In the beginning...

I've had a busy life and I love to take photographs. This leads to quite a collection of moments captured on one of my cameras. My computer based catalogue goes back to Wednesday the 4th of February, 2004 at ‏‎3:41:48 PM. This is the date I purchased my first ever digital camera, a Nikon E2100 which had a resolution of 1600px by 1200px. This photo (DSCN0001.JPG) is below and it is shown as it was taken.

4th February 2004, Speewah - Far North Queensland, Australia

Since then, I have taken 107,881 photographs on a variety of digital cameras. In my garage there is a 100 litre box full of all of the photographic negatives and prints that I took from 1986 until the convenience of digital photography took hold of me in 2005. In another box is all the photographic prints I developed whilst studying. This all has yet to be digitised. I am quite daunted by the prospect of doing this hence for the moment I'll keep this collection images to my digital camera sources only.

Just to contrast, this photo below (IMG_9423.JPG) was taken on 18th of December 2020 at 10:19:40 AM. I was attending a press conference in a high rise building in William Street, Brisbane (Queensland, Australia) and looked out the window to admire the view. This picture was taken at a resolution of 6240px by 4160px on a Cannon EOS 6DmkII at a focal length of 87mm (f4, 1/4000 sec, ISO 1000). Alike the photograph above, it is shown as it was taken.

18th December 2020, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Admittedly these days, I do use computer software to fine tune my images - using the digital replication of the printing techniques that I learnt at university is a big part of my photographic process. You'll notice that the above photograph is washed out and slightly under exposed. This is because in camera I've reduced the contrast so my images can "see into the shadows". When I ingest and grade my images, I can preserve this detail by increasing the exposure digitally (+0.3 stop), adding contrast and increasing the black levels before exporting the final image. At all costs I avoid retouching as I believe that photographic documentation should be free of such techniques. 

The purpose of this blog is for me to be able to share random moment of time captured on my devices. This will be done in no particular order. Most of my photographs are a part of a bigger story and I'd like to take the opportunity to jot these down before one day I get old, loose my marbles and not have any idea what they mean. If you join me for the ride, I do hope you enjoy yourself. Please feel free to leave comments and make suggestions  as this blog continues. Thanks for calling by.