Territory Day Fireworks
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| Territory Day. Looks like palm trees! Fireworks pics by +Auki Henry |
Click on any of the samples below to see the bigger picture.
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Click play to watch the Territory Day Fireworks Video below:
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Territory Day Fireworks
Click play to watch the Territory Day Fireworks Video below:
Playground Workout
Playground Workout
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| Playground Workout. Fast, Fun and Free. |
The local playground or park is ideal for this routine, which is great especially if you are a mum with kids as you can pretty much exercise right there without the need for a baby sitter. We filmed this video as part of Amber's living well series and she had her own two children there just to prove the point! There's no excuse to keep your body in condition, even with kids its as easy as childs play, literally!
Presenting - Maddison Ash
Maddison Ash © 2011 Auki Henry
Maddison Ash is a recent discovery, friend and fellow photographer Mark Hamilton did a shoot for an advertising campaign recently which was actually Maddison's first exposure to a pro photo shoot.
Her natural beauty was evident, nothing forced about her smiles and very confident in stature.
We got quite a lot done on that first shoot in such a short amount of time, and admittedly the time was shorter as I slightly miscalculated the speed of the setting sun by about 20 minutes. Luckily we have a few more shoots with Maddison to come this year.
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| Darwin's girl next door Maddison Ash Photo: Auki Henry |
Her natural beauty was evident, nothing forced about her smiles and very confident in stature.
We got quite a lot done on that first shoot in such a short amount of time, and admittedly the time was shorter as I slightly miscalculated the speed of the setting sun by about 20 minutes. Luckily we have a few more shoots with Maddison to come this year.
The article picture inset is one of those pics that I took just a little too late for the setting sun to provide a backlight, so rather than waste the photo it was turned into a fantasy composite. I'd like to say twilight scene, but the movies have ruined that for me, no offence to team Edward but I'd like to class Maddison in a league apart from the connotations of the movie . . . I will refer to it instead as a surreal moonlit forest.
Below is a linked sample set of the shots we got in before the sun went down too far; enjoy!
Click on the samples below to see some more Maddison Ash
Click on the samples below to see some more Maddison Ash
Swinging it in the top end
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| Swinging it a the old Darwin town hall ruins with Quito Washington and Kelly Ann Doll |
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.
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| In front of the cenotaph on Darwin's esplanade |
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.
Kamfari 2011 Feature on its way
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| Final morning filming for Australian Trailrider magazine. |
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+
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 !
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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| Click to Enlarge - Huangshan City Googlemap image with key identifying landmarks within frames in the 'Mirage' video. |
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
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| 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
