Photo Review

As you’ll discover when you turn to page 4, creative team Man&Wah employ light painting techniques to reveal the extraordinary and intricate beauty of their botanical still life studies. On the other hand, Steve Packer’s profile of photographer Nic Duncan has made a career from capturing vivid portraits of people she meets in the small rural towns of her native Western Australia. Wildly different as their respective choices of subject matter and photographic approach may be, there is to my mind a significant commonality between the artists’ works. In a very real sense, they’re both practising the art of portraiture. For Nic Duncan, it is important to get her subjects to think about something significant to them while she is photographing. ‘I ask questions and take photos while they’re thinking about the answers.…

‘I remember as a little boy,’ Man said, ‘I would sit there and flick through the countless books of botanical drawings that Joseph Banks [and others of that era] did. I just marvelled at the detail of the brush strokes and the colours.’ Years later, working as a photographer in London, Man was taking his lunch break when he happened to glance at the fig he’d just bitten into. ‘This fig was just so beautiful. The moisture and the way that the seeds sat…’ he said. Without taking another bite, he placed it on the studio’s product-shot backdrop and took a picture. ‘It was very clinical, it was on a white background but lit nicely and it was beautiful. From that day, I started photographing all the fruits and vegetables I would…

In a quote on your website (nicduncan.com), Fremantle photographer and educator Dale Neill says: “Denmark [Western Australia] photographer Nic Duncan is a special breed. She doesn’t follow trends, she sets her own agenda. Nic’s contributing more than almost any other photographer in preserving Australia’s visual history. More than anything else, Nic’s photography is authentic. In this day, I can think of no higher praise.” Is being “authentic” your deliberate, conscious approach? No. It comes very naturally and I don’t think too much about it on that level. What I do comes from engaging with people, enjoying their stories and being genuinely interested in learning about them, whether I have my camera with me or not. When I’m photographing someone, I ask questions and take photos while they’re thinking about the answers. I…

Why visit? Lake Tyrrell, Victoria’s largest salt lake, is a shallow, salt-crusted depression seven kilometres north of the town of Sea Lake in the Mallee district of north-west Victoria. Before COVID-19 curtailed overseas tourism, the area had become a tourist mecca, particularly for Chinese visitors, who came to photograph the lake's mirror-like surface during winter, when groundwater percolates to the surface and inflows arrive from the Avoca River/Tyrrell Creek system. There is evidence of the indigenous occupation of the area over the last 45,000 years. The Boorong Aboriginal people of the area are known for their interest in star-lore and the name 'Tyrrell' is derived from the local Wergaia word for 'sky'. Many people visit the lake on clear nights to photograph the Milky Way. There is a viewing platform and information bay…

We’ve come a long way since the CCD (charge-coupled device) sensors used in the first digital cameras. Backside-illuminated (BSI) sensors and stacked chips are now the headline items in promotions for the latest cameras. In this feature we’ll look at how different sensor technologies work. Some basics are outlined in the box on this page. Backside-illuminated (BSI) sensors use the same structural elements as older sensors with front illumination but put the wiring behind the photo-detector layer. The reverse side of the chip was thinned so that light can reach the photo-detectors directly. Sony introduced its first Exmor-R consumer-level BSI sensor in August 2009. The new chip roughly doubled the sensor’s low-light performance and was soon used in the company’s cameras and smartphones. BSI sensors can usually cut image noise by the equivalent…

This story began on 12 July 2022 with the publication by respected Japanese English-language news magazine, Nikkei Asia, of an article titled ‘Nikon pulls plug on SLR camera development in shift to mirrorless’, with the subhead: Smartphones push Japan maker to drop once-coveted single-lens reflex models. This story flashed around the business and imaging media, fuelling intense speculation about whether this marked the ‘end’ of the DSLR camera sector. Within a day, Nikon had hit back at the speculation, releasing the following statement on its website: ‘There was a media article regarding Nikon’s withdrawal of SLR development. This media article is only speculation and Nikon has made no announcement in this regard. Nikon is continuing the production, sales and service of digital SLR. Nikon appreciates your continuous support.’ With all the talk…