Blog

“And if a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it’s as though I’ve neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up. I know that the accident of my being a photographer has made my life possible.” – Richard Avedon

Above: Old school Yashica edited in Lightroom using a preset from my Black and White preset collection.

There are many bargains available online when buying used camera gear but always do your research before you part with your hard-earned cash so you don’t end up with someone else’s junk.

1. Safety

Beware of shonky dealers.

Check their online rating and feedback and where possible try and meet them in person.

Trust your gut.

Ask questions like:

What was the camera used for? Where and how was it stored? Are you the first owner? Why are you selling? Any mould, scratches, chips on the lens or sensor?

2. Check under the hood

Ask about how many actuations the camera has (this is a fancy way of saying shutter clicks). The shutter clicks (actuation) on a camera tell you how many times it has been used, much like the kms or miles a car has driven. Camera shutters have a lifespan depending on the model and the shutter is the most expensive piece of equipment to replace.

As a general rule:

. . .

Above: Image by Gina Milicia

I’ve got a confession to make. I’m a very convincing liar. I wasn’t born with this skill, it was developed in my childhood and perfected in my teen years. I learnt this skill out of necessity. I was raised by a very strict Sicilian born mother, who decided that it was in my very best interest to not date boys, or go to parties until I was at least 18 years old.

I became a master “liar, liar pants on fire”. The trick to becoming a convincing liar is believing your own spin. I would come up with a story to tell my mother and visualised myself in the situation as I told it.

I didn’t know this at the time, but learning the fine art of lying to a Sicilian mother puts you in roughly the same rank as a secret agent. The slightest change in vocal tonality, the tilt of the head or sideways glance was the difference between life and death – or another Saturday night stuck at home.

Lying and faking it is a tactic I see many photographers use . . .

A good photograph will prove to the viewer how little our eyes permit us to see. Most people, really, don’t see—see only what they have always seen and what they expect to see—where a photographer if he’s good, will see everything. And better if he sees things he doesn’t expect to see. – Leon Levinstein

Above: Image by Gina Milicia

Annie Leibovitz talks about the art of photography, the transition from film to digital photography, and how the content of your photo is more important than the camera that you’ve used.

Above: Image by Gina Milicia, Magda Szubanski photographed for Foxtel magazine

When I was 14, all the popular kids were getting mullet haircuts. I wanted to be like the popular kids, so I cut my waist-length hair to a mullet.

“Business in the front, party at the back.”

When I was 18, I wanted to be Madonna, so I bleached my hair.

I spent the next 5 years foisting every form of chemical abuse onto my poor fried and battered hair.

I took the same approach with my photography. I jumped on every cliche trend there was. I measured the success of my images by how similar they were to what the popular kids were doing.

I soon realised, adopting every photography mullet and applying them to my photos was not going to make my work better.

The effect was quite the opposite. My work looked like everyone else’s.

My photos didn’t need a perm, frosted highlights or a Mohawk, trying to be like everyone else made my work invisible. I soon discovered that the best way to stand out is to . . .

Above: Image by Gina Milicia

“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow, it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it—but all that had gone before.” ― James Clear

Use this diagram I created as a guide to finding your lenses sweet spot.

There’s this famous urban legend about a woman who has this lump growing on the side of her face and when she finally goes to the doctor he cuts it open with a scalpel and millions of baby spiders crawl all over her face. Then there’s the other urban legend about F8 being the sharpest f-stop on every lens.

The first was made up to scare the crap out of us about spiders and the second may have been true for lenses built last century but certainly doesn’t apply to digital lenses.

The truth is not all lenses are created equal and the ‘sweet spot” or aperture setting the will create the sharpest image will vary from lens to lens. (If you really want to geek out on this subject and find out the science behind lens sharpness check out Ken Rockwell’s blog)

So here’s the non-techy lowdown on lens sharpness

So just to clarify, by sharpness I mean actual focus sharp not the depth of field sharp.

. . .

Above: Image by Gina Milicia

The most common question I’m asked is what gear do I need to take the best photos? There is no doubt that specific lenses will help you take technically better photos. High-end cameras will help you take higher-resolution images. I believe that these are not the most essential qualities in taking great pictures.

Whenever I eat a great meal, my first thought isn’t hmmm I wonder what kind of oven this was baked in or what knives the chef used to slice the ingredients with. Great meals are not created because a chef used great tools. Great meals are created because of the way he or she combines the ingredients and prepares and serves them.

The best and most expensive tools in the world will not guarantee the best and most appealing creations in the world. Other more important qualities influence whether or not something is excellent.

So when it comes to great photos, I believe four essential factors separate the mediocre photos from the great photos.

1. Your eyes

By eyes, I don’t mean how well you can see. . . .

“Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run —in the long-run, I say! —success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it” – Victor Frankel