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Art & Photography Training News  Digital Reproduction's Issue 21 brings you news on art and photography training initiatives around the country and highlights how key suppliers are doing their bit for this sector of the industry. (The full version of this feature is available in PDF version once you have created an account via our subscription page.) Image © Christine Conlon De-mystifying Digital Photography - image and words by Alison Stieven-Taylor  When I picked up my first camera - an Olympus Trip 35 - more than twenty years ago I began my love affair with photography, a passion that hasn’t diminished. My Olympus Trip is now relegated to the shelf along with its big brother, the OM10, one of my great travelling companions. And in a cupboard there are an odd assortment of SLRs and lenses that I can’t bring myself to discard. For years I submerged myself in film concentrating on architecture as a subject and spending time in the darkroom experimenting with the special effects that could be achieved with exposure times and in processing. I did courses in Black & White photography and slide film and saved for those expensive, but beautiful, Cibachrome prints. As my photography developed and I began to hold exhibitions, I started to experiment with manipulated images. I still shot on film and painstakingly scanned the image so I could work on it in Photoshop. My exhibition Barcelona Hues a homage to Gaudi, was the first time I exhibited manipulated images. The further I walked in the digital world the more interested I became, but only in the image post-production. It wasn’t until earlier this year that I took the plunge into the world of professional digital photography and actually bought myself a DSLR. I still use an Olympus, but I now shoot on an Olympus E3 DSLR – a camera that I fell in love with very quickly, one that is brilliantly simple to use and delivers the most extraordinary quality. The move to digital photography was a much greater step than I thought it would be. I felt somewhat intimidated by the virtually endless options that digital SLR cameras offer their user. For the first few weeks I shot on the Olympus E3 as if it were a film camera refusing to acknowledge the other options and keeping the camera firmly positioned at M (manual). And I was as considered about each shot as I always am when shooting on film. One night I sat down determined to go through the manual. That was a short-lived exercise. Not only were there too many pages, I didn’t understand half of the options, their symbols or the outcomes. Frustrated I did a search on Google to see if there were short courses that offered the experienced photographer an introduction to digital. I know that sounds somewhat of an oxymoron, but give me a film camera and I won’t hesitate. I wanted that confidence with digital. Robert Groom of Brave Frog Photography came to the rescue. Robert conducts two-day introductory courses designed to demystify digital photography. And it certainly worked for me. The particular course I attended – Introduction to Digital Photography – was held at the Abbotsford Convent in Melbourne over a weekend. This venue is ideal as it provides the photographer with a vast array of subjects and environments in which to shoot – from the cloistered hallways of the convent itself where dust speckled shafts of sunlight mark the passage of time, to the vibrant café crowd and the lush pastures that surround this small piece of history at the doorstep to Melbourne’s CBD. Robert’s course was the perfect balance of theory and practical activities. We commenced on a Saturday morning at a very civilised pace over coffee with Robert taking the small group through the vernacular of digital photography. Within hours we were exploring the grounds of the Convent and putting into practice what we had learned and for me that meant moving the camera from M to play with A and S. On the Sunday there was time to look at the previous day’s work, discuss technical aspects, play with Adobe Lightroom and learn about file formats and the like. And of course experiment further with shooting formats. Robert has been involved with the Melbourne Camera Club for years. He runs courses at the Club and also these two-day courses that he conducts through Brave Frog. The groups are kept small so you are assured of personal attention and free to ask the most idiotic questions – it seems that when they dropped the word ‘digital’ in front of photography I forgot half of what I already knew, but once I started thinking of files as digital negatives the landscape became easier to traverse. Since that weekend I’ve thrown myself into more courses. At the moment I’m learning about photographic studio lighting, a whole new world where I get to shoot food layouts for magazines and cookbooks in a fully equipped studio. In many ways food has the same linear constructs to architecture and that is why I’m drawn to photographing it – getting to eat some of it after the shoot is an added bonus. And who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? To find out about Robert Groom’s workshops click here To find out about David Harradine’s lighting workshop click here To see more of Alison’s work click here Paul Velissaris launches first photographic book  An award-winning photographer whose first book features the landmarks of America says “Australia is lacking its own icons and the tourism industry may be the loser”. Launching his first photographic book ‘Across America’, Paul Velissaris believes it would be much more challenging to present an equivalent collection of Australian icons. "Is Australia's tourism suffering as a result of so few historical, cultural or commercial icons?" he questions. Paul Velissaris, took leave from his business, Velissaris Photography, to travel through the USA during the 2008 Obama presidential campaign. Paul was amazed by how many icons he photographed. "The images documented in ‘Across America’ showcase the spirit of the land of the ‘stars and stripes'. It was very humbling to be in the presence of such majestic icons, as the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, Empire State Building, Lincoln Memorial and Capitol Hill – just to name a few!" “ I'd love to be able to do something similar for Australia. My hope for this book is to provide an introduction into Australian Tourism with the idea of creating picture icons which capture the true soul of our country, with the enticement for tourists to experience the wonder that is Australia” For more info on Paul Velissaris click here |
COFA - a new school renaissance Digital art practice has been on a steady boom over the past 15 years; largely attributed to affordability, increasingly elegant interface devices and exceptional computer speeds. To meet this growth The University of New South Wales College of Fine Arts (COFA) established a Bachelor of Digital Media Degree (BDM) in 2000. The Degree educates students in most forms of digital practice – Digital Imaging, Digital Video, Audio, 3D, Animation, Interactive Media and a range of things that fall in between these core creative practices. COFA is a Wacom Authorised Training Center, a program that works to keep the school at the foref of digital media education and training. So it is no surprise that Wacom tablets are seen to be critical in the training of its students here. (Read the full story in Issue 21, out now or download the pdf version of the magazine once you have created an account here.)  How OBA's affect fine art print longevity In Issue 21 Nick Friend, President, Breathing Color (above), elaborates on how optical brightener additives (commonly referred to as OBA's) affect fine art print longevity. (The full version of this feature is available in PDF version once you have created an account via our subscription page.) Working with a wide-angle lens  In photography there are times when you are forced to take a picture with a wide-angle lens — for instance, when you are shooting a large group of people or you want to capture the vastness of a landscape. When you do, often times you will also get distortion at the edges of your image. There are many ways to correct the resulting distortion using software applications like Adobe Photoshop, however sometimes this distortion can actually add to the photo. Jeff Cable elaborates in Issue 21, out now. (The full version of this feature is available in PDF version once you have created an account via our subscription page.) Image © Jeff Cable International photographer Sam Haskins launched new book Fashion Etcetera Just prior to his death in November this year, South African born photographer Sam Haskins launched his first book in two decades – Fashion Etcetera. The book will be available in two versions, Fashion Etcetera: Standard Edition and Fashion Etcetera: Tommy Hilfiger Special Edition, which represents Haskins’ first joint publishing project with a designer. The book is the first published retrospective assembly of Haskins’ work, and a journey through five decades of creative photography. Fashion Etcetera is the 8th work by Sam Haskins, who now lives in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales. In this title his versatility and expansive passions are applied to multiple thematic edits of his image archive. The book concentrates on his creative photography from a perspective of defining and celebrating style. It chronicles figure photography, graphic thinking, and importantly, his dedication to original image making that had pushed technical boundaries in a pre-Photoshop world. The book is a combination of digitally re-mastered black and white and color photographs from the early sixties onwards. Famous for his book design, as much as the images themselves, the layouts are all double page spreads, allowing him to use the nuances in his visual thinking and to introduce surprise and tension by juxtaposing images which are sometimes from different decades and themes. Fashion Etcetera consists of seven chapters: Sixties Black & White, Two Cities (Bologna and Barcelona), Calendars, Fashion, Multiple Imagery, Dance and Apple & Eve. The book comes with a chapter introduction by the author for each of the seven chapters, and is accompanied by a complete biography and light-hearted images of Sam at work. Published by The Haskins Press, Fashion Etcetera was unveiled during a six week related exhibit at MILK Gallery in New York that ran until 26 October 2010. More info on Sam Haskins be found here  NGV – Exhibitions 2009/2010 We look at current and future exhibitions at the National Gallery of Victoria.  The above Image features in the exhibition – Long Distance Vision: Three Australian Photographers is on display at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Federation Square until 21 February 2010. Image details: Matthew Sleeth Born Australia 1972 Opfikon 1997, printed 2004 Type C photograph 43.2 x 43.0 cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Presented through the NGV Foundation by Patrick Corrigan, Governor, 2005 © Matthew Sleeth courtesy of Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne |
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