Absolute Aukiman

Swinging it in the top end

Swinging it a the old Darwin town hall ruins with
Quito Washington and Kelly Ann Doll

Today I woke up to a special start, and it wasn't anything as tame as bacon and eggs in bed either, my 0600 start was an opportunity to work with the indomitable Kelly Ann Doll filming a swing dance sequence for Swing Dance NT dance master, Quito Washington.

No stranger to the camera , Kelly is one of those people that can actually provide energy to invigorate a scene. After just five minutes with her I could see she has (quite aptly) been described in the past as the 5 foot pin-up pocket rocket, and this girl can move! Not just as a swing dancer either, Kelly Ann Doll has redefined the art of cabaret,was the first burlesque performer to tour Singapore and this year was a headlining star at the Australian Burlesque Festival with other featured Australian tours with Gangsters Ball, Burlesque Royale at Crown Casino and an boasting an endless list of premier events, functions and festivals all over Australia.

In front of the cenotaph on Darwin's esplanade

I had seen Kelly in action previously in the feature film 'Swing It' and her incredible assortment of stills work from her casting profile on Star Now, but the piece of media I found the most interesting was her Burlesque showreel on youtube check it out to see energy in abundance here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h64jIN6fUxg

Todays filming was shot pretty much 'guerilla style' - the idea is in your head and you just wing it at different locations and work out the shots as you go. Relaxed, only semi-organised and a really good way of practising improv with limited gear. I only brought the glidecam rig with the Canon 7D, a tripod, an LED spot and a a panasonic AG-HMC41E for the morning and that pretty much covered all scenarios. I'd almost forgotten how much fun unscripted shooting can be.

Murphys law invariably threw some clouds our way, but nothing that a little warming up in post editing can't fix.

Relaxing weekend shoot with Colleen D'Arcy

Setting up in the studio with Auki ,
Colleen & Katie

After nearly two months of video producing and editing tasks I have managed to find some spare time to get back into the studio for a bit today and I have to say the change was so refreshing. Today I asked Colleen D'Arcy back into to help me test an Elinchrom Ranger kit and just generally catch up over a few drinks.

Mark Hamilton has been preaching the Ranger word to me for quite some time now, till this weekend I have just not had the time to give it a go. Now, predictably though, I find myself browsing through the Elinchrom website and budgeting for what I will need to buy from them now.

I'll almost guarantee any photographer who has used one of these kits will agree with me when I say they leave you craving for more. The sheer power available 'on-tap' gives you an unsurpassed comfort zone and makes the job so easy.

Back to the unfortunate budgeting reality though, the Ranger will have to be a 2012 purchase as they are definitely not cheap toys, next bargain buy in line for 2011 is the X-10 Vest that accompanies my Glidecam HD-4000 rig we currently operate. This will bring a new level of smoothness to the DSLR filming and perhaps save me some aching biceps in the process!

Gallery Samples

Model: Colleen D'Arcy
Camera: Canon 7D
Lens: Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

Kamfari 2011 Feature on its way

Final morning filming for Australian Trailrider magazine.

Today I finally submitted the master of the DVD feature we produced for the 40th Anniversary of Kamfari. The event ran in May and we have been working on the edit in time for the September release of Universal Magazine's Australian Trailrider publication.

From beginning to end this project was a lot of fun, it was one of those jobs you get at the last moment, one of those ones where a quick thought about limited resources at the last moment naturally crosses your mind, but is quickly replaced by enthusiasm to take on the challenge.

The media team at HighRPM who I work with regularly are the 'lets give it a shot anyway' type of people, a concept which I take great delight in indulging, and so it was that we decided we'd accept the brief.

The statistics? A four hour motorcycle endurance event covering a couple of hundred kilometres worth of action through some insane terrain including crocodile friendly swampland in hot humid Northern Australia. We managed to cover most of the action with just two dedicated video cameras whilst HighRPM presenter Heather Banham also assisted with a video capable DSLR, as did boom operator Katie Abraham. When you are on a budget you find ways to stretch it believe me.

The variety of shots we managed to get for the feature was largely thanks to the experience of long time motor sports cameraman Ed Forman who's passion for getting in amongst the thick of the action saw him walk almost the whole length of the circuit, including standing almost up to his waist in mud and water to get the riders perspective. This was key in getting shots the commercial broadcasters couldn't. Being in the thick of it all is definitely an angle you can't replicate when you are standing on a dry patch of ground zooming in on the action a couple of hundred metres away.

The guys from Blackwater once again allowed us to use a number of their tracks for the action. This time from their newly released self titled EP. Their songs definitely suit the motorsports genre perfectly and we can only hope that our opportunity to give them extra exposure is as helpful to them as their music has been to us on our productions.

It reminds me that an amazing amount can be achieved in this world and can still be done on a budget if you are lucky to be surrounded by people not just chasing cash as a bottom line but rather collaborating as a team.

I'd like to acknowledge Clint Holmes and the Darwin Motorcycle Club who gave us this great opportunity to film an event that has become an Australian sporting institution and also Tuffy and the crew from Australian Trailrider magazine who decided we could deliver what they needed.

NT Photographers on Google+

With the recent July 6th opening 'by invite' to Google's new Google+ platform the world response has been phenomenal with reportedly 18 million users already at the time of this article being published. The clean, fast interface and superior ability to control who sees what content has been appealing to many different types of user, whether for socialising, marketing or collaborating.

Photographers who were used to facebook as a distribution and marketing medium in the past are now seeing definite advantages with "G+"in the form of better web filename SEO and freedom from facebooks poor picture compression algorithms.

I am compiling a list of talented photographers from the Northern Territory who are now starting to take advantage of Googleplus and its amazing features.

Follow G+ Photographers here in the NT !

Mark Hamilton -

Darwin's best known glamour photographer and one of the most recognised faces in the industry. Although he specialises in glamour he is know for excelling in many different genres.

Martin Eadie -

Well known for his extensive work in the field of both civilian and military aviation, Martin has also branched out into other fields including glamour and action motorsports.

William Nguyen-Phuoc -

An accomplished landscape and wildlife photographer, William's amazing work around the territory has earned him widespread recognition. Has recently been involved in commericial and aviation projects.

Auki Henry -

Then there's me. Relatively new on the photography scene, better known for my work in front of the lens as presenter on HighRPM I have been lucky to have mentoring in photography by some of the Territory's finest, Will shoot a variety of genres but I have found a niche for people photography!

Huangshan city mirage, all down to bad translation.

The ' Huangshan city mirage ' generated some wildly speculative claims amidst a whirlwind of media misinformation and hype. In a nutshell the reality was bad chinese translation combined with hyper-sensationalist reporting. All the buildings in the footage are real buildings, not visions, mirages or illusions, they actually physically stand exactly where they were filmed. The only thing out of the ordinary here is they are surrounded by floodwater and mist.

Background of the myth:
Huangshan City in Anhui Province, China was one city out of a number affected by the 2011 flooding over 12 or 13 provinces. By 14th June 2011 the water had exceeded warning levels in reservoirs and inundated low parts of land near the city.

Click to Enlarge - Huangshan City
Googlemap image with key identifying landmarks
within frames in the 'Mirage' video.

Incredibly, video footage of the floods, as the waters slowly rose were broadcast, sensationalised and then spread by western media with a completely incorrect story.

An all too literal translation of the english interpretation describing the surreal sight of the buildings looking mysterious as they rose out of the mist above the flood waters ironically fell foul of the 'Chinese Whispers' phenomenon and was circulated via news websites, touted as being an amazing mirage with never before seen clarity.

Presumably this misinformation was passed on in the same hurried fashion endemic to modern media that does away with cross checking of facts in order to increase readership traffic to their sites. Poor journalism indeed!

Predictably the YouTube videos for this event went viral, along with the emergence of a multitude of conspiracy and prophecy theories ranging from hologram technology experiments, the second coming and otherworldy portals.

The truth of course is a little more mundane than the fiction and just doesn't sell a story, the poetic romanticism of 'floating' buildings suspended in mist above the river may be lost in sloppy translation but it strikes me as odd that the worlds media had not linked this footage to the 2011 China floods. It was a mildly amusing that a lot of news sites did try to provide rational scientific explanation of the 'phenomenon' they were reporting on by including videos of scientists explaining how mirages work!

I don't think any amount of science can help them when it comes to poor language translation and lack of basic reference checking however. However if one thing should come out of this whole thing it is that real people have died in this very real flood. Hopefully there's a very real but very unfortunate story that the media SHOULD be covering instead.

The Video Landmarks for your Reference:
For easy identification the coloured key and identifiable landmarks/buildings are marked for you below with the corresponding slides from the video.

Click to Enlarge Image

Click to Enlarge : Not a 'mirage' after all, Easy to identify Huangshan City landmarks in the video.

The Video (complete with incorrect reporting )

that started it all off

Studio Shoot with DTOWN-3

The boys from Darwin's own DTOWN-3

This was another one of my privileged requested shoots with successful musicians who have come across some of my freelance work.

Aussie rappers Liam Devine, Nate Polkinghorne and Zac Calma formed in late 2009. Their group DTOWN-3 (aka DT3) has climbed the ranks of both local and statewide recognition rapidly with their distinctive infusion of American style with Australian influence. The group have stamped a confident mark on their genre by already appearing on the 2011 lineup of the NT's annual Bass in the Grass in less than 2 years from their original conception.

2011 has also witnessed the release of their debut EP "Skyhigh" which is testament to their enthusiasm for self sufficiency and getting things done as they produced this in their self built studio.

The tempo continues after this shoot as the boys have been confirmed to perform alongside some major upcoming acts yet to be announced.

The shoot itself was called to prepare for their busy next couple of months of public appearances, the brief being basically to do a studio style set of both individual and group shots to update their promotional arsenal.

Some other publicly available samples of the shoot are available : HERE

Due Respect 101 - The very basics of sharing etiquette

Auki Henry 2011

The cropped signature edit of my original piece that was
discovered in : Darwin Photos

Being an avid photographer / videographer I am submitting work left right and centre to most mediums, including online to social networking sites such as Facebook. It's a great medium to share and gain exposure, both for you and your models!

It's only natural that somone eventually takes a liking to your work and wants to share it and show it around.

For the most part this has been made easy by most sites offering content, you can embed video using special embed codes, sites like Facebook have 'share' buttons that allow you to link to content. There is, in fact, little that you need to do apart from a couple of mouse clicks and you are done. All these ways generally help to leave credit to the original creator in some way or other.

A lot of the time I find people will contact me about sharing the things I have done, almost all the time they will link back and give credit in some way. I don't even mind if they don't leave credit as my signature is usually displayed on all online work (or in the case of videos a reference to all the people who put in the hard work are mentioned in the credits).

Although I am sure it has happened many times before, today it was brought to my attention for the first time by a good friend, that a piece of work I had collaborated on with a team of people and a model was being displayed without any hint whatsoever of the source of the material.

It is a little disappointing that this would happen as I am quite happy to share my work free, a lot of my full size landscapes are free to download if I am approached, I don't even include watermarks, just so it looks good for the framed finished product.

Perhaps it is just the pride in the work that makes it disappointing, both the model and myself discussed this shot and tried till we got it exactly how we wanted it, pose, shadows and post processing. Perhaps it is the the amount of work that goes into a shoot. Even a quick shoot like this took 3 hours out of an afternoon and many more in the post processing workflow.

Even if it was just 'shared' using the facebook share function that would have given me some credit for my portfolio work and that of the model as well. After all this is how the model gets recognition for photographers who want to do shoots, this is also how I get recognition for people or organisations who want to shoot with me.

My video/photography equipment costs are reaching up into the tens of thousands of dollars now, and I think most of you would agree the icing on the cake doesn't really happen when your work is mangled and your only crediting marks are cut out of the final piece ( albeit with a sloppy yellow border ).

The lessons of due respect are learnt with having the decency to acknowledge others, and I have done all the hard work for anyone wanting to share, I've left the signature in the corner of the original! It is far more work to have to go to any length to cover it up and hide it. /rant /lesson

For anyone wanting to share, the original web size shot is below ( with signature intact of course ). Feel free to use it on any pages you wish as it is. There are plenty others to share at http://photography.aukihenry.com

Model: Lan Treagus

Photographer: Auki Henry (Auki Henry Photography)