Thank you to today's guest blogger pro Richard I'Anson from the Lonley Planet, who is sharing his tips for coping with all the photographic situations that travelling might throw at you!

Photography Tips for Specific Conditions by Richard I'Anson

Every situation throws up different challenges for the photographer, but shooting when the light is either very low indoors or under the dense canopy of a rainforest or jungle or the very bright conditions often encountered in deserts and around snow consistently raises the most questions.


Indoors in Low Light

When you find yourself in dimly lit interiors, don’t assume you need flash. As a rule, if you can see it you can photograph it. By using a tripod or other camera support you’ll be able to shoot in low-light situations with your preferred sensor setting. Alternatively, increase the sensitivity of your camera’s sensor to hand-hold the camera but be aware at what setting noise will become a problem with your particular sensor. Yes, you can use flash, which is certainly a convenient light source that will let you take a photo even in the darkest places without having to change sensor setting or use a tripod, as long as the subject is within the power range of your unit. However, pictures taken with flash from built-in or hot-shoe mounted units are usually unexceptional. The direct, frontal light is harsh and rarely flattering. It creates hard shadows on surfaces behind the subject and backgrounds are often too dark. Much more visually appealing and creative images can be taken using incandescent, or artificial, light sources such as electric light bulbs, floodlights or candles.

There are good reasons for being prepared to work with the available light. Most importantly, you’ll be able to take pictures in many places where the use of flash is impractical (floodlit buildings, displays behind glass); prohibited (churches, museums, concerts); intrusive (religious ceremonies); or would simply draw unwanted attention to your presence (covered markets, shops and shopping centres).

If your camera’s White Balance control is on automatic check that you’re happy with the way it’s recording the colours in the scene. Remember that the white-balance function adjusts the colours to ensure that white is recorded as white under all lighting conditions. For more accuracy select one of the presets that typically include tungsten and fluorescent-lighting settings. If you’re shooting raw files, you can also fine-tune the white balance in your image-conversion software before processing.

You’ll probably find yourself alternating between low light situations and daylight  (think gallery hopping) so get into the habit of resetting the ISO to the lowest setting, known as the native setting, immediately after you’ve finished shooting at a higher sensitivity, as this is where the sensor will perform at its optimum potential.  It’s easy to be shooting interiors at 800ISO and forget to put it back only to find later that you spent the rest of the day shooting at 800ISO outdoors in bright sunlight.


Rainforests and Jungles

Rainforests and jungles are two of the most difficult landscapes to photograph well. Often the light is too low to hand-hold the camera and causes automatic flashes to fire. If the sun is shining strongly enough to break through the canopy, the trees become speckled with uneven light and pictures will look colourless and messy. The best time to take pictures in these environments is after it has rained, or in light drizzle. The cloudy skies guarantee an even light and the water on the leaves adds life and emphasises the colour.  A polarising filter is very useful as it will cut down the reflections off the wet leaves, increasing the intensity of the colours. However, with lower ISO sensor settings, a polarising filter and low light, shutter speeds will be too slow to hand-hold. A tripod is essential and you’ll be able to precisely control depth of field.  Without a tripod, look for brighter areas where hand-held photography may be possible. You’ll find these around the edges of the treed areas and in clearings near streams, rivers and waterfalls.

Snow, Ice and Glaciers

Snow and ice cause a high level of reflection when they’re the dominant element of a composition and the camera’s light meter will underexpose the scene, particularly on sunny days. To compensate, override the meter. Older cameras may require you to overexpose by one or two stops. Modern cameras with advanced metering systems cope much better, but it’s still worth overexposing by a half stop and one stop until you learn how your camera’s meter performs in different situations. Bracketing in half-stop increments is recommended to guarantee an accurate exposure, as is shooting early or late in the day. The lower angle of the sun brings out detail and texture in the snow and ice and the contrast levels are more manageable.

Be careful using polariser filters for scenes featuring snow and ice. Often blue skies are already very dark and can go almost black. When shooting landscapes in snow be aware of where you’re walking – you could leave your own footprints in an area you want to photograph.
When it’s actually snowing or sleeting a slow shutter speed will allow you to show just how bad the weather was by capturing the falling snow and rain as streaks of colour.

Deserts

Photographing deserts is a little like photographing snow and ice, except you’ll probably be too hot instead of too cold. If conditions are really bright, bracket exposures, favouring overexposure up to one stop. As usual, early-morning and late-afternoon sun will make desert landscapes much more interesting. The low angle of the sun’s rays will emphasise the contours of the dunes and hills and bring out the details an

d textures in the sand and rock. Remember to watch where your own shadow is falling and not to leave footprints in areas you want to portray as pristine. Look for a vantage point to survey the area and walk around the edges of potential picture subjects.

Climb dunes on the shadow side, as you’re less likely to make it a feature of the landscape. Extra attention must be paid to camera care when taking pictures in sandy environments, especially when it’s windy. Only expose you’re camera to the elements when you’re ready to shoot and make sure your bag is properly sealed. A single grain of sand once made one of my auto focus lenses unworkable.

 
Read more in Richard's iBook http://itunes.apple.com/au/book/id437766359#ls=1

and Like him on facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Richard-IAnson/164126396981890

On eBay this week you had the chance to bid on a monster of the lens world! The Perkin Elmer 36-inch f/4.0 Aerial Camera Lens was sold for the bargain price of $4500!!

The 35-inches long and 12-inch diameter, 200lb beast of a lens was orginally designed for use in goverment aerial spy photography. Not only is it manual focus, it also requires 9x18 film plates to create an image.

So we are guessing it is more of a collectors piece or as the seller suggests you can adapt it as an enormous projector.

eBay auction

After being plagued by finacial worries, and legal troubles that almost lost her the rights to her own collection of work, Leibovitz said she had been left feeling "emotionally and mentally depleted".

However, she is fighting back being with a brand new exhibition that has just opened in the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The project on show is a departure from her normal celebrity portrait work, and in fact was inspired by the humble family snapshot.

The exhibition called "Annie Leibovitz: Pilgrimage" includes scenery and historical objects such as Sigmund Freud's couch and Elvis Presley's Harley-Davidson.

“It’s a project I did for myself. I wanted to be seduced into a photograph and not make it up,” she said. “And I wanted to take my time.”

http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2012/leibovitz/

After the success of our last two Australia Day photo competitions we thought that we would put a bit of effort in this year and really make the most of it!

So, we have created a competition especially for our members to all share their favourite Aussie shots, whether they are shots taken on Australia Day itself or simply a photo you feel represents this sunburnt country of ours!

Not only will it create a collection to share with each other but at the end the team at Photo Art will pick out their top 50 images which will be included in our annual Australia Day photo book, which will be avaliable for sale in early March!

Additionally the team will chose their top three images who will recieve a gift voucher for Photo Art Centre so they can turn their entries into real memories!

Beginning on the 26th of January you can submit your images into the,

Australia Day 2012!

It is a sad day for photography as Kodak has released a statement confirming that they are filing for chapter 11 bankrupcy protection.

The move is hoped to give the company more time in order to restructure and sell off assests. They have secure $950 million in credit from Citigroup for the next 18 months in order to achieve this.

It is estimated that they have around $5.1 billion of assets, tied up in their massive catalogue of patents. In the mean time Kodak has assured it's customers that it still plans to sell cameras and honor all obligations to their suppliers.

Two years after the earthquake that devastated Haiti, much of the country is still struggling to recover. However photographer Maggie Steber who has worked in the country for decades is also upset at the damage that the subsequent media coverage has caused, with all the images coming out of the country only show the damage and suffering. So Steber wants to show the world that there is more to Haiti that what we see on the news by giving the power back to the people.

Working with the FotoKonbit organisation she is giving students in their workshops access to Holga cameras in order to capture their daily lives and communities.

The results were a stunning series of complex images, “When you see what Haitians think is beautiful to photograph, important, profound,” says Steber, “you learn more about them than anything an outsider can show you. To put cameras in the hands of Haitians give them the power to show us what they think is important.”

fotokonbit.org

Photographer Homai Vyarawalla has sadly passed away this week at the age 98 in her home town. Vyarawalla was credited with being India's very first photojournalist. In her 35 year career she captured some of the countries most important moments on film, "I didn't know these images I was taking were that important until 50 years later when people started asking for them,".

In her career she captured some of the countries most prominent personalities including; Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Khan Abdul Ghafar Khan, Sushila Nayar, The Dalai Lama, Lord Mountbatten and Queen Elizabeth.

“I started clicking photographs at the age of 13 in Bombay with a box camera in 1926 and I shot my last photograph in 1970, 40 years ago. Since then, I have not touched the lens. But I am aware of the drifts in press photography down the decades,” Her loss is said to be the end of an era.

Curious what the photography scene is going to look like in 2012, well here are a few cameras that we think will give a glimpse of what's to come this year!

Nikon's new flagship full frame D4 DSLR is taking the Canon EOS-1D X head on, and it might just win. Nikons first full frame HD video with auto focus, an ISO range of 100 - 12,800, a 16.2MP full-frame CMOS sensor, 51 point focusing system with 15 cross type sensors and a 91,000 3D colour matrix metering system. Just to name a few! Expected to be avaliable Feburary you'll have to pay for the quality with a $6000 price tag!

Fujifilm has officially unwrapped its first CSC, the X-Pro 1, it is an open attempt to capture a piece of the DSLR market and appeal to users of system cameras such as Leica's M9. With a range of lenses, flash unit, 1080,1920pixels, HD video, top ISO of 25,600 and a processor that it claims will beat the Canon EOS 5D Mark II and the Nikon D7000. Expected to be released in March it is a camera that Fujifilm is hoping might change a few minds.

Of course you can't mention game changers without a nod to the Lytro Light Field Camera, a completely new shooting technology that will allow you to tweak the focus of an image after you have taken it. Although the details are still a little fuzzy, we know it houses a 8x optical zoom with a maximum aperture of f/2. Expected to be released in early 2012 starting at $400 it's definetely a technology that could change photography in the future.

Photography legend and the first female photographer to join Magnum Photos, Eve Arnold, has passed away at age 99.

After starting her photography career in 1946, she became known for her stunning and sensitive portrait work; of actors, musicans, politicans and the unknown. She forged the road for females in the photojournalism field, but was always keen to point out that her gender hadn't held her back.

Some of her career highlights include a long time collaboration with Marylin Monroe, her project on the daily life of China in the 70s and her photo stories of Harlem, New York in the 50s.

During her career she published more than 15 monographs, which later this month will be released in a retrospective by TeNeues called All About Eve. Along with many never before published images.

"You know in the beginning we thought we were going to change the world. I think people live in so much visual material these days, billions of photographs annually, that they grow numb after too much exposure. But it's hard. You see something and it's your profession and you want to do something about it." Eve Arnold, 2000.

Now in its 155th year, the Royal Photographic Society Print competition is the longest running photography competition in the world.

The competition looks to showcase both amateur and professional photographers work in a range of genres. The winners not only win a cash prize but have their work displayed in a touring exhibition and as part of the Royal Photographic Society catalogue.

Open to all the competition is running until the 21st March 2012, up to 125 prints will be chosen by a prestigious judging panel that includes The Guardian's Roger Tooth and photographer Tom Hunter.

www.rps.org/international-print-exhibition

2011 has undoubtly been a big news year, from earthquakes to uprisings photographers have been there to capture it all.

The photojournalism giant Reuters has had photographers on the front-line for the majority of these events. So as an hommage to the year past they have put together a blog of their best 100 shots.

They range from the violent to the heartbreaking, the collection is a very inspriational way to spend time browsing for all photographers.

Best Photos of the Year 2011

With internet stores out competing the streets in their camera pricing, one store has launched a novel way of fighting back by staying one step ahead of the consumer.

Store owner Craig Mackenzie of Camera House Caringbah in Sydney grew frustrated by the window shoppers looking to try out gear, only to go buy them online later. "I've got to pick the people who won't screw me over. If I pick the wrong one, he'll waste half an hour of my time and will then ask me to write it all down."

So he decided to charge a $30 an hour explanation fee, that buys customers not only his time but the chance to play with the gear in store.

No word on how the new policy is going down with the customers!

A gallery in Amsterdam has just opened an exhibition by artist Erik Kessels that aims to show us just how buried by images we are in this Digital age.

Named "Photography in Abundance", the project concentrates on Flickr, which recently passed the 6 billion photo mark. Kessel realised however that our capacity to comprehend this number is limited. So to put it into perspective he has printed every image uploaded onto the site in a 24 hour period.

The result is literally piles of images filling the gallery space. There have been some complaints that the project is wasteful, but those people should perhaps be glad that Kessel choose Flickr who recently announced that they recieve roughly 6 billion photos per month!

Erik Kessel at the Foam Gallery

When the Magnum Photography agency was set up in 1947 by the collaboration of Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, David Seymour, George Rodger and william and Rita Vandivert the use of contact sheets was standard practice.

Members would be encouraged to make a duplicate copy of their contact sheets for the Magnum archives in London and New York. A practice which allows a valuable insight into the evolution behind some of Magnums iconic shots.

Now Magnum is releasing some of it's treasured collection in a book so that you can follow the stories for yourself and experience some of the excitement hey must have felt looking at their shots for the first time.

Miss seeing your photos as prints? Create Prints, Canvases and more in Photo Art Centre right now!

We blogged a few weeks ago about Olympus firing their president Michael Woodford after he apparently began questioning some "pricey acquisitions".

Well the plot thickened this week the announcement by the companies new president admitted that it's top executives used these acquisitions to cover up 20 years of mass losses.  Losses dating back to the early 1990s, which the president blamed on failed securities investments.

The news has crushed Olympus' stock causing it to drop 29% in one day. Since the scandal began in October the company has lost 70% of it's market value. They are now facing major consequences including the possibility of getting delisted from Tokyo Stock Exchange.

After surviving terrible conditions shooting Ernest Shackleton's epic Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition from 1914 to 1917. Australian photographer Frank Hurley's images will finally go on display in Buckingham Palace nearly a century after he hand delivered them to King George V to share their story.

The images showed an amazing tale of survival from the bottom of the world, from a strong technical photographer.

He shares the exhibition which is the first of it's kind for the palace with English photographer Herbert Pointing who shot Robert Scott's ill fated attempt to reach the pole first.

Hurley famously showed his unflinching dedication to his craft by diving into icy waters to retrieve glass negatives stored in the sinking ship Endurance.

Hurley was allowed to keep only 120 of 520 negatives from the foundering Endurance to reduce weight for the troubled expedition. The remaining 400 negatives were smashed to stop him trying to reboard the slowly sinking ship.

Exhibition curator Sophie Gordon says it is a shame the images were lost. "Hurley was a highly accomplished photographer and he had an eye for a good photograph . . . that is several hundred photographs that we have lost," she says. "That is a big loss."

It's the most important day of your life, so if your photographs don't turn out as you had hoped your entitled to be upset. However, a new case in New york is taking the law to the extremes.

Todd Remis hired the H&H photography company to shoot his wedding back in 2003, according to him the photos were sub-standard and the team missed the last 15 minutes of the wedding including the last dance and bouquet toss. So years after the event he has decided to sue the company.

However, it is the details of the suit that is the interesting part, because Remis is asking not only for the original fee of 4,100 to be returned, but also $48,000 in damages in order to recreate the orginal wedding so it can be re-shot by another photographer.

There may be a few issues with the logistics of this demand however since the couple has since divorced, and he is no longer in contact with his ex wife who now lives in her native lativa.

The case becomes even more bizzare with the judge Justice Doris Ling-Cohan of Manhattan who dismissed most of the lawsuit but allowed the suit to proceed to determine if there was a breach of contract.
 
She proceed to release in the legal documents the following lyrical statement, "This is a case in which it appears that the ‘misty watercolor memories’ and the ‘scattered pictures of the smiles ... left behind’ at the wedding were more important than the real thing,” the judge wrote. “Although the marriage did not last, plaintiff’s fury over the quality of the photographs and video continued on."

The photographer Curt Fried, now 85 has said that the case was an abuse of the legal system and that their $50,000 cost to their laywers and distress have taken their toll.

We are very excited to announce the launch of our brand new photo competition, Life's Treasures opening today!

Open to everyone, the competition theme 'Life's Treasures' hopes to inspire you to capture the visual and emotional treasures in you life for the chance to win!

There are two prize pools up for grabs, both judged and Public Choice. The prize pool includes everything you need after the shutter snaps - Editing, Sharing, Storage and Printing.

Visit our brand new competition site by clicking the link below:

photoartgallery.photophuse.com

Good luck and don't forget to get your friends and family to vote and share for an extra chance to win!

Several Australian Photographers were amoung the finalists of this years Sony World Photo Awards. Including Melbourne Photographer Liz Loh-Taylor who was named 'Travel Photographer of the year' for her series of pictures documenting a native tribe in Southern Ethiopia.

More than 100,00 entries from 72 countries were recieved in this year's awards. For the first time the finalists images will be showcased in Sydney along the Western Boardwalk of the Sydney Opera House.

In conjunction with the exhibition, there will also be free photography classes. For more info visit www.masterclass.sony.com.au

You can always count on the Wildlife Photographer of the year competition to bring us some amazing images.

This year the overall winner is Spanish photographer Daniel Beltra with his shot, Still life in oil. An amazing shot of a group of pelicans rescued from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill of June 2010.

The chair of the judging panel, Mark Carwardine, described the image as ‘a strong environmental statement, technical perfection and a work of art all rolled into one. The sheer simplicity of this powerful image makes it really beautiful and shocking at the same time’

As with other years the winners and shortlisted entries will tour in an international exhibition, beginning at the Natural History Museum in London.

Visit the official site