Photography Challenge of 2015 - Mad March!

Nothing says madness like a full moon!

While February was all about the natural, March was about madness! March in Adelaide is amazing with so many cultural and uncultured events to attend! The Fringe means the streets are full of crazy talented people doing things that most of us clearly remember our mothers yelling at us for doing! There is dance, plays, car racing and most importantly, music! 

March for me will always be about WOMAD, at least in part because Mr Carl and I use our anniversary as an excuse to go every year! So I get to celebrate a wonderful part of my life with an indulgent long weekend of amazing music!

Late night WOMAD

Gordie MacKeeman 

But where is the madness in all of this? Well I think I'll let the pictures speak for themselves!

There's Gordie playing the fiddle on a double bass! He was part of Gordie MacKeeman and his Rhythm  Boys, who not only improvised through a "double bass" incident, but went on from WOMAD to entertain a whole pile of Victorians at the Festival of Small Halls.

Leo

Then there's Leo from Che Sudaka. Don't let that smile fool you, this guy bounced around like the energiser bunny on speed! His whole band was one madcap, energetic mosh pit!

I have no idea what this was!

Spooky trees to add to the madness!

Crazy Colour

And then there was Gruff Rhys. Out of all the performers, he was perhaps the maddest, taking us on a weird an wonderful tale about a 18th century Welsh explorer who went looking for the fabled Welsh-speaking Native American tribe, the Madogwys. Through song and theatre he captured us and took us on an almost down the rabbit hole experience through this crazy story. Yet the craziest thing of all is that it was based on truth!

Gruff

Adam Page

WOMAD is what could be called a target rich environment, yet it is by no means an easy environment to capture good photos in, especially with a point and click. It definitely encouraged me to look at things differently, to try and capture the feeling of the event, not just the performances. What was really interesting was how differently people look at things. Carl and I saw the same performances and were, generally speaking, always together, but what we captured on camera was vastly different.


Carl had a knack for capturing the mood of the performance and some of his black and white shots were truly magical. His photo of Adam Page playing saxophone conjurers up memories of soulful music under the night sky.

Fanfare Ciocarlia

His photo of Fanfare Ciocarlia grabs the whole WOMAD experience, the big WOMADelaide banner hanging behind a group that could make an even bigger sound!

But I think his most magical photo was from the Sinead O'Connor set. We were standing behind hundreds of people, barely able to see the stage and yet he managed to capture this eerily still shot of one of the musicians. 


Mad March, particularly WOMAD, is a special and a little bit magical time of year. It was awesome to be out in it, and it brings a smile to my face even now to revisit the photos that are fantastic memories of the event. 

Photography Challenge of 2015 - Contrast

When I chose contrast for the theme for February, I actually had a particular shot in mind. With bushfires throughout the Adelaide hill in January, February would be the perfect time to capture the contrast between the death and destruction of the bushfires and the regeneration of new life.

New life

In my mind I pictured a shot of a blackened tree stump with new leaves springing from it, glowing in the evening light. Well, life has a way of getting in the way of the best intentions, and it wasn't until March that I actually got a chance to try my hand at the shot I wanted.

A precarious position

Unfortunately, it was an opportunistic shot and the lighting was really ideal, being mid afternoon on an overcast day. I was also trying to take a shot next to a main road, so I had to be a little careful about where I stood! Ultimately, the photo's didn't turn out how I wanted them to, however it was still good to capture the changes that my local area was undergoing. I do like the contrast between the almost white new leaves and the dark, charred tree, though it was difficult to keep the texture detail in the photograph while focusing on the contrast.

Contrast 1

The scale at which to take the photograph was also a difficult choice. I wanted to focus in on the contrast between life and death, but did I need to include more background, to give the scale of death some reference? While I took some shots like this, I ended up favouring the close ups, as they seemed to capture the life/death, light/dark combinations better.

Contrast 2

One of the things I do love about this picture is the way the leaves almost glow as the light hits them. Admittedly, there was a bit of tweaking to bring it out, but it's not unknown in real life to see our native trees glowing in the evening light.

The photos aren't too bad considering they were on a point and click in less than ideal settings and I suspect they'll act as great inspiration to try and capture the luminescent quality of our native vegetation a little better.

Ninja Waldo

While I tried to capture the transient nature of, well, nature, Brett tried to capture a stationary Dalmatian! I'm not sure who had the hardest job, but he made use of his new studio toys exceedingly well to capture "Ninja Waldo". I think Brett definitely captured contrast best, but Waldo does give him an unfair advantage!