but providing more individuality and intimacy for the Newlyweds will be a challenge: I don't want these photos to look like an advertisement for the hotel's waterfall to prospective wedding parties!

A Little R and R

Specialising in any one area of photography means you accumulate specific gear for the job. That's great. But it also means that a range of other tools tends to be set aside. Working as a Wedding Photographer pushes fast lenses and highly portable, flexible gear to the top of my gadget bag, and other interesting things get left out... But never forgotten. This week I have taken a break from my regular schedule, and pulled some of my more neglected equipment out of mothballs. I am in the temperate rainforests 300Kms north of home photographing birds, wildlife, fungi and native flora. Here, my principal tools are my 500mm IS lens (800mm in 35mm terms), my 90mm macro and a new "O-Flash" which converts my hot-shoe flash into a ring-flash. I'm using this opportunity to get familiar with it before using it in earnest, and I have to say it's performing very well so far, adding great, shadowless light to macros and head shots. Very impressive given that it costs only about a tenth the price of a dedicated portable ring-flash. It's winter, and the rainforests have not been rainy... The days have been sunny and bright around our cabin, but cold under the shelter of the trees. There are only two cabins here, and many, many kilometres of rough, steep pathways through the woods. The managers have mapped out and named many paths, grading them for difficulty and marking their routes with little bits of pink plastic tape, so there is little chance of wandering too far off the beaten track, yet the solitude and sense of wilderness rests on everything. Many streams and small rivers penetrate the dim woods and the forest is full of sound: the streams, unseen animals and barely glimpsed birds and insects are a constant companion to our footsteps, but beyond this....silence. Outside the woods, the gravel roads are little trafficked; just the occasional farmer on his way too or from town, and twice a day, the school bus. For the rest of the day, the roads are ours. We walk them, or dive slowly down the middle of the road. Wildlife spotting. In the last few days we have seen endangered Palmers Wallabies, Black Faced Wallabies, Pademelons and Eastern Kangaroos; there are numerous wrens and thrushes of many varieties and the common currawongs, kookaburras, magpies and ibis. Every days we see white-faced and grey heron, magpie larks, superb flycatchers, and around the cabins, beautiful brown and yellow thornbills entertain us. The possums come around at night, and yesterday morning we were visited by a Satin Bowerbird. Most of our sightings have eventually been recorded, but not all as well as we might like. Those creatures not so shy that they vanish at the whirr of an autofocus motor are still hard to catch in the viewfinder, especially at dusk and near dawn, or in the dim of the forest. At the far stretch of an 800mm lens at an ISO of 1600, images of small, moving animals are sometimes less than crisp! Nevertheless, we are gaining ever greater respect for our Canon and Olympus cameras and their optics. Just by way of comparison, we have virtually abandoned the superzoom compact that came along as an alternative to the DSLRs. On paper, and under more "normal" conditions, it is a respectable camera: 20x zoom f/4 lens, 4 FPS burst rate and full manual control: it has yet to produce one acceptable image. I strongly suspect it will be finding a new home on eBay next week! Just two more days to go, and sad we will be to leave: but, on the other hand, how miserable would we be to miss Peter's and Kylie's wedding!