Peter MacDonald Photo

Rule of Odds Again

Peter MacDonald — Thu, 04 Mar 2021 20:00:18 +0000

Rule of Odds Again

The human eye finds images pleasing that have a certain balance or harmony. Apart from a single subject like a portrait, photographs are more visually interesting if they fall into groups of odd numbers….particularly threes.

House guests or just visiting?

Filters and Exposure

Peter MacDonald — Thu, 25 Feb 2021 20:00:43 +0000

Using the Circular Polarising Filter to the max and playing with exposure for a more dramatic picture for the Dredge at the Murray Mouth.

The sun was high and falling sideways across the scene which is where the polariser is at its maximum on a clear blue sky. Normally I’d back the strength of the polariser off to a more natural level which is much more effective.

The Importance of Exposure

Peter MacDonald — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 20:00:59 +0000

I really wanted to take a photo of this tack room on Mundowdna Station near Maree in Outback South Australia. It was a collection of horse and camel saddles and the saddlebags the old cameleers used when camels where one of the main modes of transporting anything around Outback country.

The trouble was the lighting. Both dark and well light areas. I tried flash in all sorts of ways and it looked terrible. Bracketing exposures is something I’ve used often and after the unsatisfactory results with the flash I figured I could make it work here. In post I played with each photo separately trying to balance the highlights and shadows.

Eventually there’s one that comes close. Photoshop’s Layers are far superior for fine adjustments and this was the result. In the bracketing process I would have a full stop difference between each shot. I would vary the base exposure as well and also take a reading with an exposure meter that I keep in my bag. The process is one of a number of techniques I cover in my workshops.

Rule of Odds

Peter MacDonald — Thu, 11 Feb 2021 20:30:20 +0000

The human eye finds images pleasing that have a certain balance or harmony.

Apart from a single subject like a portrait, photographs are more visually interesting if they fall into groups of odd numbers….particularly threes. It’s not exactly a rule but more a guideline and if you are aware of.

There’s also a series of squares and rectangles that add a bit of interest to the composition as well.

Your camera goes wherever you go

Peter MacDonald — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 20:30:42 +0000

Reading about the lives of successful photographers now and in the past, they always seemed to have their camera with them at all times.

Many worked only short distances from their homes most of their lives and yet made outstanding photographs that are still masterpieces today. Joseph Sudek and Saul Leiter are just two of many that spring to mind.
With the seemingly endless makes and models on the market today there is always going to be a camera you can take with you everywhere. Its just matter then of training your eye to see the photograph before you.

Case in point this image. Driving south one morning. The sun breaking through clouds in the east, approaching storm in the west creating interesting light on hills I’d passed hundreds of times but had never taken much notice of before.

The camera is close by, not packed in a bag somewhere. Go to work.

Two Rocks

Peter MacDonald — Thu, 28 Jan 2021 20:00:06 +0000

Photography is an interesting pursuit. The bottom line though is an observation which brings me to this picture of two rocks or as I see it, father and son.

Probably a thousand people or more walk past here every week and I wonder if any see it like this or just two rocks in a bunch of others.

Port Eliot on the Fleurieu Peninsula, South Australia.

The image is one of the features in my gallery that is located at 76 Mundoo Channel Drive, Hindmarsh Island, South Australia. Open this weekend Saturday and Sunday 11am-3pm.

Summer Rain?

Peter MacDonald — Thu, 21 Jan 2021 20:00:12 +0000

It’s been a long hard battle with a particularly bad drought for many people in South Australia’s outback these last few years.

Fortunately some rains came a few weeks back but despite some brief appearances of wildflower and ground cover things look grim if there are no follow up rains this summer.

This picture is a somewhat picturesque view of a drought ravaged land….not a blade of grass, a bush or a tree as far as the eye can see.

Hope the forecasts have some good news

The Bus

Peter MacDonald — Thu, 14 Jan 2021 20:00:54 +0000

You get attached to your cars, especially when they’ve just reached the 550,000 kilometre mark.

It’s been many places that most cars or drivers wouldn’t dream of going. It been through floods, fire, across deserts and over mountain ranges and to a ist of outback places that is too long to mention. Put another way it’s been around the world nearly 14 times. It’s probably got a revolution or two left in her yet. A tip I learned from the last vehicle I had, a Toyota too that lasted for more than 15 years in similar work. Never wash the car. Well not until you trade it in. A good wash and a polish and it will come up like new. The car salesman was very impressed.

The image is one of the features in my gallery that is located at 76 Mundoo Channel Drive, Hindmarsh Island, South Australia. Open this weekend Saturday and Sunday 11am-3pm.

The Covid-19 flowers

Peter MacDonald — Thu, 07 Jan 2021 20:00:57 +0000

What to do when you are housebound. Fortunately Covid-19 was about a three week affair here in South Australia. Nonetheless very scary as we watched what was happening around other parts of Australia and the rest of the world.

In those first few weeks isolation and social distancing was at the forefront of everyone’s minds. This photo is a reminder of all that. An arrangement of native flowers and leaves. I’m a great believer in taking pictures every day but cooped up at home is a bit of a challenge and I feel for the any people who have and are still coping with lockdowns or self isolation.

The Posing Egret

Peter MacDonald — Thu, 31 Dec 2020 20:00:38 +0000

It’s pristine white feathers perfectly offset by the darkened waters edge beneath the jetty. The shadow of its neck along the back atop two very long legs. This bird would look good on any catwalk. Its pose is well practised as it waits still and patient for some unsuspecting fish to swim by.

The image is one of the features in my gallery that is located at 76 Mundoo Channel Drive, Hindmarsh Island, South Australia. Open this weekend Saturday and Sunday 11am-3pm.

Lilly

Peter MacDonald — Thu, 17 Dec 2020 20:00:08 +0000

The captivating colours of water lilies, the slightly chaotic arrangement and the opaque water they float in. So simple and serene. They’ll come and go but worth a photo. A small feature in the Hindmarsh Island gallery.

The Dead of Night

Peter MacDonald — Thu, 10 Dec 2020 20:00:53 +0000

Murray Mouth

Through storm, wind and rain the iron lady continues her task of keeping the waters flowing through the small outlet that is the Murray Mouth. Without the dredge that shifting sand would close the gap casing major ecological damage to the surrounding area and fisheries.

The image is one of the features in my gallery that is located at 76 Mundoo Channel Drive, Hindmarsh Island, South Australia. Open this weekend Saturday and Sunday 11am-3pm.

Cygnets

Peter MacDonald — Thu, 03 Dec 2020 20:00:29 +0000

Picture book image of mother swan and her young chicks along the Mundoo Channel.

Most of the year there are swans in the waters around here but in Spring the young cygnets are new arrivals protected by their two parents against the strong winds and violent storms that come with the season.

Lifeless Land.

Peter MacDonald — Sun, 22 Nov 2020 21:30:00 +0000

Outback Australia’s constant battle with drought. A lifeless landscape with the remnants of what was once the dog fence built to protect sheep grazing country from the ravages of wild dogs.

Murray Mouth Dunes

Peter MacDonald — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 21:30:30 +0000

The end of the line for Australia longest waterway. 2,500 kilometres long, the Murray meanders down from high in the Australian Alps in New South Wales.

A photo of the Mouth it’s almost impossible without having at least of the three dredges working to keep the outlet open.

The dunes though are windswept, every-changing fine sand.

The image is one of the features in my gallery which is not far from the Murray Mouth. Open this weekend Saturday and Sunday 11am -3pm

Frozen Waves

Peter MacDonald — Mon, 16 Nov 2020 21:30:44 +0000

Lake Frome, Outback South Australia

Interesting backstory to this image. I was working over outback salt lakes that had recent rains.

We’d been shooting at high altitudes but were finished and descending as we headed for base.

Sitting in the back with the door open I was watching the waves in the water below.

I would pick a wave and watch if for some time when almost instantly it would stop moving. The pilot saw this too so we turned and it soon became obvious all the waves were doing the same thing.

Frozen Waves in a salt lake. It didn’t seem real

We took many photos. There were beautiful shapes and colours all over the lake.

How come?

The water in the lake was super saline, it was summer and the temperatures were 50C plus with a strong wind blowing.

The evaporation was so great that while the wind was blowing the waves it was also sucking it dry.

The purple/mauve colour in the frozen wave was algae that just accentuated what was happening.

Old Shearers

Peter MacDonald — Tue, 10 Nov 2020 06:42:08 +0000

In an ideal world the bar that drives the shears could have been better positioned but this was not a posed shot.

I was more interested in framing the photo to include the dog, the window and the sponteneity of the two old shearers in conversation.

It is one of my favorite images from the Commonwealth Hill Station shoot in Outback South Australia I did for the R M Williams publication “Best of Outback Stataion”s back in March.

The old chap on the right is 73 years of age. He’s been shearing for 53 years and his tally is over a million sheep shorn in that time.

Choices

Peter MacDonald — Sun, 05 Jan 2020 01:36:11 +0000

Smoko in the Shearing Shed

Sometime ago I did some work for a company that employed me to take still photographs. However they also wanted to video content. That didn’t work out too well. When I decided to swap to video, I kept seeing the good still photographs that I should have been taking, so both suffered.

Since then I’ve been advised to make videos about the workshops that I do. It appears that without video content your message won’t get noticed.

It came down to making a choice. So apologies, no video!

The Horse Trainer

In the current world the need to be constantly feeding Instagram, Facebook and Youtube accounts creates a daily avalanche of photographs and video. That means using a huge bag of techniques offered in a growing number of software products for making pictures more dazzling, more graphics art and more unreal pictures just to stand out from the crowd.

The Morning Conference

There’s also many new trends evolving and when they start, its another way of making content, so again everything looks the same. And of course the camera manufacturers recognise this too. New model comes out every six months or so with new gimmicks that helps create more content, more quickly, together with cinema quality video which gets onto the internet even faster than before.

But in the end the craft of photography is lost in the internet maelstrom. For this reason I tend to stick with a camera for a long time, knowing it and the lenses I use intimately. I get a lot of enjoyment from making pictures and if other people enjoy them too, that’s even better.

Sharpening the Shears. Woolshed, Commonwealth Hill Station, far west South Australia

I used to run a blog on this website that ran for about five years and I posted a picture and words every three or fours days. I knew that initially I could do this because I already had a good library of images to work with.

In the end though, trying to find something to say at that pace just got too hard and I gave it away.

I publish sporadically on Instagram and even hired a social media consultant for a time in an attempt to make my Instagram page look more appealing so I do have experience of what I am writing about.

A website, Instagram and Youtube have their places and there’s some fine work there too. They are a way people can access your photos and the sort of work you do. I am tending to move back to this website as the main place to see my work and the workshops I offer on line.

Herding the mob on Anna Creek Station, the world’s largest cattle station.

I’ve always been into printing and displaying my work. I think photographs should be printed. So much is lost on the internet. People’s devices and computers render colours inaccurately. I have lived and worked in a big country and I tend to print big to emphasis that. Particularly with landscapes I want to give the viewer a sense of actually being in the scene. To that end I have a dedicated gallery for my work on Hindmarsh Island, south of Adelaide.

I do workshops there which are about making a good photo out of almost any subject you want to set your mind to. That’s not relying on saturated colours, current trends, presets or even the latest camera. Just a good solid knowledge of photography, composition, post production and the need to print images.

The course is three days long and can be taken at any time that’s convenient. You can contact me through the website or email [email protected]

There have been plenty of experienced and beginners who have taken the course so you won’t feel out of place whatever your level.

The madame takes a stroll. Rue St. Germaine, Paris, France

That doesn’t exclude videographers either. If you look at any quality movie, at the beginning of many scenes is a perfectly composed and lit still image from which the actors are cued to begin and the story unfolds.

Meditation and Photography

Peter MacDonald — Sun, 26 May 2019 02:57:20 +0000

The value of Meditation has come a long away in the western world over last 20 years Even though Its been around for 2000 years or so in eastern culture it was treated with some scepticism by the modern world and science. That has rapidly changed in recent years with scientific study of the brain. There’s now conclusive evidence meditation has real benefits ranging from coping with the pressures of modern life to controlling anxiety, fear, poor sleep, pain relief and many more problems.

I have been practising meditation for many years and slowly I’ve recognised that photography is a form of meditation.

One of the key principles of meditation is to learn to live in the present. As that skill grows through meditation is can be applied to photography.

By living in the present you are focused on the things around you…one of the key elements to taking good images.

Living in the present means having no expectation of an outcome. I have had this happen on many occasions. That doesn’t mean aimlessly wandering around in the hope some miracle shot will appear before you.

It’s OK to have a plan, a purpose in whatever type of photography you work in.

I shoot a lot of landscapes, portraits and articles for magazines, widely diverse pursuits yet being in the present means looking at the possibilities around you – light and shadows, colour, subject, environment, storyline etc, but not having an expectation of the outcome.

I have been remiss in not exploring meditation for photographers in my workshops. That’s going to change. Not everyone will connect with this but it will be offered nevertheless.