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2012 Retrospective

It’s hard to believe another year has already rolled around. It doesn’t feel that long ago that I was writing a post this time last year with photos from 2011.

This year my photography increased quite a bit over the previous year partly due to a little side project called the Art of Baking that I’ve setup with my girlfriend (more on this towards the end). I’m happy with the direction my photography is going in. Probably like you, I’m never happy with my photography and there’s always a little thing or two that bugs me when I go to look back as the months pass. But finally I feel that I have a grip on the processing and composition where it’s feeling natural and isn’t just riding the current trend like others are known for. I love with photography that there’s always room for improvement and we’re constantly learning and developing. This is what keeps me coming back to apply new things and styles I’ve learnt.

Some of these things I’ve learnt throughout the years I’ve tried to document in various articles on this blog. Just in case you missed any here’s a recap with links through to the articles:

 

Bay of Fires, Tasmania

The year started off on a huge high for me photographically speaking. I’d spent a lot of time as a kid around the St Helen’s/Bay of Fires area when I wasn’t into photography so it was always high on my list to take some photos around there with nice light and colour in the sky. My family booked a holiday house up there after the New Year and we spent a few days up there. We spent a lot of time as kids around Beerbarrel Beach catching waves on our foam boogie boards at the time. It’s some of my favourite memories so it was nice to go back with camera in hand and get some photos. This was the result from a spectacular sunset one evening.

Aami Park

After coming home from a few weeks in Tasmania over the New Year, I was itching to take a photo of Aami Park on sunset when an A-League soccer (err… football rather) game was on to capture the stadium all lit up. Lucky for me I didn’t realise they used fireworks upon a goal being scored. It was a nice way to start the year shooting in Melbourne.

Docklands, Melbourne

Photo Mingling

Last year I tried to make an effort to meet new photographers as it’s always nice to meet others that share our odd obsession for standing around as our cameras expose for a long exposure. After many emails back and forth I met Jon Sander, a talented designer from Melbourne. We shot a few times throughout the year and are hoping to pull our socks up and do it at least once a month over 2013. Here’s hoping! PS, you owe me a beer Jon 😉

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Daily Carry

This year I tried to make an effort to carry my camera when riding to work or visiting friends for lunch of a weekend to capture things I might normally capture with my iPhone/Galaxy S3 on Instagram. These were a  couple of my favourite photos captured from randomly carrying my camera over the year.

 

Double Exposure Blending Tutorial

I’m always eager to read about new techniques whether it be in camera or in photoshop. One of these techniques was creating a double exposure blend which I created a tutorial about on YouTube. It’s a neat little trick that is worth a try if you have a close up photo of yourself and an image to blend over the top.

Landscapes and a Slight Mishap…

I also shot quite a bit with Ben Jensz over the year. Ben is someone I met when I first moved to Melbourne. We’ve tried to get around recent ish places to Melbourne as much as we can and this year was no exception. Although not shooting as much we would have liked, we got some photos in at Cape Schanck and various water falls around Victoria.

But there was one slight hiccup for me this year. The day my camera fell and went for a swim. It was all set up ready to capture a photo of Turpin Falls and was exposing for the minute until mid way through the exposure it somehow moved and fell into the water. As you can imagine I was devastated and had the camera inspected by Canon who declared it dead. Cutting my losses I quickly bought another Canon 5D Mark II to replace the camera so I could get back out shooting again and put the loss behind me. Sucks.

This was a photo of Turpin Falls captured just before the camera slipped and fell into the water…

But as I said, a replacement camera wasn’t far away and I quickly made sure to order a new one. Here I am with my baby 😉

Last Couple of the Year

Unfortunately there wasn’t a whole lot of shooting towards the end of the year and here’s a couple from December at Park Beach and Clifton Beach both in Tasmania.

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 Art of Baking

We’ve had a lot of fun with the project with a rising amount of traffic coming through and features in a couple of local magazines. I’ve found it quite challenging shooting with lights due to the obvious difference over my normal style of long exposure photography. But for the most part it’s been a fun project that I’ve really enjoyed doing with Rani. Without her baking prowess it would be nothing. I’ve tried to separate the baking photos by presenting them at the end. Be sure to check out our little blog.

 Thanks!

And that’s it for another year. Thanks for all your continual support over the year. It never goes unnoticed and I appreciate it a lot. I hope you had a great year.

You might also be interested in my 2010 Retrospective and 2011 Retrospective posts from previous years.

If you have any comments or just feel like saying hi, be sure to drop a line. I always look forward to hearing from people so don’t be a stranger.

Thanks,

– Alex

12 thoughts on “2012 Retrospective

  1. That’s a great selection of photos from 2012, Alex.
    It was great to finally catch up with you a couple of months ago, and hopefully we will get a chance to do it again this year.
    Wishing you all the best in your photographic endeavours in 2013.

    1. Thanks Martin!

      Agreed, it was great to finally meet after all these years. I’m hoping we can get another chance to catch up over 2013 and get some seascape and waterfalls photos in with Ben. Be sure to let us know when you’re next over this way 🙂

      All the best for 2013. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with this year.

      – Alex

  2. Awesome as usual Alex. Shame you never had the time when up in Syd.. ill convince you to get up here again to go shooting 🙂

    1. We definitely will Jack! Don’t you worry! 🙂

  3. Great photos Alex! Your images continue to inspire me to look at the world differently and more creatively. Keep inspiring!

    1. Thanks Steven for the kind words. All the best for 2013 🙂

  4. awesome retrospective mate, didn’t realise how much you’ve been nailing those food shoots, quality!

    1. Thanks Jon! Here’s to another year of getting out with the camera.

  5. Hi Alex,

    Love the post, my favourites are the neat shots in and around Melbourne. I definitely need to get out and photograph this city more! I also just got back from Tasmania over Christmas and found some great photo opportunities down there. Do you mind if I ask what filters you were using for some of your seascapes, they’re amazing!

    Lisa

    1. Glad you found it 🙂 There’s also this one which is a guide to daytime long exposures.

    2. Thanks Lisa for the lovely words. Melbourne definitely is a great place to live and photo but I’m the same and can sometimes get a little lazy when it comes to getting out and photographing it.

      Glad you had a nice time in Tas 🙂 I had a look at the photos on your website when you were in Tas and they are beautiful. Great work!

      – Alex

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