Sydney Photographer Guide

Wednesday, 27 August 2014

Fan Ho’s Fantastic Black-and-White Street Photographs of 1950s Hong Kong

Photographer Ho Fan has been shooting black and white street photography since the 1950s. At the time, he was living in the poor, rundown Central neighborhood of Hong Kong. The streets, filled with food and trinket vendors, captured the recent Shanghai transplant’s attention. It was with this fascination that Fan took his camera to the streets, documenting the intriguing life around him.

At a time where studio photography was far more common, Fan’s work stood out. Rolleiflex in hand, he took to the streets, photographing the early skyscrapers, intriguing scenes and people — people who sometimes didn’t enjoy having their photograph taken.

“With a knife in his hand, a pig butcher said he would chop me,” the 83-year-old Fan recounted recently for the South China Morning Post. “He wanted his spirit back.”

Not all of Fan’s encounters were extreme though. In fact, some were the complete opposite. He tells SCMP of another encounter involving a group of young girls who enjoyed having their photograph taken so much that they “combed their hair and asked me to take their photos again.”

Fan said it was always his goal to wait for the lighting and composition to fall into place when photographing. It was his goal to capture magic through his Rolleiflex one frame at a time. And he did just that.

Over the years, he’s won no less than 280 awards from international exhibitions and competitions. He’s also been given the honor of being elected to multiple photographic societies around the globe, from Argentina to Singapore.

His latest exhibition is currently up at Modernbook Gallery, where a plethora of his black and white images are being displayed for the world to enjoy. But even if you can’t make it to the gallery, you can secure yourself the best of Fan’s work by purchasing his latest photo book, Fan Ho: A Hong Kong Memior, which starts at $65 and features a number of limited edition options for upwards of $400.

Below are just a few of Fan’s wonderful photographs that he and Modernbook Gallery were kind enough to share with us:

If you’d like to dive a little bit further into his work, the video below from Modernbook Gallery shows Fan discussing the history of his photographs and the philosophy that drove him to create the images he did:

(via South China Morning Post)

Night and Day Blend Together in Beautiful Time-Slice Photos of Iconic Buildings from Around the World

Birds Nest, Beijing, China

Richard Silver is a name that’s popped up before here on PetaPixel. Just over a year ago we shared his ‘time-slice’ photo collages that blended together day and night in the Big Apple. Today, we share his next, more international project.

This time he’s taking his ‘time-slice’ photography across the world, capturing iconic buildings in cities all over the globe. From the Easter Island Statues to the Colosseum in Rome, Silver captures some of the worlds most magnificent creations, splitting frames and composing them together to show the landmarks from sunrise to sunset in a single frame.

Throughout his travels, Silver says that he does his best to pick a building or feature that epitomizes the city. Once he’s found a place, he uses the sun-tracking app, Magic Hour, to properly plan out his shoot before heading out to the location.

The final compositions consist of approximately 36 frames a piece:

Venice, Italy

Trieste , Italy

Tongariki Easter Island Sunset

Suleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul, Turkey

Shanghai, China

Milan, Italy

Marina Bay Sands, Singapore

London, England

India Gate, Mumbai, India

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey

To see Silver’s previous work or keep up with as he continues to capture beautiful photographs, check out our previous coverage, head on over to his website or give him a follow on Flickr.

(via Colossal)

Monday, 25 August 2014

Double Exposure Effect in Photoshop

how to create a double exposure style effect in Photoshop

Thursday, 21 August 2014

Food Photography - Photographer Sydney

Food Photography

Photographer: Omid (Sydney Food Photographer)

Stylist: Jane Collins (Sydney Food Stylist)

Photographer Sydney

Ultimate Tutorial on How to Photograph a Car with the Westcott Ice Light

My friend and RIDES Magazine's head photographer Andrew Link is no stranger to Fstoppers. He also happens to be one of the kings of shooting cars with the Westcott Ice Light, which is essentially a handheld LED rod (looks like a flourescent tube) used as a constant daylight temperature light source. After about 6 months of me begging Andrew for him to make one, he has finally created a fantastic and to-the-point tutorial on how to create an epic car portrait with nothing but a camera, tripod, and the Ice Light.

According to Andrew Link:

Lightpainting is a fairly simple technique that results in unique images… especially with cars. All you need is a continuous light source and a dark spot to shoot. Westcott’s IceLight has been my choice for light painting for a couple of years now. Its bright, puts out clean, soft light, and is extremely portable, all things that rank high on my list when choosing gear. In my 10 years of shooting cars I’ve used everything from cell phone led’s, to flashlights, to video led squares, to huge kino banks, but the IceLight has become a staple for me. The new barn door attachment has become a favorite of mine for helping control spill and avoid ghosted images of myself in my frames that would be a nightmare to retouch out later.

Click the image to see the animated before/after gif.

The Ice Light is dimmable from 1.5 watts to 15 watts, battery-powered, and because it is LED, will last a long time on location (60 minutes on a full charge). You can also buy an optional extended power pack that will extend the charge of the light by another 2.5 hours. I think the optional barn door kit mentioned in the video above is a MUST for controlling light spill and for light shaping purposes.

Via Fstopper