I’ve just finished processing the last of the images I made while in Australia, and while I’m looking forward to sharing lots of them with you, this post will be more narrow in scope.
In the last days I had in Australia I made an effort to spend time with friends, and take photos. One of those who I got to hang out with a good bit was my friend Madison, who is also a photographer. We scheduled in a day, met up after her class, and walked around Waterloo and the surrounding areas taking photos. We stopped in at an Asian restaurant and got ramen, and continued wandering as it got darker outside and the artificial lights turned on. I haven’t done much shooting in this sort of light, and certainly not in a city setting, but it actually turned out to be so much fun. It can be a challenge of course, shooting in low light, but that also means it can stretch your creative muscles and help you make images you wouldn’t normally think of. Use what you have: whether it’s a bus stop advertisement, the window of a Ferrari dealership, or funky coloured LEDs in the pavement outside a library. Getting out of your comfort zone is nearly always a good idea.
Also, hang out with friends, and take photos of them. The people you’re closest to are those you’ll most want to remember when you’re older, the portraits that will mean the most to you when you look back on them. I was incredibly fortunate to find myself surrounded by some of the best people I’ve met during my last few weeks in Sydney, and while I’ve no intention of forgetting any of them, having a record of that time is important to me; something visual that can spark those memories and remind me of the best moments of that crazy trip across the ocean I took in my twenties. The days I recall most vividly will inevitably be those which I captured best with my camera. I didn’t get much time to spend with these wonderful people, but I’m grateful for what I did have. I’m thankful for new friends like Madison and so many others, who so quickly took me in and made one of their own, made me feel like a member of their family in spite of having just met me. I’m thankful for the conversation I shared with these people, the coffee and food and gelato, the nerf darts, broken glass, and laughter late at night and at every other time. And I’m thankful that I made an effort to document this time.
I’ll be writing up another post about my time in Australia soon, and putting out some albums to show the images I made while I was there. I’ll likely share more and similar thoughts to those above, so I hope it doesn’t become too repetitive for your taste. If anything, let it be a pointer to how truly thankful I am for the time I spent in Australia, and the people I met there. For now though, I hope you’ll enjoy these photos that I took while hanging out with Madison. It was a lovely evening.
with love,
— Joel
Geeky Things
Camera: Fuji X-Pro2
Lens: Fuji 35mm f/2
Processer: Capture One 20
Location: Waterloo, NSW, Australia
Notes: Madison and I started from Hillsong’s Waterloo campus, and walked from there, but I don’t know exactly which areas we were in the rest of the night. Suburbs in Australia are all really close together, so you pass out of one and into another often without noticing anything. We were however in the Sydney area the whole time. It rained lightly most of the time we were out, which made the light really nice — and reminded me how much I appreciate having a weather-sealed camera (though I don’t really trust Fuji’s bodies in this area as much as I’d like to). All of these images were shot raw and processed in Capture One, with Classic Chrome as a colour base, and Acros for the black and white shots. Most of the time you can assume that’s going to be my starting point for my photos.