Getting back into streaming on twitch (http://www.twitch.tv/davidtheaussie) every Sunday night to do some photo editing from my travels. If I’m perfectly honest, it’s the hilight of my week, as I get to revisit and relive my photography from my travels and time abroad.
Today I covered Indonesia, a little bit of Malaysia and a few from Brunei. I’d completely forgotten about the time I spent photographing a surfing competition (Medewi Board Riders) and took heaps of photos of the surfing and celebrations afterwards. Some great shots and great memories (that I’d almost forgotten!)
That said, I had fun going through the photos and doing a little editing. Shots of the week are below:
Top: Surf competitor. Middle: Surfer girl on the sand. Bottom: Postcard photo – Brunei.
Not much doing lately and I feel bad for neglecting the blog. Well, it’s not totally neglect, it’s a kind of “off on holidays” and other things I wish to do over the summer. Potentially big changes are afoot in terms of life as a photographer and human. Stay tuned for more info! 😉
That said, I have been active away from the blog and social media. So here’s the low down:
Bought me a drone!!!!! DJI Mini 4k. Sadly, I bought it just before the DJI Neo was released, but I’m happy with the purchase. Been goofing around and learning how to use it. I can see myself using it more for photography than for video, but I’m going to do a bit of both and tinker with it. Here’s a sample shot I took in Wales over the summer:
Snazzy! I like how easy it is to fly and the unique perspective I get from aerial photography. I’ll admit I was very nervous about buying/flying a drone, but it’s so simple really. I’m glad I took the leap and bought it.
I got a new camera coming too. MORE GEAR!! LOL … well, more … and less. I sold off a bunch of old lenses and stuff to finance the purchase. I’d bought a Lumix GX800 as a 2nd walk around camera so I didn’t have to carry the hasselblad all the time. However I’m just not happy with it. So I’ve swapped it out for a Leica T Type 701 (photos coming soon!) and a Summilux 23mm f2 lens. It’s wider than the Hassy, so it’ll give me a different perspective. Plus it’s a lot more compact, so I will use it as my goof about camera … and it’ll go to Thailand with me.
Shit! I forgot, I bought more gear! LOLOLOL … I traded in my ancient GoPro for a DJI Action 3. I’ve got two DJI products now (Action 3 and Mini 4k drone). They make good kit! The Action 3 is amazing and so versatile. I’ve got a waterproof mount for it and will take that snorkelling in Thailand too. So the Thailand trip is shaping up to be super busy – regular street photography throughout the day, drone photography some days and a few nights, and the Action 3 for goofing about and snorkelling. The snorkelling will be part of day trips, so I hope to get a good chance to photo and video the islands with the drone as well, when I’m not in the water.
Will add photos of the Leica when it arrives and the Action 3 in a future post when I’ve actually used it.
So that’s the news. A nice break over summer with some photos (mostly on the iPhone) and some on the Hasselblad as well. Those will be a future twitch stream and blog post.
Finally, I returned to photo streaming tonight. Had a blast going through 15 year old travel photos and chatting with viewers. I was loving the nostalgia and laughs of some of the crazy shit I got up to with my mate Craig in Australia.
Thanks dude! LOL
And here’s my fave photo from the stream:
Colours are gorgeous! Check out my streams if you’re bored: www.twitch.tv/davidtheaussie …
Not a lot of posts or action on my twitch stream lately (www.twitch.tv/davidtheaussie) … due to the end of school year business and other such things getting in the way of photography. However, that’s an inevitable part of life and the only way is to look forward –> summer is coming!!
I have a few plans. Firstly I have been working on photos and adding images from Tibet, Nepal, Myanmar, China and Thailand. I feel like it’s going to take a long time to get out of Asia as a retrospective photographer … but it’ll happen eventually.
To summer, I have plans to explore Liverpool for three days. I’m planning a Beatles themed tour to see some of the sights I’ve long held off catching. I also plan to visit Llandudno, Devon, maybe Blackpool and a few other places. Followed by a break to Thailand in October (I’m going to try and get my hands on an under water camera for the memes!).
Big plans … lots of Sunday photography streams … looking forward to the summer and trying to keep myself motivated. Also got my eye on scanning some older film, buying a Leica digital and maybe toying with film shooting and developing at home.
Stay tuned *fingers crossed* things will get exciting!
A quick ‘snap’ of my main camera. After 15 years of shooting Nikon, I decided to move away from DSLRs and their gamut of lenses to a more simple but high end kit. I decided also that I wanted to get back into medium format photography. I still have my Hasselblad 500cm and that’s going to become a regular piece of kit in the future, but since I was thinking of my Hasselblad, I decided to stay with that brand and make it my mainstay for the next few years. The X1D is not a fast camera. It’s not super responsive and it doesn’t shoot high frames per second. But what it does do is produce 100 megapixel images that are crazy sharp, highly detailed and have gorgeous colour. It’s paired with a 45mm f3.5 prime lens.
This kind of camera gives up a lot of conveniences that are so easy to get with modern DSLRs. I can’t zoom. I can’t ‘spray and pray’ to ensure I get the exact shot. It takes time to boot up. The battery life is a bit rubbish. I can’t quickly change my focal point. I’m still figuring out the menus.
Why would I do this to myself?
… for the challenge!
That’s what I want. I want to push myself. I want a camera that feels like a film camera in that photos are slow, deliberate, thoughtful and well timed. I want to make sure that I’m mindful of my surroundings and the moment. I want to make sure I’m experiencing the photos I make as much in the action of making them as well as the resulting image that I get to share.
And that’s why I love this camera. It’s not perfect. It’s older. It’s a bit cantankerous at times. But I love having it in my hands. I love walking around with it. I love taking my time and composing photos. It’s how I used to shoot film and I feel like I’ve lost that vibe. The Hasselblad is helping me recapture it.
I’m having a lot of fun and I’m making some amazing photos.
Maybe I’m getting old, but to me there’s a difference between a concert and a performance – in terms of musicians who are putting on a show. Back in the day I saw plenty of concerts from U2’s Popmart to Hoodoo Gurus to Bob Geldof performing in the Sugarland Tavern in Bundaberg (a story for another time). But I’m more of the vibe where I would like to see an artist give a performance. I think one of the greatest performances ever was Nirvana’s unplugged show in New York. I didn’t see it, but for those lucky few who did it would have been a hell of a memory.
When I saw Angus and Julia Stones were coming to the UK and performing in Bristol, I bought a ticket and timed our short vacay to Bath around the concert. My memories of Angus and Julia’s music were of the lilting lyrical folk songs that they sing. I also spent a lot of time listening to Angus and Julia’s music during my travels through the outback and I always associate them with desert landscapes.
The show in Bristol was a wonderful night. It was a slow, low key performance inside a theatre with lots of personality and style. I had a blast (in a chill, drinking wine and relaxing to great live music kinda way) and realised I need to get out and see more shows like this! Photos below are taken on my iPhone. I didn’t want to be ‘that guy’ with a massive camera or zoom lens! LOL
They wanted their set to feel like a living room, which is where they’d been exposed to so much music by their father who was a band conductor and music teacher.
Last October I visited Thailand. I took the Lumix GX800 again and was super happy with some of the photos it produced. The last two Lumix related posts are because I found the images tucked away on my home storage server and edited up the images that I’d not really touched from last year on that camera.
I decided to get away for the half term break and stretch my photography a little further. We visited Bath (the city, duh!) for a few days, then spent a day in the Cotswold and another day exploring Cambridge. They’re all lovely old cities with plenty of history, charm and tourists! Bath is an ancient city and has a lot of amazing history to explore – particularly the Roman Baths and the unique circular architecture in Royal Crescent and the Circus. I managed to get some nice shots.
Cotswold was a quick stop through on the way home. The weather was lovely and the main part of the Cotswold was very vibrant and had a really fun, sunny vibe with people picknicking on the grass, playing in the shallow stream (which my kids enjoyed while harassing the ducks!) and having a pint in local pubs.
Cambridge is something special. Particularly the free museums everywhere that are also working environments for zoological and archaeological students. There were so many great little museums to dip in and out of. But Cambridge also had a great street photographers vibe – from the Palestinian protest camp, to the students on bicycles, the canal boats, the bridges and the character of the people and places. It’d be worth spending some time in Cambridge, just to explore the streets more and capture the personality of the city.
Another couple of hours editing photos on twitch (www.twitch.tv/davidtheaussie) and chatting with viewers. It’s always a fun way to spend an evening. I’ve moved my photography streams from Saturday to Sunday night (7pm UK time) to free up my weekend a little more, but to also give my weekend a really nice closure and vibe before returning to work on Mondays. Well, it works for me anyway.
This is my photo of the week. It’s from when we trekked to Everest base camp in May 2009. I love the contrast between the colourful tents in the foreground, mixed with the rocky landscape, plus the white jagged peaks of mountains, the blue sky and clouds. A lot happening, but a visual feast. Sometimes you want to have a photo that lets your eye wander around and appreciate things to explore within the image – it’s the nature of landscape photos.
I’m enjoying the streaming and uploading the streams to youtube (www.youtube.com/@david_theaussie) to build on my youtube memes. I’m having fun!
Regular Saturday photography stream on twitch (www.twitch.tv/davidtheaussie) was fun. Started with Bangladesh, a little Thailand, then Burma and into Nepal. Some cracking photos amongst them. You can check the latest upload on you youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1E364pfwtI).
Photo of the day (and week) is this one, a great shot from up in the Himalayas (Nepal) and the mountain yaks that are up there.
I’ve also found a photo from Nepal that would make a lovely wallpaper, which my viewers during the stream agreed would be very cool. So here it is for free. Creative Common licence free to share and use for personal use but not commercial or ‘for profit’ applications. It’s not permitted to remove the watermark, but you won’t even notice it on most monitors. The image is slightly larger than 4K resolution and looks great (I’m using it on my mac right now!)
A day trip to Stratford turned out to be the first brilliantly sunny day of the year. There was quite a summer vibe with hundreds of people all relaxing on the grass areas, wandering around the Sunday market, or buying pints and food from the many market stalls that had set up. We walked up to Trinity Church where Shakespeare’s tomb is (sadly, the church was closed for a private event) so we couldn’t go in. We did enjoy wandering up and down the Avon river, dropped into the Royal Shakespeare Company building for a trip to the observation deck, and also enjoyed a pint and some food on the grass. Was a damn fine day and I got a few good shots.
Another Saturday photo stream complete (twitch.tv/davidtheaussie) and uploaded to youtube (www.youtube.com/@david_theaussie). It was a fun two hours of editing and chatting with viewers. I got a bit lucky today and had two new viewers show up who are photographers and found my stream in the twitch art category. So that was nice. I’ve since joined a photography discord full of photographers who also create content on youtube and twitch.
My photo of the week is a shot I edited during the stream. While I was in Pakistan I was fortunate enough to get up to Kashmir. I stayed on Lake Dal (literally on the lake in a house boat) and did a number of tours of the lake and the city. this shot was from when I was on Lake Dal looking into the Himalayas. One of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.
I’ve also added Pakistan now to my travel map, and there are lots of gorgeous shots of that country to look at.
