Category: Photo Shoots

52 Week Project: A Hazy Daydream

Before I get into the blog, I have to let you know that I am currently quite out of it and unwell, so this blog is shorter than most, may not make much sense, and may seem all over the place.
Hopefully it is somewhat readable though!

I have been in a bit of a nostalgic mood lately, and as a part of that, I have been revisiting some of my older images.

While browsing my images from 2017, I came across a photo shoot that I did with Sophie and Ebony in July of that year, and I realized that I haven’t released any of the images from that shoot yet, so I thought that now would be as good of a time as any to release it, and even though they are old images, I have decided to include them, or at least this image, in my 52 Week Project!

The photo shoot itself, as well as the adventuring beforehand to find a suitable location, was extremely fun! Sophie, Ebony and I had a huge day of adventuring and creating.

The model in this image is Sophie. The idea behind this image was that I was attempting to create an image about insomnia.

I’m not sure whether it succeeded in that regard, hence why I also changed the title from “Insomniac” to “A Hazy Daydream”, but either way, I still love the image!

I may release the other image we created on that day, which includes both Sophie and Ebony at some point in the near future, so keep an eye out for that!

I will also get back to release new images that have been created recently next week!

Until the next time, I hope you all have a wonderful rest of the week!

– Tyler

January 23, 2020

52 Week Project: All Seeing

The morning begun at 4:30am. Our model arrived to pick Eleni and I up and we headed off to the Redwoods.

It took us around an hour to get there, and once we did, the photo shoot began!

First, we waited until the sun began to rise, and then we started preparing for the first image of the day, which is this weeks image “All Seeing”.

It took us around 20 minutes to get everything ready. Preparing involved putting double sided tape on the back of each craft eye, and then sticking them all over Kate’s body.

It doesn’t show in the image due to the posing that we ended up deciding on, but there were eyes stuck all down her legs as well.

Then, the wait for the light of the sun to illuminate inside the forest begun!

We had arrived just before 6:00am, which is when the sun began rising, however due to being in the forest, there wasn’t enough light to begin shooting until around 7:10am, so there was a bit of a wait!

After trying a few different poses, and taking about 20 frames in the process, we settled on this one, and only small modifications were done to the pose. In total, there were 30 frames taken for this specific image.

For the first time, I have created an animated GIF of the editing process. Here it is:

And here is a small 10 second video of me attaching some of the eyes onto Kate’s back, which was taken by my love, Eleni!

I will be sharing more images from this photo shoot soon, so keep an eye out for them in the coming weeks!

Also, apologies for the lateness is releasing this weeks image in my 52 Week Project. I ended up having a bit of a rough week with my health, as well as being super busy with photo shoots and starting my course at the Photography Studies College, and haven’t had the chance to edit the image or blog about it until today.

I should be on time for the foreseeable future though!

I hope you have all had a wonderful week so far!

-Tyler

January 6, 2020

52 Week Project: New Beginnings

This week, the first week of 2020, a new beginning has started for me, and this image is a representation of that

It’s not your typical “New Year, New Me” type of change, but it’s the beginning of something that will lead to bigger changes down the road.

Yesterday, the 5th of January, marked the first step into transitioning back into creating art on a more regular basis.

Over the last year and a half, while my health has been in a pretty dire place, and I have focued on seeking answers for my health and began new treatments, my photography had to take a back seat

Throughout that year and a half, I have done a total of only 5 of my signature conceptual/storytelling shoots, and a couple of other shoots in different styles.

Instead of forcing my body through the extreme physical exhaustion and pain that photo shoots involve for me, I instead put my focus on all the back end/admin related aspects, as well as the exhibiting/competition side of my business.

While I love working on those aspects of my business, I have honestly missed creating on a regular basis more than I’ve missed almost anything in my entire life.
I had to focus on my health though. My health was a more major and important priority (and still is).

Throwing back to the months of March, April, May and June last year, I decided to start building a team of models here in Melbourne, as I knew that I would be in Melbourne on a much more regular basis now that I had found the love of my life, who lives here in Melbourne, and because all of my doctors and specialists are here as well.

I built the team, with the intention of beginning to create with them in July, but that didn’t happen.

Over the next few months, I would try to get some photo adventures organised with some of the models in my Melbourne team, but they would never end up happening due to my health being in such a bad state, and because I was physically and mentally exhausted after having up to 6 doctor/specialist appointments a week.

In fact, due to all of that, it still took another 6 months for me to finally start working with them, and this image, as well as one more, which will be released over the next few weeks, are the result of finally biting the bullet and starting to create on a more regular basis again.

“New Beginnings” – Behind The Scenes Selfie

Although the number of appointments I have has reduced for the time being, my health is still as bad as it was, although I will be pushing as hard as I can to shoot more regularly.

No matter how much it destroys me physically, I need to do it for my mental health, as my photography is one of the two major things that keeps me going, the other being my love, Eleni.

This is the first step to some big changes in my life, which will hopefully be happening this year, which I will be revealing as the year goes on.

I invite you to come along on this journey with me, and if you decide to keep up to date with this new and exciting journey which for a start will involve releasing one photo per week as a part of my new 52 Week Project, I hope you enjoy it!

I hope you all have a great week!
See you on Thursday for my weekly extra blog!

-Tyler

July 24, 2017

The Chronic Diaries – Ashes To Ashes

tyler-grace-photography-photographers-in-albury-the-chronic-diaries-ashes-to-ashes

Ashes To Ashes is one of the most important images I have created to date. It describes two stories. One about my nerve damage, and one about rising from the ashes.
In this blog I will be going over both meanings, as well as going over how it was created.

Nerve Damage

“It feels as if my whole body is burning and turning into ash.
My nerves feel as if they have been burned to a crisp by an uncontrollable fire.”

This is the original caption that those who visited “The Chronic Diaires” when it was exhibited at MAMA would have seen on the artwork label below the image.

Nerve damage, dysesthesia, or whatever the doctors want to call it next, is something that I have been fighting through for at least the last 15 years.
It’s not the most pleasant of feelings. In my case, it makes my whole body feel as if it’s on fire, and turning me into a pile of ash. This feeling runs right through my body, but is most prevalent in my lower back, fingers and groin area.

I don’t often tell people that I feel it the worst down in the groin area, because I have had experiences in the past where people would question why I’m “burning down there”, as if I had an STD. I still haven’t learned to ignore those types of comments, so I generally keep it to myself to avoid having those questions thrown at me, but it is a big part of why this image was created, so I’m revealing it to the world now so that I can give this image a bit more context.

As I mentioned in the first sentence, I have had multiple diagnosis for this issue, and I’ve seen many different doctors about it, who have all said it is either one of the two problems that I mentioned, although dysesthesia is a potential symptom of nerve damage, so really it’s all one and the same

Either way, I know that it is frustrating, embarrassing and it hurts a whole hell of a lot!
It’s something I have learned to put up with though, like all of my other illnesses

I hope it can be cured one day, but until then, I will just keep pushing through it!

Rising From The Ashes

“Physical and mental breakdowns are like an uncontrollable fire that we often feel will never end. Surviving that inferno is incredibly difficult, but if you can fight through it, you will be able to rise from the ashes and live to fight another day!”

The other story behind this image is one of “rising from the ashes”.

Battling through chronic illness of any kind isn’t easy, In fact, it’s incredibly difficult.
I occasionally have full health crashes, which is basically a full breakdown of both the mind and body where I can barely function and am bedridden most of the time for a few months on end.

It takes a lot for me to get back on my feet and get my health back to some sort of manageable state, but when I do, it feels like I am a phoenix who has been reborn and can start anew, before the process of breaking down eventually starts again.

I make the most of the times where I’m not having health crashes. I think life is beautiful and worth living, so I live it to the best of my ability even though I know that things will inevitably get harder again at some point.

This meaning can also be put towards any hardship in life, not just chronic illness.

The Adventures Begin:

Earlier this year in January or Feburary, I received an email from MAMA, the gallery I was going to be exhibiting my series “The Chronic Diaries” at in May and June
In the email was an offer to extend the amount of space I had from 2 rooms to 3 rooms for free, and I jumped at the chance to have this extra room, as it is the first room you see in that line of galleries upstairs.

After accepting the offer, I then realised that I was going to have to create more work to fill the extra space, as I only had enough for the two rooms that I had originally secured for the exhibition back in August of 2016.

One of my closest friends, Matt, offered to take me out on a few road trips to create the final few images, and in late February, the adventures begun!

How It Was Created:

On this particular road trip, we decided to travel from Albury to Bright, create images on the way at different locations that we came across and then come back home.
Just as we were about to get to Bright, we hit the roundabout that took us to Bright if we turned left, and Mount Buffalo if we turned right.

Matt then suggested we go about 2 minutes up Mount Buffalo way so he could show me a little waterfall on the side of the road, and so we went and checked it out!
After we were done, Matt then said “Well, we are here now, why don’t we go right up to the top of Buffalo and see what’s there?”.
I happily agreed!

When we got up there, we found a little hut on the side of a car park. Little did I know that this hut would have something that I have been looking for to create an image in for over 3 years.

We walked in and here it was, this incredible fireplace. I was so excited!
This is an image I had been wanting to create for a long time, but had never found a fireplace that fit the visual I had in my mind for this particular image, but this fireplace was perfect.

I quickly set my tripod up, connected my Sony A7R to my phone with PlayMemories so I could trigger the camera with it, and see the images as they were being captured, and then started to get my body and mind ready to do the shoot.

It was around 5 degrees Celsius at the time, but even though it was cold, I had no issue with taking all my clothes off for this photo shoot. It ended up taking a toll on my body for a few weeks, but it was so worth it!

After I took all of my clothes off, Matt kindly helped put the ash that was already in the fireplace all over my body, and after that, I tried a few different poses and captured about 12 frames total.

I knew that I had got “the” shot on about the 8^th frame, but still kept shooting for a few frames to see if I could get anything better.

In the end though, this ended up being the final image, and I am so proud of it! It came up even better than I had ever hoped!

Conclusion:

This image is one of those images that will stick out for me for many years to come, just like my image “Staring Into The Unknown”. I am so happy I finally got to create this image, and create it was one of my best friends beside me helping out!

If you live in Sydney or will be in Sydney at the time, you will be able to see this image, as well as the other 18 images in “The Chronic Diaries” at the Sydney Fringe Festival HPG Hub as a part of the Sydney Fringe Festival! I am really looking forward to exhibiting this series in Sydney!
It will be my first solo exhibition in a capital city which is exciting!

I will have blogs going up weekly from now on! I look forward to sharing more adventures and ramblings with you in the weeks and months to come!

Keep smiling, keep believing and keep being awesome everyone!
-Tyler

January 3, 2017

Split

Hello and Happy New Year everyone! Welcome to my first blog post for 2017!
This blog is going to be all about my new image “Split”.

About The Image:

“Split is another image that I have had in my head for many years. It has taken me a while to actually get around to shooting this concept because I’ve had so many other concepts that I have wanted to do first, but I am so glad that I have finally created this image!

This image has two different meanings to me. The first being that it is all about people with Dissociative Identity Disorder. I have met people over my years in the hospital system who have had this disorder and I wanted to create an image inspired by those people.
DID is uncontrollable and completely different to the secondary meaning.

The secondary story behind the image, and the story I used in the caption for this image on social media is that it is also about two faced people who act one way to your face and then a different way behind your back.
This is controllable.

The Beginning:

This photo was taken during my biggest and most important photo shoot ever at the old Mayday Hills Lunatic Asylum. I took 5 models, plus some of my family and my assistant and we spent 5 hours shooting in all of the beautiful broken down buildings around the property.

After Dawn, one of the crew from Asylum Ghost Tours – Beechworth took us through the asylum so I could have a proper look at the location, we got straight into shooting. This image with Meegan was actually the first image that I created on the day.

The Lighting:

I decided on this room pretty quickly, as the light that was coming through the room was really interesting! There was a room opposite the room we shot in that has the sun shining through it, and some of that light also came through the door of the room we were in, which is why there is only that sliver of light where Meegan is standing.

I haven’t used natural light much in the last few months, so it was great to try it out again!
I did try using my studio lights to enhance the effect, but it just didn’t work very well no matter what I tried, so I just stuck with the natural light, aside from when it was time to flare the dress out.

The room was actually pitch black dark, and I had to bump my ISO up pretty high and my shutter speed at 1/25^th of a second for this shot, but thankfully my Sony A7R has some really good noise performance, so that wasn’t a problem. There is still a little bit of noise in the image, but I think it really suits it to be honest.

The last few shots we took for this image were of the dress flying out. For this, I used my Einstein to light the dress up.
The reason I used the Einstein specifically for the dress is because if we threw up the dress with the 1/25^th of a second shutter speed that I was using, the dress would have been a complete blur.
With the Einstein we were able to counteract that, as any light from the flash that hits the dress will stop the motion of the dress no matter what shutter speed, although if the shutter speed is too slow there could be blurs around the fast moving object. Thankfully the shutter speed wasn’t slow enough for that to happen in our case though.

The Posing:

I got Meegan to pose in two different positions. The first being a very closed off position, and the other being a very open and inviting bent back position.

The reason I chose these positions is because I think they show two different sides to the same person. The closed off, nervous kind of person, and the open and energetic kind of person.

The Editing:

This one took quite a while to edit! There were lots of different elements such as blending the two poses together in a believable sort of way, the blending of the dress flying out and general touch ups to the windows and floor of the room.

The blending of all of the different dress related shots was the most time consuming part. Because I had shot the posing shots at high ISO with natural light and the shot of the dress flying out with a low ISO and my Einstein, there were inconsistencies in colour and exposure that needed to be fixed.

Thankfully after a little bit of playing around I finally got it all right, as well as the blending of the top part of the dress where Meegans heads are.
Then came the general touch ups which were pretty easy and I was done. All in all it took me about 3 or 4 hours to fully complete the editing of this image, as there was also a lot of playing around that I did in terms of colour outside of the elements that I have described above.

Conclusion:

This was a really fun shoot, and the whole day itself was a pretty fun day. I may release some other images from this shoot if they have turned out well! I haven’t had much of a chance to edit them due to some other images taking priority, but hopefully I can get around to editing them soon!

A huge thanks goes out to the following people for being a part of the Mayday Hills shoot.
Models: Meegan Strauss, Elise Zorzutti, Camilla Linhart, Emily Linhart and Jessica Frankcom
Assistant and Driver: Teagan Fulford
My Family: Mum, Bianca, Nan and Gar for coming along to support me.

A special thanks also goes out to Asylum Ghost Tours – Beechworth for allowing us to go into the Asylum and create images for 5 hours!

Extra News:

This year I will be releasing one photo a week, as well as blogging once a week, so be sure to subscribe to my blog or keep a close eye on the Tyler Grace Photography Facebook Page so you don’t miss any new images or blog posts!

Again, Happy New Year and I hope you all have a wonderful 2017!
-Tyler

December 5, 2016

Anguish

tyler-grace-photography-photographers-in-albury-anguish “Anguish” by Tyler Grace Photography

These are my most experimental images ever. Never did I imagine that I would have a makeup artist smearing dirt all over a nude model and capturing some of my favourite images ever, but here we are with this brand new set of images which have all of that, plus more!

The Beginning

The organisation for this shoot started around 5 months before we actually got the team together and did this shoot. Teagan had commented on one of my posts on one of the Albury/Wodonga Creative Groups that she was interested in modelling for me.

I messaged her that night, and through that chat I learned that she was interested in trying out nude modelling, and as I had been looking for models that were willing to do implied and full nude shoots so I could build up a portfolio of those sorts of images, we started trying to conceptualise a shoot and eventually I came up with the idea to smear dirt allover her and do a shoot based on the emotion “Anguish” and also “Feeling Like Dirt” as a sub concept.

By the time we figured everything out, it was August, and we decided to do the shoot in early September.

After we figured the date out, I reached out to Zoe Wilde, a local hair artist who also dabbles in a lot of makeup these days, and asked if she would be interested in this dirt filled shoot, and to my surprise, she agreed!

It was something completely different to her normal style of hair and makeup, but she had wanted to do something that was outside her usual realm, and was fully up for my crazy challenge!

The shoot was coming up, but only a few days before the shoot, Teagan broke her ankle!
We ended up having to postpone the shoot until her ankle had healed.

After a few weeks, and a lot of figuring out everyone’s schedules, we scheduled the shoot for Saturday the 12th of November.

I then scouted for an assistant for the shoot, and thankfully Duanne from Riksu Photography put his hands up to help. With this final piece of the puzzle solved at the lat minute, it was time to create some very experimental images!

The Photo Shoot – Hair And Makeup

Everyone arrived within a couple of minutes of each other. First Teagan, then Duanne and then Zoe.

As soon as Zoe got to the shoot location, which happened to be my home studio, we got started on the hair and makeup.

Zoe smeared dirt all over Teagan, as well as messed up her hair, and just made complete magic with those hair and makeup brushes! I am SO glad with how the hair and makeup turned out! They were practically exactly what I had been envisioning for this concept!

Hair and Makeup took about 2 hours, as we were really taking our time and trying to get things perfect, and then aftwewards, we got straight into the shoot!

“Despair” by Tyler Grace Photography

The Photo Shoot

Teagan was an absolutely fantastic model and a fantastic person to work with in general! We started off creating the image you can see at the top of the page. That was the one of the two imges that I had originally envisioned for this shoot.

I may release the other original concept eventually, but again, As with the last set of images that I released, thanks to not having my own laptop I haven’t had much of a chance to edit in the last 12 weeks.

This image turned out even better than I had ever hoped!

The second image is practically just a close up, black and white version of the first image, which I really like! There isn’t much else to say about it other than Teagan really nailed the anguished expression in both if these images!

The final image was a random image I captured at the end of the shoot. It wasn’t in the original plan for the shoot, but the idea came to me right at the last minute! To me it is an image that says “I’m completely done”. It could mean something different to you, but that’s the feeling I get from it, and it is actually my second favourite shot from the shoot!

After we created the last image, we packed up and went out seperate ways!

“Done” by Tyler Grace Photography

Conclusion And Thanks

This was honestly the most fun photo shoot I have ever been a part of that I have organised myself. The whole day was filled with laughter and joking around, and the team I got to work with are all incredible people and incredible artists. I can’t wait to work with you all again in the near future!

A huge thanks goes out to:
Zoe Wilde from Zoe Wilde Artistry for the incredible hair and makeup!
Duanne Anderson from Riksu Photography for assisting me on this shoot!
Teagan Fulford for being an incredible model!
My Mum, for putting up with me doing photo shoots in our house, and just being an awesome Mum in general!

Hopefully we can all work together soon!

I hope everyone reading this has a wonderful week ahead!
-Tyler

November 25, 2016

Escape

“Escape” by Tyler Grace Photography

Domestic violence is a huge problem in society today. I won’t go over the statistics, but needless to say, there is way too much of it going on. Some of my closest friends have been victims of domestic violence, and it’s something that they have never, and will never forget or move on from.

This image, and the extra images that I have released in this blog are specifically raising awareness for violence against women, as today, the 25th of November, is White Ribbon Day.

Originally, this image was just going to be about a relationship falling apart, but about 2 weeks before the photo shoot, my sister Bianca mentioned to me that White Ribbon Day was coming up, and I decided to change the concept around a fair bit to instead raise awareness for this very important cause.

After I found the models for this photo shoot, which believe me, was a very hectic process, I then went on a search for a hair/makeup artist who would join me in creating this little series of images. Thankfully Zoe Wilde from Zoe Wilde Artistry Salon put her hand up, and she bought along a friend of hers, Jarrad Hodgkin to do the special effects makeup.

The Beginning Of The Day

On the day of the shoot, we all met up at my house for hair and makeup. Brittany and Aden, the models, and their mothers Fiona and Laura, got to my house first. I didn’t realise that I hadn’t done a dress fitting with Brittany when we had our pre-shoot meeting, so we quickly tried on a couple of dresses that I have in my collection, and ended up deciding on the white dress that you can see in the image.

Shortly after, Zoe and Jarrad arrived. After we were finished with the dress fitting, they got straight to work. They both did a fantastic job! Zoe did the hair and basic makeup, while Jarrad did the bruising that you can see all over Brittany’s face and arms in the images.

Zoe and Jarrad couldn’t stay for the photo shoot itself as they had other commitments, but after all the hair styling and makeup was finished, the rest of us headed about 20 minutes out of town to a farm that was the setting for our shot.

The farm belonged to a lovely couple, Pam and Lindsay Rapsey, who just so happened to be the parents of Fiona’s friend Amanda.

As soon as we got there, we went and introduced ourselves and we were told that we could use any part of their property that we needed. So we headed out to the field, met up with Aden’s Dad Richard, and set up at a location about 200 meters in.

The Shoot

We started off by setting up posing, lighting and framing for the main shot. The framing stayed pretty consistent during the process of capturing the main shot, but the posing changed a few times. I will go more into detail on the posing and lighting down in the technical part of the blog.

By the time we had got out to the farm, I wasn’t doing so well health wise, and I really struggled to get through this shoot. I almost passed out a couple of times. I also made a few mistakes that I have written about below as well.

Brittany and Aden were great at taking direction, especially considering that it was their first major photo shoot.

After creating the main image, I tried out different angles of that shoot and the next image that you can see below is the result of that.
We then began to create a couple more images. Only one of the extra shots turned out well, but I usually only aim for one or two shots out of each shoot, so that is alright.

The shoot ended up going for a little over an hour, and it was a very challenging, but fun shoot!

After we finished, we packed up and then headed our separate ways

“Pulling Me Back In” by Tyler Grace Photography

The Technical Stuff

The lighting for the main image was mainly natural light, and the photo was taken just before sunset. We did have my Einstein strobe popping in a bit more light though, as the light from the sun had died down drastically.

I tried to make the lighting look as natural as I possibly could, and I think we managed to pull it off! Duanne, my assistant on this shoot, was a fantastic help! He suggested things that I didn’t think of that really helped the shoot go smoother than it might have.

The posing changed quite a bit from what I first envisioned. At first I was going to have Aden pulling the rope over his shoulder and facing the opposite way to Brittany, but in the end, the posing we used with Aden facing Brittany and pulling on the rope that way looked a lot better and had more impact.

Brittany’s posing didn’t change from my original idea. Her reaching out for help, trying to escape her abuser was the plan all along. The only thing I would change in this is the fact that I’ve got the dress flying, but not Brittany’s hair.

It could be hard to see, but the rope is also fraying and about to snap, just like the relationship of the characters in this story. One person who has seen this image already said to me :Why didn’t you use white ribbon instead of rope, as it is “White Ribbon Day”. I had thought about that, but as I said to this person “Red signifies love, and with that red rope fraying, it is signalling that the relationship is falling apart after all the abuse that she has endured”.
It makes sense to me at least!

The other image in this little series has the abuser trying to pull the victim away, while hiding their face so no one knows who they are or what they are truly like.

By this time, the light had almost completely gone, so this was almost all lit by my Einstein. I tried to capture the look of terror on Brittany’s face, and I hope that I have done that!

The editing is a little different to how I usually edit. I don’t actually have a computer of my own at the moment, so I’ve been using my Mum’s, sisters and Dad’s laptops to edit all of my images over the last few weeks, and that has added an extra challenge, as all of their their monitors produce colour very differently to each other. I’m just hoping that they have come up alright.

“Terrified” by Tyler Grace Photography

In Conclusion

All in all, it was a fun day and a fun shoot. I made a few mistakes which I have learned from, and I think we also managed to create some interesting shots!

I really hope I can do photo shoots with Aden and Brittany again some day in the future!

I have decided to make a series of images raising awareness for all different forms of domestic violence, as not only are women subject to it, but men and kids are as well, and I think it’s important to raise as much awareness about it as possible, so we can hopefully at least shine a light and hopefully prevent someone from making the horrible choice to commit violence against another in their home.

Thank you to the following people for making this shoot possible, and being wonderful people in general:

Models: Aden Quinn and Brittany Holmes
Models Parent’s: Fionna Quinn, Richard Quinn and Laura Holmes
Hair And Makeup Artist: Zoe Wilde Artisty
Special Effects Makeup: Jarrad Hodgkin
Assistant: Duanne Anderson from Riksu Photography
Property Owners: Pam and Lindsay Rapsey, with thanks to Amanda Skrypczak for putting us in contact.
Behind The Scenes Video: Tony Grace from Digital Impact Productions (Video coming soon!)
My Mum: Michelle Grace

August 19, 2016

The Clouded Mind

Brain fog, a cognitive malfunction where you lose all focus and you can’t think straight, is a common occurrence that everyone experiences. It can last for minutes, hours or even days depending on who you are and if you have any underlying causes that make it worse.

For me, one of my health conditions has it’s own form of brain fog that is very extreme. My brain fog usually lasts hours to days at the least, and for me it’s not just a case of being “forgetful” and “out of it”.
In my case it’s actually the nerves not properly sending the signals down from the brain.

When it hits, I can’t think straight, or even think at all at times. My nerves don’t work correctly and when it’s at its worst I can’t even form a sentence with my mouth. It is quite frustrating and also really scary at times.

The worst parts are when it hits in professional situations, such as when I’m doing presentations at galleries or when I’m doing a photo shoot. If I get a bad case of it during a photo shoot, I actually have to stop the photo shoot all together and reschedule it for another day, as it gets so bad that I can’t function properly at all, as when it hits my brain and mouth it hits the rest of my body as well which causes a lot of pain.

The fog often hits during less than ideal situations, but if it’s not too bad I push through it as much as I can, as I do with all of my health conditions.

This image is a representation of when the fog hits, as it doesn’t just feel like a little bit of fog. It feels like complete cloud cover that just won’t dissapate.

The Technical Stuff

This image is a lot like all of my recent images in “The Chronic Diaries” series. It is a self-portrait and it was taken with my Sony A7R with the Sony Zeiss 55mm f1.8 lens.

I use the Sony PlayMemories app on the camera/my phone to focus and trigger the camera. It’s a really handy app and I highly recommend downloading it if you have a Sony mirrorless camera

With this series of photos I have always been shooting at f5.6, 50 ISO and usually around 1/100 shutter speed. The shutter speed doesn’t really matter in my images in this series, as I usually shoot the photos in dark places where you would need a really slow shutter speed to get my real natural light coming in. So as long as the shutter speed is under the sync speed for the flash, that’s all that matters to me when taking these photos.

Lighting wise, there was a bare bulb Einstein strobe about two and a half meters behind me, which was pointing at me at around a 45 degree angle and at about 1/16^th power.

In post production, I gave it my signature desaturated blue tone, as well as added texture and added the cloud above my head.

FAQ

“Why is the cloud blurry? Shouldn’t it be in focus as the rest of the image is?”
To be honest, I purposely gave the cloud this out of focus look, as it adds to the story. If you think about it, when brain fog hits you lose focus and things go all blurry. I made the cloud blurry for that reason.

“Why do you use textures in so many of your images these days? You never use to use textures.”
I never knew how to use textures to my advantage, that and I was too afraid to use them as it was so different from my old, clean style of editing. I also shoot on the same white wall for all of the shots in this series, so it gives the wall a different look each time.
I won’t always be using textures in all of my photos, but for this series and another new series that is coming up, you will be seeing a lot of images with a lot of textures.

In Conclusion

If you have any questions, let me know down below in the comments or feel free to contact me on any of my social media pages or profiles!

I hope you all have a wonderful week! Keep smiling everyone!

Tyler

August 9, 2016

Facade

There are times where we hide our true identity. We put on a mask, or a “facade”, and deceive others into thinking that we are someone who we really aren’t. We do this for many reasons. We often times do it because we aren’t comfortable with people knowing the truth about who we are or what we think, and we worry that revealing the truth could hurt another person or a relationship in a bad way.

Similar to that, as humans we sometimes think that we have to change who we are to fit in and be accepted by everyone around us, so we change our outwards appearance or act differently around different groups of people just so we can be accepted by them.

The question that I am posing to you all is do you think it’s right or acceptable to hide who you really are, or do you believe that we should all be our true selves all the time?

I now that some people will say that it is perfectly alright for a number of reasons, and I know there will be some who are dead against it.

Personally, I use to hide a lot of my opinions, and just go with what everyone else was saying because I didn’t like conflict. I still don’t like conflict, but I have always believed that everyone has a right to voice their opinion and as I have aged, had many new experiences and gained a bit of confidence, I have become less scared of sharing my opinions

“Facade” By Tyler Grace

The Technical Stuff

These photos were both shot with my Sony A7R with the Canon mount Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 lens.
“Facade” was shot at 50mm
“Two-Faced” was shot at 29mm
And they were both shot at ISO 50, f5.6 and 1/160^th of a second and both of them were shot at a lower angle

For the lighting, I had my Einstein strobe shooting through wooden slats from outside the room we were shooting in from about a 30 degree angle, and I believe the strobe was set to about 1/8^th power if I remember correctly

“Facade” was the original concept and posing I had in mind, but while testing the shot out with a friend of mine, who happens to be Fionna of Fionna Marshall Photography, I came up with the posing for “Two Faced” and so I ended up shooting that with my model and friend Emily as well.

“Half of Me” by Tyler Grace

FAQ

“Where do you get your dresses from?”
Nearly all my dresses come from op-shops like Vinnies and the Salvation Army. A lot of the dresses in my collection are horrendous though, so you will only be seeing a small amount of them in my photos in the future. The rest I will be donating back to either of those charities.
I don’t know why I bought half the dresses that I have bought apart from the fact that they were cheap!

“You say you used a Tamron 17-50mm lens on your Sony A7R. How did you do this, and does the fact that a crop sensor lens on a full frame camera affect the performance of the lens at all?
Adapting another brands lens on to another brands body is always a tricky thing, but I adapted it to my camera with a Metabones Canon EF to Sony E Mount Adapter, and the two biggest down sides to doing that are that it takes about 10 seconds to autofocus, if it ends up focusing at all. Also, as it is a crop sensor lens, the body has to crop the image in to fit the whole frame, which ends up cutting my images down from 36 megapixels to 16 megapixels.
I will be going more into details about this in a future blog, so keep checking back for that one if you are interested!

In Conclusion

This was a really fun shoot. It was great to catch up with Emily again after not seeing her for two years while she was in the USA, and hopefully we get to do another shoot again soon! Don’t forget to answer the question of “Do you think it’s alright to hide who you really are in certain situations” in the comments below or on any of my social media pages or profiles

I hope you all have a wonderful rest of the week!
Catch you all next time!
Tyler

February 5, 2015

Mentality

This is a series of images which reflects some of my own experiences in life due to being chronically ill.

“Faceless”

Sometimes things happen in our lives that change us, they change us so much that we lose our identity, we become a shell of what we once were, we become faceless.

The thing that changed me was becoming chronically ill. I had changed from this happy-go-lucky, constantly smiling and laughing young ball of fun, to a cripple who lost all confidence he had and could barely even speak to anyone without anxiety taking him over
At one point I lost all my friends and was completely isolated. I was stuck between either the walls of my house or the halls of the hospital.
I became so ill that I was bed ridden for most of my teenage life.

I felt that I had lost myself. I didn’t know who I was anymore. It was so incredibly scary.

“Anxiety”

The anxiety that came along with becoming chronically ill was crippling. I could barely do anything apart from talk to my immediate family. Having to talk to anyone else, even on the phone would send me into a panic attack.

I saw many different mental health specialists about it, but none of them could ever help me. All I ever got was the same tips from each one. The thing I really needed was to face my fears, and I didn’t figure that out for a very long time!

I still struggle so much with my anxiety. I am a lot better now, but there are still times where I can’t even go outside the house without freaking out. I have my friends to thank for my anxiety getting better. If they didn’t come into my life when they did, I have no idea where I would be. Knowing how I was back then, I probably would have been stuck in a mental hospital by now.

“Insanity”

This is sort of an outtake of “Anxiety” but I like it so much that I thought I would give it it’s own name and feature it here on the blog!

How I Took The Shot

The setup was actually very simple. I had my Canon 430EX II to the right side of me on a light stand at about half power. I would say that it was about 10 feet away, and then I had my Sony A7R with a Sony-Zeiss 55mm 1.8 lens on my tripod and connected to my iPad so I could remote focus and trigger it! It is probably the most simple setup ever!
I then did the colour correction and then the black and white conversion in Lightroom. I also had to edit out a few things out on the wall, but nothing that the healing tool in Lightroom couldn’t handle!

I hope you have all had a wonderful week, and as always, keep smiling everyone! 🙂

December 21, 2014

Learning Fine Art Photography With Brooke Shaden

It all began with an amazing hug..

The date was Sunday the 14th of December, the weather was quite nice from what I can remember and the occasion was Brooke Shaden’s Fine Art Photography workshop in Winchelsea!

I had been waiting a couple of months for this day! I was so excited to do a workshop with another one of my idols in the photography world. One second I was walking up the huge driveway of this incredible mansion, and the next second being hugged by Brooke Shaden. She gives good hugs..just saying… haha.

There were a couple of attendees there and as Brooke took me and another one of the attendees on a little tour through the mansion, even more arrived. In total there were about 15 photographers total in the workshop.

Once we had a little bit of a walk through the mansion, we headed out to the side of the mansion where breakfast was being served! I can’t remember exactly what was being served, but I know I had an apple! It was a nice apple! Haha

After breakfast, we all went to the room where we did all of the theory parts of the workshop. In the first theory session we learned all about how Brooke started in photography, what her workflow is and how to create a story through our photography.

After that we watched Brooke shoot one of the models in two of the 3 locations where we were going to be shooting 3 different models later on in the day.
Then, after lunch, the shooting began!
We had around 10 minutes with each model, which was really, really tough for me, as I usually take days or weeks to plan out an image and then hours to shoot it!

The Images

This first image was my first of the day. I struggled the most with this one. I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I found this little manhole in after walking through a couple of rooms and thought “I must shoot here!”. I tried telling stories with every one of my images. I’m not sure if my story came through in this first photo, but here it is!

“Longing”

She is confined to a lonely existence, longing for the day where she can step outside these walls and and experience all that life has to offer.
These next 2 images go with one another. The first is a story about the struggle of anxiety and depression and the second one is about overcoming them. They are my favourite images from the day!

“Broken And Defeated”

The anxiety and depression have taken over. She has been drained of all her hopes, passions and dreams and believes that she will never come out of this dark, terrifying place.

“The Calm After The Storm”

The darkness has been lifted, a calmness fills her. She feels human once more.

The next image is one that was taken in a barn. The only light being the light from opening the barn doors to the side of the model.
The image below it is a photo that one of the ladies in my group set up, and I had just randomly clicked the button on my shutter without looking through the viewfinder or at the screen and that happened to be the photo that I took, and I thought I would share it over here on the blog!

“Bound”

“Becoming The Grim”

After shooting we went back into the room where we did all of our theory work and Brooke edited one of her photos that she took and then answered all of our questions about the business side of photography and then after about 2 hours the workshop ended!

It was honestly the best day that I have had since my adventure with Ben Von Wong in March! I learned so much and made a few new friends in the process which was super awesome!

I really want to thank Brooke for being an amazing teacher, photographer and a super amazing human being! You are one of the kindest and most down to Earth people I have ever met Brooke and I am so glad that I came! It was well worth it!
It was certainly a day that I will never forget!

I also want to thank Brooke’s assistant Kelly, as well as all the models and all of the photographers who came to the workshop. You are all incredibly wonderful!
I hope everyone has a wonderfully Merry Christmas and an outstanding New Year!
Keep smiling everyone! 🙂

August 12, 2014

Epic Week With Von Wong – The Final Days

To view other parts of this blog series, click the links below:
Part 1 – The Surprise!
Part 2 – Photography, Photoshop And Fun
Part 3 – The Rodeo
Part 4 – Canoeing, The Fetish Club And The Conference

Day 7

Before The Shoot

Today was the craziest, most insane and most awesome day of them all! Today was the day that the “Epic Shoot With Von Wong” was held!
It was a huge fashion shoot with 5 models, 3 hair/makeup artists a fashion stylist and probably around 10 other photographers, some of who I had met the day before at the conference.

We woke up pretty early, got all our gear ready and headed out to Matt and Fiona’s place which is where everyone was meeting up and all the preparation for the shoot was happening.
When we got to Matt’s, a few of the models were getting their hair and makeup done, but I didn’t even have time to go and say “Hi” to them! Before I could do anything, Aster from Creative Cargo, who was our fashion stylist for this shoot called Ben and I into a room where she showed us all the outfits she had managed to acquire for the shoot! They were all amazing! I couldn’t wait to see what they looked like on the models!

After that, we went outside and Ben started to teach some of the other photographers who came along how to set up his gear! It was fun to watch them try and get it right!
When that was done, we decided to head off to the Brickworks to scout the place out before the models got there!

Epic Shoot With Von Wong

We arrived at the location for our shoot, which was at the old, abandoned Box Hill Brickworks and had to sneak our way in. I’m not sure if we were legally allowed in there, but we decided to go in anyway!
It was a huge place. It was half broken down, but still had a bunch of the machinery there! It was a great industrial look for the shoot! The only thing that wasn’t tickling mine or Ben’s taste was all the graffiti there! There was so much of it, and not the good kind!

Once the models started arriving, Ben started his photo shoots with them! The first models there were Natalie and Genevieve. Most of us sat back and watched, while others helped Ben out as assistants! It was a really awesome experience watching Ben shoot! Once he has had a quick glimpse of the location he is shooting in, he knows exactly what he wants. It’s quite mind boggling how quickly he figures things out!

Shortly after Ben finished shooting Genevieve and Natalie, the rest of the models arrived along with the rest of the crew and photographers, and Ben got straight to work shooting the whole group of models.
I think Ben finished shooting at around 2pm and I can tell you first hand that he got some amazing shots! There were even some amazing shots that I saw later on after we got back to where we were staying that didn’t make it into his final set of edited images!
You can check out his set of final images in his blog

After Ben finished, all the photographers got to do their own photo shoots with the models. By this time I was so beyond exhausted and in so much pain that all I could do was sit down and rest.
At one stage, Frankie Fung from Chocolate Cookie came up to me and offered to go and get me something to eat. I tried to persuade him that I was alright, but he knew I was struggling and I had no choice but to let him get me something!

While he was out getting some food for me I forced my body to get up and do a very short shoot with Natalie and thankfully I did because I got a wonderful portfolio worthy shot out of it which I am really proud of!
Natalie is a wonderful model to work with and I really hope that we can do a lot more shoots when I move to Melbourne!

After shooting with Natalie, I rested more and then eventually got the energy to get back up and do anther shoot, this time with Genevieve. We decided to venture up the half destroyed stairs to the top floor of the brickworks and I can honestly say that they were the hardest stairs that I have ever climbed! I can barely walk stairs as it is. They put me in loads of pain, even after walking only 5 or 6. How I ever got up those 30 or so stars in the condition I was in I will never know! But I did and I am really proud of myself for pushing past the pain and getting up there!

Half way up the stairs, Frankie had come back with my food, so after I made it up the stairs I rested for a while and ate my lunch. I really needed that energy that it gave me!
After eating I started shooting with Genevieve. It was a fun little shoot and Gen is wonderful!

I really wanted to shoot with the other 3 models Veronica, Lydia and Jouline but sadly I didn’t have any strength left to shoot after my shoot with Genevieve.

Photographers In Albury | Tyler Grace Photography | Gen 3

After The Shoot

Not long after that we all got together for a group shot and then we headed back to Matt and Fiona’s for a little while, then a bunch of us went to an Indian restaurant near Matt’s house for dinner!
Here is a shot that was taken of Veronica, Ben and I outside the restaurant!

When dinner was finished we all parted ways. I can’t remember any more of the night because I was so unwell. All in all it was one of the best days I have ever had!
I made so many new friends, got some amazing shots and learned even more from Ben!
Here are some behind the scenes shots to close out the story on this wonderful day! You can click on one photo and scroll through for all the photos in this blog plus a whole heap more!

Today was originally going to be my final day with Ben, Sam and Silvia. Little did I know there would be more fun to be had the next day, the final day!

Day 8

The morning was quite a relaxing one. We all slept in a little more than we did on every other day of the trip and at around 11 o’clock we went and started filming more interview footage for the behind the scenes video. It was a pretty hilarious interview. Not because of the content or what we were saying, but because we were sitting right next to train tracks and trains kept coming past and interrupting what we were saying! In the end I think there were about 10 takes of each question!
While we were doing that, Dad and Bianca arrived to pick me up and take me home. But instead, much to my bodies dislike, I decided to stay for the final day that Ben was in Australia.

Before Dad and Bianca left we went to a random, cheap pizza place on Chapel Street for lunch. For the price we paid, which I think was $4 for each pizza, it was really nice! I will go back there one day if I am in need of some cheap but decent pizza!
While we were there, Alamby (of DigitalRevTV fame) met up with us to hang out for the day. After we had all finished eating Dad and Bianca left us and they drove home to Albury while I stayed in Melbourne with Ben, Sam and Silvia.

During the day, the 5 of us, along with Francine, who was another photographer at the photo shoot with us the day before, walked around Chapel Street, spent some time at St Kilda Beach, went to Francine’s house for a little bit and then met up with everyone we met in Kyabram to have some dinner!

After dinner we all went back to our accommodation and slept the night away!

Goodbye

We woke at around 6am, packed our bags and got ready straight away, then we drove out to the airport to say goodbye to Ben. Sam and Silvia were staying in Australia for a bit longer, so it was only Ben that was leaving.

We weren’t able to stop for long, so it was a quicker goodbye than I hoped it would be, I honestly didn’t want Ben to leave. I had so much fun and really didn’t want the fun to end!
Before he left, he gave me this unicorn plushie.
PHOTO

I may have all my Pokemon plushies at home, some of which I have received from good friends, but honestly, this unicorn plushie is the one that means the most to me. Ben got it for me while at the rodeo after Dad, Bianca, Silvia and I had left. It is a physical reminder of the most amazing week of my life. Thank you for getting it for me Ben!
We hugged, said goodbye and then Ben left. It was a tough moment for me. The toughest moment that I have had in many years.

After that, Sam, Silvia and I went and got some breakfast and then they took me to the train station and then I came home.

The best and most surreal week of my life had ended.
It took me a long while to process that.

The Video

Here is the behind the scenes video of the entire adventure! Remember to go and check out Ben’s work if you haven’t already and subscribe to his YouTube channel for all of his future videos!

In Closing

I really want to thank Ben for all that he has done for me. He is honestly the most kind and generous person I have ever met. I don’t know of anyone else who would travel as far as he did just to spend time with, mentor and take a random chronically ill fan on an adventure of a lifetime like me.

I would also like to thank my wonderful sister Bianca for organising this whole surprise! Not many sisters would do what you did for me Bianca. I honestly can’t thank you enough for what you have done!

Some other people I would like to thank are the rest of my family for keeping the secret, Mum for letting Ben stay with us for the first few nights, Dad for driving us almost everywhere throughout the whole trip, Sam and Silvia for being so wonderful and kind and helping out wherever possible, including filming the behind the scenes video, all the photographers, models and other creatives that I met during the trip, Think Tank, Smugmug and Cotton Carrier! You are all wonderful!

Ben, you were once just my favorite photographer and idol, but I am now proud to call you a friend. Thank you for being you. I will be forever grateful for all that you have done for me and I just hope that one day I can make you proud. You have inspired me to keep shooting and keep improving my skills. I will become the best photographer I can be. That is a promise!
Thank you so incredibly much for everything!

May 9, 2014

Epic Week With Von Wong – The Rodeo

To view other parts of this blog series, click the links below:
Part 1 – The Surprise!
Part 2 – Photography, Photoshop And Fun
Part 4 – Canoeing, The Fetish Club And The Conference
Part 5 – The Final Days
Today is the day that we head out on our epic road trip! Our destination is Kyabram, a place in the middle of nowhere where they are having a rodeo!

We get ourselves out of bed at around 9 o’clock and it seems like it is just going to be a regular quiet and uneventful morning, but it is far from that!
Ben asked me what kind of strap I use for my camera, and I told him that I use the BlackRapid strap, which hurts quite a bit, but is still better than the neck strap that comes with the camera. He gets me to try out a belt holster for my camera, which was decent, but put a LOT of stress on my lower back and legs after a while, which is really bad for my weak body. He then recommended the Cotton Carrier Carrier System, and before I said I will be sure to buy one and test them, he said “I have contacts at Cotton Carrier, I’ll try and get you one for free!”. He then asked how I run my website and I told him that thanks to his recommendation and discount code that was on his blog I use Smugmug. He then said that he will try to get me some free Smugmug as well!

Little did I know that I would not only get a free Cotton Carrier Vest, but also 5 YEARS worth of free Smugmug! I was so shocked , happy and excited! I was never expecting any of this to happen!
Then, after all of that, one more awesome thing happened! I got to have a video call with one of my other favourite photographers Rob Woodcox for a few minutes! It was more than awesome!
I think he called us while he was waiting for a theatre production to start! I’m not sure whether it was that or a movie, but it really meant a lot that Rob took the time out to chat for a few minutes while he was so busy! Thank you Rob!
Just after that Dad, Sam and Silvia arrived and we packed the car, had a sort of group photo using the GoPro Ben had which was attached to the front of Dads car, then we went and picked Bianca up and we set out on our journey to Kyabram!

Eventually we arrived in Kyabram and went straight to the rodeo. Ben tried to get us in for free as media, but his attempt failed. But to no surprise at all, Dad managed to get us all in as media, as they know of Dads website, which I help run called Digital Farm TV (And probably because he had his huge broadcast video camera with him)! So we headed in and looked around for a bit. There were quite a few stalls and carnival games there. First we went to watch and take shots of the rodeo. I managed to get a few pretty decent shots. It was also my first time ever using a Nikon D800, as Ben let me use his!
Here are a few of my shots! You can scroll through the photos after clicking on one to see a few more, including a behind the scenes shot from the behind the scenes video, which you can watch in it’s entirety by clicking here!

Then we went back and checked out a few more of the stalls and I tried out a few of the carnival games and ended up winning a little fish-like toy. We then went over to the mechanical bull where both Bianca and Ben had a go! I think Ben lasted over 40 seconds and Bianca lasted about 7 or 8 seconds on her second try. We then asked if I could just get onto the bull and pose for a shot, and I did! Here are some shots of Ben and I on the bull as well as a couple of behind the scenes shots!

We then met up with the people we were staying with, including Wanda from Autopsy Jude, and we pretty much spent the rest of the night with them. By about 9 o’clock my body was starting to give up on me, so Dad, Bianca, Silvia and I left to go have something to eat. We ended up finding a really nice pizza place in Echuca. Bianca and I will definitely be going back there one day! It was really nice!
After that everyone else caught up with us and we all went to a bar for a quick drink. When we finished there we went back to where we were staying, which was like a cabin in the woods..except bigger than cabin, set ourselves up for the night and went to sleep!
All in all it was a really fun day, But the road trip had only just started, and there was lots more fun to be had!

The next blog will chronicle days 5 and 6 of my epic adventure with Benjamin Von Wong, which includes canoeing/kayaking, heading to Melbourne and going to a fetish club!

I hope you are all having a wonderful week so far, and as always, keep smiling everyone! 🙂

May 6, 2014

Epic Week With Von Wong – Photography, Photoshop And Fun!

To view other parts of this blog series, click the links below:
Part 1 – The Surprise!
Part 3 – The Rodeo
Part 4 – Canoeing, The Fetish Club And The Conference
Part 5 – The Final Days

Day 2

The Morning

All of a sudden, after a night of little seep it was Wednesday morning! I was still in a little bit of shock about what happened a little under 24 hours earlier when my favourite photographer Benjamin Von Wong surprised me by showing up on my doorstep, although I had calmed down quite a bit and unlike the day before I could form coherent sentences..most of the time!

I noticed at about 6am that the article that we were interviewed for the day before had gone live on The Border Mail’s website. I was super happy with the article! I have been in a couple of newspaper articles before and they have got half the information wrong, however there was none of that in this article!
The photo was also awesome! I really want to thank Tara Goonan from The Border Mail for the photo which is at the top of this blog post!
No one else was up yet, and it was still too early to go and get a physical copy of the paper, so I waited until about 7:30 and then headed out on a little walk to a corner store about 500 meters away and got attempted to get a copy of the newspaper, but they hadn’t been delivered to that corner store yet, so I had to head back home and wait a little longer!

Mum got up at about 8:30, and while Ben was Skyping with his agent, she drove down and got us a couple of copies of the paper. One for us and one for Ben!
When she got home and I picked up the paper I was shocked once again! We had made it onto both the front cover of the newspaper AND page 2! Ben and I were really excited! He took a photo of the front cover to show his agent and here is that photo!

Here is a photo of the actual article as well, although if you can’t read it properly, you can click here to check out the online version of the article!

Scouting And Going Downtown

We had decided that today we were going to go out scouting for locations for a photo shoot and Ben was going to create some of his wonderful imagery with Bianca and I as the subjects! I was so incredibly excited! I honestly never thought I would ever get my photo taken by Ben Von Wong!
We waited for Bianca, Dad, Sam and Silvia to arrive and they ended up getting to our place by about 10:30. It took Ben and I a while to get ready,, but we headed out around an hour later.

We drove to the Hume Weir to see if there were any locations near there that would suit the sort of idea we had in mind, which was inspired by a photo that another one of my favourite photographers Rob Woodcox took, with the young man and woman standing in the lake facing away from the camera.
We weren’t searching for long when Ben and I jumped and said “We need to go down there!”. I think that Mum, Dad and Bianca thought we were mad. It was the strangest location that we could have chosen, but it ended up being perfect for the shot we wanted to get! It was a location out near the water where there was a deep ravine and lots of mud and dirt!
We decided that we were definitely going to come back and do the shoot there at sunset!

After that, we went into Bellbridge to get some drinks and then came all the way back into Downtown Albury. We randomly decided to go for a walk down the main street to see if anyone recognised us from the newspaper that morning!
We didn’t get recognized until we walked into a very particular shop, a shop that probably won’t surprise any of you…Camera House!

After we finished our little walk, we went into West End Plaza and had our lunch. Ben ended up having a giant Kebab! I have never seen a kebab the size of the one he had, and I have no idea how he managed to eat every last bit of it!
After that we headed home and rested for a few hours! Ben was still pretty jetlagged, so he went to bed while I just hung out with Mum, Bianca, Sam and Silvia!

The Photo Shoot

A little while before sunset, Dad came and picked all of us up except Mum. Mum decided to wait until we got home to see the results of the shoot!
We drove right back out to the shoot location, and the next hour or so is an hour I will never forget!
Ben had both Bianca and I trekking though the extremely deep mud, and it hurt so incredibly much, but in the end, it was so worth the pain!
My body was completely destroyed about 10 minutes into the shoot and we had to somehow find a way out. I ended up having to slowly pull my legs out of the knee high mud I don’t know how I managed to get out of it, but I know that I would have been helped out everyone if I couldn’t make it out myself!
I completely love the image and I can’t thank Ben enough for taking it!
Here is a behind the scenes shot from the video, which you can watch if you click here.

After the shoot was done, we trekked all the way back up to the car, which was a steep and very tiring climb!

We decided to get pizza for dinner on the way home and while everyone else had gone to get the pizza, Silvia and I stayed in the car and had a really nice chat! It was the first time I had been able to speak to Silvia one on one and it was really great to be able to do that! She is a wonderful, kind woman and I really hope that one day our paths cross again!

We arrived home, had out dinner and then Ben brought the photos up on his laptop.
The photo shows Bianca and I walking through the mud with me in obvious pain and her holding my hand and helping me through it, which symbolizes our relationship perfectly! Bianca is always there for me and I am always there for her. We get through things together! We are not only brother and sister. We are best friends!
Add that with the river and mountains as the background and an absolutely amazing sunset to top it off! It is just.. I can’t really even begin to describe how perfect it is!
Mum even loved the images so much she started crying!

Here is the full version of the final image, which you can see part of up on the top of the page!

It wasn’t long after that that everyone left and we decided to call it a night and head to bed.

Day 3

Thursday was a pretty quiet day. I spent most of the day watching Ben edit the photos of Bianca and I as well as a few photos from his other recent shoots, such as his latest photos of the band called “The Agonist” and some of his incredibly popular fire images! He taught me a lot more than I think he realizes. Watching him do Frequency Separation made it so much simpler for me to do! I had no idea why it never worked for me and he unknowingly showed me the mistakes I was making and how I can avoid those mistakes!
There were also a lot of other little things along the way which have helped me immensely.

At about 11am, we got to have a Skype video call with Jen Brook, who is an extremely talented model based in the UK and one of my favourite models of all time! I was so excited to be chatting to her! It was quite a hilarious chat! We could see her on video, but she couldn’t actually speak to us using her voice, as her parents were asleep and if she did talk she would wake them! So we were talking to her while she was typing to us!
The call lasted about 20 minutes and I am really glad that I got a chance to chat with her! I hope that one day, when she comes back to Australia, I can do a photo shoot with her! She is one of the very few models who I really want to work with to create some awesome images!

In the late afternoon, Bianca came over for a bit and we, along with Ben decided to go and gather some food supplies for our 5 day road trip! After we finished, we came home and relaxed for the rest of the day. I got to use Ben’s Wacom Tablet which was pretty awesome! I had never used one before so it was a completely new experience for me, and it was thanks to that experience that I bought my own Wacom Tablet a few weeks later!

During the day, Ben asked me if I would like to do a little speech about being a chronically ill photography at his “Anatomy Of An Epic Photograph” conference in Melbourne on Sunday! I jumped at the chance to do it! I am not the best at public speaking and I have severe social anxiety, so I really wanted to do it to see if facing my fears could help me overcome them.

Late in the evening, Ben received a phone call, and it was from the owner of a Fetish Club in Melbourne!
He had invited us to go and check it out on the Saturday night and take a few photos there! Ben and I decided to go and I will tell you all about it in future installments of this blog series!

That’s all for now!

I hope you are all having a wonderful week so far and as always, keep smiling everyone! 🙂

Nerve Damage

Rising From The Ashes

The Adventures Begin:

How It Was Created:

Conclusion:

About The Image:

The Beginning:

The Lighting:

The Posing:

The Editing:

Conclusion:

Extra News:

The Beginning

The Photo Shoot – Hair And Makeup

The Photo Shoot

Conclusion And Thanks

The Beginning Of The Day

The Shoot

The Technical Stuff

In Conclusion

The Technical Stuff

FAQ

In Conclusion

The Technical Stuff

FAQ

In Conclusion

“Faceless”

“Anxiety”

“Insanity”

How I Took The Shot

The Images

“Longing”

“Broken And Defeated”

“The Calm After The Storm”

“Bound”

“Becoming The Grim”

Day 7

Before The Shoot

Epic Shoot With Von Wong

After The Shoot

Day 8

Goodbye

The Video

In Closing

Day 2

The Morning

Scouting And Going Downtown

The Photo Shoot

Day 3

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