A new home

After much sweating and toiling and asking of the Internet, I’ve finally managed to consolidate my blog with my portfolio site. Hurray for me!

I’ll no longer be using this website, so please point your bookmarks, RSS feeds etc to www.cathytopping.com

Oh, and I’ve had a go at a new look. Would love to hear what you think!

Things I love : entropy

I was out the other evening, taking pictures. It’s what I do. On my way back to the car, I was distracted by a pretty flower. It’s spring – well, practically summer – and there are lots of pretty flowers everywhere. Who can resist a pretty flower?

My attention, however, got distracted. By cobwebs. Much more interesting. Seriously…look how pretty they are. Like a beautiful woman dressed up in gossamer lace. Yes.

Travelling footsteps

As photographers, we often talk about learning through photography. The journey of interacting with the world through our lens, and what we learn about ourselves and others through images.

Well, I’ve got something slightly embarrassing to share. I’ve discovered that I have a bit of a foot fetish. That’s right. Feet.

I think they are the pictures I take in between taking pictures, if that makes any sense. The ‘downtime’ where I’m just photographing without really thinking. I’m not entirely sure when or why, but there they are. Pictures of people’s feet: while they walk along the street, run up the escalators, or wait for bus to arrive.

Mostly, the shots are rubbish. But sometimes I find myself really drawn to them. I like them. There’s something expressive about feet, doing their thing quietly while the real story unfolds around them.

To show I’m not totally obsessed and single-minded with this weirdness, I’m also partial to the odd belly.

Sculpture by the Sea

There’s a lovely coastal walk from Bondi to Bronte beaches (actually, it goes much further than that, if you’re feeling energetic). Once a year a selection of artists create a huge variety of weird and wonderful sculptures that sit dotted along this stunning mix of cliffs and ocean for an exhibition called Sculpture by the Sea. The tourist pull – as you might imagine – is huge. I’d never been around to see the sculptures in the past, and only realised a couple of days ago that this year’s it’s due to finish this weekend.

So I headed down there to see what’s on offer.

As a photographer, (and a girl) I was particularly taken with the shiny things. Shiny is pretty. As the evening progressed, and the sun started setting, pieces that were previously interesting, became stunning as the falling light played on their forms.

There were all sorts of crazy characters made of all sorts of crazy materials.

This guy made me do a double take….

Most of all, though, I enjoyed watching the interaction of the people with the artworks.

More new horizons

One thing that has always struck me is how much of the imagery that features in photography magazines is landscape photography. Stunning shots of mother nature at her most awesome. Good landscape photography always impresses photographers and non-photographers alike, and so it’s a pretty safe bet with magazine editors, I imagine. It’s just so pretty, isn’t it?

I’ve never really tried my hand at it, so of course I dismissed it as easy. With that particular strain of naive arrogance that only ignorance seems capable of, I just assumed that it wasn’t that difficult. You know, a bit of patience and an alarm clock, a filter or two, chuck in a sunset and you’re off.

So this week I decided to see what all the fuss is about. I’ve been running around trying to find the perfect spot, and you know? It’s hard to find those perfect spots. I’ve found a couple of ‘alright’ vantage points, but nothing stupendous. I’ve developed an unhealthy obsession with the sky and with light. I mean, I’m always looking at the light, but this is light-obsession on a whole new level. I now know what time sunset actually is, and am working out the best window either side of it. I even woke up before the crack of dawn one particularly wet and miserable morning and promptly swore never again. I’m more a sunset sort of girl, I’ve decided. Even if this was the week that every sunset occurred behind a huge wall of clouds.

And guess what I’ve discovered? That it’s not easy. Of course it’s not. Not easy at all. I managed to get a couple of alright shots, but nothing that’s going to make any magazine editor wet themselves in the immediate future. In fact, the main thing I’ve discovered this week is that I  have a previously untapped lust for wide-angle lenses. And that I quite like landscape photography.

Now…I’m off to write a letter to Santa…

New horizons

This is a club just around the corner from where I live. I’ve never been inside – I’m pretty sure it’s a members’ club – but there are often parties going on in there over the weekends; parties to which I am never invited. You probably need to have a boat to get invited in. Just a stab in the dark (hint: it’s called ‘Vaucluse Yacht Club’)

I can walk to this spot in five minutes. Five minutes! Eight months ago I was cooped up inside a one bedroom flat in one of the grottier corners of South East London, and now I live beside Sydney Harbour. Life’s a funny thing isn’t it? You just never know where you might end up.

It’s been a bit quiet round here lately, I know. I’ve been busy working out some new approaches to my photography. Not necessarily to the imagery itself (although that is always a work in progress), but the more mundane business of marketing. I’ve had some ideas, and I’m trying some new things.

I’ve set up a new business, a new brand. It’s very niche, but I’m going to stick with it for a little while, and see how it pans out. I’ll still be working on this side of my photography, and hopefully will have some fun things to share in the near future.

If you’re interested though, here’s a link to Wagtail Images, my latest brainchild. It’s very much in its infancy, but so far results have been encouraging. I probably won’t mention it again over here, as my aim is to keep the two enterprises separate, but I’d hate anyone to think that my silence lately has had anything to do with laziness. Perish that thought!

Musings in black and white

I spent some time wandering around Kings Cross last weekend. The streets shimmered with the quiet, slow vibration of late afternoon, as the warmth of the day was slowly fading away. The neon-light craziness was creeping up, but for that in-between hour or two, it really did feel like the calm before the storm of infamous Kings Cross night-time debauchery.

I had a plan of sorts, in that I wanted to do some work in black and white.  I used to mostly shoot on black and while film, but have gotten out of the habit with the explosion of the digital world in colour. I have been reading up lately on pre-visualing when shooting in monochrome, and tried to keep some of these tips and ideas foremost in my mind. Ideas like trying to ‘see’ in black and white while you’re choosing what to focus the camera on. Instead of looking for colours, pre-visualise in terms of tones, contrast and textures. Also, thinking about what the subject of the image will be when the dimension of colour is removed. There’s a reason why some images work better in black and white, and others in colour. At the moment I’m struggling to properly articulate what that difference is, but my own understanding of it was at the forefront of my mind during this shooting session, and it really informed what I chose to photograph at that time.

Yes, keeping all those thoughts in mind, layered on top of the usual considerations of focal length, aperture and quality of light, was as difficult as it sounds.

What I keep discovering, however, is that each time I approach a session with mindfulness – in this instance, trying to see in black and white – I am forced to slow right down. I stop taking the pictures I might instinctively go for straight away as I consider how the image I’m looking at fits into what I’m trying to achieve. The end result is that I usually end up with fewer images, but because I am being more careful about what I focus on, it often yields stronger results.

That’s not always the case; but even when I hate every single frame, I still feel like I’ve achieved something important by adding an extra dimension to my shooting style and approach. The more we practice these things, the more they become like second nature. Ultimately, it is by increasing the pool of internal resources to draw upon for our photography that will make us better photographers.

Travelling on your doorstep

I love travelling. Who doesn’t, right? The thrill of the exotic, making new friends in different places, learning another way of understanding day to day life. Other languages and cultures and ways of being.

I’ve been addicted since even before I hucked my first backpack onto my over-excited 21 year old shoulders. Since then, I’ve done my fair share of galivanting around the globe, and while I’m nowhere near done with exploring the world, right now I’m in the process of putting down some roots. Maybe shallow roots, granted, but even shallow roots need time to take hold. And so there are no big adventures on my immediate horizon.

Of the places I have been so far, one of my favourite is definitely South East Asia. Laos and Cambodia have a particularly special place in my heart. My favourite vicarious past-time is to greedily consume the images of photographers who live there, or at least get to shoot there on a regular basis.

But guess what Sydney has to offer? An overlooked, quiet suburb out in the west called Bonnyrigg. On face value Bonnyrigg is just another mish-mash of identikit houses and wide, empty streets with a sleepy and quiet feel. But Bonnyrigg is home to a little gem of a secret. There are Buddhist temples – Chinese, Cambodian, Laos – tucked away down in the side streets. Apart from the Chinese one – which is huge – they are sprinkled around the suburb, just begging to be tracked down with the help of the street directory.

They were mostly closed on the day I visited, and so I was only able to lurk around the outside, but the thrill of seeing Asian architecture nestled amongst Sydney homes and gardens was a lovely thrill all of its own.

50mm

Alongside all the bits and pieces I’ve been doing lately, I set myself a small personal project. It’s not a particularly original idea, granted, but it is a good challenge.

On those days when I’ve got some time to myself, I set out with my camera and my 50mm f1.8 lens. That’s it. Stripping it back to basics. No long zoom, no background compression, no wide angle to play with. Just aperture, shutter speed and good old fashioned footwork. The brilliant thing about this set up is that it is pretty unobtrusive, not to mention easy on the wrists!

This really is one just for me. I’m also using these images for a little play around with Lightroom split toning.

Sydney markets: Rozelle

It’s been a while, but I have not been neglecting my Sydney market project. Between inclement weather and the restrictions of only being able to pursue this project on weekends, it is turning out to be a long-term venture. And as I really want to get something out of it,  what I am trying to create is proving more of a challenge than I originally thought. What does that mean? I think it means that this is a good project for me. It’s stretching me, helping me see the boundaries of where I am right now, and hopefully will be a vehicle to help me push beyond them.

I am a long way from what I want the final product to be, and so please consider this a work in progress.

Previously, I have visited Chinatown’s night market, and Glebe markets, both of which were fun to photograph.

Rozelle markets was next on my list, and I must confess, I’ve become slightly obsessed. I have not only visited Rozelle once, it’s now been 3 times. And each time I captured a little something about it, but wasn’t completely satisfied with what the images were saying. I also got a bit distracted while there and – just maybe – spent more time shopping than taking photographs. Such is the danger of choosing as a subject one of my favourite shopping past-times!

So, this weekend, I returned with determination. Determination to not get distracted by all the glittery, retro, interesting, must-have items on offer. My aim was to capture some of those things in my images. And to capture some of the lovely quirkiness of the stallholders who run this market.

Also, going up and talking to strangers is finally getting easier.