Wednesday, January 25, 2012
We love to see you, and we love a chat. However, just dropping in on a whim isn’t a great idea.
Last week I upset someone because I was unavailable. Turns out I was out shooting. The studio was open but no Ian. Who, this lady just had to see. It also happens from time to time that people call in to have a look at their photos, again we can’t show them because there are other people already in the studio, who have made an appointment to see us. It’s upsetting but viewing photos and making decisions about wall enlargements isn’t like walking into Macca’s and ordering a meal deal. Organizing photos takes time. If you drop in there is a real good chance that we will already be occupied and you may have to wait a loooooong time.
Much better to jump on the phone and give us a call on 03 5025 3368 an schedule an appointment.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
excitations garden, a purpose designed photography location.
Not your everyday pretty garden. Old stables and tack rooms, uncut lawns, trees all over the place in no apparent order. Messy, lacking structure and over all a gardeners nightmare. But, you know what! we wouldn’t have it any other way. Developing a garden and farm yard for photographic purposes is not like creating a nice garden around your house. It’s all about light and shade, and the feel that location imparts on a photograph. The great thing about excitations garden is that it is never the same two days running. Always changing, growing, decaying and creating fantastic photo opportunities.
Portrait of Leila created in excitations garden. Stunningly beautiful natural light created by the environment and a huge hunk of exotic glass go together to created this lovely portrait of a vivacious young lady who just loves being photographed. Last week we had a piece about painting with light and using wide aperture lenses to create shallow depth of field. This natural outdoor portrait of Leila is and example of just that. The only part of Leila in focus is her eye closest to camera. Everything and I mean everything else is beautifully out of focus. Including the very ends of Leila’s eyelashes.
If you’ve ever been to excitations studio complex you may have noticed our lawns are rarely ever cut neatly. In fact we go out of our way to cut grass only if we don’t have a photo session planned for that area. Why? Because it is the excitations look, and more importantly people seem to relax more easily because longer grass is more comfortable to sit or lay on.
Rough textured limbs of a Melaleuca tree frames and contrasts with Leila’s smooth, near perfect skin. Not very long ago we use to photograph in front of this tree using its soft green foliage as a background. Time goes on and now we have these incredible bunch of gnarled, twisted, paper bark limbs to play with.
Actually if you’re ordering online this isn’t a problem. If however, you are viewing online and then phoning your order through to us. PLEASE, PLEASE make sure you quote the image number which will look like this 5897-01.jpg not the slide number which is variable so often has no relevance to the photos actual position in the web gallery. Slide Show numbers will look like 21/54 or say 21 of 54.
Not true really. However our client galleries will be off air so to speak from 4pm till 8pm ESDT Sunday 22nd January 2012. Servers will be undergoing a few tweaks to keep em running more efficiently for you.
Sorry about any inconvenience.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Excitations has in the past offered a limited design service and digital retouch service. Don’t know exactly how we found ourselves doing this. Guess it kind of just happened.
We are discontinuing this design and retouch work. Of course we will still be providing full service to our clients, however we will not be working with or on digital files not create by excitations. We simply haven’t the time or resources to work other peoples files as well as our own.
Good news is I believe there is a new freelance digital artist and designer relocating to Sunraysia. If this occurs we will be happy to supply details for you to arrange your own retouching and design work.
When all said and done. Photographers are painters. Except we use light. No light equals no photos in our world. How we shape and mould light has a great bearing on the way our photography looks. Today’s brief post was to be about how and why we choose to use different equipment to do different types of photography. I wasn’t going to ramble on about technical stuff just the broad basics of some of the reasons we carry a whole bunch of gear to portrait and wedding jobs.
Just as a painter chooses different brushes to create different effects on their canvas. So to do we photographers choose different equipment to splash pixels all over our electronic canvas. The sensor in a digital camera, like film, only records what we allow it to.
For example I’ve just got back from shooting a portrait of a beautiful young girl. One of the shoot locations,was one that we have used many times before. We use it because it is a great location and yields fabulous light and photos every time we shoot. Today we dug deep into our camera bag and came out with a different combination of lens and camera. No other changed. Resulting photos look nothing like anything we have ever shot in this location before. Stunning, beautiful and totally different from other portraits created in the exact same space.
So what would make the difference. While we were painting our sensor with light, the light was being shaped by a very special lens the Nikkor f1.4 85mm. An amazing lens clipped to and old but equally amazing camera the Nikon D2x. Yielding beautifully rounded soft images with a background that is out of focus in a creamy, special kind of out of focus. Some would claim that it’s not worth the expense of having fast exotic lenses such as the Nikkor f1.4 85mm. At excitations we believe the added expense of this and other special optics used in our daily efforts of painting with light is worth every cent. We only occasionally pull this and a few other of our more specific lenses out but when we do the results are outstanding.
Why then, not use them more often? Simple we choose and use equipment, when we believe the lens camera combination is going to give the result we are looking for. Nothing is special if it is used in the wrong situation for the wrong reason. Like always it’s about choice. I hope we will be allowed to post some pictures from this session in the near future.
That explains a lot….. been one of those days, but it’s gotta get better right. Nearing the end of one of those long jobs you think are never going to finish… so that’s good. Will have some more updates for you all on Monday. Have a great weekend.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Wedding photography and why we love it so!
Apart from the fact that we love taking photos. Weddings are always a source of inspiration to us. Often, having watched the couple we’re photographing, grow from little tackers that we have chased around with a camera as children. To adulthood and starting out their new lives together with a wedding celebration. Such was the case last weekend when we were fortunate to be asked to create some wedding photography for Brittany and Jimmy.
As well as all the usual images we create on a wedding day, we try and make time to photograph something different at each and every wedding. Most times succeeding, to get a few frames that are new to us and that are loved by our couples. The image above of Brittany created while we were shooting around a beautiful mirrored coffee table. So of course we did some reflection shots, but we wanted to show something of Brittany’s natural grace. You see she is one of those rare people who seems to instinctively know what to do with her hands when a camera is pointed her way. As in the above shot.
One of the advantages of having two cameras cover a wedding is that what is often hidden from one camera, is clearly visible to the other. Here Brittany and Jimmy had just kissed, and were looking back to family and friends in church. Robyn capture this lovely moment from the audience point of view. We’ve added a little film grain and contrast in post production just to give the image a bit more life. Church lighting isn’t always great lighting for wedding photography.
After church, our first port of call was the grain silo’s at Robinvale. Bit of a challenge this location, as the wind was starting to get up. A dust storm was brewing, and we wanted to get the pictures and get outta there before weather got to unpleasant. Luckily for us our group were fantastic, we were able to get a nice set of shots in relatively short time and hit the road. First of the Silo shots above is a lovely little romantic image all soft and warm. Created by Robyn, using a graffiti covered silo to shield Brittany and Jimmy for the worst of the wind. As well as to mix up the light a bit to get this soft romantic look.
Second of the silo shots posted is one Ian grabbed just before we got out of the wind. We call these a location shot. Just to show we were at the silo’s so to speak. Down low looking up at Brittany and Jimmy, silo and some of the cars in the background. Kinda nice little moment going on with our newly married couple as well. Then we headed back to Mildura, through a Mallee dust storm and out to Chateau Mildura. Where would you believe it, it rained. However if you have to be on location in the rain. Chateau Mildura is one those places it’s good to be.
Quick re-edit for the last photo of this set. Seems I may have been a little carried away with monochrome images. So here just to prove we do shoot colour. An undercover outdoors portrait if that makes sense. Gotta love overhangs and verandah’s on wet days. Also helps that all pro grade cameras are to a large degree moisture resistant. Otherwise we would have been stuck indoors shooting. All we need now is wedding groups who are water resistant and we would be set.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Later this week early next week we have have some short periods where www.excitations.com.au will not be working. We’re hoping to change servers about this time. It won’t effect this blog only the main website.
Clients looking for online proofing may experience some disruption. Menu bar on the main sit will be relocating to left hand side of the home page as well so instead of looking for “client” on top of the page you will need to get use to looking to your left.
Normally don’t talk about excite art here on this blog. However, due to an internet registrar playing funny buggers and trying to extort money for the continued use of our domain name, we have changed domains. http://excite-art.com is the new name and where the site will be found in future.