Cinematography & photography cruise lecture schedule

Location training & mentoring

This week I'm working in remote Central Queensland at Saddler Springs, a 30,000 hectre cattle station owned by Amanda and Lloyd Hancock. Amanda is my training client and she flies the drone and does nicely with her Sony PMW-200, Sony A7 Mk3 and a Mavic Air drone. Our filming/camping location, Battleship Spur at 1,200 meters, is no place for sleepwalkers! 

Amanda trained with me here in North Sydney during May, followed by six days location mentoring in Central Queensland and now she returns to my North Sydney venue to start training with the Sony A7 Mk3.

SBS Cadet Journalists take on video camera training

I've recently been training up SBS Television cadet journalist in the craft of video news camera work. I'm looking forward to seeing their completed feature "news story" produced by them as a part of my Video for Journalists course.

Matters of Depth and Mood - Tips

A number of recent visitors have enquired about what they see as a certain "depth" and "mood" in my regular "Good Morning" series of sunrise images. Do I use software filters? It's a question that often pops up. So that you can acheive this, I can break it down into three key practices:

1. Using Manual settings, adjust the exposure level for the brighter regions of the composed image - the brightest cloud for example. Close down the aperture or increase the shutter speed to bring detail and colour saturation into these often blown-out regions of the image. Allow other areas to appear under exposed - don't be afraid of the dark! These shadowy areas can be lifted later, and besides, that's how it is when the sun sits low in the sky. This is how I can convey "mood".

Window light

Singapore, Vietnam photography lecture series

I have been delivering a series of cinematography lectures on board Silversea Silver Shadow. Sailing from Singapore with port stops in Ho Chi Min City, Da Nang, Ha Long Bay and finishing in Hong Kong.

Africa, Indian Ocean and Asian cinematography lecture series

I have been delivering a series of cinematography lectures on board Oceania Nautica. Sailing from Cape Town with port stops in Maputo Mozambique, Da Es Salaam, Mombassa Kenya, Zanzibar Tanzania, Seychelles, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Thailand and wrapping up in Singapore.

Please visit my gallery for more images from this assignment.

Still to Motion training at top Sydney Ad agency

Some of the finest pro photographers at the BMF agency's amazing Sydney studio, this week took part in my Still to Motion course. BMF took home more awards than any other agency at the 2017 Australian Effie Awards. They also won the Effective Agency of the Year Award. BMF collected one Gold Effie Award, seven Silvers and one Bronze. I'm very proud to be training their staff photographers on ways to further improve their video production skills.

Foxtel production gets the latest camera info

I’ve had a busy schedule these past eight weeks. Assignments in Japan, South Korea, China, Finland and Holland. Now back in Sydney, I'm taking reservations for training sessions into the new year.

Recent activities at my space at the National HQ of the Australian Cinematographers in North Sydney have been a mix of One-to-One training with a number of photographers and cinematographers plus one of my regular camera technical updates for the production unit at Foxtel.

This session featured Sony F65, F55, FS7Mk2, Sony A7R Mk2, Canon C300 Mk2 cameras and the brilliant new Sony RX0 miniature camera. There also was a selection of drones and gimbals. Contributions from Angelo Boutsalis from Dragon Image and Sony Australia's Anthony Kable.

Pieter de Vries Captures the Antarctic with the Sony PXW-FS7 4K

Earlier this year I returned from Ushuaia, Tierra Del Fuego after participating in a twenty-day expedition to Antarctica. The Homeward Bound Project has gathered the first 76 of a targeted 1,000 women from around the world, all with critical science backgrounds, to undertake a year-long state-of-the-art program to develop their leadership and strategic capabilities, using science to build conviction around the importance of their voices.

This article for Content and Technology magazine looks at the range of camera technology used on this assignment.

Assignment Helsinki: Presenting IMAGO Best Cinematography award

October 2017: It was a brilliant night in Helsinki. I had the pleasure of presenting the award for Best Cinematography Documentary Films to Polish cinematographer, Lukasz Zal for his work on "Ikon" This is a feature-length documentary portrait of a provincial psychiatric hospital population. For the first time in the history of one of the largest psychiatric hospitals in Siberia a film crew could see the daily life behind high walls.

Our other winners on the night were Fabian Wagner BSC ASC for TV Drama, "Game of Thrones – The Winds of Winter" and Seamus McGarvey BSC for the Feature Film "Nocturnal Animals".

Congratulations to the winners and to all the nominees. There was some extraordinary cinematography up on the screen.

Assignment: Japan, Sth Korea & China cinematography lecturers

September & October 2017: I have been presenting lectures to guests on the US based Silversea cruise ship, the Silver Shadow. The talks centred on my photography and cinematography. This three week assignment included Tokyo, Hiroshima, Shimizu and Ishikagi (Japan) Seoul and Busan (South Korea) Beijing, Tianjing and Shanghai (China).