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#6 THE FOTOFREO 2010 EDITION
FotoFreo 2010 is in town!
FotoFreo, the City of Fremantle Festival of Photography, is a month-long festival of photography (March 20 - April 18) that sees a host of exhibitions, events, workshops, seminars, activities and celebrations take place in Fremantle, Perth and the metropolitan area.
To celebrate FotoFreo 2010, this edition of SNAPshot! features a special discount on offer for photography workshops by the Snapshooter, along with a tantalising preview of photographic exhibitions on offer during FotoFreo.
> THE SNAPSHOOTER PHOTO WORKSHOPS: SPECIAL DISCOUNT DURING FOTOFREO 2010
The 2010 "Workshops in a SNAP!" photography workshops programme has kicked off with the Maxisiming your DSLR course in late February. Two more workshops:Practical Portraiture and Sensational Strobing will be held on May 2 and May 23 respectively.
To celebrate FotoFreo, we're offering a further $10.00 discount if you book any of these workshops during FotoFreo (March 20 - April 18). This discount can be used along with the earlybird discounted price.
Places are limited (10 places in Practical Portraiture, 8 places in Sensational Strobing) so book early!
To find out more and book, visit Workshops in a SNAP!
UPDATE 2 APRIL 2010: The Practical Portraiture workshop is fully booked. 4 places are still available in Sensational Strobing.
> PRACTICAL PORTRAITURE TIPS
How do you take GREAT portraits?
Many new photographers find the prospect of portrait photography daunting! Not only do you have to contend with the technicalities of lighting your subject, controlling techniques such as depth of field and subject-background isolation, but you also need to set your portrait subject at ease, to pose them in the most natural and flattering way, and to direct them so that they give you their best smiles, their happiest expressions.
In the lead up to the Practical Portraiture workshop by Greg Perry on May 2, here are some key tips to help you nail that cracking portrait!
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Clothing: Ask your portrait sitters to wear plain, simple colours. Pastels are best, or greys and earthy tones. Avoid bright, primary colours as light will often reflect off these colours onto your sitter's skin.
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Lens: Unless you're shooting an environmental portrait, use a lens with a bit more reach. 50mm+on a crop frame camera or 70mm+ on a full frame camera is recommended. This will ensure minimum distortion in your portraits and allow you to frame your sitter so that they become the key subject in the image.
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Depth of field: Use a shallow depth of field to isolate your portrait subject from the background. Some backgrounds can be distracting, in which case, a shallow depth of field will ensure that the background is thrown into a smooth and silky blur while your subject is tack sharp. On a lens with a bit of reach (see above), shoot at f4 or wider.
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Exposure: Grab an exposure with a light meter or spot meter off a grey card placed next to your subject's face and in the direction of the main light source. If you don't have a grey card or a light meter, spot meter off the subject's skin and overexpose by about 1 to 1.5 stops if your subject has very fair (Caucasian) skin. With tanned or olive skinned subjects you can normally spot meter off their skin tone.
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Engage and Interact: Avoid making the experience of having their portrait taken a tedious one for your sitters. Keep the mood light and lively for your sitters - talk and joke with them as you're angling in for the shot. This ensures that you will catch them at their most natural - smiling, laughing, making eye contact with you.
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Flash: When you need to use a flash on your subject, avoid dazzling them with a frontal flash. This makes for flat, unappealing (and sometimes unflattering) portraits. Instead, light them from the side or at an angle. Bounce the flash off a reflector to one side, or off a wall. When bouncing off a wall, avoid walls with colours as the light will take on the colour of the wall and hence drench your subject in an unexpected hue.
Practical Portraiture. a full day's photo workshop by Greg Perry (ably abetted by yours truly) runs on Sunday 2nd May. Places are still available for bookings.
> EXPLORING THE GANGES - LAUNCHING SONS OF GANGA
Sons of Ganga, my exhibition of photographs taken in Varanasi, India, launched on Saturday 13th March as part of the FotoFreo 2010 Fringe Festival.
And what a fantastic evening it was – with good friends (photographers and otherwise) and guests from FotoFreo all gathering to enjoy some nice wine, finger food and photographs of Varanasi.
The Silent Auction raised more than $650 to support the Our Home Charity in Kerala, India from the sale of four framed exhibition prints. Congratulations to the winning bidders!
Personally, this has been the most satisfying exhibition and launch: once installed, the photographs magically worked to tell the story of Varanasi and the people of the Ganges. There was a great vibe at the launch, and the candid comments made about the photographs and the exhibition indicated that visitors were really engaging with the content of the images. You really can’t ask for more!
Sons of Ganga is on show at the Cracked Gallery, in the fantastic Behind the Monkey, 479 Beaufort Street, Highgate. The exhibition runs untl 31. Behind the Monkey is open every day.
UPDATE 2 APRIL 2010: Congratulations to Andrew Boyer and Sandra Royer who has each won a fine art framed print of a photograph of Varanasi in the lucky draw prize for their subscription to SNAPshot! Andrew is the winner of Puja, while Sandra wins Scindia.
Puja - Winner: Andrew Boyer |
Scindia - Winner: Sandra Royer |
Here are some photographs taken from the launch (thanks to David Savage and Alison Holt for taking these pictures!).
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> HIGHLIGHTS OF FOTOFREO 2010
With so many exhibitions and events scheduled during FotoFreo, it can be a challenge to decide what's definitely worth a visit.Here are some recommendations on what to see and do during this fantastic, month-long festival of photography.
Drop in to view photojournalist, David Dare Parker's, coverage of the Fremantle Clubs in "The Clubs". These Freo institutions, once a vital part of the port city, are now facing their twilight years with their dwindling and ageing memberships. David Dare Parker has photographed the people and essence of these clubs. "The Clubs" is on show at the Fremantle Club, 15 Bannister Street, Fremantle.
Photojournalist David Dare Parker speaking about "The Clubs"
Take in evocative and powerful works by three contemporary women photographers at the WA Maritime Museum. "The Summer of Us" by Nadia Autio presents an intricate and intimate look at coastal living through objects found washed up on the beach. "Selected Works" by New York based editor and photographer, Carrie Levy, is mind-blowing. Works by Pat Brassington are collages that are sometimes unreal, sexy and humorous.
Photo-documentary works at the Moores Building by Jean Chung, Claire Martin and Vivianne Dalles are a must see. Each photographer has documented an aspect of life and living in the world: Chung's coverage of women who have survived sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo is heart-breaking; Martin's photographs of the inhabitants of Slab City, a fringe community in the Colorado Desert are strangely intimate and beautiful; Dalles photographs a family of Nepalese exiles on their journey from a refugee camp to their new life in Dallas, Texas.
The best of international photojournalism is on display at the WA Museum, with the 2009 World Press Photography Awards and the 2009 Nikon-Walkley Award winning photographs on exhibition.
For more FotoFreo exhibitions, visit: http://www.fotofreo.com/2010/exhibitions2010.php
And don't forget the Fringe Festival...
Alongside the core, curated exhibitions is the FotoFreo 2010 Fringe Festival - an epic festival of independent photographic exhibitions showcasing works by emerging and established photographers from Australia and around the world.
Whether you're in Fremantle, Northbridge, Perth, Swanbourne or elsewhere, there will be Fringe exhibitions close to you. Why not combine a visit to a cafe or a shopping trip with a drop into one of the many FotoFreo Fringe Festival venues to view works by some of Australia's innovative and creative photographers?
For Fringe exhibition locations, visit: http://www.fotofreo.com/fringe
> AUTUMN RAMBLE IN GUILDFORD - APRIL 17
 Autumn is a fantastic season for photography — the light grows just a mite softer and more golden in the late afternoon; deciduous trees change colour and the temperature is milder, perfect for a ramble in the beautiful autumn air.
I’ve organised an “autumn ramble” for Perth photographers through historic Guildford.
For those unfamiliar with Guildford, it’s the gateway to the Swan Valley, and a historic little town with a great deal of village charm and beautiful colonial buildings — a great place to spend an afternoon wandering with your camera and in the company of other photographers.
The autumn ramble kicks off at 2pm on Saturday 17th April. We’ll meet at the Swan Valley Visitor’s Centre on the corner of Swan and Meadow Streets in Guildford. After a refreshing meet and greet at the Rose and Crown Hotel next door, where a pint or two can be downed, we’ll head off into the village for a good and proper photo ramble.
This ramble comes with its own photo challenge; participants will need to photograph eight concepts or themes during their ramble through Guildford:
1. A rose between two thorns
2. Autumn harvest
3. A place in history
4. Sun and shade
5. Contemplation
6. Dare to bare
7. In motion
8. The beauty in detail
Prizes will be offered to the top two sets of photographs with the best or most creative interpretation of these themes:
* First prize is a Studio Stay-and-Play workshop session donated by yours truly.
* Second prize is a $50.00 gift certificate for prints courtesy of Nathan Krisko at Carlisle Printing.
If you’re interested in joining us on this autumn ramble, send me an email.
| > SONS OF BEACHES: GUNS UP!
Plans are afoot to publish a sequel to Sons of Beaches, my 2008 book of surf life savng photographs.
Sons of Beaches: Guns Up! will be dedicated solely to surf rowing and surf rowers, and include photographs taken in the last three years during my coverage of Western Australian surf-rowing events. The images will include reportage-style photographs taken during events, as well as more stylised portraits of surf rowers.
Keep an eye out for further news about the launch of this book later in 2010.
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