Shaun Johnston

Last weekend was the beginning of Brisbane’s River Festival, which is traditionally celebrated with a huge half hour pyrotechnic display along the Brisbane River, called Riverfire.

In order to prepare to photograph this event, the Brisbane Meetup flickr group organised a location to meet early at, so that we could hold the area for photography at the right time. I scouted out a location the preceding day and posted a Google Map with my preferred locations, and we worked from there.

I have borrowed a Graflex Speed Graphic from a good friend Greg in Toowoomba and was keen to test out some colour slide film in it, so I figured Riverfire was an ideal event to give it a shot.

The Graflex Anniversary Speed Graphic is a WW2 era press camera - a large format beast which takes sheets of 4″ x 5″ film. The lens I put on it is a Staeble Magnogon 105mm copy / process lens, salvaged from a long-dismantled process camera.

The location we ended up choosing was Wilson’s Lookout above the cliffs behind the Story Bridge. Several group members arrived there at 10am on the day, while Kane, a fellow photography enthusiast, and myself arrived there at about 11am. We had partitioned a small area at a clear corner of the park, which allowed us to set up our tripods between the fence and the cliffs themselves, giving us a nice interrupted view with no risk of bumping from children or what-have-you. Much discussion of camera gear, and consuming of beverages and snacks ensued. By about midday other people and photographers started rocking up, and by about 5 it was quite thick with people.

I composed my shot an hour or so before the fireworks started using the ground glass finder, and weighed my Manfrotto tripod (with a ball head) down with a weighted bag full of camera gear. I then was free to load the sheet film at will and expose using bulb / timer. It was quite a sturdy setup.

As I had already prepared the shot, once the first dump and burn was imminent all that was required was for me to load a sheet holder into the camera, crank the shutter to close the curtain, pull out the film holder blind, and wait for the right moment. The only uncertainty was the exposure time, which I guesstimated and agonised a little over in the week before I had the film processed at Pro Lab.

It turns out I had nothing to worry about.

I bused into Pro Lab yesterday morning and tentatively handed in my film holders, and was told they would be ready be 4pm. Once 4pm rocked around I picked them up and had a look at them in the lightbox room. My jaw dropped.

I had never seen a 4×5 transparency on a lightbox before, and I was still worried at that point that I may have overexposed. However, my fears were completely unfounded as the above photograph shows.

Here are my photographs from the night. Each of these may be clicked to open a new window with a wallpaper-sized version.

The Brisbane Flickr group I’m a part of had a lunch meet on Saturday at the Caxton, followed by coffee at the Powerhouse, during which we caught up on gear acquisitions and took random portraits of one another. Before we left Fortitude Valley we went up to the cliffs for sunset and blue hour (the hour after sunset). Most of us took panoramas and landscapes of the city but since I didn’t have my tripod with me I improvised (shot below).

The following morning we met up at about 4:30am at Fingal Head on the Northern NSW coast for a dawn shoot and light painting (long exposure photography using torches or flashes to illuminate subjects - in this case the lighthouse at Fingal Head). I didn’t take part in the light painting but took a few shots during and after dawn.

As usual, each of the images opens up to a wallpaper size version if clicked.

In a nutshell:

1. Melbourne’s traffic is crazy (hook turns aplenty), but somehow seems more pedestrian friendly than Brisbane. Much larger footpaths in the CBD.
2. There are a hell of a lot of little alleys with cafes, and many alleys with decidedly more dodgy things.
3. The Great Ocean Road is spectacular, Torquay is a dusty glary overpriced mediocre town, Port Campbell is much nicer … amazing picturesque sheltered bay, nice cafes.
4. Warrnambool is a very well maintained, beautiful town with many beautiful buildings. If I had more time I would have taken some photos there.
5. Bojangles Pizza in Warrnambool is highly recommended. Far from being a stock standard pizza takeaway, it is a friendly dine-in and takeaway establishment providing quality service, decent prices and spectacular fare.
6. There are many chocolate shops in Melbourne
7. Max Brenner is Satan incarnate.
8. If you ever have the opportunity to see and Iron Maiden show once in your life, take it. F-cking Awesome. Twenty foot flames, pyrotechnics, and an 8 Foot Eddie walking around the stage, anyone? Not to mention Bruce Dickinson’s downright amazing vocals and stage presence, and a nearly-thirty-year back catalogue of classics. Brilliant.
9. Go to Imax and see a 3D movie. Doesn’t matter which one, just give it a shot. Also, the museum is great - okapis and live funnelwebs!
10. Next time I’m going for longer

Here’s a photo from the great ocean road - more to come later.

Buy a print at RedBubble

We swapped over our internet connection yesterday to a 150gb TPG plan. I’ve been getting ’status’ emails from them letting me know how the setup is going. The connection should be active on Wednesday, at which time I will upload some photographs I took from the flickr meetup on the weekend.

In the meantime I have been experimenting photographing my slides with a macro lens plus closeup filter. It seems to do the job pretty well, though I think I need to get another closeup filter in order to fill my 400D’s frame. Currently I get a 1950 pixel high image from a 35mm slide (my camera allows for a height of just under 2600 pixels). I’ve been doing it in relative darkness, using a lightbox and covering for the area around the slide. Even with this setup it’s still quicker than using my scanner, and there is so much less noise. Also, there is the distinct advantage of being able to shoot it raw and adjust the colour balance etc afterwards, and when I run a USM I am pretty much getting grain level sharpness (though the slides were taken with a cheapie kodak camera in the 60s so they are quite soft). I’m actually pretty impressed.

We arrived at the new office in milton this morning to find the removalists hadn’t reassembled our desks. It took us about 2 hours to put them together using rudimentary tools, but in the end it worked out. There’s still a lot to do but the new office is coming together nicely. We met our manaccom compadrés who seems like a bunch of nice chaps and lasses, and had a bbq later in the afternoon. I’m liking the vibe thus far.

Once there was an Aerobie that liked to soar high into the stratosphere or glide for hundreds of feet at eye level, crashing brutally into the back of unsuspecting heads.

Alas, one day this Aerobie flew too high, crashed too hard, and snapped.  He is now known as Old Snappy.  His rubber still holds him together, but he is quite worn and cranky. Yesterday after a seemingly innocuous throw, he exerted his fury upon my face, opening my cheek (’tis but a scratch). Now there are quiet voices of dissent, whispering that Old Snappy should be put out to pasture. Mine, regrettably, is one of those voices.

Every Thursday night I go to trivia with a bunch of friends at Morningside RSL, and we achieve varying levels of success. Tonight we ended up 4th out of I believe 12 teams, with 91 points out of 100. There were some interesting questions (eg. Where did Paddington bear come from?), but unfortunately there was a whole round on Television, out of which I was able to answer practically nothing. Hopefully better luck next week.