In the last six months or so, I have been on, baldly stated, one of the steepest learning curves I’ve ever encountered in my life (learning Danish was another that comes to mind). But this one is all about photography.

Six months ago, I was at a crossroads. I had my Diploma [...]]]>

In the last six months or so, I have been on, baldly stated, one of the steepest learning curves I’ve ever encountered in my life (learning Danish was another that comes to mind). But this one is all about photography.

Six months ago, I was at a crossroads. I had my Diploma of Photography under my belt and I was trying to start a business. Ignorance is bliss right… Anyway, I got on to a program called NEIS, where the government help you out starting up a business with a little regular cashflow assistance. It’s a great idea. But my business plan was falling apart. I was trying to do web design, and two types of photography. I was all over the place. It wasn’t working. I was ready to call it quits and become a shoe salesman.

Instead I decided to focus. I dropped the web design and decided that if I was going to be a photographer, then I’d better get serious. I already knew that my Diploma was nothing more than a starting point in my education. I’d been naively hoping for something more. Anyway, a mate of mine pointed me to the blog called strobist (see my previous post here). This started off the learning curve. I became slowly aware of the parts of my education that were lacking, and I immediately set about rectifying them. This meant the purchase of some lighting gear and several books. Then I got about learning again.

Now I could say I learned more at strobist.com in three months than I learned during the entirity of my Diploma, and while it wouldn’t be far off, it would still be an exageration. Not by much, but I’ll give them that much. But still, it says a great deal about what I still had to learn. A lot! And at the start it was all theoretical. I love theory! And like the saying goes, “the difference between thory and practise is bigger in practise than it is in theory.” Too true. Only after I got my strobist gear could I begin to put it all together. But then I had another problem. Motivation.

The big kicker in this area had already come a few days after Christmas. I got a job. As the photographer for a small publishing company. I was to be forced to shoot editorial, advertising, whatever, you name it, one day a week. But when I first started I was still waiting for my strobist gear. I was shooting like mad, but finding it very difficult to reach the level of quality I wanted, just using one bounced flash. My stuff was OK, even at times very good, but not fabulous. I wanted fabulous.

So then my strobist gear arrived. For the first few weeks I couldn’t bear to put myself under pressure and use it at work. I was always in too much of a hurry to get the shot and move on. But then I took the plunge. At the same time other things were happening. I’d gotten another job. Wild. This time as a casual teacher at my old photographic college. Awesome. I love teaching, and while I may not yet in the top 100 shooters in the country, my theory and knowledge is pretty solid. So I started that as well. Another big learning curve. No matter what you think you know – if you want to pass it on, you need to be able to know it, show it and explain it. That need took me on another learning curve reading light and camera theory again. I know more about light now than I ever did.

Then the final kicker. I got asked to be the photographer for a cookbook. Local stuff, no big pressure environment or money, but what an opportunity. I grabbed it with both hands. Off camera lighting, and enough time to get it right. Portraits, food shots, creative atmospheric shots, you name it.

As I write I’m in the middle of it. Several times a week I go an shoot. I am often terrified I will stuff it up. Nearly happened once. Mostly though, it’s going really well. Not quite fabulous, but damn near nearly. And that’s just a matter of perspective. Some people think fabulous, I’m just tough to please

I wonder how the next six months is going to go…

It’s a good thing I go to the gym. I can feel I’m going to have to make it more regular though. After a recent upgrade and expansion of my equipment, my Lowepro backpack weighs a tonne… I haven’t weighed it, but judging by how much my seven year old boy weighs, I think we [...]]]>

It’s a good thing I go to the gym. I can feel I’m going to have to make it more regular though. After a recent upgrade and expansion of my equipment, my Lowepro backpack weighs a tonne… I haven’t weighed it, but judging by how much my seven year old boy weighs, I think we are talking about 15 kg. Sure enough, that’s two DSLR bodies, and about 6 lenses and a flash and accessories, but hey, a photographer needs all that if he’s going to be prepared. It’s a very hard decision to make to just go out with one lens. Of course it depends on what you’re doing. I just went to my kids’ sports day and I could easily have just taken the camera and 70-200 along. That’s all I used after all. But on many jobs you might need to change from wide angle to zoom, so covering 16-200mm takes a fair few lenses. And if you believe in backup, an extra body comes along too. And all of a sudden, you need to be very strong. It’s not so heavy, but after a few hours you collapse into the car with exhaustion. I suppose niche photographers have an easier time with it, knowing what they need. Also it could be a personal thing, and many photographers might just decide that they can’t be prepared for everything and only take a limited range of gear. I’m still figuring all that out, so at the moment, I take everything but the kitchen sink along with me and I see what I use.  It’s be interesting to hear how others decide what to take / split their gear etc. There’s even a slot in my backpack for a laptop, and while I don’t have one at the moment, I’m considering getting one, but that would add another 3-4.5 kilos, depending on whether I went 15.4 / 17″. I’m beginning to see a need for an assistant. I’d better go and earn some income then…

*Before I go any further, I would like to point out that I understand the irony of writing about how boring backpackers are in a blog called “The Backpacker”. After all, travel blogs are a modern-day curse for friends of travellers everywhere – not content to send letters, postcards, [...]]]> Sometimes words tell the truth. Remember this.

*Before I go any further, I would like to point out that I understand the irony of writing about how boring backpackers are in a blog called “The Backpacker”. After all, travel blogs are a modern-day curse for friends of travellers everywhere – not content to send letters, postcards, or even emails anymore, we now feel compelled to commit our every long bus trip and dodgy meal to the public domain of cyberspace, and expect our friends to pore over them as obsessively as we write them.

Just as Coco warned me, no one cares much about your adventures unless they’ve been to wherever it is you’re wanking on about, or they know the people you were travelling with. Sure, your relatives might put up with looking at a few photos, but everyone else will be bored witless, and the less subtle will let you know all about it. (“Wow, you took 400 photos of African landscapes? They’re all crap.”

* from the Sydney Morning Herald website

The decision we made nearly 10 years ago to leave Denmark, where I had then lived for [...]]]> Coming to Denmark is never a holiday for me. Rather, it’s an experience best described as an existential crisis. You might think there’s more than a little bit of exaggeration there, but to tell the truth, I’m deadly serious.

The decision we made nearly 10 years ago to leave Denmark, where I had then lived for nearly six years, to return to Australia to live, was a decision that has never sat completely comfortably for either my wife or myself. That’s not to say a decision to return to Denmark was ever on the cards either. Reality settled somewhere in between, with neither option entirely satisfying and the winner being the status quo.

That’s why it’s so hard to come back. All the doubts return in glorious technicolour. All the things we miss are magnified a thousandfold, and even if the weather is crap at the time (which it often is in Denmark), the grass seems very much greener nonetheless. And of course the grass is very much greener over here, because it actually rains, unlike drought stricken Australia

But it’s never quite enough anyway. For all the multitude of reasons we think we would be better off coming back, we never seem to have enough positives to make that unthinkable decision. Maybe it’s also in the nature of the actual decision. It would be a monstrously huge thing to uproot our family and transplant it into Danish soil. It’s crazy. We couldn’t afford a shed to live in and the government would probably not even allow me to migrate anyway, due to their very strict immigration policy.

So why can’t we let it lie? I have no answer at all. It’s one of life’s baffling mysteries. My fate is inextricably linked to Denmark, but on what terms I can’t decide. It’s one of those days where I wished I could toss a coin and accept the outcome.

Sigh….

For some reason I’ve been thinking about my missing brother today. His name was Greg, and he disappeared while traveling in India in 1995. He was 36 at the time. And so I thought I’d link to a hypertext I made a few years back when I was in university. There is a bit of [...]]]>

For some reason I’ve been thinking about my missing brother today. His name was Greg, and he disappeared while traveling in India in 1995. He was 36 at the time. And so I thought I’d link to a hypertext I made a few years back when I was in university. There is a bit of a sound intro, which is of course not licensed, so if you want Peter Gabriel to sue me, let him know won’t you. I did actually email him asking for permission, but of course nobody never bothered to reply. And so I haven’t bothered to take the music off.. Seems fair to me.

Anyway, for all those people who are missing relatives, this is Greg’s story. MissingMissed.

Me and my son Eddie, and a shot entitled Sit Still.

I can only speak for myself of course, but for me parenting is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Not that it’s all bad. Actually, it’s mostly really, really good. But it’s damn hard, and there are a few very tough moments, where [...]]]>

Me and my son Eddie, and a shot entitled Sit Still.

I can only speak for myself of course, but for me parenting is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Not that it’s all bad. Actually, it’s mostly really, really good. But it’s damn hard, and there are a few very tough moments, where you wonder how you ever got yourself into this position. Anyone with a kid can probably relate to that.

And of course, some kids are harder than others. And some partners are trickier to deal with than others. Actually, I think the thing I find most difficult about parenting is not even the kids. It’s the partner. It’s the difficulty of needing to come to some form of agreement on a whole raft of necessary structures, rules and responses to a virtually unlimited number of scenarios.

My wife and I work well together a lot of the time. We agree on a whole lot of things which makes it a fair bit easier. But we also come from very different backgrounds (actually we come from the other side of the world to each other), and we also have been brought up with very different attitudes. She’s very thoughtful about children and upbringing, and so I mostly defer to her, as she has spent a whole lot more time thinking things through than I have. In fact, I can honestly say that I have never in my life met a person with more respect for children than she has. I admire her for that immensely.

But that doesn’t make parenting with her easy. She can be a real pain in the proverbial. Very stubborn & very idealistic, which is a killer combination. I can be a pain in the ass as well of course, and I’m just as stubborn, but I can’t measure up to her in idealism, and so she always seems to have the upper hand somehow. It’s a done deal that a frazzled pragmatist can never trump a just-as-frazzled idealist. The cards are skewed.

I love my kids. Way beyond words. But putting the family thing together on a daily basis and treating your little darlings with love, respect and patience can be the work of a saint. And that is clearly something I’m not. Nor am I ever likely to attain beatification in this lifetime. I just hope they’ll all be able to put up with me, and that I will continue to grow into the job.

Being a parent is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Joyfully, it’s also where I’ve done my best work.