A new site has been launched by the Australia Day Council Of NSW called Aussievault.com.au that will record the opinions and multimedia contributions from all Australians who want to comment, submit images or films that will help shape the nation – past present or future.

Also being launched is ‘Living Australian 2010‘, the first photographic competition which will be housed on Aussievault.com.au. The ‘Living Australian’ campaign invites Australians to photograph a moment that represents how they are Lliving Australian’ through one or all four categories – My Landscape, My Life, My Sport and My Heroes.

The ‘Living Australian 2010’ national competition will be judged by Matt King from Getty Images, Brendan Read, Australia Day’s official photographer, Angelos Frangopoulos, CEO Sky News and Australia Day Council Member, Erika Jimenez, Director, Communication & Corporate Strategy for the Australia Day Council of NSW (ADCNSW), and ‘Living Australia’ celebrity judge Erin McNaught.

So get out there and start shooting, think Australian, live Australian and Im sure you will come up with a winner. You have until midnight 7th January 2010 to submit your photo(s). As with all photo competitions make sure you read the rules and are happy with them before you enter! Only submit one photo per category or you could be disqualified.

From the Website:

One lucky winner will receive a grand prize of over $6500 worth of prizes as well as money can’t buy opportunities

Part 1 – The Australia Day Experience

• $3000 in cash
• The Australia Day Council of New South Wales will contribute to flights to and from Sydney for Australia Day for 2 people (based in NSW and around Australia)
• 3 x nights accommodation for 2 people at the 5 star Hilton Hotel Sydney (from January 24, 25, 26)
• Opportunity to be an Australia Day 2010 Official Photographer – Cover the events as a photographer in the Sydney CBD, Hyde Park – which becomes Sydney’s biggest backyard, and Sydney Harbour – which becomes centre stage on Australia Day.
• Attend the official functions on Australia Day 2010 as a guest of ADCNSW – This includes the Australia Day Cruise on Sydney Harbour and attendance at the exclusive Premier’s State Reception at Darling Harbour.

Part 2 – Exposure for the winning images and a “money can’t buy” experience

• ‘A day in the life as a Getty Images photographer’ This will be an experience of a lifetime to work one day with a leading Getty Images photographer in the area of the winners choice, i.e. news, sport, entertainment or creative photography. The day’s internship must be taken up by the 31 December 2010.
• Exposure through Australia Day media coverage, on the website, in newsletters, and on digital screens for thousands of people to see.
• Photographs displayed on digital screens and printed images on display at Australia Day events.

Make sure you check out the paragraph titled License to use photographs:

You irrevocably grant to the ADCNSW, a perpetual, royalty-free, worldwide, transferable, non-exclusive licence (with the right to sub-licence) to reproduce, publish, communicate to the public, adapt, and otherwise exploit Your Material in all media whether known now or developed in the future (for example by displaying the entry on the ADCNSW website, the AUSSIEVAULT website, on any other website, publicly displaying your entry on a large format outdoor screens, or by communicating your entry to others by email, by mobile phone, by radio, television or print/online ).

You grant to the ADCNSW an irrevocable, perpetual, royalty-free, transferable and worldwide non-exclusive license (which includes the right to sub-license) to authorise others to view and reproduce the Your Material for government, personal, commercial or in-house use. Current and future sponsors of ADCNSW may use Entrant Material in any way they choose.

If you are happy with all that then get submitting. The site will officially be launched on Monday 9th November, 2009 with an event on the Opera House Steps by Erin McNaught and Elka Whalan.

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Silhouetted Pelican

Just thought I’d share a random photo of a pelican.

Pelicans are interesting creatures. They always appear to just be cruising around, never in a hurry or upset by anything. For such a big bird, pelicans move very gracefully.

This silhouette of a pelican was taken on Lake Macquarie last summer at sunset.

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Viagra Falls

Been going through some old photos I have had lying around on the hard drive and came across a live shoot I did for the guys in Viagra Falls. If you want to see a great covers band go and check them out. Great muso’s with a wide variety of songs, they are something different with all three members playing their own instruments as well as sharing the drumkit around.

From the BIO…

Viagra Falls are:
-Adam Diver (Vocals, acoustic guitar, snare and kick drum)
-Richard Sain (Lead guitar, backing vocals, percussion and fx)
-Paul Diver (Vocals, bass guitar and cymbals)

The three members of Viagra Falls have performed in several bands together since early 90’s including the highly successful “come as you are” Nirvana Tribute and the Australian Metallica Show both of which toured extensively throughout Australia and New Zealand.
In the period of 1994 to 1997 they performed in such cities as Newcastle, Adelaide, Hobart, Canberra, Wellington, Rota Rua. All four corners of Sydney and headlines a new years eve show in Brisbane to over 7000 people.

The bands goal was to create a full and complete sounding trio without resorting to pre programmed music. The idea being “keep it totalling live” none of the monotonous and predictable drum machines or lifeless and faked backing music. Viagra Falls takes pride in reproducing every song they cover as close to the original version as possible both musically and vocally

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Light Reflections on the water

After being on an extended break from photography I have managed not to post any articles on here for nearly 6 months now, I havent even picked up my camera. Its been killing me.

My reasons?? Well procrastination is a big one!!! But in all honesty, my new job has been flat out and spare time has been nearly non existent so unfortunately the blog has been neglected a bit. I am going to make a big effort over the next few months to get out and shoot regularly, because here in Maitland there are so many great photo opportunities, and I would love to share this great area with you

Going through my hard drive and clearing a bit of space I came across a heap of photos that I havent posted yet so in the mean time I am going to make a big effort to try  and post some of them and do more on a regular basis to get this blog up and happening again.

You may notice that I have increased my watermark size and placed it more prominently in the photo. Apologies, but due to people stealing my photos without credit or payment I have had to make a more distracting watermark to try and slow these pests down. All my photos are still available for sale as prints or for electronic media, without watermark of course!

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Thats pretty good value and they print a great looking photo too.

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On a recent trip to Adelaide for work we ended up having to go south from the city to the Penola area for a job. I just cruised my way back and checked out the sights while I was there. Padthaway is a  major wine producing area with Vines Vines and more Vines for as far as the eyes can see. There are kilometres and kilometres of grape vines lining the Riddoch Highway. Some of the more well known names in the area that I saw are Seppelt, Lindemans, Hardys and Wynns.

Plantations of pine trees are huge in this area as well. Everything along this stretch of highway is done in masssive proportions. Forestry SA has huge tracts of land that are just planted out with pine trees. The good thing is that they also have areas planted with natives as well.

I was intrigued with the patterns created by the long rows of trees you see as you drive along the highway.

Naracoorte has some limestone caves you can trek through a few kilometres out of town. I didnt really have much time to stop and look so I grabbed a few photos of the sculptures that protect the entrance instead.

Murray Bridge – The first bridge to be built across the mighty Murray River.

Under the Murray Bridge

The tiny hamlet of Hahndorf is as big in character as the German hospitality you receive all through the town. I stopped at the German Arms hotel (above) for lunch and experienced the best German food and beer I have ever had. I ended getting the German Experience meal, which allows you to sample a whole swag of different foods on the one plate. The meals are massive and you wont leave unsatisfied. The rest of the town is full of trinket shops and cafes and german stores. Hahndorf is a definite visit for your next trip to Adelaide.

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On a recent trip to adelaide I went to check out the city. I think Adelaide is a  very clean city, with a simple layout and heaps of open space parklands but as far as cities go it didnt really do much for me. I dont know why that is but the Adelaide Hills appealed to me more. Because everything in the city is so clean I felt like there wasnt that much character to they city itself. Above is the Parklands on the northern side of the city with the Adelaide Convention Centre in the background.

An artpiece along the rivers edge. It reads: “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” This ties in with a fountain and boats all laid out on the water. At night everything is lit up and looks quite spectacular. Unfortunately I didnt get back in at night time to photograph it.

More photos after the jump

These geese (I think their geese, not really that great with bird types) just sit around in the park and are quite happy to sit there and have their photo taken.

One of the many statues scattered all around Adelaide City

A winterised tree. The photo doesnt really do it justice as the overcast sky really muted the vibrant tones once captured.

Paddle Boats along the rivers edge waiting to be ridden

Under the bridge I was drawn to the patterns created.

Victoria R.I. She stands in the city centre watching over everything.

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I Recently went away with work to Adelaide for two weeks so heres a few random photos from the trip. The photo above is the City lights taken from the Mt Lofty Summit. The Adelaide lights are great to see of a night. They symmetry of the city’s layout is very defined when viewed from above. Everything looks ordered and clean unlike other cities where is is just plain chaos.

The Glenelg Wharf. Very popular spot for peope to walk. Coming from the east coast it was cool to see a sunset over the ocean.

Glenelg Promenade silhouetted by sunset. Glenelg is a vibrant clean beachside town. The marina is spectacular complete with it own sailing ship in the lagoon.

Glenelg Fun Park. It didnt appear to be operating but there is a complete fun park with water slides and rides right on the waterfront.

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As you may know I have been looking at buying a HDD/DVD Recorder recently. I have been looking around to try and find which units had the best features, ease of use and best quality of sound and picture, all for a reasonable price. I went to a few stores and checked out what was available and prices then looked around online for reviews as well as comparisons between brands. I must say it is a minefield out there at the moment.

In terms of systems, and media types, the possible combinations of components available are endless. To really be sure that you are buying what you need and not spending money on features you can’t or won’t use, you really have to know what you already have and what formats it supports as well as think ahead as to any additions you plan on making to your home theatre. As I see it now, the digital home theatre market is in a transition stage where there is alot of new formats as well as connectivity systems that are coming and going, which makes it hard to mix and match your system with new and old components. At the moment there is broad support for a mixed digital and analog theatre system, but I think give it a year or 2 you wont find anything that will accept input from or output to the analog dinosaur of yesteryear.

Weighing up all my options, I bit the bullet and ended up buying the Sony RDR-HXD970 250 GB HDD/DVD Recorder. I chose this unit for a few reasons:

• Firstly because my existing system is all Sony. I am always open to new brands but I guess I was a bit biased when other brands had similar features for the same money. I stuck with familiar territory. Sony has always given me a great run in terms of reliability and ease of use. The existing home theatre is now getting a bit old at an average age of 7 years but I have never had a single problem with any of it. Recently the video player died but only because my 2 year old filled it with pencils and coins -  8 years is a pretty good run for a video player in my books.
• The recorder has a good mixture of digital/analog inputs and outputs ensuring a wide range of compatibility with any future additions I make to my system.
• Reviews on both the 160GB and 250GB unit are unanimously positive.

I havent included buying price as it would be obsolete in a few weeks anyway. Everyone is willing to do deals at the moment and I did manage to pick it up cheaper in a physical shop than I could online for once.

Initial Impressions

Straight out of the box the HDD/DVD recorder is very impressive, with clean lines and an unassuming front panel. As far as connecting it in with the existing system, it integrates easily. The hardest bit is deciding which way I wanted to connect everything. As my amp doesn’t have any digital inputs I had to use the analog outputs from the unit. I know its not the ideal way to connect a new digital unit, but I do plan on trying to pick myself up a digital decoder unit like the Sony SDP-E800 which you can find cheap second hand if you look hard enough. In a perfect world I would already have my big screen plasma and I would be able to connect everything with 1 single lead from the HDMI output and enjoy the 1080p upscaling for better picture quality.

When you first turn the recorder on it goes through an initial setup which covers everything like digital channel setup and output formats. Dont stress too much about these settings as they can be easily accessed later if you dont quite get it right. From there it was time to play.

TV progams are clear and crisp. The auto tuner was spot on with picking every channel, even to the point where we now have a clear channel 10, which has been fuzzy ever since we moved into this house no matter what I tried to clear it up. Recording of TV programs to either HDD or DVD is simple as pressing the record start button. Select either HDD or DVD and thats where you will be recording to. I mainly played with the HDD at first. Chase play, where you can start watching a program from the beginning while recording the end is excellent. You can fast forward the ads and once you reach where it is up to recording it returns to live television.

Our Sony Handycam which records direct to 8cm DVD’s is easy to copy to the hard drive with direct dubbing once you insert the disc into the unit. It also allows you to watch what you have just recorded without finalising in camera first. I havent got around to trying to burn a few discs onto one 12cm DVD yet, but I’m sure it should be pretty easy. There is also the option to connect direct via the iLink on the front panel and have the unit control starting and stopping the camera for you.

One of my big plans with the unit was being able to backup our 2 year old daughters movies onto the hardrive so we didnt have to worry about changing discs, as well as preserving the originals. Unfortunately the unit wont let me do this. It appears as though the HDD/DVD recorder honours the discs copy protection, and wont allow us to record from a DVD movie. This is a good thing as far as copyright protection goes, but I would love to see a movie backup feature that would allow you to copy to the harddrive but then prevents you from recording off the hard drive onto DVD’s. That way your originals can be kept safe from the fingerprints and scratches that come along with having toddlers. I guess that would present a whole new array of copyright infringements somewhere in the world so it is easier from Sony’s point of view to just not allow it.

The photo hub is a bit ordinary, but I guess I am comparing this to my current photo editing computer. Copying direct from camera, as well as from a USB 2.0 compatible card reader is slower than a wet week. I started to copy a few photos across to check it out and it took more than a few minutes for about 12 photos so I cancelled out. Come on. If you have a spare hour to copy a 1GB memory card to the hard drive then go right ahead, but there are better ways to view and organise your photos. Once the images are on the HDD the image rendering onscreen is nothing short of poor but in defence of it all my television is only standard resolution. I am sure it would be much better on a high definition big screen. Being a glutton for punishment, I decided to try backing up the 4GB memory card in the the Olympus 1030SW direct to DVD thinking it might be a bit quicker. Bad idea. Over 2 hours later it finally finished and decided to create a slideshow to boot just to frustrate me more.

The music jukebox is a little clunky but it works. If you are going to upload song to it I would recommend doing it from a thumbdrive where all the songs have been named and organised. It took me long enough to name 1 song. I envy anyone with the patience to rename a whole album. If you have an Ipod then just connect its headphone jack direct to the input on the front panel and play from there as it saves you having to setup playlists and organising songs on the hard drive.

Wrapping Up

In my opinion you are best served to just use the Sony RDR-HXD970 HDD/DVD Recorder as a television program recorder as well as for easy organisation and backup of your home movies from your Handycams. I am sure there is a way to be able to backup DVD movies to the hard drive for watching over and over to save your originals from destruction. AS far as the music and photo ‘extras’ go then use them at your own peril. They are frustrating to use if you have an alternative way to view or listen to them. I dont currently have pay TV so I couldnt trial recording any of that across but that is on the cards for the near future. Over the coming weeks I plan to give the recorder a bit a work out and really get into its inner features and see how it fares. But my initial reactions to it are extremely positive and I am happy with it overall.

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Deke McLelland, the photoshop guru and self confessed geek has put together a hilarious video that anyone who uses photoshop will really enjoy. He gives out 101 photoshop tips and shortcuts in 5 mins set to a theme song while dancing like a monkey with a death wish. Hilarious!

Very educational, slightly eccentric but highly entertaining. Click on the blip.tv video above or go check out deke.com for more of his shennanigans and photoshop tips and tricks. He has some great podcasts and blog articles realted to all things Adobe!

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