Adam Monk Photo Tours & Images Gallery

Don’t forget, the Kimberley Rally to show public opinion about the proposed  James Price Point Gas project is this Sunday, 28th November at 11am.  It is happening at the Cottesloe Civic Centre in Napier St, this is Colin Barnett’s own electorate so it will be interesting to see if he dares to show his face.  Tell everyone you know about it, lets get a bit of public opinion stirred up about this, before it’s too late!

If you care about the Kimberley, and you dont want your heritage destroyed by uncaring greedy fat bastards, you’ll be there.  The proposed Kimberley Gas Project will be an enormous loss for all of us, don’t let them get away with it.

I spent Sunday and Monday this week at a mindblowing two day workshop by Guy Gowan on Photoshop and advanced image retouching.  I thought i knew what i was doing before i went, i thought this would be professional development, where i would add to my knowledge, maybe pick up a few useful tips and tricks to improve my processing skills… Oh, i was so wrong. Read the rest of this entry »

I just had a few days camping around Margaret River, something i haven’t done for ages.  It really is a beautiful place and a very odd site to try and build a coal mine…

The first couple of days were a bit rainy and grey, which is the perfect weather for stuff like this…

Weathered Wood

Shot on the 5D Mk II with that really cool 17mm f4L tilt shift lens i keep writing about.  Seems its almost permanently glued to the camera these days, in fact most times i seem to leave the rest of my camera gear at home or in the car (heavily locked and secured of course).  I just love the texture of the weathered wood in this shot, it was really  an experiment to see just how much depth i could get with the lens tilt and an extremely close subject, and this old gnarly tree was a great subject.  By tilting the lens so the focal plane was parallel with the tree trunk i was able to keep all of it pin sharp while dropping out the background very nicely, its almost like having a field camera again, but not as big or clumsy.

By Friday afternoon the weather started to clear and i found myself down at Redgate beach again, where the sunset was just amazing!

Clearing sky at sunset, Redgate Beach

I had brought a very heavy bag with all my Canon gear and the 6×17 down with me (and mostly left it in the car), and although my brain told me i should take out the 6×17 and use that… stitching not being so great for beaches and moving waves… i just couldn’t bring myself to do it.  Really i needed 2 tripods set up next to each other so i could shoot with both at once, oh yeah, and an assistant to carry all this gear, and a second assistant to set it all up…  Working on these lovely clean digital files has really spoiled me, its hard to go back to spending hours dusting huge scans, removing fingerprints and chemical smears that turn into whole continents when enlarged to 100%… maybe i need an assistant for that too…

This image is of course shot with the canon 5D Mk II and the  17mm f4L tilt shift lens… its actually one image of a 7 or 8 image stitch, which i haven’t done yet.  i’ll play around in the coming days and see if i can get it to work, stay tuned.

Well today Shell Oil announced it had sold 30% of its controlling stake in Woodside Petroleum (10% of the total shares on issue), and they are open to offers for their remaining 24% stake.  You might remember Woodside is one of the major players in the current bid to turn James Price Point into a major industrial precinct and is a big favourite of Colin Barnett. (The Australian.  The Melbourne Age.)

Now whether or not this fire sale has anything to do with the building groundswell of resistance to this current land grab at James Price Point is anybodies guess, but it is interesting timing, could it be that Shell no longer wants to be a part of such un unpopular and imoral project?

The case or not, its good incentive to add your voice to the fray by coming down to the Kimberley Rally at the  Cottesloe Civic Centre on Sunday the 28th of November at 11am.  Check out the info here.  Its going to be a great day of positive action, come along and find out whats going on and what you can do about the proposed Kimberley Gas Project.  You don’t have to chain yourself to a bulldozer to help, there are many things you can do to get your voice heard, come along on the 28th and be a part of it.  I’ll be there, I’ll be the one wearing the orange T-shirt!

Phew, what a weekend!

The Perfect Printing photography workshop concluded last night, after 2 days of intensive hands on digital printing and workflow down in lovely Margaret River.

Greg making a point

I would like to thank all the participants for making the course such a success, and an extra special thankyou to Trevor from Team Digital, who came down for the Saturday with a whole car load of toys, including Eizo Screens, screen calibrators, a awesome Epson 3880 printer, a whole selection of new Cancon paper and canvas to try, a Gigapan and the Phase One.  He certainly worked hard for his lunch that day with a whole room full of  enthusiastic participants firing hard questions his way.

Screen Profiling with Trevor

There was a wide range of experience levels within the course, and Greg and I tried to ensure we aimed our talks so everybody got something out of them. We then modified the planned presentations according to the discussions from the day before and the most common questions being asked, there was even a couple of impromptu info sessions to ensure everyone understood the concepts behind the topics, and a couple of bonus discussions on Photoshop tweaks and tricks.

Me talking with my hands

I do hope everyone enjoyed themselves and found this 3 day printing workshop fulfilling and useful,  any feedback from course participants would be most welcome right here on the blog, so dont be shy!