Black and white Photography is something i've kind of been afraid of, why ? im not sure, I guess that with photographers like Peter Coulson its hard to think that you would ever get to a point like that. 

I decided i would do some research and attempt my first real purely black and white shoot, i arranged a couple of fantastic models and a great Mua and headed into our studio at Southport on the Gold Coast.

during the shoot I was surprised at how much simple lighting can change an image, now im sure your wondering well this happens with every shoot and you would be 100% correct and really whats the difference?. What i found was my attention to shadows and highlights within the image had a lot more emphasis and thought process, is the light to much is it not enough, is the placement and direction of the light in the right place for the vision i have, am i overthinking it, so many things to think about.

It wasn't until it came to post processing where i found myself lost in what the right way what's the best way and even what's the fastest way, so after more research and a phone call to a great photographer i know I was able to establish my processing, even though not wrong, was infact lengthy and with a few questions and some helpful tips i was able to redesign my method and process in a much ore controlled and detailed way, 

I am aware i still have a lot more to learn with this method i am quite surprised at the amount i was able to learn within just this shoot, and that this shoot gave me one of those rare light bulb moments when all of a sudden it makes sense and now its just practising and perfecting the whole thing. 

Photego (as i refer to him as) is not my concept, but when i seen this little guy it made me giggle. it also shows my personality perfectly, a little intuitive happy go lucky kind of photographer. whilst most see things as a norm this idea by Andrew Whyte a Uk Based photographer has opened up a new realm of photo opportunities. does a photo have to be straight up and down is it not a good image if the horizon isn't straight obviously the style of photography will have its rules, for eg if you were to shoot a beautiful sunset seascape and the horizon isn't straight well it would feel a bit off balance. but this sequence of images simply shows a perspective a lot never think about stay tuned over the next few weeks where ill be sharing these images on our facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/phocusqld

This past few weeks i have taken a step back and looked at our website, I discovered that it was ... well ... lets just say it needed attention. so i decided that i would start fresh and redesign the whole thing from scratch. now looking back over the past few weeks whilst doing the new site i asked myself OMG what have i done. 

Honestly there are some sites out there that allow you to drag and drop put things here, place things there but they don't tell you that there is no seo (search engine optimisation ) embedded in them. As a photographer image optimisation is 1 big key factor, but yet again there is an absolute minefield of do's and dont's  no wonder so many people give up. however after speaking to some very knowledgeable people and taking time to actually read up on these things i discovered a few small tricks and helpful hints.

Overall i'm pleased with our new site we have had some good and some negative feedback, both of which are appreciated, at the end of the day it was a mental journey learning something that seems so straight forward, yet so many people get it wrong, and most don't even know. so whats my advice? study learn read ask as many questions as you can because you website is 1 of your digital prints and with the internet growing as fast as it is theres no point running a race if you're facing the other way.  

After a few hectic weeks and countless hours of editing, i thought it was time to shoot something just for the fun of it, so we decided to take our 2 boys off to Queensland raceway to see the V8;s.

As much as i love the races i never actually been to shoot it so it was going to be interesting as i don't normally shoot things that move so fast. after driving for about an hours and parking what seemed to be in a different state we arrived at Willow bank, first stop was the paddock, the area where all the behind the scenes stuff happens ... basically its the garages and trucks that the cars are repaired in and arrive on.

The boys Loved it being so close to the cars that they were about to see on the track, my eldest Aiden was surprisingly more interested then i thought even coming up with the idea of building a go cart, but not just any go cart one that he can race on the track .... ohh boy ... this ones going to be expensive lol.

We then went out onto the track and in good time as the street cars and funny cars came out for a burnout session ...WOW ... extremely loud, Lachlan wasn't really happy with this as he couldn't hear anything Aiden had the biggest smile on his face but still had his fingers in his ears.

Finally we found a place to sit and watch the race  right on turn 1, got my camera out had a few quick test shots and it was on as this was my first time took a few shots to get everything right where i wanted it ... even had a few curve balls thrown with the sun coming and going in and out of cloud after a long day and a few good and a few bad shots it was definitely worth it.  learnt some new techniques and had a ball with the family at the same time. it was a good release as this week is going to be very big with shoots and Still a lot of editing.

Ii have posted one of the shots above one of my favorites check out the sports gallery for a few others .

Scott