Australian Photography January 2021

For the past few years, January has always been our travel photography special issue of AP mag, and as a complete travel nut, it’s one issue I’ve always enjoyed putting together. However, looking back at 12 months of parked planes and postponed travel plans, it was obvious that barring a miracle, publishing a magazine spruiking the best places to visit in 2021 was always going to be a hard sell. That’s not to say there haven’t been a few inklings of things starting to return to normal. As I write this in late November, state borders are gingerly opening for Christmas and many photo workshops, including our own once-a-year event, are back on for the new year. But you can’t escape the fact that many of our travel plans have been…

Join Australian Photography editor Mike O’Connor and TV presenter and pro photographer Darran Leal for a 5-day creative photography workshop in the Cradle Mountain region, Tasmania from 13-17 September 2021. Whether you’re a novice or a seasoned photography enthusiast, this workshop will help you take your images to the next level. Just a few hours west of Launceston, you’ll be immersed in an incredible natural landscape and have the opportunity to learn from talented photographers and make good friends with like-minded people. To help you make the most of the workshop experience, group sizes are limited to just five photographers per tutor. This means that you’ll have access to personalised advice during shoots and afterwards when you’re editing your images. Field workshops are a great way to hone your skills and refine your…

NATHAN DUFF Nathan Duff is a photographer, videographer and retoucher working predominately in the automotive industry. Nathan’s work has appeared in numerous automotive magazines, including Top Gear, CAR, Wheels and MOTOR. See more at nathanduffphotography.com.au. GEORGINA STEYTLER Georgina is an award-winning nature photographer with a passion for birds, bird conservation and ethics. You can see more of her work at georginasteytler.com.au. LYNN GAIL Lynn Gail is a travel writer and photographer who writes for Australian and international travel publications. She also runs photographic tours within Australia and overseas where the emphasis is on capturing and connecting with cultures in off-the-grid locations. You can see her work at lynngail.com. DAVID LAZAR David Lazar is a travel photographer and musician from Brisbane who loves to capture moments of life, beauty and culture through photography. See more at davidlazar.com.…

The threat of inclement weather hung over Sydney from the early hours of the morning when I met up with Richard, a journalist for Wheels magazine, to shoot the cover feature for an upcoming issue. I’d spent the day in the studio the day before in air-conditioned comfort to get the cover shot squared away. It was time for the on-road and location images. Ordinarily, the weather wouldn’t have been a big deal, but back in those days I travelled fairly extensively for work and I was only in Sydney for another day – I needed to get the shoot finished. We tried waiting it out and refreshing the BOM app every few minutes and soon realised it had settled in. Road shots are okay in the rain as the water can…

In last issue’s Straight Shooter, I talked about drones as an example of a technology that has transformed photography – and to continue this theme I thought I’d talk about how new tech has made another genre of image-making much more accessible: underwater photography. One of the difficulties with shooting underwater has always been the essential element needed for taking a photo: light. The deeper you go, the less light there is, and the bigger and more expensive the gear has needed to be to overcome this. As a result, underwater photography has traditionally had a very high barrier of entry, and although this is still true to an extent, a host of new compact, cheaper options mean you can now get excellent results for a pretty small outlay if you’re…

AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PHOTOGRAPHY TO SHUTTER DOORS THE Australian Centre for Photography has closed its doors asa result of a perfect storm of COVID-19, a lack of funds and the rise of smartphone photography. The ACP board announced in a statement the organisation would move into a period of hibernation to “stem the risk of ongoing financial losses and to protect the capital in an investment fund it considers vital to its long-term viability.” The ACP opened in Paddington, Sydney, in 1974 as the first government-funded national organisation for the promotion of photography in Australia. Conceived by David Moore as a non-profit, cultural organisation, the ACP presented the first major retrospectives of Max Dupain and Olive Cotton and early exhibitions of Bill Henson, William Yang, Tracey Moffatt and Trent Parke. According to The Sydney…