Sunset over Kingfisher Bay, Fraser Island
Photo By Danielle Lancaster

In this Issue:

l Bluedog Photo News

l Workshops

l Exhibitions

l Checking Out Web Sites

l Photo Tip

l Bluedog's Eco Tip

l Competitions & For Sale

l Photo Trivia

l Dedication to a Master of the Lens

What's On: Workshops, Retreats and Outings:
For further details refer to Photography Workshops and Retreats
Don't forget to let us know if there is anything specific you would like covered in any workshop or during a retreat. Our workshop calendar will be on the web site and updated regularly as you make your requests and we are now trying to plan all workshops well in advance so you have plenty of time to prepare. Remember once you start with us, our advice does not stop when you leave the workshop you can e-mail us with questions and images for further continued advice.

The Bluedog Team of wonderfully talented professional photographers have a wealth of knowledge to share and have taught various aspects of photography throughout Australia. You may be a good photographer but that does not mean you can teach. We all continue to work as professional photographers and have the confidence and patience to take you on exciting paths with your work.

Registration and receipt of place is essential as numbers are limited. We want the workshops to continue to be very personalised so that you may gain the maximum from the workshops. Remember we do need you to book your place and after you book you receive a registration form. Once we receive this back with payment to secure your position then your place is confirmed.

An outline of each workshop and retreat itinerary is listed on Photography Workshops and Retreats

Photo Tip: Getting Whites White

Having a problem getting your whites really white?

All in-camera light meters only measure reflected light that is the light being reflected back to the camera.  It really means they guess how much light is hitting the subject. While the cameras light meter is very intelligent it can't accurately determine this all the time without you having some knowledge on how it reads the light. For this reason most of your images with large areas of white will actually be grey.

The answer is to know what 18% grey is or middle grey as it sometimes called. When your camera meters off of a subject which reflects more or less light than 18% grey it causes your image to be either under or over-exposured.

You need to know how to tell it to read the light properly. Using a grey card does the trick! If you'd like to know more join one of our Intermediate Workshops and we'll have you getting the cleanest whites you've ever seen!

Checking Out Web Sites:
With a wide variety of photography web sites we are now setting up a
web page as a portal and will feature one of these each newsletter.

Nov-Dec 2008 Featured Web site is:

Photography Directory
http://www.photodir.net

If you have come across a great web site
send it to us and it may just be featured!

What's On: Photography Exhibitions

l Picture Paradise - The first century of Asia-Pacific photography 1840's-1940s
The exhibition chronicles the developments in photography throughout South and Southeast Asia, Australia and the Pacific to the west coast of North America. Early photography in the Asia–Pacific region reveals the beauty and cultural diversity of the region.
Venue: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Date/s: 10th July to 9 November 2008

l The 2008 Nikon-Walkley Press Photo Exhibition: The Nikon-Walkley Photographic Awards are today regarded as the most comprehensive and prestigious competition for press photographers in Australia.
Venue: Australian Centre of Photography, Sydney
Date/s: Friday 31 October to Saturday 15 November 2008
Entry Free

l Water Trees and Roots :: Stories from the Vietnamese community
From refugees to inspiration, Water, trees and roots celebrates the journey, challenges and successful establishment of Queensland's Vietnamese community through photographs and stories.
Venues & Dates:
Blackwater Library 13th - 5th December
Charleville Library - 27th-31 January 2009

l Frame by Frame: Asia Pacific Artists on Tour: Showcases photography and moving image works by artists from the contemporary Asian, Pacific and Australian collections.

Venues & Dates:
Artspace Mackay
24 October – 30 November 2008

Hervey Bay Regional Art Gallery
11 December 2008 – 24 January 2009

Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville
20 February – 19 April 2009

Gold Coast City Art Gallery
16 May – 28 June 2009

Bundaberg Arts Centre
15 July – 23 August 2009

Cairns Regional Gallery
4 September – 8 November 2009

Caloundra Regional Art Gallery
25 November 2009 – 17 January 2010

Photo Trivia: Did You Know?

A native of Kingston-on-Thames, England, Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904), a brilliant and eccentric photographer, gained worldwide fame photographing animal and human movement imperceptible to the human eye. He became a photography legend via his images of horses and other animals in motion. Muybridge used photography to prove that there was a moment in a horse’s gallop when all four hooves were off the ground at once

Muybridge was not only the first photographer to successfully capture rapid action for analysis; he was also a superb composer of imagery. His legacy, which leads directly to the invention of the motion picture, contains more than the scientific studies for which he is most famous; it also includes wonderful views of sea and city inspired by his immigration to San Francisco in 1855.

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Bluedog's Eco Tip

Use Your Fridge & Freezer Wisely:
Don’t put hot food into a fridge or freezer. The hot food warms up the fridge or freezer, meaning the cooling unit needs to work harder to bring the temperature back down to what it should be. The harder the cooling unit works, the more electricity you use. Instead leave the food out on a surface to cool down naturally – of course covering the food appropriately. Once the food reaches room temperature, then put it into a fridge or freezer.

Dedication to the Masters of the Lens
William Claxton
(1927-2008 )

William Claxton, the master photographer whose images of Chet Baker helped fuel the jazz trumpeter's stardom in the 1950s and whose fashion photographs of his wife modeling a topless swim suit were groundbreaking years later, died in October. He was 80.

In a career spanning more than a half century, Claxton also became well known for his work with celebrities including Frank Sinatra and Steve McQueen; but he gained his foremost public recognition for his photographs of jazz performers including Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Mel Torme, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk and Stan Getz. But it was his photographs of Baker that helped teach him the true meaning of the word photogenic.

"I was up all night developing when the face appeared in the developing tray," Claxton told the Irish Times in 2005. "A tough demeanor and a good physique but an angelic face with pale white skin and, the craziest thing, one tooth missing -- he'd been in a fight. I thought, my God, that's Chet Baker."

Born in Pasadena, Claxton grew up in an upper middle-class family in La Cañada Flintridge. His mother was a musician and his older brother played piano. Claxton said he tried the keyboard but had no patience for it. He started collecting records, especially jazz, at an early age. At 12 years old, he was taking the bus to downtown Los Angeles to hear jazz greats, including Ellington, at the Orpheum Theatre.

Years later, he would go to jazz clubs and shoot photographs of up-and-coming musicians just for fun and to listen to the music. An incident that he recounted in the introduction to his book "Jazz: William Claxton" speaks of a more innocent time between celebrities and photographers.
Claxton is survived by his wife of 49 years; his son Christopher; sister Colleen Lewis of Eagle Rock; and several nieces and nephews.

Claxton captures Frank Sinatra playfully springing from a harp case during the recording sessions for his seminal "In the Wee Small Hours" album in February 1955.

William Claxton

Claxton photographed a man playing saxophone in Times Square in 1960.