An Australian, an American and a Mongolian walk into a bar...

Hey All, thanks for supporting my blog and following my progress while I was in South Africa.

I'm now blogging at www.motherofdiversity.com

Mother of Diversity is a blog by myself and two friends (an American and a Mongolian) which focuses on creative arts - Music, Photography, Fashion and Literature.

Were really proud of the site and can't wait to see what it grows into. Love to hear what you think of it.

-Dan

Fringe Bar

Here are a couple of photos from an event I photographed a week or two back. There are a ton of photos from the event but these are the type I love taking most. Both are an overlay of two images, by using different exposures immediately after each other I get a funkily lit background and good detail in the people. I overlay them using a layer mask I let the people show through on the other frame and wala!

Enjoy

Dan

I'll drink to that

Hey all, my first post in a while but it is a good one....

My Landlord (or should I say overlord) while I lived in South Africa was a bitch. To make matters worse I basically lived in a self contained granny flat that joins her house which means that though the house was seperated she was always around to annoy me as she lived in the other part of the house.

So when she went overseas for her daughters wedding or something, I partied it up. This is me watching the sunset from the roof and having some beers. I am looking over Inanda Dam in the Kwa Ncglosi Valley, Kwa Zulu Natal South Africa.

I've edited the colours, hope you like them.

Later
Dan

Big Brother Google

Check this out, the top ten moments cought on Google Maps Street View.
http://www.urlesque.com/2009/02/05/top-10-moments-caught-on-google-maps-street-view/

Google sent out a van outfitted with a battery of 360-degree cameras to capture street level images, and all sorts of human behavior was picked up as a result.

Enjoy...

I am Bob

An amazing short film starring Bob Geldof as himself in "I am Bob" I just had to feature it.

A hilarious script and brilliantly shot, the short features Geldof who gets stuck in a town in the middle of nowhere and his only way out is to compete in a look alike contest which by chance is happening in the local pub....

Sir Bob Geldof in "I am Bob"

Melbourne Trip

Hey All,
Here are a couple of my favourite pics from my trip down to Melbourne. I spent 5 days down there to work with the new team going to South Africa with Oaktree's Schools 4 Schools project.

This first pic was taken in Flinders Street station, Melbourne. I added some motion blur during editing and burnt it a little.


This is a shot of Southern Cross station in Melbourne. I saw some photographers taking some pics of a balcony and wandered over assuming there was something photo-worthy. Turned out to be a good shot so I took this awesome frame. The photographers were actually a photo class. I heard the instructor say something to one of the students about the roof, so I tried to use it as best I could.


I love the detail in thee roof and the 2 trains.

Hope you enjoy.

Dan

NYE 2

After about a month I have finally edited this pic from NYE. It is a photomanipulation, I took too pics at the time - one for the couple and one for the cityscape in the back ground. This was becuase I couldn't correctly expose for both of them in one frame. This is simply the two pics combined.

Enjoy
Dan

New Years Eve 2009

I just called the post NYE 2009, but am wondering if it should be NYE 2008? I'm sure it is simple enough and it will make sense in the morning but at 2am I can't think to hard about it or i might die, I am so tired!

By now you've figured out that this is pics from New Years Eve. Ehon and I decided to do something a bit different for new years and went into South Bank (Brisbane) to take some photos of what was happening down there. I've never done this sort of stuff (at least not in OZ) before so it was interesting

A note for the people in the pics: Firstly thanks to all those who posed for photos and were happy to be in them, not one person refused me a pic the whole night and I enjoyed chatting to you all! I gave the address of this blog to a few people who I photographed, if you are one of them and would like copies of your pictures, email me at danbrennan1@gmail.com and I can email them through to you without the watermark so you can have them printed without my name plastered across them.

I have also had a random idea for my next project, possibly more random then taking photo's of randoms on new years eve. I would like to take photo's of the same people I took pics of on new years eve later on this year. It would be an interesting thing to do(sort of a follow up), so if you are one of the many people I spoke to and photographed on the 31st, drop me an email if you would be interested in a shoot. You can get a feel for my photography by browsing this blog.

Happy New Year
-Dan

These first four pics were taken at Kangaroo point at about 1am after all the fireworks were finished and we were on our way to Sarah's party.


Ehon at Kanagroo point.
A couple at Kangaroo point who were really patient wating for me to snap their pics. They had a nice quite spot, I think I am heading to Kangaroo Point next year if I am in still in Brisbane. Drop me an email and I can send you guys the pics :)

It is also a photo manipulation and contains two pics. The foreground, fence, girl and city are one image. But in that image, you couldn't see the guys face as he was leaning forward and obscured by the girl. So I took a pic with him where you could see his face and inserted it into the other image.


A couple of shots from before the fireworks.


The first is a photo manipulation of 3 images of the same scene. One had the best shot of the city scape, the other a better shot of the people. The third had the boy with the lightsabre toy which I wanted to include. Yes, the kid with the glowing blue thing next to the guy in the white shirt wasn't there originally :) The boat has also been blended from one of the 3 images.This one is a photo manipulation of my pics from the fireworks, contains about 7 different images. Unfortunatley the fireworks don't look anywhere near this good to watch....
The next two are of a couple of girls who were sitting on some steps at South Bank. They were fun girls to chat with. Not sure if it was because they were crazy or drunk, but I suspect both :P In addition to being cute, they were smart asses to boot, warning me not to try and take any up skirts!

If the girls are reading the blog, you shouldn't feel embarrassed to ask me out for coffee etc ;) I am accustomed to coffee and haven't had one since I got back to Australia so I am likely to accept your invite. When contacting me for coffee or if you just want the pics without the watermark you can find my email somewhere at the top of the page.

These were the hardest photo's to edit, but they came out good in the end. Unfortunately the slow shutter speed due to the poor light and not using a tripod meant they weren't as great as i'd hoped.



This next pic is a nice candid shot of a couple in the crowd.
There were some kids shuffling near a DJ both at South Bank, they were hammered but managed to dance pretty well.

This is one of my favourite shots from the night. I asked the guy to drop the sand into the water and it looked awesome. A fun shot to edit, amazing colours etc. Thanks to the guys and girls in the pic, drop me an email and I can send you a copy without the watermark.

Drakensberg Sunset

First blog for a while. I wouldn't be doing it except Ehon made me. I am back in Australia now but these photos are from South Africa. All of the photos were edited by Ehon, the first was taken by me and the other landscapes were taken by a random photographer I met at a backpackers and lent my camera to. I was pleased to get the camera back with such awesome photos on it. I gave him a link to the blog so if you are him and have visited, drop me a msg, Ehon would love to hear what you think of his edits, as would I.


All of these pics (above and below) were taken at Amphitheater backpackers in the Drakensberg mountains, South Africa. Above is Cate who has been in some of my other pics and is a fellow aussie volunteer in South Africa.




There is a link to Ehon's blog to the right somewhere.

It's on!!! My Entry

In my previous post I spoke of a little challenge between some friends of mine to take a photo ID. Here is my effort, I found it really hard deciding which one to submit for our little comp, but I ended up deciding on the edit with my eye on the lens. I am getting better at my editing, but not sure the eye on the lens looks 100%. Let me know what you think. The top photo is the one I entered, the second a different edit and the third is the original.

What the ID is all about: The items at my feet represent where I am at currently and what is floating around in my head at the moment. The photo's and a couple of trinkets represent the fond memories I have of my time (6 months) volunteering in South Africa, and the end of an era as I am heading home to Australia in a few days. One photo ([link] the B&W one a favourite of mine), a lens brush and lens cap - represents the improvement in my photography this year, a guitar pick (i just started learning), some pills - I have the flu at the moment , and a juggling ball (represents the fun ahead and doubles as an apology to a friend of mine who taught me juggling for forgetting to invite him to our little ID photo off in the first email I sent about it, though I soon remembered him!). Oh, and I represent me and how awesome I am


I looked at heaps of ID's for inspiration, here is the one that most closely influenced my pic [link]

Ehon has also made an entry for our little comp, it can be found on his blog at http://ehonchan.com/2008/12/29/id-challenge/

It's on!!!

I just sent a message to a couple of friends of mine challenging them to a photo off!!!

I decided to do it for fun, but to help me learn about photography. I recently realised that I was taking photos with one aim, to take a nice, interesting or cool looking photo. This works reasonably well for me, though in order to progress with my photography I need to think more about the photo before I take it. Think about what I am trying to say with the photo and about how the changes I make to settings etc when taking the shot will affect my editing.

The idea of the challenge is that because I am setting out to take a particular type of photograph, and a good one at that, I will be forced to think about these things. I will have to if I am going to compete with them as they are very good photographers.

The challenge is this: Each photographer has one week to take, edit and upload their photo. The photo must be an ID, this is a self portrait which generally includes the camera, see here for examples.

There are no rules (except that it must be a new photo taken especially for this), any equipment can be used and editing is allowed. The photo's must be uploaded to Facebook and a messgae sent to the other photographers informing them of your entry by 5pm wed 24th Dec 08. That's next wed! If anyone reads this and want's in on our little game let me know.

Oh, P.S Winner buys everyone ice cream next time they see them!

People I have challenged so far:
Ehon
Doug
Matt
Mark
Betsy

The difference some editing can make

Thought I would put up these 4 photos to demonstrate the difference editing can make to a photo.

The first is the original, there are a couple of things that I noticed in the image that I wanted to bring out in the final image. Firstly the eyes and smile of the kids, secondly the dirt on the kids legs.

Both of these next two edits involve multiple layers and effects and were obtained through similar steps. It was created with a slightly different contrast to the one below and in addition has an effect to give a softer look and another layer to soften the edges of the photo more, giving it the appearance of an older photo with less contrast.
Below is my favourite edit, the smiles are prominent and the condition of the childs shoes as well as their smiles/faces attract attention.
The below edit was an accident and scared the sh*t out of me when I saw it. I accidentally dragged a layer into the wrong spot (order) in photoshop with this rather disturbing effect. It freaked me out so much my eyes started watering. I thought I had found away to reveal the demons in a photo or something... The kid on the right still freaks me out to look at!
Thanks for reading.

Cheers
Dan

Umlazi k Section - My Pics 1

Here are my pics from our trip to Umlazi, K Section

This first one I love, I took allot of this girl with the dog. This is the only one I have edited so far and the only one I will put up but I love them all!
She had a gorgeous smile, pitty about the fat kid. lol
We were amongst the informal housing going for a bit of a walk when this man approached Cate. It was quite sad, he was mentally retarded in someway (i'm no doctor, but he clearly had some form of retardation), and was known by the locals we spoke to. They said that his family didn't care for him properly.

He took a liking to Cate, her mistake being giving him a kiss on the cheek upon his request when he came up to her. White people (especially girls) get allot of attention in places we work, especially here in the middle of nowhere as it is so strange to see them there. It would be a pretty safe bet to say that we were the only white people there since I last visited a couple of months ago. Word gets out and people come out side their house and stare.

Culturally guys will annoy the girls (and people generally) until it pisses everyone off, though in there culture it is rude to interrupt or ask someone to go away so people just listen to it. Though it can get ridiculus and i ended up having to tell this guy and a couple of others that day to piss off (in Zulu). I did try more politely before that but these guys couldn't take a hint.
One of Thembisa's sisters dancing on the road.

Cate and Thembisa's youngest sister. Luckily despite considering it Cate did not abduct this child despie being tempted by how cute the kids were. Probably a good thing, they are only cute for so long...

Cate's Umlazi Pics

Here are the photos that Cate took during our trip to Umlazi. They look awesome and I am very jealous of someone who manages photos better than me with less effort and fuss.

I am editing mine now and they will be up in a couple of short hours.

I think this first photo is my favourite from the whole day!
Cate's foot, the kid's feet.
My take on it during editing. In theory it should simply be desaturated, I hope it appears that way on your computer. If not I am blaming in advance my monitor displaying the image too bright.
Thembisa's (she was the student who invited us to her house) youngest sister.
These next three pics are some more of my favourites.


The area is made up of 'informal' housing all built ridiculously close together, and made from whatever materials people could find. The walls themselves are mud (see the walls in the above shots) or sometimes bricks and the roofs are time, or asbestos. If they leave people throw patch them with whatever they can, see the mix of carpet, canvas, tin, wood and steel making up this roof, held there with an equally eclectic collection of weighty objects to stop the roof blowing away.


Yep, it's what it looks like! Just growing along the path to Thembisa's house. Thembisa was far less impressed by the novelty of it's open growth then Cate and I were.


Cate and I have an interesting dynamic, I have an unusual talent for making a fool of myself. Cate has an unusual talent for taking photos of me that compound the appearance on film of my stupidity. Case and point below.