Syntax's Gallery - Updated 09/08/2011 some boring couples shots... no cars here :(

[Syntax error]

Sad news but at the end of the day it's a business. If the publics attitude doesn't change I could find myself in a similar boat to you after my college and potentially Uni courses. On the other hand I am excited to see what you'll do now it's just a hobby.

Also the images above are fantastic as usual, I'm a sucker for a landscape with fog.

I wouldn’t worry too much yet Tom. There are plenty of other ways to turn a coin in photography. It just depends on what you specialize in, how you market yourself and manage your business. In your position, I would definitely do some business courses (if you’re not already doing so) as one of the important things to remember is that 90% of it is business, the other 10% is the photography.

I’ll definitely keep the shots coming, I have a few ideas in mind of things I’d like to shoot, I guess I’ll probably have a little more time now for personal projects.

 

[Cano]

Sad, but I can completely understand your business vs life point of view, Syntax, specially with low income, and trust me, I deal with that the whole freaking time. I'll be looking at what you whip up from here on, but I'll sure miss your track stuff.

 

[Syntax error]

Sad, but I can completely understand your business vs life point of view, Syntax, specially with low income, and trust me, I deal with that the whole freaking time. I'll be looking at what you whip up from here on, but I'll sure miss your track stuff.

Thanks Cano. I have to admit I do miss the track a bit, but I've been so busy with other things in life this past few weeks that I guess it makes up for it. I've done little to no shooting actually apart from when I went on a holiday and even those were mostly just family snaps so I won't bore you all with those. I did dig a few shots out for the current photo comp which I took at the World time attack challenge earlier this year. I think some un-edited versions of them might have been on display in my flickr previously, but I decided that the shots could do with a little more pazzaz. Anyway here are a few shots of the Unique Autosport 300zx:

 

[GPR]

Nice shots there Syntax, I especially like 2 and 3. The softness of tone and light looks awesome. I've yet to get good at doing sutble tones myself but am always impressed with what you do in PP. 👍

 

[LongbowX]

Agreed, 2 and 3 are really powerful. And I do like how the 4th shot was arranged in the frame. And I do love the PP applied to them as well, it's very well done.

 

[Cano]

two is powerfull indeed, three... I dunno. It shows the carbon, but If I had not looked at the whole car pictures, I wouldn't know what I am looking at, I'd only know it's made from carbon fiber. If the background was cleaner and you could clearly see that the out-of-focus contours are of a wing, it's be awesome.

 

[Pebb]

I love the first shot in post #444.

 

[Nicknamealguem]

Really powerful tones you got in this update. They really go well with the car.
My favorite has to be the third picture, the water textures in there are really great.

 

[boiltheocean]

Nice set, I'm not really down with the tones but like I've said before, that's just my taste. Everything else though is brilliant as usual.

 

[Syntax error]

Nice shots there Syntax, I especially like 2 and 3. The softness of tone and light looks awesome. I've yet to get good at doing sutble tones myself but am always impressed with what you do in PP. 👍

Thanks mate. It was early morning so I was pretty lucky with the light.

Agreed, 2 and 3 are really powerful. And I do like how the 4th shot was arranged in the frame. And I do love the PP applied to them as well, it's very well done.

Cheers Chris. I wasn't going to include #4 originally as it is pretty similar to the first shot, but I think the level of detail was better in it so I thought, what the hell, post it up.

two is powerfull indeed, three... I dunno. It shows the carbon, but If I had not looked at the whole car pictures, I wouldn't know what I am looking at, I'd only know it's made from carbon fiber. If the background was cleaner and you could clearly see that the out-of-focus contours are of a wing, it's be awesome.

Thanks for the feedback Cano. Totally agree that it's probably a little too abstract and without reference to any other shot, it would probably be impossible to even guess what it is.

I love the first shot in post #444.

Thanks mate

Really powerful tones you got in this update. They really go well with the car.
My favorite has to be the third picture, the water textures in there are really great.

Thank you. Thanks to the early morning, there was a lot of water on the car which I think worked in my favor this time around. Cheers.

Nice set, I'm not really down with the tones but like I've said before, that's just my taste. Everything else though is brilliant as usual.

Thanks Tom. Appreciate the honesty. It's a bit of a phase, I think you will be glad to hear that I will be departing from my odd tones in the near future for something a little more on the realistic. I’ve been enjoying my time away from photography for a bit, but I am lining up another shoot soon, this one just for fun!

 

[Neal]

All awesome, I love the landscape shots. The second to last photo in the last of your updates would be perfect for this weeks auto photo comp.

 

[gagtooth]

Fantastic photos Syntax The first shot in post #444 is just epic

 

[Joey D]

Love the colouring on the photos! 👍

 

[NLxAROSA]

Amazing! 👍

 

[Syntax error]

All awesome, I love the landscape shots. The second to last photo in the last of your updates would be perfect for this weeks auto photo comp.

Cheers Neal, Now that you mention it, that would fit the comp perfectly. If I have time I might submit it tonight, I just need to pull out the version that doesn't have a watermark plastered over the front of it.

Fantastic photos Syntax The first shot in post #444 is just epic

Thanks. I was a little worried when I was arriving at the track as there was fog everywhere, but I noticed the hill was fog free and so I ran to the top to check it out from a different point of view. Glad I did because it was a beautiful site to see.

Love the colouring on the photos! 👍

Thanks Joey. Been doing alot of experimenting with tones

Amazing! 👍

Thanks Lars. As I'm part of the aussie motorsport photography fraternity, we have a forum we all congregate on when we are not heckling each other at the track, anyway, I digress... we have a weekly comp of the best shot at the track and this one was voted by my peers a few weeks back as the best that week.







For those of you interested, set apart from my usual photography blog, I started a simple little image blog. This one is purely to put up 1 shot posts of anything I think was pretty cool I might have photographed. A lot of the stuff on here will be simple snaps, not just finished/polished work. I'm going to keep this one updated more frequently than my usual blog which is a little bit more editorial. You guys will probably recognize a fair few of my older shots in there but there is also some new stuff I don't usually think of posting in this thread. Anyway check it out, let me know what you guys think of it: http://www.blog.racetrackphoto.com

 

[Beerz]

Really awesome stuff you've got on your gallery, absolutely love it. 👍

Great photos, and your PP suits each image very naturally, regardless if you're going for a natural look or a more processed one.

Great work.

 

[Syntax error]

Really awesome stuff you've got on your gallery, absolutely love it. 👍

Great photos, and your PP suits each image very naturally, regardless if you're going for a natural look or a more processed one.

Great work.

Thanks mate




I was going through some shots from earlier this year and came across one this one I took at Bathurst. Not a brilliant photo by any measure but the lens flair is massive enough that it looks interesting, so I thought I'd share:

 

[TB]

That shot must have been with your Sigma 150-500, right? Any reason you weren't using the 70-200L?

Regardless, I love lens flares and this one doesn't disappoint. 👍

A bit noisy, but ISO 3200'll do that.

 

[Dougboy]

Very nice. What filter creates that effect? And yes, why not 2.8? the f/5.6 really bumped up the iso and made the image noisy

 

[Syntax error]

That shot must have been with your Sigma 150-500, right? Any reason you weren't using the 70-200L?

Regardless, I love lens flares and this one doesn't disappoint. 👍

A bit noisy, but ISO 3200'll do that.

Cheers TB. It was indeed taken with the Sigma. At the time I was running three cameras at the time so I wouldn't have to switch lenses. The 20D got the Sigma, the 5D had the 70-200 & the 1D gets the 24-105. I was originally shooting the corner at the full 500mm but I pulled back as the car was coming down the esses although switching cameras would have been a smarter idea.

Very nice. What filter creates that effect? And yes, why not 2.8? the f/5.6 really bumped up the iso and made the image noisy

Thanks mate. I was using multiple cameras but I wasn't holding the right one at the time I guess, so the image quality suffered a little. No filters used however. It was raining at the time so I think that might have had something to do with the weird effect although I don't fully understand how.

 

[Syntax error]

Yet again digging through old images and came across this one that had some massively dramatic light. I wasn't too keen on the blueishness of the clouds so I went B&W. Sort of reminds me a little of Chris' shots.

 

[Beerz]

The clouds look great, especially on B&W, but I would've prefered to see the car pointing right (or as it is, but on the right side of the photo, no tilt, and the B&W processed to make the green of the grass (I'm assuming it's grass here) a lighter colour, to contrast with the car some more and make the dark clouds appear darker by contrast.

Personal taste, of course. 👍

 

[Pebb]

I like the shot in post #467 for one reason:

Composure

 

[Syntax error]

Holy thread revival batman!

Yeah It's been pretty much a very long time since I picked up the camera for some professional work. I did a wedding last year and it seems to have generated a lot of interest, now I have a ton of weddings booked in even though I didn't really want to pursue a photography career any more due to family obligations and my 9-5 job being very busy as it is. Anyway people are willing to pay lots of money so who am I to deprive them of the opportunity to give it to me.

I did a engagement shoot recently for this wonderful couple who's wedding I will be shooting in the next few months. These shots are pretty heavily photoshoped.

Anyway I thought I'd share them with you guys. I'll probably start doing a little more personal photography as well. I picked up a 70-200 f2.8 L series the other day, so I think I'll probably make good use of it soon.

Edit: Here's a shot of one of my two terrors. They love to deprive me of sleep :S

 

[Beerz]

Liking these two very much. The 2nd especially, shows a lot of complicity (sp?) between them.

On the 1st quoted image, did you use any external light source, or a reflector so as not to get pronounced shading on the couple?

 

[TB]

It's great to see you back behind the camera, Achilles! 👍

What I really like about your shooting is that each shot looks completely different from the others but of these, my personal favorite is the beach shot. While in all the shots they are smiling, in that one they look truly happy.

And the shot of your daughter is just plain awesome. "There is no way I'm letting you sleep tonight."

As for shooting weddings taking up too much family time, remember that you can, and should, say no on occasion. Sure the money is nice but being away every weekend, in my opinion, isn't worth it.

 

[boiltheocean]

'Bout time! I really like these, classic wedding shots. Also if you haven't got one already here is a really useful tick list for weddings. Ignore the fact it was written on 4chan Can't wait to see what you do with the 70-200!

 

[Syntax error]

Liking these two very much. The 2nd especially, shows a lot of complicity (sp?) between them.

On the 1st quoted image, did you use any external light source, or a reflector so as not to get pronounced shading on the couple?

Thanks Hugo. Normally I would use a reflector as I tend to carry one hooked to the side of my camera bag however I was a little short of helping hands so to be honest I faked it in photoshop. I created multiple exposures of the image in lightroom and then spent a bit of time painstakingly cutting/pasting layers to get the desired effect.

It's great to see you back behind the camera, Achilles! 👍

What I really like about your shooting is that each shot looks completely different from the others but of these, my personal favorite is the beach shot. While in all the shots they are smiling, in that one they look truly happy.

And the shot of your daughter is just plain awesome. "There is no way I'm letting you sleep tonight."

As for shooting weddings taking up too much family time, remember that you can, and should, say no on occasion. Sure the money is nice but being away every weekend, in my opinion, isn't worth it.

I believe that’s exactly what my daughter was thinking

I have to admit that I have a problem with saying no to things. It infuriates my wife Instead I have been going for the option of quoting exceedingly larger sums for work each time, to the point that even my wife says I’d be silly not to do the job if they are willing to pay. Also being a single income family certainly helps make the decision to take on the work if the money is right. That said, I don’t plan on continuing down this path for too long, wedding photography is a pretty grueling job, even if it pays considerably better than the motorsport gigs I did in the past.

'Bout time! I really like these, classic wedding shots. Also if you haven't got one already here is a really useful tick list for weddings. Ignore the fact it was written on 4chan Can't wait to see what you do with the 70-200!

yeah I know, I’ve been a bit slack. That’s actually quite a handy little list. Thanks 👍

 

[Speedster502]

I've missed your shots so much! Love these shots, they have such a unique style about them. Your a brave man doing wedding photography too, I personally found it one the most stressful days of my life - but each to their own I suppose! I hope to see more within the next couple of months...

 

[Grand Prix]

Great shots. 👍 Like the beach one.