New Caledonia Gallery

New Caledonian breakdancer Wishak throws down some impressive moves in the town centre of Noumea. Canon 5D Mark II camera and Sigma 50mm f1.4 EX DG HSM lens. Exposure Details: 1/1600 second @ f2.8 ISO 125.

Hi guys just posting a quick anouncement that I’ve uploaded a new gallery on my website. It’s a collection of images I took during my stay in New Caledonia late last year and early this year. It features a range of shots including landscapes, urban scenes, youth culture, the omnipresent church and the effects of heavy nickel mining.

The image I’ve chosen here for the blog is one I’d almost forgotton about and recently re-discovered while going through my collections. In fact it inspired me to put together the gallery as I’d previously thought I didn’t quite have enough material for a New Caledonia gallery. I hope you enjoy the photos and I value any questions/feedback.

Cheers,

Cam.

Corona Extra ‘On The Beach’ photography competition win

Long Exposure of 'billet 500' by night. Canon 5D Mark II camera and Canon 24-105mm f4L IS USM lens. Exposure Details: 30 seconds @ f4 ISO 400.

Hi guys, I just got word that my photograph of ‘Billet 500’ has won the monthly Corona Extra ‘On The Beach’ award. I made this picture back in November while on a 4WD trip in New Caledonia. I took it in a beautiful place called Hienghene on the east coast of the main island (Grand Terre). The photo is a 30 second night exposure and you can actually see stars showing through the sky. The rock in the background appears on the 500 franc note in French Pacific territories and is thus known locally as ‘Billet 500’. Thankyou to Corona for selecting my image and for the shiny new hammock, umbrella and esky.

As promised some snow related pictures from the Australian Alpine country are on the way.

Cheers,

Cam.

Sunset over Nouméa

Sunset overlooking Nouméa from Pic Malawi. Panorama stitch of 44 separate images using Photoshop CS4. Canon 5D Mark II camera and Canon 24-105mm f4L IS USM lens. Exposure Details for all 44 images: 1/25 second @ f9 ISO 400.

For today’s post I’m going back to one of the last hikes I did before leaving New Caledonia. I captured this incredible sunset from an equally incredible location: Pic Malawi, a steep mountain commanding an awesome view over the peninsula upon which the city of Nouméa resides. After a steep ascent struggling to keep up with a French Alps native, the sun began to merge with the sea as golden clouds buffeted the thickly forested hills around us. It was probably the best sunset of my life, and I was lucky enough to grab this 44 image panorama featuring our fellow colocataire (house mate) Romain, as he took in the breathtaking view. This is a 360 degree panorama, which explains why the summit on the left is sunlit, despite the sun appearing to go down somewhere behind. To view this panorama in a fuller glory simply click on the image and it will open in another page displayed in a larger format. Hope you guys enjoy it. This shot along with some others I’ve taken recently will be added to the landscape gallery on my website soon so stay posted for that. Feel free to leave any comments here on the blog. Thanks for looking, Cheers, Cam.

World Cup Trophy Tour

Portrait of New Caledonian football fan at the World Cup Trophy Tour in Nouméa. Canon 5D Mark II camera and Sigma 50mm f1.4 EX DG HSM lens. Exposure Details: 1/500 second @ f2.8 ISO 200

Today I’m throwing up a portrait I took while covering the soccer World Cup Trophy Tour in Nouméa last month. There is no particular story to this image other than to say I was after a nice fan portrait as part of my general coverage of the event. Key to this image was taking advantage of natural light, which I learned in my wedding photographer days with Ruben Palermo (an excellent photographer with whom I learned a lot). To create this image I brought this local soccer fan into a shady place where there was both even lighting and a nice colour matching background. I used a wide aperture to create my desired depth of field (softness/blurriness in front and behind the point of focus). I think also contributing to this image is that there was a large, white, fully sunlit marquee right behind me reflecting that even light I was after, as well creating a kind of reflective sheen on the dude’s eyes.

You can check out the rest of my coverage from the World Cup Trophy Tour on the gallery page of me website. There’s a bunch of cool action shots and portraits, including some commercial style stuff for the sponsor. Soon I’ll be posting some of the promised shots from my hikes in New Caledonia and also a few from my 2 weeks in Vanuatu. As for the next few days I’m off for a 3-day hike at Wilsons Promontory in Victoria. Thanks for reading, Cam.

Island Paradise

Traditional Outrigger Canoe on the Isle of Pines. Canon 5D Mark II camera and Canon 24-105mm f4L IS USM lens. Exposure Details: 1/200 second @ f10 ISO 200.

Many parts of New Caledonia are just about as classicly ‘paradisical’ as it can get going by typical western conception. The landscapes, the sea and the weather allow an incredible lifestyle if you so choose. Phenomenal diving, snorkelling and fishing are provided by the barrier reef that encloses Grand Terre (the main island) in the world’s largest lagoon. Consistent trade winds keep the climate moderate and provides for the thousands of kite surfers that visit. Sailing, trekking, horse-riding, canyoning and four wheel driving are other popular activities. Yet if you travel enough you come to realise that -as a local poet once said of New Caledonia- ‘paradise exists nowhere but in man’s imagination’. The society here is just as engulfed in problems as any other. National identity, racism, immigration, economic development, mining, a continuing clash of civilisations (Melanesian and European) are key areas of conflict. Sound familiar? It does for just about any place I can think of in one way or another.

These are themes I’d like to explore with photography here, yet an understanding of local issues has only just started to crystalise for me, and my visa is about to expire! So today I’m posting a postcard perfect picture of paradise I took that was published in last week’s ‘New Caledonia Weekly’, the only English language magazine here. I don’t believe the photo is deceitful of reality, I believe New Caledonia is in fact paradise, a natural paradise, but not a human one. The text that accompanied the photo in the magazine is below.

“It was the second of January and we were still recovering from new year’s eve on the idyllic Isle of Pines. We arranged to be taken on a voyage by pirogue (a traditional outrigger canoe). It poured rain early in the morning, leaving us with a dim prognostic for the voyage. Fortunately the rain eased off, but a thick blanket of cloud meant the incredible Baie d’Upi did not quite lend itself to photography. That was at least until we were dropped off at our destination and the sky cleared, revealing all the glorious colours the Isle Pines is renowned for. I was able to snap this postcard perfect memory just as our noble captain, Theodore, prepared to return to Baie St Joseph. As for us, we turned to the forest and set out for the elusive Piscine Naturelle.”

Thanks for reading, next week I’m off to Vanuatu for a couple of weeks and then back to Australia to arrange a visa. Plenty of good posts coming up including some landscapes here and some shots from the soccer World Cup Trophy Tour that I covered on Tuesday.

Street Photography in Nouméa

Local New Caledonian 'crews' practice for the upcoming Breakdance World Championship qualifier. Canon 5D Mark II camera and Sigma 50mm f1.4 EX DG HSM lens. Exposure Details: 1/1250 second @ f2.8 ISO 500

Over the last few years I’ve come to admire a style of photography dubbed ‘street photography’. Being introduced to some of the great exponents of the genre (Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank etc.) was inspiring for me and in fact helped solidify my will to become a photographer. At the heart of it is to approach total strangers for permission to photograph them, or to unobstrusively capture candid moments. Both are much easier said than done.

Over the past 2 weeks I’ve started to practice here in Nouméa (capital of New Caledonia, a far flung French territory in the South Pacific and last vestment of France’s former colonial empire), spending a few afternoons in centre ville with my new canon. Being completely unschooled in street photography meant that at first I ended up walking around for an hour or two without getting any shots. It wasn’t that I didn’t see any opportunities for great shots, it was that they were either fleeting moments I wasn’t ready for, or of people I didn’t feel confident approaching for permission to photograph.

As a former tutor of mine (Glenn Guy) once said, ‘having a camera in your hand announces your intentions to the world’, which was something that replayed over in my mind several times that first afternoon. I felt very self conscious, but it was also the first thing I realised I had to get over. Even just walking around for a few hours in the centre ville of Nouméa helped me, I stopped tucking the camera away in the case and began keeping it openly slung over one shoulder. I started to notice possibilities in all sorts of places and began to come up with strategies for getting shots. In my first attempt I casually observed some old melanesian women in bright ‘mother hubbard dresses’ waiting for the bus. I then went up the street to a place with the same lighting conditions and primed the camera for a correct exposure. I returned and asked for permission (with as much charm and politeness as I could muster in French) to take a portrait. Two of the ladies were agreeable but the the third met me with flat refusal. Perhaps it was the language barrier, perhaps it’s the weekly load of  Australian tourists who step off the P&O cruise ship for a day in the city that have made people wary of white foreigners with cameras. Either way it was rejection that was the next thing I realised I had to get over.

One of the next places I tried was the famous ‘Place des Cocotiers’ where I’d previously noticed some locals breakdancing. I’d bet that they would be cool with having shots taken of them because they essentially engage in a performing art that is meant to be appreciated visually. Still, I was a little nervous asking. But I soon found they are a really friendly bunch of people, as equally curious about what the hell an Australian is doing living in Nouméa as I am about an American ghetto genre of dance cropping up in the middle of the pacific. I have since been back a few times, made some friends, emailed them copies of the shots and learned that making connections with people allows you a freedom to go for the shots you might otherwise miss out on.

I was also given a window into the world of international breakdancing. These guys are all in distinct ‘crews’ (teams) that compete in local official and underground competitions. Coming up in early February is the New Caledonian qualifier for the Breakdance World Championship. The best breakdancers from New Caledonia will be trained for a month with a choreographer to put together a 15 minute routine, they will then be flown to France to compete for the chance to represent that nation in the world championship held in Germany later in the year. For many, being flown to Europe would be their first time leaving New Caledonia so the qualifier will be hotly contested.