Karijini National Park 2014

Kermits Pool, Hancock, Gorge

Hi everybody and welcome to the latest instalment of the Chronicles of Sean's Photography!

On the 9th of April I boarded a plane bound for Perth, Western Australia. This would be my first time visiting our Country's largest state, and my first professionally organised photography workshop, facilitated by Tom Putt of Inspire Landscapes. After an easy 3 hour flight I found my way to the gate to board my connecting flight to Paraburdoo, a small mining town in the remote Pilbara region of Western Australia, and the gateway to the spectacular Karijini National Park.

Karijini National Park is located in the remote Pilbara region of Western Australia. The area is characterised by the sweeping plains of red dust, the famous Hamersley Ranges and the deep river gorges carved out by millions of years of erosion, The Pilbara also hosts the oldest known exposed rock on earth, dated at a staggering 3.5 billion years old. So old in fact that no fossil records are found as life hadn’t progressed beyond algae and bacteria at this stage of earth’s infancy.

My first impression of Western Australia was a baking heat as I exited the plane onto the tarmac. There I met up with our tour organiser and master landscape photographer Tom Putt, who was joined for this week by the award winning photographer Paul Hoelen. I also met with the fantastic and talented group of people I'd be spending the next 5 days with.

On our drive from Paraburdoo to the awesomely equipped Karijini Eco Retreat, I found out my tent-buddy for the next few days was also named Sean. The normally 90-minute drive ended up taking a few hours as we continuously stopped to admire and photograph the landscape around us. As we all checked in and found our way to our fancy schmancy eco-tents, the excitement of being in such a spectacularly stark location was palpable. A massive bonus was finding out the menu at the retreat was full of all sorts of delicious options. So over dinner Tom and Paul led us through their safety briefing and filled us in on what the next few days would entail. Soon enough though, everyone was ready for bed, and a 4:30am start was waiting on the other side of sleep.

At 4:30am we were rudely awoken by our alarms as we grabbed our gear and made our way bleary-eyed  in the pitch black to the vehicles to shoot sunrise at our first location, Kalamina Gorge. After a short drive, we made our way through the darkness into the gorge, where we were met by subtle cascades and towering cliff faces bathed in the soft morning light. After shooting every angle we could find we made our way back to the retreat for breakfast and brief of our next location, Hamersley Gorge. Lunch was served and a quick editing session ensued in the heat of the day, we then headed out to our next shoot.

We soon split up into 2 groups, one winding up the gorge from the bottom, and us climbing down from the top over slippery ancient slate. In the middle was a beautiful rock pool large enough to swim freely, so that's what we did! Soon we had our first encounter with what we'd dub "The Bikini Brigade", young tourists from all around the world enjoying the stunning surrounds. We all took turns photographing a spot called "Spa Pool", and exploring the abstract surroundings we'd found ourselves in. As we made our way back for dinner we stopped at a spot overlooking the expanse of the Hamersley Ranges and  lined up our tripods and fired off shot after shot of the sunset.

The next day after breakfast and a quick sunrise shoot, we again split up and half of us ventured into the famous Hancock Gorge while the other half began their hike in the equally stunning Weano Gorge. Paul was leading us during the hike into the gorge to visit the beautiful "Spider Walk" and "Kermits Pool". We made our way into the chasm and began a trying free-climb around a rock embankment to a location called "The Amphitheatre". After shooting there for a short while we made our way down the slippery spider walk, which meant walking with your hands and feet pressed precariously into the dry rock sides of the gorge, while water cascaded down the rocks between your legs. Stepping on the wet rock felt like walking on the ice I'd encountered in the Arctic 4 months earlier, so caution was the name of the game. After a few meters the gorge opened up and we spied Kermits Pool, a stunning turquoise rock pool with flowing cascades and towering walls. To say we photographed this location to death would be an understatement. After another swim and testing our dry-bagged equipment by floating our camera bags through the water during our return, during which I made a wrong turn and had to climb and hike out of the gorge along a rougher route, we headed off for lunch and to shoot the sunset and numerous amazing native fig trees at Dales Gorge.

The following day we started with another sunrise shoot around the retreat, taking in the soft light. After breakfast we made our way into Weano Gorge. Weano included much more swimming with our dry-bagged camera equipment floating along ahead of us. Tom had given us the challenge to photograph a particular spot by 10am, where the light literally glows on the iron oxide rocks... challenge accepted, and completed. Weano Gorge is also the home of "Handrail Pool", a spectacular expanse of water accessible by climbing down and wet and slippery rock slope with the help of a handrail attached to the edge of the walls. After lunch and another quick editing and q&a session, we made our way out to the visitors centre for some education about the history of the park, and then on to Oxer Lookout. This location overlooks a location called "Junction Pool", and the vertical vista is absolutely stunning. At the junction, Hancock Gorge, Red Gorge, Joffre Gorge and Weano Gorge meet over 100 meters (300ft) below the lookout. It was a particularly difficult location to shoot as the difference in light between the top and bottom of the lookout was quite wide. We made our way back to a nearby picnic location for an awesome BBQ dinner prepared by Sean and Tom (and his pink feather boa), and a couple of wonderful image presentations by both Tom and Paul.

Another early start and Tom took us out to Knox Gorge lookout for sunrise as Paul took another group back into Hancock Gorge for a 2nd shoot. The sun slowly rose, bathing the scenes before us in a soft, warm light. After the sun had risen we explored and photographed a burned out section of land, amazed at natures restorative powers. We then returned for our final Karijini breakfast, and to pack up our eco-tents and meet in the common area for some more photo processing and a critique/q&a session. Tom asked us to quickly process 5 of our favourite shots from the trip, which were then viewed on a large projector screen, and comments and constructive points were made about everyone's shots, including Tom's and Paul's. Once the session was complete, we all enjoyed some ice cream (we'd cleaned out the retreats supply over previous days) and headed back into Paraburdoo for our departure flight... with an impromptu photo shoot along the way! At both Paraburdoo and Perth, we said our farewells and headed on our way.

All in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable, educational and exhausting workshop. Both Tom and Paul were warm and welcoming, funny, knowledgeable and took the time to work with each participant in depth. I'd highly recommend Inspire Landscapes workshops for landscape photographers of any level, and finance provided, I'd be on another one *cough*Iceland*cough* in a heartbeat! I personally came away with a different understanding of taking time to explore my surroundings, and a mountain of wonderful photographs!

Prints from Karijini will be made available at www.seanfarrow.com.au over the next few weeks!

Until next time...

Pilbara Sunset

Kalamina Gorge

Liquid Light, Hancock Gorge

Behind Kermits Pool, Hancock Gorge

Spa Pool, Hamersley Gorge

Oxer Lookout

Rock Detail, Hamersley Gorge

"Get there by 10am..." Weano Gorge

Fig Tree Roots, Dales Gorge

That Tree

Tom and Sean

Mine-spec vehicles on the road.

Paul... always shooting! Paraburdoo Airport.

Photoshop... photographic tool? Absolutely!

"Pimakka" - Levi, Finland.

This shot is a 180-degree 6x "portrait" photograph stitched panorama. I used this method to capture a high-resolution image of this wide scene for enlargement, and would simply be impossible to execute on film or without photoshop.

 

 

Hello again everyone!

Today I'm going to touch on the oft-debated subject of post processing work in fine-art photography.

We all hear the word "Photoshop" bandied about, and quite often it's used as a derogatory term, to insult someone or put a photographs merits down.

There seems to be this idea among some people out there that any photograph that is displayed, printed, shown in a gallery, shown on facebook, instagram, twitter, shot on a camera or even considered as a possible shot, should be completely unaltered from capture to print. That's all well and good. Where this idea came from and why the term "photoshop" is used in a negative sense though, is quite beyond me. You'll often hear "That's been photoshopped" as someone views another person's work. The simple matter is, that almost all photographs created at least in the last 7-10 years have been touched with photoshop at some point in it's progression from capture to display. Film is drum scanned into a high resolution file and tweaked in photoshop or lightroom, digital SLRs and medium format digital cameras capture images in a RAW format, that in 99.9% of cases is imported into Adobe Camera RAW, a plugin of... you guessed it, Photoshop! Despite how much people seem to despise it, photoshop touches almost every shot you see on a daily basis, no matter how marginally.

So that brings us to the point of the argument. How much post processing work is too much? Should the photographer try and replicate the scene they saw before them, try and replicate the scene they envision, or leave the image "as-shot" in camera? The answer is up to the photographer and how they want to display their vision! Photo documenters such as news photographers and wedding shooters may choose to do very little processing work to keep a raw, unedited look, whereas landscape, architectural and art photographers may work as much or as little as they need to bring THEIR vision to life in print or on the screen. The final decision is up to the photographer.

Fujifilm literally changed the way we view landscape photography in the 1990s when it introduced Velvia, a highly-saturated and very "contrasty" transparency film, which is possibly the most popular film for landscape shooters still in use today. Does velvia 50 look like reality as your eyes see it? Absolutely NOT! It makes landscapes just look better. So much so that all of us who shoot landscapes digitally chase the ideal blend of tones and contrast to get the velvia look a lot of the time. Why? Because it just looks great! If used inside it's physical limits it represents an idealized vision of a scene, just as tweaking a shot using levels and vibrance/saturation might do in photoshop.

So why do we all shoot in a RAW format from our digital cameras? RAW formats give us an uncompressed (and uncompromised) version of our original shot. We can adjust the exposure (within reason), white balance, contrast, colour vibrance and a myriad of other subtle adjustments without damaging the original file, or introducing unwanted elements into the shot. Invariably if you were to show someone who isn't schooled in photographic post processing work the RAW image straight from camera, 90% of the time they'd say "YUK! That's so flat... where's the colour?" RAW files capture huge amounts of detail and dynamic range, most of which isn't visible in the original capture, but the data is there in the file. This takes a certain amount of "massaging" to bring it to it's full potential, especially when working on photos captured in particularly trying lighting conditions, such as sunset or sunrise. How much or little that is is up to the photographer.

I personally like to bring a realistic view of what I saw before me to my limited edition photographs. This may involve a little post work, but generally not as much as people would think. I have developed methods of shooting a scene to get it close to right in camera, then just tweak the rough edges afterwards.

At the end of the day, love it or hate it, post processing has been around long before digital, and will stay around long after we're all gone. Film shooters used to use view cameras to bring things into sharp focus, they'd dodge and burn during printing to increase contrast and exposure compensation, they'd cross-process films in strange chemical combinations to bring out colour detail... and now, we drum scan and shoot raw, use graduated filters and bring details out using software as a tool, not as a crutch. We use the tools available to us.

Do you think Ansel Adams would shoot medium-format digital and use photoshop to process his shots if he were still with us? You bet he would! It's time to stop thinking of photoshop as "the P-word"... a swear word. It's a simple fact of photographic life in the digital age.

Have a great week everyone.

Sean
www.seanfarrow.com.au
 

Finland, The Arctic, London and Paris and the new www.seanfarrow.com.au!

We first of all I'd like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

As some of you may know, my partner and I recently returned for a 3-week whirlwind tour of Northern Finland, Helsinki, London, Windsor, Bath and Paris.

This started with loads of planning, weather forecasting, aurora borealis forecasting, location scouting and general tourist-type route planning for a various activities somewhere mid-2013. We boarded a Qantas flight to London, Heathrow via Dubai on Thursday the 19th of December for the 14-hour haul to Dubai before the 7-hour leg to London. A 4-hour wait at Heathrow ensued, followed by a 3-hour run to Helsinki, Finland... but this wasn't our final destination.
After staying a night with family near Helsinki we headed back to the airport for the final 80-minute flight to Kittila, Lapland above the arctic circle.

Upon getting off the plane into -6 degrees Celsius weather, we saw the sun set for the last time for a few days in brilliant pinks and oranges as we crossed the tarmac, we knew this was a magical place.
We headed to our cabin, or "Mokki" as it's called in Finland, and took in our surroundings... perfect white powdery snow on every surface and a starkness and crackle in the air one can only know if they've visited the far north.

We'd been studying aurora and solar activity patterns for weeks prior, and conditions looked good to be able to photograph the elusive lights, if it wasn't for the omnipresent thick low cloud cover which proved to curse us at almost every turn.
After a few days or exploring, skiing (I won't be doing that again), eating, sleeping, an amazing Lappish Christmas feast, photography and general snowy fun, we walked through a snowstorm into town on Christmas Day, boarded a bus for Rovaniemi and headed off to see Santa Claus, or "Joulupukki" as he's know in the arctic. What a spectacular day. Both of us excited as little kids!
A quiet day followed on boxing day with us watching the skies. We were booked to head out to a frozen lake in the middle of nowhere to try and capture the northern lights! Small patches of blue began to show in the sky and we got excited, headed into town, and headed out to the lake. While clouds drifted in and out, we waited for the lights. Someone behind us yelled out that they'd captured them on camera, so I began firing the shutter... even though not much was evident to the naked eye. Sure enough, there was a small band of colour visible over the northern horizon. We stuck around until the meagre display ended, and headed back into town for the 2km walk back up the hill to our cabin.

The following days had us driving reindeer, ice fishing, travelling back to Helsinki with my partner's family, and taking in the sights of this beautiful northern city.

Shortly after new year, we headed back to London. By the time we'd caught our black cab from Paddington Station to our hotel it was time to get some sleep. The following day we negotiated the London Underground for the first time to Marble Arch and boarded a small coach to head out to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and Bath.
The following days had us rushing around the London Underground taking in as much as we could, and a meeting with a friend we'd met on our tour of the USA and Canada in 2012.
My partner had been hinting at a surprise for weeks prior to our trip, and the day had finally come. We headed towards Kings Cross station and I began to wonder might be going on. Shortly after we boarded a Eurostar train to Paris... a belated birthday and Christmas surprise!!!
We toured Paris for the day, taking in all the sights, eating the food, visiting the Louvre to see the amazing array of art on display, and taking in the stunning beauty of Notre Dame cathedral. Quite simply the best birthday/Christmas present ever!
The following days had more sight-seeing, including Madam Tussuad's, the London Dungeon, and fascinating Jack the Ripper tour in Whitechapel and a visit out to the Warner Brothers studio to see the Harry Potter sets and displays. Both being mad Harry Potter fans, this wasn't something to miss and we found the whole experience amazing!

Our last day had arrived. We checked our bags at the hotel storage and headed off on our last London adventure. This involved basically a mad rush to try and get to as many sights as we could before we needed to head out to the airport, including the Tower of London, Platform 9 3/4s, another visit back to Whitechapel and visiting the Temple Church. Exhausted, we boarded the Heathrow Express back to the airport and boarded the first flight of our long trip home.

I truly think now that travel broadens the mind and opens the eyes, I really have the bug (but not the finances) to do more of it. We had such an amazing time, and despite being gutted about not getting a decent shot of the aurora, all else considered, a wonderful trip!


Onto new business... as you may or may not know, I've retired my old Wix page, and developed/launched an entirely new website: http://www.seanfarrow.com.au
It aimed at marketing my purely limited edition, fine art landscape photographs in a professional setting. The site launched in late January 2014... so head on over and have a look, we take credit card and paypal!

Until next time...

Screen Calibration... more important that you think!

Hi again readers!

Two blog posts in two weeks... something must be wrong at Sean Farrow | photography HQ...

I'm going to dedicate this blog post to a subject that many aspiring photographers seem to gloss over. One that is of incredible importance when it comes to your own post-processing work. That subject is Screen Calibration.

Have you ever worked on a shot, made it look spectacular and full of colour and life, only to have a large and expensive enlargement made for yourself or even worse, a client, and had the print come back dark, underexposed and lacking that pop you had on your screen? I know I have... and most of you out there will have too. It's quite disappointing and can make you question your technique.

I also see loads of uploads on social media and photo sharing websites from amateur and hobby photographers that are chronically underexposed and have weird colour shifts, especially prevalent in longer shutter speeds where exposure value and luminance become critical. To be fair, the photographers themselves can see no issue with the way the image looks, and it, in most cases, will look spectacular on that screen, but the issue is the screen, not the image it's self.

This phenomena can be attributed to a whole host of factors, most of which we don't need to discuss in this article, but the one factor that I personally think is more important than any is Screen or Monitor Calibration.

In short, this is the process of setting your screen up in such a way that the colours, contrast and gamma settings accurately represent the image from the screen to the end print. There is numerous ways to achieve this, some better than others, but I HIGHLY suggest purchasing yourself a good quality monitor and a calibration kit. Monitors to look out for are anything that uses an IPS (In-Plane Switching) panel. Some companies will be charging an absolute premium price for something that is essentially the same as something half it's price, simply because they market it as a "Photography" monitor, so do your homework.

Then you'll have the companies that advertise (and the people who buy will argue) that their monitor ships to you "Pre-Calibrated"... right... pre-calibrated to what? Like a Dave Chappelle stand-up gig, this cracks me up every time! This might get you in the ballpark, but you're not in the game yet. The lighting and conditions in your workspace are unique to your workspace. This is where dedicated calibration hardware comes into play.

There's a whole host of monitor calibrators out there, and they basically do two main things: 1. They are placed directly on your monitor and sample colour, brightness and gamma readings to create and optimized profile for your equipment, and 2. They can monitor ambient light levels and adjust brightness and contrast accordingly. Some will argue that the 2nd point isn't really needed. I personally find it absolutely essential. It's down to personal preference at the end of the day. The main manufacturers of this equipment are Datacolor with their "Spyder" range, and Pantone with their less costly "Huey" range. I've used both, and can notice little, if any, difference in profiles between the two. I personally use the Huey system and get nothing short of spectacular results every single time! I've not been asked to endorse, and have not received any compensation from either of these companies. This is just my personal findings and opinions.

Once you've installed and calibrated your gear (I won't go into this here, but it's very simple), you'll notice your screen is probably not as bright, or as saturated in the red tones as it once was. This is a GOOD THING. You're screen is now much closer to the values you'll see in your prints, as long as you're soft-proofing with appropriate profiles as you should be, and converting to printer profiles during saving, but that's a subject for a whole other blog entry.

Good luck with all your own calibration and subsequent post processing. I have a feeling you'll find your workflow will be much more consistent from proof to print.

Sean.

www.seanfarrow.com.au

Hi Readers,

This is my first blog post since early in 2012. I've let things slide a little since then, mostly due to a 3-month long stint through the USA and Canada between March-June 2012, and heavy work commitments since.

Well today marks a milestone in my photographic career. My new website, www.seanfarrow.com.au goes live today. All fine art limited edition quality photographic work. I'm steering away from the mass-produced market.
The project started after a weekend shooting in the Victorian High Country with friend and fellow landscaper Chris Munn. Discussing business moves and marketing, I decided it was time to go or get off the can, so to speak. Since mid-October, I've been madly developing the site and producing products. So while the site is live, the store isn't, all price lists are currently switched off until mid-January 2014. This is for several reasons, but the biggest being that I can't fill orders while I'm on the other side of the world.

On that note... in exactly one week Nicole and I will be boarding a plane to Helsinki, Finland. We'll be heading north from there to Levi, a small fell located not far from Kittila in Finnish Lapland. What that means for most of you is that it's far above the Arctic Circle. We'll be spending time with Nicole's family, and I'll be chasing the fleeting Aurora Borealis (or Northern Lights) during the long polar evenings. Following from the Arctic we spend another few days near Helsinki, then off to London, England for a week before heading home.

So preparations have been busy and we're all set to go!

I'm hoping to squeeze in some coastal shooting when we return and make the most of the warmer weather, if the tides permit of course, before the work slog takes over once again and time to shoot is rare!

Have a Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year everyone!

Here's a small handful of shots from the last 18 months... enjoy!

Sean.






Bridgewater Bay, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, Australia.

Milky Way over Flinders, Victoria, Australia.

Aurora Australis, Flinders, Victoria, Australia.









Sunrise, The Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA.

The Times, They are a ...

Hi All,

Firstly, I know my blog has been quiet of late, things have been rather hectic at this end, with not as much photography as I'd like.

2011 was an interesting year as far as my shooting went. Upon releasing my 2012 calendar A Southern Exposure it became clear to me that I seem to have a fascination with movement and water. I mean, who doesn't love wet feet at the beach, or watching a waterfall cascade over rocks, or constantly being driven to distraction by the bladder-inducing sound of water moving? So after the initial release of the calendar, we rethought the layout and re-released as a purely water-based publication, which sold like hot cakes. So if you're one of the lucky few who own a copy of the initial release, hold onto it, only 8 of these are on the face of the planet.

But now it's 2012, and exciting things are afoot in the coming months. As I said, I haven't been shooting as much as I'd like, due to several reasons, not the least being the hideous temperature we get at this time of year. People who know me know I'd rather live in an Antarctic blizzard than deal with heat over 25 degrees C. I have though, squeezed in a couple of shoots with my good friends Ben Lawrence, Ly Tobias and Nick Skinner. All great people to shoot with, and always a good time, despite sometimes trudging for miles over sand dunes and through slippery rocks, it's all part of the fun! My partner Nicole and I also attended the annual Kustom Nationals at Phillip Island raceway a week after Ben, Ly and Myself hit up The Pinnacles at Cape Woolamai, also down at Phillip Island.

Soon afterward I was down at the secretive No. 16 Beach and it's Dragon Head Rock on the Mornington Peninsula, with friend and talented shutterbug Nick Skinner after 2 weeks of overcast conditions. This proved to be a blessing in disguise, as when the sun sank below the horizon, brilliant colours burst through the cloud and bathed the whole low tide scene in amazing warm soft light. It's the kind of moment you can try and plan for, but rarely capture. This shot seemed to impress so many people that I had a sale of a 42x28" canvas enlargement, which my clients loved. So back in my local stomping ground, on a balmy saturday evening I hit the road to Rye back beach, on the Mornington Peninsula. With perfect still conditions and receeding tide and delved into the surf again to get some more simplistic frames of the start of the limestone rock shelves that border that part of the coast.

Since then it's been a bit quiet with the inevitable return to work and the hustle and bustle that comes with  having to be places at a certain time. But on the plus side, the planning and booking is almost complete for my Partner Nicole and I to get on a plane at the end of March to New York City, and basically head south down to Florida, across through Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico to California, stopping at many of the Southwests most beautiful national parks and bustling cities, up through Oregon and Washington into Canada, and back across the north of the USA taking in Yellowstone NP, Chicago and back to NYC, for a final short trip north to Boston and back to Australia during the first part of June. It's an opportunity neither of us could ignore, and I'm excited to finally leave the wide shores of my beloved homeland (Tasmania doesn't count). This also means I won't be taking any bookings for wedding, portrait or commercial real estate work from the beginning of March to the middle of June.

On a sadder note, on Christmas Eve 2011, I recieved the news that Cinty Humphries, the wife of my workplace's network manager Mark Humprhies, lost her long battle with cancer. These two were really a force to be reckoned with, the type of couple people read about. Cinty was strong until the end, and Mark, day by day by her side, never wavering or giving up. And now, he's still not giving up, and organizing a team of riders to participate in this year's Ride to Conquer Cancer, benefiting the Peter MacCallum institute. Cancer is something that will touch most of our lives in some way, at some time, and having worked with Mark so closely over the past 6 years, a cause which is important to me.  So if you can, show your support, and if you feel like braving the heat this weekend the 25th and 26th of February, head down to the Westernport Festival this weekend at the Hastings Foreshore on the Mornington Peninsula, and have a look at the Team Cinty float and display, and maybe give a few dollars to the cause.

So, until next time, stay cool, and keep snapping and smiling,

Sean

My new 2012 Calendar and Hanging Out with Ken Duncan

Hi again everyone,

Well the last few weeks has been pretty hectic, both with work and photography.

Handing over the proofs to Sam and Briony Breese after their wedding in October was so satisfying. They absolutely loved the shots, which always makes all the hard work worthwhile.

I also managed to get out for a seascape shoot at Portsea Back Beach on the Mornington Peninsula. This would be one of my favorite places on earth. The secret location was pointed out to me by good friend and fellow photographer Nick Skinner. A pretty cool spot by all accounts, a bit tricky to get to though, as some climbing over precarious rocks during tidal shifts is required. Slapping a polarizer and a couple of grad filters over the setting sun made this place explode with colour!

This shot is also featured in my new 2012 calendar "A Southern Exposure". It's my pick of water-themed shots taken over the last year along the Mornington and Bellarine Peninsulas, the Bass Coast, Phillip Island and the Yarra Ranges here in Victoria, Australia. Since the first handful arrived on my doorstep last Thursday they've been quite popular, and I already have to back-order another run to keep up with demand. I'm astounded at the quality of the product that Redbubble have produced for me, the A3-sized layout and sharp, vibrant images look amazing... and for just $25+ delivery, they make a great addition to the wall for the next 12 months, or grab one as a present for someone. "A Southern Exposure" is available here.

Last Saturday I was again lucky enough to spend a little time with Ken Duncan. For those of you who don't know who he is, Ken Duncan is probably Australia's most famous and talented landscape photographer, and probably most notable for his stunning 3x1 wilderness "panographs" and photographs of the Australian rock band Midnight Oil. He was at his Melbourne gallery for an exhibition of his new work shot with the most drool-worthy Phase One P645 digital camera, and to launch his new book. So my friend Aidan Curtis and I hopped in the car and off we went. Ken and his wife are always so warm and welcoming, and Ken always has lots to share and will make the effort to spend time with every person there. It also gave me the chance to catch up with friend and talented large-format landscape photographer Chris Munn. Chris's work is absolutely beautiful, and like Ken Duncan, shoots predominantly in the 3x1 panoramic format that the 617 large format film cameras create.

So head to my store, grab yourself a bargain, and grab a print while you're there, or maybe some gift cards for your holiday presents, and until next time, catch you later!

Cheers,

Sean.