Robert's Ramblings

I've been imagining photographing candles for a while now. Thinking about the different aspects of flame and smoke.

While working today at my desk I became aware of a sweet cinnamon aroma permeating the house. I looked for the source of the smell and all of a sudden I realised the smoke from the incense my daughter was burning would make a very interesting subject.

So armed with a 100mm macro lens and strobe on a sync cord I caught four images before the burning ended and the smoke vanished.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 128 - Incensity'. 1/200 sec at 100mm f/25, ISO 100 + strobe

The problem with HDR is how to manage it!

This image taken here at West Beach, a clump of rotten seaweed is actually 3 images taken 2 stops apart. The role and legitimacy that HDR processing has in photography is beyond the scope of this post but once a digital image maker has chosen this path there is a very big workflow challenge immediately faced.

We now have very good image processing workflow tools such as Aperture and Lightroom which model workflow on non-destructive additive steps. Put simply, we start with our original and each step of process such as tonal, colour, sharpness or touch up is laid out in steps which define how the final image will look without ever changing the original.

With HDR we are in trouble unless care is taken to integrate your HDR tool such as Photoshop or Photomatix into your particular workflow such that the integrity and repeatability of the process can be managed from originals to final rendering.

A good process will achieve the following points:

1. The process should preserve all original images and clearly link them back to the final rendered HDR image.
2. The process should minimise any intermediate images that need to be kept. Preferably there should be none but mostly one intermediate can't be avoided.
3. The HDR process settings should be kept as in-image metadata if possible otherwise a setting file needs to be kept independently for each final.

So why does this matter? With the size of digital raw files now coming from recent 20-40 megapixel cameras it is quite easy to take up to 500MB or more per image in a HDR project. Any process which creates or needs multiple copies will not only burn your hard drive but also make managing your HDR project messy and unwieldy. The second issue is that more often than not you will want to come back to your originals and make a little tweak here or there or produce new rendered final images of different quality or sizes. A well constructed and disciplined workflow will make this easy and not the nightmare it otherwise could become.

Have a play with HDR for a little fun and something new but if you get the bug then get your workflow sorted out quickly or you risk being buried!


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 127 - Rotting Colour'. 0.5+2+8 sec at 17mm f/22, ISO 100 hdr

Where do you keep your prisoners? In your dungeon of course! Well nowadays we call it a cellar and our prisoners are wine, preserves, potatoes, onions and other goodies!

When I grew up our dungeon was this amazing room under the house, full of cobwebs, damp musty smells and produce long forgotten. My parents had stopped going down there due to the stooping required to navigate the awkward steps and so we were sent on occasional errands for one thing or another. If anything down there was forgotten, it stayed that way.

Where we now live we have no dungeon. I'm sure they must have gone out of fashion some time back in the 70s. I miss those musty smells and those cobwebs. The next home we buy will have a dungeon for sure!!

So how do we keep our prisoners captive with no dungeon? In string bags!


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 126 - Captive' 6 sec at 40mm f/16, ISO 100

I love some of the beautiful expressions of cultural and civic pride we have adorned our city with. This sculpture in particular caught my attention a couple of years back and I have only now made an effort to go out of my way to photograph it.

Here's just one of the many quotes that can be read from the rings.

'Going back 50 years ago I recall fond memories of walking down Margaret Street on warm summer evenings and taking in the festive atmosphere created by the Italian families who would sit on their front porches eating, drinking, laughing and talking to one another across the street.'

It was quite busy around 7pm and trying to get a nice long exposure without glaring white car headlights presented a bit of a challenge. In the end I compromised on a high ISO and decreased F-Stop to limit the exposure to 20 seconds.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 125 - Norwood Rings'. 20 sec at 17mm f/10, ISO 800

One of the most self-indulgent investments I have ever made in kitchen appliances is my espresso machine.

Not one of your all singing, all dancing fully automagic button operated machines but a good old fully manual workhorse. First I get to choose the beans I want, next I have to choose how fine to grind. After that comes the question of how deep and how to pack the cup and finally how long to wait between pre-charging and pouring the shot.

It's a very engaging process with so many variables coming together for the perfect cup!

This photo was taken at a very slow shutter speed for maximum natural lighting with a bit of fill flash behind a soft diffuser to freeze the pour and bring out the highlights.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 124 - Expressions of Coffee'. 1/3 sec at 100mm f/4.5, ISO 100 + fill strobe

Yeah I know this one's a little clichéd and something you are more than not likely to find on some evangelical pamphlet but there it was this evening and how could I not pull over, grab my camera and take a few shots.

I'm not sure this type of image qualifies as a sunset. That was at least an hour or more away. Seascape or sunscape or evangelical pamphlet cover; call it what you will, it was certainly a beautiful sight.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 123 - Sunbeams'. 1/250 sec at 40mm f/11, ISO 100

I wanted to take a photo of the beautiful orange gerberas that Jennifer bought but I also wanted to do it in a way I have never tried before.

My aim was to create an image of a beautifully and evenly lit bloom in a perfectly black background (in the camera an not in Photoshop). To achieve this I knew I had to strobe light the flower as brightly as possible so that not only would all natural lighting be eliminated but also all the ambient reflected light from the strobe would also be so dim as to be eliminated.

This required three things, I had to get the flower as close to the lens as possible, I had to make the exposure as slow as possible and I had to use as much strobe power as possible.

After many attempts I almost gave up. When the strobe was very close the the flower was unevenly lit, when too far away or diffused the background was lit up in the image. What I needed was a macro strobe which is a circular ring of flash which circles the lens creating even light from all sides.

In the end I solved the problem by firing the strobe 4 times for the same image. Once from the left, the right, the bottom and the top. It worked so well I am looking forward to trying this technique in other challenging situations.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 122 - Happy Gee'.1/200 sec at 34mm f/22, ISO 200 + composite strobe

I have been resisting the temptation for quite some time now to play with High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging. Tonight in a moment of weakness I finally succumbed, found a nice quiet dark location and captured multiple exposures.

For the uninitiated, the naive and the innocent, HDR is a technique where a set of identical frames are captured over a wide exposure range. The underexposed images capture bright objects such as streetlights, lit windows and reflections. The overexposed images capture the the detail in the shadows. The images in between help to reconstruct the relationship between them all and enhance the details in the mid tones.

Now armed with my set of exposures ranging from 2 seconds to 2 minutes I can use software to reconstruct a single image by getting the best detail from each one. Trey Ratcliff has a great tutorial here 'hdr tutorial'.

As with most things, good things in moderation and so it applies to HDR. I can see how it could get out of hand so for now I'll just dabble a little and see where this goes.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 121 - The Square'. 2+8+30+120 secs at 17mm f/11.0, ISO 1000 hdr

I am a bit disturbed at the size of this cow relative to the chicken. Well at least I from this point of view anyway.

Small realistic figurines placed in an environment normally associated with the full size object create some really odd perspectives. This pair of stall mascots at our local weekend market make it all the more strange with the dramatic scale difference between themselves.

Shots like this one are easy when you are prepared to physically change your perspective through position. Don't be shy to lie flat on the ground to see things from an unusual angle though I don't recommend doing it in the middle of a busy highway without taking the necessary precautions!


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 120 - Market Mascots'. 1/8000 sec at 21mm f/4.0, ISO 400 Crop

How many of us remember the old 'Oils Ain't Oils' advertisements 'back in the day'. Well, we won't be pouring this lovely golden oil into our cars but it will sure go well in our bodies!

Today we tasted this beautiful and fruity 'Extra Virgin' first press olive oil from Sorrells Vineyard and Winery down in Currency Creek, SA. I learned a little about the different varieties of olive which can be used to make olive oil and discovered that this oil was blended from Koroeniki, Mediterreanean, Kalamata and Moraki varieties.

It's obvious in hindsight that different varieties of olives do exist and of course will have different flavours and colours. Walk down any supermarket aisle in the oils section and you will see labels such as 'cold pressed', 'extra virgin', 'light' and a plethora of brand names but I have no recollection of ever having noticed a variety.

Remember how once all red wine was called 'claret'? Yet now we absolutely must know what's in the bottle! Let's hope that we see more of this in other foods. The more you know about something, the more you will enjoy it.

Sol was so right those many years ago as he preached that 'Oils Ain't Oils'.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 119 - Oils Ain't Oils'. 1/1000 sec at 40mm f/4.0, ISO 400 Crop

Munch, munch, munch ... Somthing was having a go at my Chili bush which now proudly displays it's first baby chili.

This thief clearly knows the dangers and was keeping clear of my Bhut Jolokia (see my earlier post, '366 Days of 2012, Day 93 - The Bhut Jolokia') so instead sough to denude it, much by much, leaf by leaf.

Having been discovered and mug shot taken, the thief was quickly shown the door!


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 118 - Chili Thief'. 13 secs at 200mm f/32, ISO 400 + Strobe

All great construction projects begin with the best building materials. In this case they are irregularly cut, orange and mushy but still the best for the task.

As far as I am concerned nothing beats 'Queensland Blue' for pumpkin soup! And my, was it tasty!


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 117 - Soup Construction Site'. 2 secs at 105mm f/22, ISO 100

There's a cookie thief in the house! Fresh from the oven, not even cold yet and there is a painfully obvious empty space on the tray.

Ok, I confess that it was me. Guilty as charged but I swear it was in the name of photographic composition. The tray simply did not look right with every biscuit neatly lined up in rows.

So thank you Jennifer for your wonderfully yummy Anzac Biscuits on this day we take to remember Australia's Anzacs.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 116 - Anzac Biscuit Mystery'. 5 secs at 105mm f/20, ISO 100

When it doesn't rain, it pours and when it doesn't pour it drips ...


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 115 - H to Zero'. 1/200 sec at 100mm f/22, ISO 100, + strobe

I finally found a dry and cosy place to take photos on this cold, rainy, wintry evening: under the new King Street bridge.

For most of 2011 many locals lamented the closure of the old King Street bridge. So it was a wonderful relief back in January when the new bridge restored normality. A few weeks ago I was surprised and delighted to discover that the bridge had changing colour feature lighting. I knew then that I'd be back with my camera sooner or later!

As it turned out it was 'later' but no longer risks being never!


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 114 - Cosy Under King Street'. 30 secs at 24mm f/22, ISO 400

Goodbye to our wonderful Indian summer and greet in its place the wintery wet weather for cormorants (much more elegant than ducks) that has descended on us this weekend.

This Little Black Cormorant ,Phalacrocorax sulcirostris seems quite at home here at West Beach. Clearly the photographer is more the concern than the rain!


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 113 - Weather for Cormorants'. 1/1000 sec at 200mm f/2.8, ISO 400

Humanity has spent centuries trying to turn coffee beans into the perfect cup of coffee. What could be more perfect than this!


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 112 - Beanz Meanz Caffeine'. 10 secs at 105mm f/22, ISO 400

Fillet of a fenny snake, scale of dragon, grind them smooth then into the pot! Double, double, toil and trouble fire burn and cauldron bubble ...

Well perhaps the ingredients for our pot won't be quite so exotic as the three witches from Shakespeare's Macbeth but I'm sure they will be put to equally good effect but in a much nicer way!!

This shot involved sophisticated studio lighting to great effect. The exorbitant sum of $1 for two candles!


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 111 - Grind Them Smooth'. 30 secs at 40mm f/16, ISO 1000

There must be more to life than just chewing bones and sniffing crotches? I can just imagine the serious contemplation in Tin Tin's philosophical reverie.

'The Dawg', is getting on a little now and seems to spend more and more time in such ponderous contemplation of all things canine. That being said it is almost impossible to share such moments with him, camera or not as any attention will turn back into a play, walk or food obsessed puppy again and the moment is gone.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 110 - The Dawg'. 1/10 secs at 200mm f/5.0, ISO 400

It seems our home has become a bit of a fast food outlet to a host of random visitors. The most colourful so far have been the Rainbow Lorikeets, Trichoglossus haematodus.

Both this morning and late evening these noisy squabbling parrots fought and ate and fought some more over the sweet nectar of the palm flowers in bloom.

I love the way the sun just happened to sneak through a gap and bring out the colours in the eye of this one taking a short break from the feast to eye me off.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 109 - Rainbow Visitor'. 1/1000 secs at 200mm f/2.8, ISO 800

Tonight's guest comes courtesy of the warm evening, the bugs outside the window and a yell from Jennifer exclaiming something cute to behold.

My first reaction was to grab my camera and take a few quick shots holding the camera as steady as I could just in case the visitation was fleeting.

It soon became apparent it was more interested in the bugs than me giving me plenty time to clean the inside of the glass, set up the tripod and take my time with the camera settings.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 108 - Gecko Glue'. 5 secs at 105mm f/8.0, ISO 800

I have finally found a flower that makes my brain hurt! Neville and Elizabeth are well known for their prize winning dahlias and this beautiful example shows why.

So why does this flower make my brain hurt? Try this; stare directly into the centre of the flower for about 30 seconds and then look away to one side. When I do this I find the larger petals explode in my peripheral vision.

Perhaps it's just me. Let me know how you go.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 107 - Hot Pink'. 1/60 sec at 110mm f/2.8, ISO 1000

Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 106 - Up and Away'. 30 secs at 24mm f/5.6, ISO 400

Flowers are definitely overrated so I thought I'd change perspective.

I started out with the idea of taking a macro photo of the centre of a yellow chrysanthemum, but all of the resulting images simply looked like broccoli gone terribly wrong!

Then I noticed the subtle contrasts of the edge of the petals against the soft out-of-focus petals behind. The effect was simply stunning and I did what every self-respecting child would do: I threw the broccoli in the waste when no one was looking!

Enjoy yellow!


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 105 - Yellow'. 15 secs at 200mm f/16, ISO 400

I remember a time when I could not wait to own my very own watch. To an eleven-year-old boy, watches held an incredible fascination. I could not say which held the greater part of my awareness: the exquisite craftsmanship, the precision manufacturing, the sense of some control over time or the sense of affluence.

My first watch when I was twelve was a hand-wound Citizen, a symbolic confirmation gift from my parents. I remember I was so proud of it. However that very same year was the cusp of change as friends began sporting new LED display digital watches. From that moment on I was torn between tradition and technology.

It was many years before I came back to a watch with real hands even though still electronic and it was many more years again before finally abandoning electronics altogether with a purely mechanical timepiece. The irony now is I no longer even wear a watch as almost every gadget around does the job of showing the time for me.

Although I'm now officially timeless I still love the craftsmanship, the precision and the engineering of a well-made timepiece. From time to time I might even wear one!


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 104 - Timeless'. 10 secs at 200mm f/22, ISO 400

So anybody want to guess the original? And yes this is severely cropped.

Abstract realism is very simply achieved in macro photography where you are so close to the image that it is no longer recognisable. I think that good examples of this style attempt to find that borderline where once you realise the original object you still drift back and forth between the real and the abstract. Too close to the original and once seen that is all you notice. Too far from the original and you just don't see it even when told.

When you get that sweet spot right in the middle it just makes your brain wobble and if that was your intention then well done!

I like this image of salad in bowl covered by a mosquito net because it does just that, makes my head wobble. The netting looks like chicken-wire but is only sharp in the middle. The salad inside is so blurred but also so strong that my attention keeps getting drawn into and out of the space.

How was your guess?


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 103 - Abstract Realism'. 1/640 sec at 105mm f/4.0, ISO 100

Long shadows and soft yellow lighting make for great photos. Every photographer knows this but why? And how can we use 'why' to make better images?

Immediately we hit that value-based word 'better'. So if you follow the progression we really need to come back to 'good'. We hit another issue, 'good for what'? So we come back to who the audience is. That's where it all falls apart because the entire argument expands out again. Apologies for being so philosophical, but I find questions are the only way to really learn.

Ok, so back to the image. I am the audience and the image evokes in me a moody, slow bustle because of its lighting and its movement. The image is out of the ordinary as I do not usually perceive in shallow depth of field or in marginal silhouette. There are strong features which grab my attention but nothing so overpowering to detract from the entire scene as one piece.

Because this description is how I feel and perceive the image it can only be taken as my opinion. Your perceptions will be yours but you might find some of my observations useful.

Coming back full circle to long shadow and soft yellow lighting: for me it's about 'out of the ordinary'. It's about the visual treat different from everyday perceptions.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 102 - Late Afternoon'. 1/2000 sec at 200mm f/2.8, ISO 1600

Along the Northern Expressway is a deserted farm house I have wanted to photograph for some time now. Each time I have zoomed past in a hurry to something more important I have noticed the different aspects of the place as the lighting is always different.

Tonight I chose to stop and take some images just as the low afternoon sun came out from behind the clouds. The images I took were too contrasted between highlights and shadows losing detail at both ends. In the end I selected the interesting wave shape of the old corrugated roof for today's image.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 101 - Rustic Wave'. 1/800 sec at 90mm f/7.1, ISO 400

There is a bitter sweetness to that first cracking of the shell. That once beautiful, unblemished egg-shaped form of chocolate can't deliver its gift until it is shattered and broken into pieces.

No longer the visual feast and now cracked and broken its giving of pleasure will last only as long as the last mouthful.

When we were children we made our eggs last all year, carefully spacing out their consumption to the very last. Now we share only one or two, enjoy their beauty before they break and relish the bitter sweetness before Easter is gone.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 100 - Chocolate Eggquake'. 1/2 sec at 105mm f/6.3, ISO 400

It seems your can't avoid chocolate at Easter so why settle for anything less than utter indulgence.

Rather than bunnies, bilbies, eggs and bars we got to indulge in Lachlan MacKinnon's incredible chocolate melange creation.

After than well ... actually I won't say no to more Eater chocolate!


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 99 - Easter Treat'. 1/8 sec at 105mm f/4.5, ISO 2500