Digital camera POTY 2009

Yes, it's time for another photo competition. This time the Digital camera Magazine Photographer Of The Year 2009.
I have to say that there are some stunning entries in the various categories and I've basically given up already on the 'Landscape' category. However, the 'World In Motion' category is perfect for a lot of my drag racing work, although the 'Planet Earth' division seems to be a good spot for an old favourite and a new favourite.
That Heron stood there basically stock still for the full 30 seconds exposure and says a great deal about species adapting to man's interference with the natural environment.
The Thomisidae species crab spider meanwhile, was sitting on a Ricinocarpos glaucus bush in my local Craigie Bush.
I only just spotted it there, but wasn't happy with the original shots.
Ducking back in the very next morning, the spider was still there on the very same flower - I wish my kids were that patient for their food !

More Western Australian wildflowers for GPL

Another batch of 21 endemic WA wildflower images have been accepted by Garden Picture Library in the UK. From a set of 30, that's another quite high accpetance rate. Must try to keep this going.

Stock Photography Sales - Gekko Images

After a year of loading what is now a total of 659 images to Australian library, Gekko Images, we've just cracked our first sale with Gekko. It's not a huge sum, but comes after winning a Microsoft software package in Gekko's Image Quest 09 competition and all up goes against the negativity merchants out there who seem to bag Gekko on the various stock forums.
Yes, it is only 1 sale, but what's the point in being pessamistic all the time ?
Stock, like nearly every other industry in the World, is feeling the economic squeeze.
The trick and approach I think is to be ready to get back up and walk again ... which in this game means keep shooting, keep keywording and keep loading.
Because when things come good again .... here endeth today's lesson.

Garden Picture Library - native flora photos

Just checked Garden Picture Library and my first images are now loaded up for all to view. Very happy with that. Of course, the hard work continues to get the quantity built up at GPL. You can go direct to our images at GPL by clicking on this text.

Gekko Images stock photography

Another round of our stock images have gone live on Gekko Images.
Please visit our range of images on Gekko
Curiously, the newer images are 'buried' down between pages 8 and 14 out of the 55 pages of images we have up there.
Nice to see however, that Gekko have given our range of Bells Rapids images 5-star ratings across the board.

Alamy sale for the environment

Just discovered that one of my Alamy sales last year was used for an on-line Direct Science report with a clear message re' the environment and destruction of our native bush. Peter Garret, if you're reading my blog, please follow this link and take note.
Developers like Peet & Co, Landcorp, as well as the politicians about to sign off on the Moore River, Bells Rapids and Alkimos, should read this too.

Avon Valley Bells Rapids

Some of our recent images from Bells Rapids and elsewhere are going up onto the Create09 website today. Have a peek !

Walyunga National Park

The quest to build stock for Garden Picture Library headed to Walyunga National Park today. A favourite location, today's adventures saw me head up the Kingfisher trail through the guts of the park, which quite frankly was a waste of time ! A fantastic walk, but I couldn't find the variety of vegetation I had hoped for. Back down by the river and along the Aboriginal Heritage trail, various Fabaceae (or Papilionaceae) species emerged, as well as a Labichea species. There was more Fabaceae species on the road out too, but the rain and mist had settled in by this stage and put an end to the day.

Photographic enlargements & prints

It's been a few years since we offered an enlargement service to regular clients in the local motorsport or car field, but I'm putting the effort back into this area now.
As well as Barbagallo Raceway and Perth Motorplex action, any of our scenery / nature / Aussie bush / flora imagery is available as a quality Pegasus enlargement.
We've re-established contact with Mirage Photo Laboratory in Subiaco, an outfit I first dealt with back in the late 1980s !!
Things have changed dramatically since those days, but quality is still the name of the game which is why we've decided to go this way for our prints.
I'm going to try and focus on just one size, namely 20" X 24" for $77.00 (icludes $7.00GTS which I must charge).
At the moment the offer is restricted to Australian customers and all prints are mailed out as well, with the cost of postage included.
Just email us for more details and we can email you some sample images to peruse;
ricphoto@iinet.net.au

Alamy QC - soft in the head and lacking directional definition

The Alamy forums have been going right off lately with threads from dis-gruntled contributors who cannot pass Alamy QC. Personally, I don't see what the problem is in regards to interpreting Alamy's guidlines, yet every day it seems someone else comes up with a conspiracy theory about Alamy having this or that problem with shallow depth of field, selective focus etc.
In a recent thread, Alamy's James Allsworth spoke about 18,000 photographers submitting to Alamy and that only a small amount were forum 'regulars.
Well, I checked.
There are 3,460 Forumites.
That's about 19% of 18,000.
Regular complainants would drop that figure down ... possibly, perhaps ...to as low as 10%.
That's what I'd call a minority group for sure.
Getting past Alamy QC isn't rocket science.
This photographer just had another batch go through QC through from the Avon River near Bells Rapids.

Western Australian wildflowers

Western Australia's Wildflower season is in full swing and I just wish I had more time to get to every location I'd like / need to. We're still managing to crack on with it all though, averaging up to 100 images / month straight to Garden Picture Library in the UK.

Fame & Fortune ?

Just had Community Newspapers call. They want to do a story on my nature / bush photography and have 'booked' me for a shoot on Monday morning. That is, their photographer is to meet me at the local bush reserve, I'll 'pretend' to photograph some exotic endemic flower and he's going to shoot me shooting. Better get my hair done ... now where's that razor ....