Awareness

 

I began my love affair with photography when I was 15. A cover of American Photographer caught my eye in a newsstand. It was an Ansel Adams B&W landscape image. I was smitten.

 

Beginnings

 

I saved my pennies and bought my first camera in 1976. It was an Olympus OM-1 - a manual 35mm SLR, which went on several trips to the Himalayas with me and which I still have. I now don't recall why, but I shot mostly with slide film, and I'm glad I did. More recently I had hundreds of slides shot in Thailand, Nepal, and India in the early 1980s cleaned and scanned at 4000 dpi. Even today, the detail in those images matches and surpasses the digital realm.

 

On The Road To Kashmir (1984), Olympus OM-1, Sigma Mini-Wide 28mm f2.8 lens, Kodak Ektachrome 100 ASA Slide film

 

I was just about to start building my own darkroom when I discovered girls and rock music. My interest in photography was distracted.

 

Renewal

 

Years later, divorced and with 3 kids, I began dating a photographer. It didn't last, but she later sold me her back-up camera - a Canon EOS 10D. Welcome to the digital age. I went back to my roots, and read most of Ansel Adams' books. The resurgence of my passion for photography coincided with the advance in digital technology.

 

I was shooting so much with the 10D, even before and after work and during lunchtime strolls around Pyrmont in Sydney, and every weekend, that I began seeing lines and compositions everywhere I went. I still do.

 

Cleared For Take-off (2008) Canon EOS 10D, Canon EF 70-300mm f4.5-5.6 Diffractive Optics IS Lens @ 140mm, ISO 100, f4.5 at 1/60 second

 

One of the first EOS 5D Mark IIs to arrive in Australia had my name on it, and from November 2008 until it drowned below Weeping Rock in the Blue Mountains in mid-2012, taking out my 16-35mm f2.8L II lens with it, I easily shot over 100,000 images.

 

And the 10D? It wasn't worth selling, but it was still a good camera, so I sent it to the US to get converted by LifePixel into an Infrared DSLR. I chose a Deep B&W IR filter, equivalent to 830nm. One of the best gear decisions I ever made.

 

Path To The Sky (2010), Pyrmont, Sydney. Canon EOS 10D, Canon EF 24-70mm f2.8L lens @ 24mm, ISO 100, f2.8 at 1/750 second

 

Today

 

I shoot exclusively with Canons, including the EOS 3 - the last film SLR made by Canon and which still surpasses most DSLRs today, eg it shoots at an incredible 10 fps. After using a friend's old 1-point AF EOS 5D Mark II for almost a year as my main camera though, I decided not to fork out for the 5D Mark III, but instead buy a second-hand EOS 1Ds Mark III - my dream DSLR. Until recently Canon's top-of-the-range camera, with a price tag to match, it can now be bought for much less than a 5D Mark III. Such is the changing world of digital photography.

 

Dawn's Canvas (2013) Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III, Canon TS-E 24mm f3.5L Tilt+Shift lens with Hoya ND8 filter and Lee 0.75 Hard Grad ND filter, ISO 160, f10 at 0.6 second

 

I also upgraded the IR 10D with a new-near 5D Mark II that a friend had had converted to infrared - also by LifePixel and also with a Deep B&W IR filter. I added a grip to it because it gives me double the battery life and I can hold it better.

 

Sun Spire (2013) Canon EOS 5D Mark II (Infrared), Carl Zeiss Distagon ZE 21mm f2.8 lens, ISO 100, f8 at 1/100 second

 

Publishing

 

My work has been published on a number of book covers published by Thomson Reuters (Law Book Co) with print runs in the tens of thousands. One of my images has been published in a NSW High School textbook as a case study in digital media.

 

I have also published many on-line tutorials on a variety of photographic subjects. They can all be accessed here: www.redbubble.com/people/peterh111/journal/5657034-list-o.... My tutorial on Neutral Density Filters is one of the most popular ND tutorials ever published, with currently over 650,000 views. Total views of my tutorials is approaching 1.5 million.

 

Awards

 

In 2012 I entered a competition for the first time, the International Loupe Awards, and won a Gold, two Silver, and several Bronze.

 

Tears Of The Bride (2011) Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon TS-E 24mm f3.5L Tilt+Shift lens with Hoya ND x400 filter, ISO 50, f9 at 75 seconds

Gold Award, International Loupe Awards 2012

 

In 2013 I was a Finalist in Australian Geographic Journal's ANZANG Nature Photographer of the Year Award, was published in the South Australian Museum's 10th Annual ANZANG Collection Australasian Nature Photography, and was exhibited in the 2013 ANZANG Exhibition. The photograph was taken with the old Infrared-converted Canon 10D.

 

Regenerating (2011) Canon EOS 10D, Canon EF 24-70mm f2.8L lens, ISO 100, f8 at 1/180 second

Finalist, ANZANG Nature Photographer of the Year Award 2013

 

In 2015 I won the Landscape Prize in the Australian Geographic Journal's ANZANG Nature Photographer of the Year Award.

 

Edith Falls Study I (2014) Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon TS-E 24mm f3.5L lens, ISO 125, f8 at 20 seconds

Winner of the Landscape Prize, ANZANG Nature Photographer of the Year Award 2015

 

I have also been a Finalist in the Australian Photography Photographer of the Year Award in 2013 and 2014, and a Finalist in the UK's B&W Photographer of the Year Award 2015 and the UK's Outdoor Photographer of the Year Award 2015.

 

Exhibitions

 

I am honoured to be one of the few photographers to have been invited to exhibit in every AddOn Exhibition so far held (five and counting!). In 2014 I held my first solo exhibition, as an invited artist for the 2014 Head On Photo Festival. My exhibition was titled Fields of Focus and Light and was held from 26 May to 1 June 2014 at Mary Place Gallery in Paddington, Sydney. It was the first exhibition held in Australia of purely black & white infrared photographs shot on a DLSR.

 

In 2015 I held my second solo exhibition, again as an invited artist for the 2015 Head On Photo Festival. My exhibition was titled The Moody Blue and was held from 15 - 31 May 2015 at Virgin Walls Gallery, Blackheath, NSW.

 

In 2013 and 2015 my winning entries in the ANZANG Nature Photographer of the Year Award have been included in the exhibition starting at the SA Museum and touring Australia.

 

My third solo exhibition will again be held at the Virgin Walls Gallery, from 5 - 24 June 2016.

 

Since June 2015 I have been represented by Hat Hill Gallery in Blackheath, NSW, where my work is on permanent display.

 

Lenses

 

I used to joke that a man cannot have too many lenses, but seriously, a photographer is only as good as his tools, and each tool is different and is used for different things. I don't have one particular photographic theme or type I adhere to. I explore everything - from landscapes to abstract, from portraits to candids, from street to still life. You can't expect a zoom lens to cover all bases. I use all my lenses and any lens that does not get used gets sold. Currently I shoot with the TS-E 24mm f3.5L, TS-E 45mm f2.8, and the TS-E 90mm f2.8. These are my main tools, but I also reach for my Lensbaby Muse, Voigtlander 40mm f2, Sigma 50mm f1.4, EF 24-70mm f2.8L (a beast of a workhorse), and the awesome Carl Zeiss Distagon 21mm f2.8. I also get to use my wife's EF 85mm f1.2L II (lucky guy!) and her EF 70-200mm f2.8L II IS.

 

Filters

 

My philosophy is get it right in the camera. To achieve that, instead of Photoshop repair work, I use a range of ND filters. My absolute favourite, for its colour trueness, is the Hoya 9-stop ND x400, in 58mm, 72mm, 77mm, and 82mm diameters. I also use the 3-stop Hoya ND8, the 10-stop B+W #110, the 10-stop Lee Big Stopper, and a range of Lee Grad NDs.

 

Gear

 

I rely on the Manfrotto 055XPROB tripod with 804RC2 ball head. In fact I've got two. My old one I reserve for shooting near the sea, given the salt damage. I have a couple of Lowepro bags of varying sizes, a Canon Angle Finder for those low-to-the-ground shots, and a Hahnel Giga T Pro II 2.4GHz Wireless Timer Remote, which is a piece of crap because it does not sync with my camera's timer and turns itself on in my bag.

 

In the EOS 1Ds Mark III I use a San Disk Extreme Pro 32gb card, and in the 5D2 I use a San Disk Extreme III 16gb card. I need this capacity because I shoot Large RAW files, each over 20 megabytes. For trips away, I have back-up extra 8gb and 4gb cards. And I still have my original 1gb card that came with the 10D!

 

Processing

 

Despite my wife's urging, I am yet to convert to Lightroom. Instead I open all my RAW files in DPP and convert copies to TIFFs. I then process all my files - colour, B&W, infrared, in Color Efex Pro 4. If the file is B&W or infrared, I then process them further in Silver Efex Pro 2. I then do final adjustments to all files in CS5, and save them as TIFFs. I only convert a TIFF to a jpg for publishing. I use a 27" iMac and store all my images on a 2 Terabyte external HD with its own power source.

 

"Nice B&W conversion"

 

It's nice to get compliments, but its infuriating to have them based on false assumptions. Because my 5D2 has a Deep B&W IR filter, the images come out of the camera as .... B&W. There is colour data there which, if I choose, I can tease out, but basically what I see on the LCD is what I get. No "conversion".

 

When I publish a B&W image taken with my 1Ds Mark III again there's no "conversion". I will shoot it in Monochrome mode, with special settings just for Monochrome. When I open the RAW file in DPP, it opens as a B&W file, not a colour. I then process it as a B&W. For example, Color Efex Pro 4 does not try and open it as colour file. In other words, from visualisation to realisation, my B&W images are B&W, with one small difference. In Silver Efex I will often apply a Selenium tone at 15-25%. This enhances the various contrast adjustments I make to the TIFF.

 

Any questions? Email me at peter_h111@msn.com

 

Cheers