A tough life

I know that this is going to sound kind of cliched but I have to take my hat off to the guys and girls who have chosen rodeo as their sport. Some events are as extreme as they come! I have been to many rodeos over the years and have seen some amazing rides and thankfully only a relatively few injuries.

On 6 March I went to the 2010 Queanbeyan Rodeo, held at the Queanbeyan Showground, NSW Australia. The rodeo starts at around 4:00pm in the afternoon and then goes on until about 9:00pm at night. They wheel in a number of large industrial lighting plants to light the action. Unfortunately whilst it is ok for the viewing public for photographers it is dreadful. So once the sun had gone down I put the camera down and just watched the spectacle. Below are a number of the better shots I took. You can see them full size at flicker DiMAGE photography .

Joel worked hard to win this one. The cool thing about the light when I was taking these pictures was that it was down low in the sky coming from behind me. A beautiful golden colour and with the reflection back from the yellow shute gates you couldn't ask for better!

One of the things about an extreme sport like bull riding is that you don't always get the luxury of getting off the way you would want as Luke found out.


My favourite shot of the day was this one. Sam Hill did an amazing job of wrestling his steer. Not enough to win the event but a great time all the same. Love the way his horse has it's ears pinned back!

Young at heart!

I had the pleasure of photographing the "Might Mirinjani" participants in the 2009 YMCA Senior Sports Carnival at the Mpowerdome on Wednesday 6 May 2009. This group of athletes are residents at the Mirinjani Nursing home in Canberra and they were competing against athletes from other nursing homes throughout Canberra and district.


It was a fun day and I was amazed at the fierceness of the competition that they showed. I thought these guys were supposed to have been elderly and frail! No way. When it comes to skittles, javelin tossing, wheelchair races and hot potatoes these guys are awesome.


Look at the fierce determination on Doris's face as she does her best to knock over the skittles. After she knocked the skittles over I had to duck for cover otherwise I would have been injured! Her companion in this team competition was Jean. Don't let that slight frame fool you she was deadly accurate and came away with a medal from this competition.




Jean went for the over arm throw whereas Doris used an underarm style. Both were very accurate. They were throwing bean bags which are not the most aerodynamic missiles. They had to knock down six tins off a table about 2 metres in front of where they were sitting. Great work guys.




Muriel was given the task of representing the team in the javelin toss. Ok it was a modified version of this sport given we were indoors and there were heaps of people around, some who don't move as quickly as they used to... but hey this was serious stuff.






Dianna shows her determined style with the bean bag toss. The idea was to toss a bean bag into a basket. It was a team sport time event. Each team member had to toss two bean bags and see if they could get it in the basket. The team with the most baskets at the end of the time was the winner. The action was fast and furious.

The bike shot

I've been on at my brother John for a long time to bring his bike over so that I can photograph him (well the bike really because when Mum and Dad were handing out the good looks lets just say I got first dibs!). Its one of his pride and joys so I wanted to do it real justice.

I've had this lighting idea in mind for a long time and have been keen to give it a whirl. Basically I want to get John to appear out of the blackness behind the bike which is strongly (but softly) lit with a nice cool light. To get the effect of him appearing out of the darkness I really only want to highlight two features - his face (one that only his Mother could love - just kidding) and his helmet, 'cause it matches the colour of the bike.


Well lets just say that at the first attempt this didn't work out quite as I wanted it to. Trying to do this indoors with limited space meant I couldn't get the light to drop off as I wanted. No matter we took the time to get some really cool specular highlights on the silver and black of the bike.


To do this we had two shoot through umbrellas at each end of the bike both gelled with CTB (colour temperature blue) gels. To give the bike separation from the background we put two strobes behind, again with CTBs on them. This made the bike stand out nicely.


Things we could do to improve the shot? For a start if the floor were painted black we could have had a more seamless look but we couldn't wait around for the paint to dry on this occasion. Shoot it out doors with a long lens so that we could get the light on the bike and John lit as we wanted. We will come back again and have a go with more time.

How do I see myself?

This is the theme for a self portrait project that Drew Preston (one of DiMAGE photography's photogs) has been working on recently. The final outcome will be Drew's entry into the National Portrait Gallery of Australia's Headspace9: Self identities - making connections exhibition.

Drew has chosen a technically challenging set up for his self portrait by photographing himself reflecting on his image in a mirror. I asked him about his thoughts behind the image.

"I thought that this was a good way to express the theme of the exhibition. Your self identity to me is how you see yourself because you know who you are and what your identity is. The very act of making an image of a self portrait and having others view it creates a connection with your audience."

I asked him how he went about setting up this shot.

"To capture this image I used four strobes (flashes). One was on either side of me at the front facing back toward me. These both had snoots on them to direct the light on to my face. They both had blue gels on them to give the image a cool feel, as if it were dark when the photo was taken. To get the back of my shirt lit I placed the third strobe (flash) directly behind me using a Lumiquest III softbox. Finally I placed the last strobe (flash) behind the mirror with a dark blue gel on it to provide the halo effect around the mirror. To get this to work properly I stuck two pieces of aluminium foil folded so that the light was reflected out to the sides and the top of the mirror."


The image here shows the set up that Drew used to get this image.