New photography Images by Photographer Adam Monk

I was looking through some  folders on my computer the other day (while i was supposed to be working) and i came across my images from Brasil that i shot several years ago and have never done anything with.  I have been promising friends over there that these would end up on the website, and so far there has always been too much to do to actually do anything about it.  Well, i’m an expert procrastinator, so while i was supposed to be doing other things i sat down and worked up this image a bit.

I came across the old barman of Parati-Brasil, while walking through some magic coastal bush just out of a 15th century town of Parati (pronounced Para-chi).  The trail went out around some headlands covered in South American rainforest that ran right down to the waters edge, the coastline was craggy and beautiful with many inlets and deep, steep sided bays.

It wasn’t a particularly long or difficult hike, the path was pretty flat and the views were stunning, but it was certainly wilderness.

After about 4 hours of walking we suddenly came across this tiny house perched on the side of the hill at the waters edge, amongst the trees, and a bar… Yes, a bar.

Not quite what i had been expecting, but the beer was cold and welcome, and the barman had a great face.  If the face is the map of a persons life, this guy had been lots of places!  I had my Hasselblad XPan on this trip, its my standard travel camera, or was (until the 5D came along), and although not the usual portrait format i like the details of the mans life and work around him, it adds context.

I’m sorry to say i have forgotten his name, but i will always remember the experience

All  the images on my site are shot on large format film, except one… can you pick it?   I have many thousands of negatives of all formats from 5″x4″ to 35mm in folders all over the place… so much for organised security!

I’ve had a lot of fun with film, and used more than my fair share of it over the years.  Time i moved on, so,  about 8 months ago  i bought my first real digital camera, a Canon 5D Mk II  and  i am loving it.  I recently took it with me to Greece and i just had a ball, shooting HDR images (manually blended with layers) and stitched Panos with this awesome  pano head from Really Right Stuff that i picked up a while back.  This camera is not just my first real digital, its my first camera with auto focus!  I’ve been sitting on the fence for quite a while it seems.

The last 35mm gear i had was a Leica RE with a whole bag of beautiful prime lenses, all manual focus and full manual exposure.  I think the camera had some auto exposure functions on it, but i never used them, so i have no idea if they worked or not.  I just sold this camera recently, it’s helping pay for the new setup.

I remember 12 years ago when i worked for Fremantle Black & White (Black & White lab here in Freo), and using one of the first serious professional digital cameras in the studio, it was about 1.5 mega pixels and hugely expensive.  It had a viewing screen the size of a postage stamp and was awfully slow, but even then it was clearly the way forward, though it had a long way to go.

Check out the depth of field

A couple of days ago i picked up the latest addition for the Canon 5D Mk II kit, a 17mm f4L Tilt Shift lens. its a bit more like what i’m used to, being a prime lens with manual focus.  Although it’s really designed for architectural style work, the tilt and shift capabilities make it ideal for landscape due to the almost infinite depth of field possible.  I took it down to South Beach yesterday after work and had a bit of a play around, takes a bit of getting used to, but i think its going to be awesome for stitching pano images.

I think it’ll still be a while before i replace the 6 x 17 film camera, but not because i think it’s better than digital, rather, i can’t yet afford the camera that can replace it.  Anybody want to lend me $50,000?

Both these images shot at f5.6

Sydney is such a beautiful place it’s hard not to take photos, and the clouds this afternoon were spectacular… Now where is that permit…

Tomorrow it is back to normality.

This image is Manly Pool in Sydney,  shot on the Canon 5D Mk II with the 16-35mm f2.8L lens at 16mm.

Manly Pool with looming sky