JKDimagery

Inspiration from a different source

2011-08-24T22:46:00.004+10:00

Somedays its amazing, you can be dragged along to an event not knowing what to expect, and end up finding it a inspirational source.
Today I visited a flower store with "K," unsure of what to expect. But what a revelation.
Firstly I arrived a few minutes after K and so the conversation was in full swing.So I poked around the store, and started getting the feeling that here was something special. The arrangements were of elegant simplicity.
Introductions were made and then the owner started to create some arrangements.
He did so with such speed and beauty it was truly a breathtaking sight.
He worked on arrangement, one tried adding a leaf, and couldn't get it to fit into the arrangement and appeared to decide it was superflous to the design, so he discarded the leaf and went to arrangement two.
Here he placed a flower and a twisted vine-like arrangement, and then decided something was missing, he thought for a second, then picked up the previously discarded leaf and bam a creation was born! And the arrangement itself was a simple piece of very utilitarian gardening material, which had been sculpted into a new form, with the flowers arranged in the middle!
Throughout the store were many such examples and I am more than eager to visit there again!

The Store has a web page at http://www.hanasho.com.au/ very much worth a visit

MyCycle v2

2011-08-10T15:40:00.001+10:00

Seeing which I prefer

MyCycle

2011-08-10T14:05:00.001+10:00

My Cycling progress as a mid-40-year-old trying to get a bit of exercise and ...errr... well exercise. I'll never be a Cadel or Lance but every speed bump is a potential alpe d'huez LOL

learning :)

2010-09-25T15:28:00.003+10:00

Fishing around for ideas today and stumbled accross this video, quite long but also quite interesting - http://bit.ly/dck4cr Its a clip where three photographers discuss their blogging strategies.

The sites of the photographers in question are -

http://www.chromasia.com

http://www.strobist.blogspot.com

http://www.chasejarvis.com

All worth a good look at :)

Wow been a while!

2010-08-14T12:27:00.000+10:00

   I realised I haven't posted anything since June -- dreadful really. Well one thing that happened in the interim was I bought a AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VR1. I went for this was because of cost and also the various reports about the "shortness" of the various focal lengths.
   The VR2 is a superb lens, which I've used a few times (and it really is a superb lens), so it really came down to cost. As I'm trying to phase out my old "other brand" gear and phase in the return to Nikon. So I'm trying to build up a usable kit to carry on forward. :-)
   There will still be pictures from the other brand for a while to come yet, but more later...

Moonrise

2010-06-26T17:18:00.001+10:00

Been ages since I've posted anything, but heres three pix I took from the office of the moon rise today (Saturday, June 26, 2010) This was more an experiment in using Picasa to upload the pictures.
For techie types this was taken on a Nikon D300s with an old borrowed and cantakerous Nikkor AF-S 80-200mm f/2.8.

Dead Computer!!

2010-02-24T21:40:00.001+11:00

Argh I have found the pitfalls of not backing up when my computer died today...Hope they can recover the data upon repair

(photography) 20100125 Out for a stroll

2010-01-25T22:24:00.000+11:00

Just some pix from an after dinner stroll, all on the Olympus Mju Tough 8000

(photography) 20100125 Experimenting with selective colouring

2010-01-25T16:18:00.001+11:00

Experimenting with selective colouring...once upon a time we called it hand colouring :)

(photography) 20100123 playing with themes in street photography

2010-01-23T23:49:00.003+11:00

The other day I spent the day wandering the streets, poking about in alleys, and in parks, across bridges and all the while taking snapshots of what was going on up down and around. Upon editing there started to show a range of themes running through the images so I've made separate entries with various picture selections from that day, but its definitely worth exploring further! :) They are:

Nature and Man

2010-01-23T23:32:00.001+11:00

Little bits of nature existing in man's environment

Buildings

2010-01-23T23:29:00.002+11:00

The past that was the Cafe de Savoy, over taken by Nagoya

Solar panels on an old saw tooth roof

Ned Kelly and guttering

Man in the layers of the car park

A splash of Yellow

2010-01-23T23:27:00.002+11:00

Maybe this will lead into a splash or red?

Spiralling

2010-01-23T23:25:00.001+11:00

Making tracks

2010-01-23T23:24:00.001+11:00

Sunbake

2010-01-23T23:19:00.001+11:00

Sun about

2010-01-23T23:16:00.001+11:00

(photography) 20100119 playing with the Olympus Mju Tough 8000

2010-01-19T20:00:00.003+11:00

I love using the Olympus Mju Tough 8000 after all you can ...

Use it underwater...

...take it near the surf...

...on the shoreline...

...produce details shots of rocks...

... or of sand ...

...or take in the scenery...

...And at the end of the day its an easy clean up!

(photography) 20100106 still life

2010-01-06T18:33:00.002+11:00

A little experimentation with a cockatoo feather that I found while wandering around. All on a Canon 5D and 50mm f1.4, available light... I really should carry the 50mm macro around for just such an occasion :)

(photography) 20100105 playing with shapes/light...

2010-01-06T00:03:00.003+11:00

...and framing and since these were shot with the Leica M6 (some time ago), i.e. on film its was also an exercise in scanning. This led to the inevitable colour correction, dust removal and so on. The things we must do something! haha

(JKD) 20100101 Opening the Blogging New Year

2010-01-01T20:58:00.000+11:00

Happy New Year!
Hmm...its the start of a new year but gosh it looks the same as the end of last year =)

(printmaking) 20100101 To those who can read Japanese

2010-01-01T20:56:00.001+11:00

...K the printmaker has her Japanese language blog at this address http://oz-art-diary.seesaa.net/ If you can read it drop on by, and if you can't then still drop on by from time to time for K's latest artworks!

(photography) 20091230-01 Scantastic

2009-12-30T23:10:00.000+11:00

Obtained a scanner today (mentioned in an earlier post) attached are my first attempts on a couple of random frames of FILM ... yep! film.
Digital is often sharper, better quality and all that other stuff...But there's a certain "thing" about it...
Just need to learn how to get the best out of the scanner now!

(photography) 20091229-01 While out location scouting...

2009-12-29T22:31:00.007+11:00

While out location scouting, popped in to the local fish market for a spot of lunch and decided to try out some borrowed Nikon gear, namely a D2x and a 12-24mm f/4.0 DX lens.

I used the 12-24mm lens for all these pictures, and I must say that it is an impressive lens.

Now I'm no lens testing boffin but this lens floored me! Its as sharp as any lens I've ever used, although I just wish it was faster than f4.0, but that is the compromise you pay I suppose.

...All the prawns neatly aligned...

This is a bit of before and after...sandcrabs on sale (cooked on the right, uncooked on the left)

Mr C. Gull awaiting a tasty morsel, the level of detail in the pic was ... fabo!

Its a pelican =)

Err its a bird -- and Egyptian Ibis I believe, so its not an unidentified flying...anyThing...

...Buuut it certainly made the punters gaze up in wonder.

After lunch (and $18 in parking...grrr) it was off to a new planet =) but thats another story.

---------

Now for a long time I've been a bit skeptical about the "crop" cameras (Nikon 1.5x, Canon 1.6x and 1.3x), squinting into an even smaller rectangle than before (I still love my Blad, and would love to get back into large format work, but alas I digress...

This lens has me rethinking the format's usefulness to me, the format can certainly give a little extra reach at the long lens side of things. But I will forever have a preference for a full frame camera. (Imagine going into a cinema when all you've ever experienced is a portable TV and you get the idea)

But after using this lens I am thinking maybe just maybe the DX, in the form of a D300s, might be worth considering, if only while I wait for a D700 with video.

Please note I am not overly interested in the "pro-body" line... big and bulky...these "two-part cameras mean that when you want to go low key, leave the booster in the bag and go light and slightly less conspicuous.

And yes as a current Canon owner there IS the 5Dmk2 with its bigger chip etc etc... But really there is just something about Nikon I love, after all you never forget your first love do you?

(photography) 20091228-03 Some of my links

2009-12-28T22:53:00.007+11:00

While there are three of us on JKDimagery, J will make his entires with (photography) in the title, K will add (printmaking) and possibly other art related titles, D well we'll see what he comes up with :)

Our main page is www.jkdimagery.com

(K&D are yet to have a presence on there)

We have a Facebook presence

Plus there's my Model Mayhem profile as well.

(photography) 20091228-02 Scanning and other photo related stuff

2009-12-28T22:46:00.003+11:00

J - I've started searching out a useful flatbed scanner. I have a nice old Hasselblad 500CM gathering dust due to this digital world (and a lack of a darkroom), but love using it and I've figured its about time to start searching for a scanner for it.
So far I am thinking of a CanoScan CS8800F, which by the reviews I've read offers a good value for money versus quality balance. Now to price it...Any suggestions?
On other gear front, seems we're all destined to go down the multimedia road (read video). I've been looking through Dan Chung's site which seems to be a good information stream. Now here's my dilemma much of my gear (Canon) is getting long in the tooth and need of replacing, so am thinking Nikon or Canon?

Now I am no expert on all this but there seems to be advantages to both (on the video front) Canon offering 1080p and Nikon 720p, but in the real world what does this mean? I think this will be the subject of future entries.
Currently I am leaning towards changing to a Nikon system, but until they bring out a full frame camera the size of the D700, I am looking at starting out with the D300s due to its higher (still) frame rate, lower cost -- after all lenses to be bought!
Why Nikon? Well I started out with Nikon, and only changed when they lagged behind on the autofocus front. And to be honest I was never overly thrilled with Canon, they offered great service in Japan when I was living there, but after departing that all dropped off. Since returning to Australia Nikon have been a great help and well frankly am looking to return to my roots!
Stay tuned :)

(JKD) 20091228-01 Opening the Blogging

2009-12-28T22:16:00.004+11:00

Gidday world we are JKDimagery, a rookie in the visual art industry from Australia with our minds full of clever ideas.

We are a three-person team -- J, K and D.

J is a photographer.

K specialises in printmaking

And last but not least

D is a budding engineer who's also interested in all sorts of computer stuff.

We're just starting to tackle this blogging lark and will be throwing random ramblings up, come 2010!