Rodney Campbell's Blog

On the weekend my eldest daughter and I visited the Kirribilli Markets – which is held on the fourth Saturday of the month at Bradfield Park, on the corner of Alfred St and Burton St, Milsons Point, just outside Milsons Point Station (basically just under the Sydney Harbour Bridge on the north side).

Whilst we were there along with browsing the food and wares we took a walk across the bridge and also grabbed some street images.

Note: These images (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay gallery viewer.

Just as we were coming back down the stairs up to the pedestrian walkway across the Sydney Harbour Bridge I spotted this young lady heading up the stairs and waited for the right moment and composition with a long lens.

NIKON D90 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 200 mm, 1/1600 sec at f / 5.3, ISO 200

It was a very sunny and hot day at the open air Kirribilli Markets and there were lots of women toting umbrellas as shade from the sun – I took a number of umbrella shots and I liked the feeling of this composition.

NIKON D90 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 180 mm, 1/1000 sec at f / 5.0, ISO 200

Lastly an image of my daughter at the midway point on the bridge with our cakes (which we ate momentarily 🙂 ).

NIKON D90 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 230 mm, 1/250 sec at f / 5.3, ISO 200

I was walking along George St in the city (Sydney) around lunchtime when I saw these two ladies wearing brightly coloured summer dresses waiting at the intersection to cross amidst a sea of drab whites, blacks and greys (mostly people wearing business clothes). As we were crossing I got a lovely flick of the hair and here we are.

I used the local adjustment brush in Adobe Lightroom to post process the image as you see it here – I firstly used a large hard brush over the whole image to reduced the Saturation, Clarity and Sharpness all to -100 and I then used the Erase brush with Auto Mask to “paint” the two women back in and then touched up the edges a little.

NIKON D90 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm, 1/160 sec at f / 5.6, ISO 200

Another street image (on George St outside the QVB).

Besides the conversion to monochrome in post processing for this image I’ve also used the local adjustment brush in Adobe Lightroom to selectively reduce the Clarity and Sharpness to effectively blur the background of the image.

NIKON D90 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 50 mm, 1/40 sec at f / 5, ISO 200

The following is my first ever Triptych which I’ve titled “Forgive Me!”.

It was taken at The Rocks on Australia Day 2011 – my daughter and I were just having a rest in the park next to the MCA and listening to one of the concerts when we noticed this couple near us and the moments unfolding.

The images were taken about one to two minutes apart. This (the centre image) is probably my own favourite candid street image from the day.

NIKON D90 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 50 mm, 1/50 sec at f / 5, ISO 200

In keeping with my project to practice in the art of street photography this year I made sure I took a few whilst in the city with my daughters on Australia Day 2011. We had a very long and busy day and wandered around the various events – Hyde Park, Macquarie St, Circular Quay, Opera House, The Rocks and finally Darling Harbour (for dinner and the 9PM fireworks).

Here are some of the images I took ‘on the streets’ whilst we wandered through the city. The first two I processed in monochrome (because I thought that suited the image) and the last two in colour (again because I thought they looked better that way) – YMMV 🙂

This fascinating lady was having some very animated conversations sitting on one of the benches along the central promenade in Hyde Park around lunchtime:

NIKON D90 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 50 mm, 1/400 sec at f / 3.5, ISO 200

A Day in the Park:

NIKON D90 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm, 1/200 sec at f / 5.6, ISO 720

One of the hundreds of cars on display adorned with it’s numerous ‘badges of rank’:

NIKON D90 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 27 mm, 1/800 sec at f / 2.8, ISO 200

Glamour:

NIKON D90 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm, 1/500 sec at f / 8, ISO 200