Photography Practice

This holiday on the Sunshine Coast has been a great opportunity to practice using my camera in readiness for my residency at Police Point next month. My recent basic course showed me how to navigate my camera's settings better - I still don't really know what I'm doing, but at least I know what things to play with. One of the first things I discovered was that I would need a backup battery, as after a couple of hours it had run out. My Camera is a Canon G7X for those who might be interested.

One of the settings I am really liking is the 'miniature' one, which has vivid tones, and blurs the top and bottom of the image - see the different effect below.

Another one is the 'watercolour' setting, just for a bit of fun.

One of my favourite setups though is the AV setting, which is the aperture priority setting, allowing you to change the depth of field so you can have the subject in focus and the background blurred. It's a bit more complicated than that though, so there's a lot more practice to be done. Getting the light balance can be a bit tricky, and although I have a digital screen to see what's happening, the key word there is see, which is not always easy, depending on the light glare and the cleanliness of my glasses.

Then of course there's good old zoom, which I was never using properly - I had no idea how far back from the subject that I had to be, or that my screen was giving me handy hits like suggesting the distance, and letting me know when it was in focus. 

If I get it all right, the image can be high quality enough to withstand a zoom and crop into the details.

Speaking of the screen - I had forgotten that it flips out, which is great when you are working on the ground but don't want to get down there.

I think the absolute highlight though was seeing and capturing these tiny rockpool inhabitants called sea hares. A woman on the rocks had told me about them just the day before, and as I was sitting beside a rockpool, I started to notice how many things were actually moving, and then I saw these - they're so cute!

These were my captures from my final photography walk this morning along the Golden Beach shore and mangrove area. 

It's been a really worthwhile process as far as maximising my ability to make the most of my residency opportunity. Australia Council, if you're there, and considering my grant application for this project - please see that I have done as I said I would, and invested in furthering my skills in photography. Your turn!