In July, Jason, his wife Dale and nine-year-old son Rudy visited good friends in San Diego. They stayed in their wonderful Del Mar home for 10 days then hanged ten in Hawaii for a week.

San Diego Freeway

– San Diego is known for having a nice climate all year round. The winter high temps are 18C and summer high temps are 26-30C. Did I mention that there is almost no rainfall?

– Because of the good weather, cycling is fantastic all year round and outdoor activity is enjoyed all the time. Whilst in San Diego, I savoured three rides up and down the coast and saw lots of cyclists among the gorgeous scenery. The most amazing thing is that there’s bike lanes on nearly every street.  Since you ride on the opposite side of the road, I had to get used to looking over my left shoulder and getting off the bike on the right hand side (whilst on the street, so you don’t fall into traffic).  The traffic is a lot less agro than Sydney too, everyone seems fairly laid back and give you more than enough room. Our friends said as a general rule in traffic, there’s no beeping of horns, unless someone’s done something very wrong.

Margaritas, relaxing on a perfect Californian afternoon

– Baseball games are great, did you know that teams play 5-6 days a week?  The population is big enough to support it, the Petco Park stadium in SD is packed for most games.

Petco Park, home of the SD Padres

Also the home of the biggest Hot Dog I’ve ever had! Huge sausage wrapped in bacon and covered in several toppings…

– The “marine layer” is a strange foggy cloud that comes in off the ocean most mornings and clears at about 11am each day to reveal a typical clear blue sky.

– It doesn’t rain in SD (much).  We were doing some shopping one day and it started sprinkling outside, locals were coming into the shop excitedly saying “It’s raining outside!”

– The beautiful seaside suburb of La Jolla is pronounced La Hoya, don’t be a dick like me and embarrass yourself.

 

 

La Jolla bees

– Beer, wine & spirits are seriously cheap, about half the price it is here, including Australian wine…

– Supermarkets have an amazing variety of stuff, I could spend all day in stores like “Whole Foods”.  I just wish they’d incorporate their state tax into the prices like we do with our GST, just confused the hell out of me!

– Cars are really cheap too.

– A high percentage of Californians are ridiculously good looking.

 

Monkeys at San Diego Zoo

– 20 minutes to the mexican border means there’s some insanely great Mexican food in SD, I could have Mexican morning, noon and night!  Food portions in all restaurants was huge, waiter & waitress service was the best I’ve experienced.

– 4 way stop signs at most intersections.  I must admit I didn’t think it would work, that it would be chaos.  Evidently it works itself out, people just take turns at going, crazy but it works, traffic flows fairly evenly.

– I wish we had squirrels in Sydney…

Love Squirrels!

– We had a great time in SD and Hawaii, can’t wait to go back!

 

Exploring Thurston Lava Tube in Hawai’i (Volcano, Big Island)

Studio Commercial has been in business for forty odd years. Our studio has survived the change from film to digital, the global financial crisis and mullets.

This is what we’ve learnt along the way:

• Always carry these to every photo shoot: gaffa tape, spare batteries, spare CF cards and more than one lens.
• Having seven photographers is invaluable. When one of us has fallen ill and another staff member is holidaying in the Maldives, photo shoots continued, emails were answered by others.  Everything continues to run like clockwork.
• As a photographer, be very clear about your contract, prices and terms and conditions. Every second client will expect to get all of the raw unedited images at no cost and you will have to explain your policy. If you see nothing wrong with this, you shouldn’t be in photography.
• Be nice to your camera brand’s representatives. They have the potential to love and nurture you and your equipment or keep you guessing as to when you can pick up your camera. Unfortunately, in either scenario, they will never let on when the latest gear is coming out.
• Arrive early to every shoot. Leave nothing behind (that may mean having a gear bag packed with used tape).

Hi guys,

We launched our winter newsletter a couple of weeks ago.

If you dig behind the scenes footage, photography tips and bite sized slices of our lives, make sure you sign up to our mailer in the right hand side column.

You’ll get an email for every season, that’s four juicy emails a year. No dribble, just great information.

If you have any topics you’d like us to cover, please let us know in the comments section.

Here are five ways you can instantly improve your photography by making little changes to your camera and the way you snap.

1. 1. Don’t photograph people eating. Nobody looks attractive while they’re scoffing their face or have half a plate of seafood in front of them.
   2. Play around with Aperture priority. By shooting at f2, your images naturally improve by the background or foreground being completely out of focus. Have a look at this flickr group to see what I mean by f2.
   3. Save your images in the highest resolution possible. Yes, you might have to read your user manual to find out how to do that, but your images will thank you in five years time. We have images that we took on digital in 2002 that are tiny files, but at the time, they were cutting edge. Expect the same and don’t just stick to the automatic JPEG size.
   4. Stand closer to the subject, then get closer. It will only improve the image. You’re never as close as you think you are. Unless you hit them in the head with your lens. Then say sorry.
   5. Turn off auto flash. Most modern cameras can deal with the mild darkness and will automatically pump up their ISO (light sensitivity). You’ll know pretty fast if your camera is capable of this or not by looking at your LCD screen.

Our seasonal newsletter for Autumn just launched. It’s filled with exclusive photos of our adventures in photography, insights into our studio and useful tips on photography.

This mailer has pointers on how to choose and purchase your first DSLR, Dave’s images of New York City and Adam Liaw, the MasterChef Winner of 2010.

Have a look at the first issue and make sure you join up to get our Winter issue.

Jason, the head honcho, writes a once in a while editorial

I joined the Studio in the late 1980s, when Sydney was riding high on bicentennial fever. We had four camera kits for seven photographers. The Studio was a quarter of the size it is now; hidden in a little alleyway in Pitt Street. We had three dark rooms and everyone learnt film processing, we did our own printing. Hand printed, no less.

When the studio opened in 1967, the photographers used to have a Graflex Speed Graphics camera that only loaded sheets of 5×4″ film. At each shoot, they could only take six (really good) images.

Shooting with film was completely different to using a camera today, we used a light meter all the time. We used medium format Bronica film cameras when I came on board.

These days, it’s a lot quicker to take an image and change things around relying on the LCD screen at the back, although we still use light meters at most shoots.

We had to dress more conservatively for our corporate clients but that’s changed with time. We’re not expected to dress corporately, it’s expected that we’re not cut from the same cloth.

The technology for cameras is literally moving in leaps and bounds. Each year, the advancements in camera bodies and Photoshop is pretty amazing. Because of this, photography as a communication is getting more advanced every three months.

Our work in the 80s now seems dated. Even work from the early 2000s ages quickly.

Photography as a field is at a really interesting point right now.

Photographers worldwide have had a lean couple of years but now that we’re a quarter of the way through 2011, there are some things that we should celebrate about the state of photography in this day and age.

1. 1. Photography is more easily accessible: The entry level has been lowered as the price of high quality cameras go down.

1. 1. More people interested in photography means more people can appreciate good images when they see it.

1. 1. You can fix up pimples, bumps and lumps in Photoshop, more often than not in under 30 seconds.

1. 1. Interested in obscure photography? Want to go old school? You can form a community around your images through flickr, strobist and other sites. The photography community is increasingly moving online, which means you can always find support for your images.

1. 1. Instant gratification: You take a photo and you can look at it straight away so you know if you got it right or failed miserably. This also has it’s downsides (see: facebook pose)

1. Cameras are getting smaller and smarter. And if people give you shit for say, using your iPhone, remember, Henri Cartier Bresson used to be criticized by the more traditional medium format photographers of his era for using a 35mm camera.

What can you add to the list?

We’re starting this blog to share what we know about commercial photography in Sydney, show you some of our photoshoots and the occasional behind the scenes shenanigans. We also want to have a crazy amount of fun and interaction.

Stroll through our about pages to find out our areas of expertise and what each of us would do on our last day on earth.

Be curious, ask questions and let us know what you would like to see more (or less) of by emailing blog[at]studiocommercial[dot]com.

Cheers, Jason Doyle, Vanessa Etherington, Dave Silva & Andrew Ratter.

Want to know the history of Hello World?