Landscape by Design with Olivia Vincent

Photography is so much more than just camera settings, sharpness and pressing the shutter button. It gives us the opportunity to tell stories. Composite images give us the opportunity to create those stories from our imagination. During the presentation we will discuss the creative and technical considerations involved in photographing with compositing in mind, and creating fictional photorealistic scenes from images that are already in your archive. We will look at the different types of composites and how they are achieved, covering tips and tricks to help make your next composite image believable.

Olivia picked up her first serious camera when she was 21. She has a background in Multimedia and Graphic Design which play a major part in her current photographic style. She is guided by her intuition, interpretation, and imagination. She has learnt to trust her individual process in order to uncover unconscious meaning and poetic narratives. She enjos creating images from her imagination rather than documenting the world as it is. 

“ALL the Small Things”

Close up and Macro Photography presented by Paul Irvine 

Paul is a 53yo avid, amateur/hobby macro photographer with a fascination of nature his whole life. He found that photographing the natural world around him was the most satisfying of subjects. 

Purchasing his first DSLR some 10+ years ago, he was drawn to nature with native terrestrial orchids which then lead to insects and arachnids as his primary subjects and macro becoming his favourite genre.

In 2014 he found his first peacock spider which led him on a path of discovery of these magnificent jumping spiders. In 2016 he discovered an unknown, undescribed, new to science species of these Maratus which was then described and named Maratus gemmifer. This was published to the world in 2017.  Another new species was discovered in 2018, described and published in December 2020, found with his friend Chris O’Toole, both working on behalf of the WA Museum to search an area near Nannup. The “addiction” of finding and learning about these Maratus has seen him meet experts from the WA Museum, NSW, Victoria and Germany as people come to WA in search of Maratus to study which has created a whole new dimension to his macro photography and an introduction to academic science. This is seasonal from approx. June – October. So, for the rest of the time, Paul will shoot ANY invertebrate he finds to show it off in its best light. In fact, he will even wrestle the macro set up off of his camera, on special occasions, and shoot other nature subjects too! 

Paul wants to capture the unseen and help people see it as he does through his lens in an effort to bring awareness, appreciation and if nothing else, conservation of these weird, wonderful and “scary” subjects. The opportunity to pass on his knowledge and help people achieve their macro goals plays a big part in the happiness he achieves from this genre. 

 Paul will talk about native flora and fauna, how to find them, how to shoot them, macro equipment, techniques and settings for shooting macro, importance of diffusing harsh light, how/where to identify your finds and run through a demonstration of focal/focus stacking (time permitting). 

Photographing the Outback 

Presented via Zoom by Paula Heelan

Photojournalist Paula Heelan has been photographing the Australian Outback for more that two decades. Her work captures the everyday life of people who live and work in remote towns and on stations; the grandeur and unforgiving nature of landscapes and the weather as well as wildlife and livestock.