Tag Archives: evening

An Evening with Vincent Laforet

Okay, maybe not a full evening but an hour and a half so close enough.  A damp Monday evening in early November is not the sort of time that you are planning a trip out.  However, Vincent Laforet was giving a talk at one of the local Apple stores and I was keen to be there.

I saw Vincent once before at my first ISAP symposium in Pensacola FL.  He was still predominantly a still photographer in those days.  He gave a talk about his aerial photography in New York and an unbelievably moving account of his time in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina which was accompanied by some equally moving imagery.

When Canon released the 5D MkII, Vincent filmed a short called Reverie to demonstrate the capabilities of the camera and it went viral.  I don’t know whether this was the start of his move to film or whether he was already on the way there beforehand but he is now a director and a bit of a go to guy on the techie issues with HDSLR video.

His talk was a combination of some of his history – a fair bit of stills work since his audience included a lot of photographers – along with some of the video work he has been doing.  I follow his blog so the video material was stuff I had already seen but that was not a problem.  He talked a bit about what the newer technology is bringing to the video world and how different the workflow is.

The real interest came at the end of the evening though when he had a Q&A session.  This really got to the heart of the issues people were interested in and he was very frank in his answers.  He challenged people to think about what they were doing and who was going to be coming after their work environment (and what that environment would even be).  He answered technical questions and gave thoughts on how to self-teach some of the things associated with film making.

He was a very approachable guy and willing to talk to everyone who wanted to get a moment with him afterwards.  If you get a chance to see him at any event, I would certainly recommend it.  In the mean time, his blog is well worth a look.  He doesn’t always blog regularly but, when he does, it is good stuff.  He also has a great gear page if you want some insight into the stuff he uses himself.  Check it out at blog.vincentlaforet.com if you are interested.

Sunset at the Botanic Gardens

I have had my Mum visiting .  We try and find some fun things to do while she is staying and maybe even tie them in to things I have been meaning to do.  One of these things was a trip to the Botanic Gardens.  The thing that made this different is that, during the summer they have been having a late opening until 9pm.  The evening light should provide some good opportunities with the camera.

It certainly is a good time to visit.  The crowds are not there as they would be normally (although there are still a fair number of people around) so you have less of a feeling of being rushed by people around you.  Also, having a tripod is not a problem!  As the evening draws in, the light gets lovely and then, once the sunset passes, you can play around with some night photography.

You do have to pay attention to which areas will get the nice light since the terrain will block certain parts of the gardens but, apart from that, you can really have a nice time wandering around and looking for nice shots.

Here are some more samples of what I saw.