DO YOU HAVE A FAVOURITE I

DO YOU HAVE A FAVOURITE IMAGE? I love Tui’s and I’m always trying to get that perfect shot of one – This one is my favourite so far. It was a real lucky shot. I was actually in a golf buggy in the car park at Wairakei (Taupo) setting off for a round of golf and had put the camera in the cart as the course has a predator proof fence around it. My husband stopped the cart just long enough for me to take the shot. I had the Tamron 18–400mm lens on and it was taken at full zoom, using my knee as a tripod. WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR BIGGEST ‘AHA MOMENT’ IN PHOTOGRAPHY? I’ve had two which worked coincidingly. Shooting in RAW (which I couldn’t do with my other cameras), and using Lightroom. Definitely a defining moment for me. I’d used Photoshop for many years through my graphic design background so I knew how to use it, and had done some processing of jpgs but I’d always felt a bit guilty doing this with my little group of friends working straight out of camera. Then I discovered RAW and read all the arguments about processing. I bought Lightroom, really for its cataloguing programme, but fell in love with it. I stopped feeling bad about processing photos and now class it as part of my style. WHAT TIPS / TRICKS CAN YOU SHARE WITH PHOTOGRAPHERS WHO ARE JUST STARTING OUT ON THEIR CREATIVE JOURNEY? Find a friend who is also interested in photography. Only a fellow photographer can spend hours wandering around a garden, zoo, or forest without getting bored after an hour. They can stop a car quicker to get that shot too! It’s good to have someone to bounce ideas off and to help with the technical stuff. Other than that, just go out every day and take at least one photograph whilst getting to know your camera. 20 NZPhotographer

YOU’RE A REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR TO OUR READERS SUBMISSIONS SECTION, HOW DID IT FEEL THE FIRST TIME YOU SAW YOUR PHOTOS IN OUR MAGAZINE? It felt fantastic! This Winter landscape was the first one, I ever got published in NZPhotographer. It was in the August 2018 edition, which featured the best “What’s your Winter” competition entries. I think our little camera group in Te Kauwhata must have decided to give it a go, as I had entered this image, Nichola Smith had entered ‘Colours of the Rainbow’ and Ali Pike had ‘Winter in the Winterless North’. I had literally stepped out onto our deck to get my shot which was taken on the 4th July at 6.20am to show a typical Waikato mist though it was quite frosty that morning too. I always doubt my photography and think I’m not good enough so imagine how I felt when I saw my image featured all those issues ago and then when you asked if I’d like to be featured this month on the cover! HOW DO YOU PUSH YOURSELF TO IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY? I have been posting a daily photograph on project365 for three years now. It’s a great site for inspiration, and when you’re really stuck there are challenges to take part in. I have also been doing 52 Frames for nearly a year which is another site where you are given a weekly challenge. It certainly stretches your mind, and I look forward to the new challenge each week. I sometimes get people stopping me to ask if I’m a photographer when they see me with my tripod and big lens. I’m always a little embarrassed and say “no, I’m just an amateur photographer” but when my friend asked me if I would be interested in doing a course with her, I leapt at the chance of having a qualification so I could say “yes, I am a photographer”. Consequently, we have embarked on an online Diploma in Photography through SIT. We’re doing it part-time but doing two papers this term; An Introduction to Digital Photography and an Introduction to Digital Post-Production. It has certainly taken me well out of my comfort zone! One of the first marked assignments we have had to do is portraiture. I’m learning a lot about lighting, and composition. It’s also really different using Photoshop from a photographer’s point of view rather than a graphic designer’s – I’m using parts of Photoshop I’ve never used before. July 2019 21