Christmas in the city

Last week we had a lovely time strolling through the city looking at the Christmas decorations, everything looked so colourful and pretty.  We hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a very happy new year and look forward to showing you many more of our collaborations here on two takes in 2018. 

Reptiles and wildlife macro

This week we attended a reptile and wildlife macro workshop with Canon collective. We used some canon cameras with 100mm macro lenses that were set up in stations with speedlite flashes and various reflective surfaces to enable us to have some fun shooting these beautiful creatures. As we don't usually use flashes in our photography it was interesting to see how lighting makes such a difference to the final result. 

Here below are photos of Tardini, the magnificent tree frog, Goldilocks, the Darwin Carpet Python and Squirt, the Macquarie turtle. They weren't always happy to stay still so we had to be patient and manoeuvre ourselves into the best position to capture our models. We were pretty happy with some of the results. 

Leanne: top left, bottom right
Justine: top right, bottom left

Polaroids

This week is #roidweek2017 on social media so we decided to take our instant film cameras with us on our walk from Bondi to Bronte in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. It is the most perfect walk to do. You are spoilt for choice as you pass by the iconic Bondi icebergs pool, Bronte pool and the lifeguard tower at Bondi beach. 

Using polaroid film makes a pleasant change from the iPhone or the DSLR. You have to wait for your film to develop out of the sun and in the case of the polaroid 600 you only get 8 chances in a roll of film.  Then you will end up rejecting at least four of the pictures as you have limited control over the settings and can't change the ISO. 

There is something magical about polaroids, the noise as you release the box, the click of the film as it comes out of the camera and the result is a timeless memory. They are also very easy to pick up on eBay for not much money so if you are thinking about getting one, we highly recommend them. 

Top left, bottom left -Leanne (fujifilm instax 210)
Top right, bottom right - Justine (Polaroid 600)

Water

It's been a little while but yesterday we headed off into the city. We love that Sydney has so much water. There's pools for swimming, fountains for birds and of course our beautiful harbour which was sparkling in the spring sunshine. 

Top left, bottom left - Leanne
Top right, bottom right - Justine

Street photography

Street photography captures people and places within the public domain. It's always interesting to observe the surroundings and try to take a photo at just the right moment. 

Yesterday we went to the State library to see the World Press Photo 17 exhibition and Beauty in Difference: the street photography of Jon Lewis. We were quite inspired by this style of photography so spent the next hour or 2 snapping away in the streets of Sydney and in Hyde Park. A lot of photos were taken but we've decided to post a grid that focusses more on places than people.

Here are our two takes on street photography.....

Top left, bottom left -Leanne
Top right, bottom right -Justine

Vivid

Last night we went to Vivid, which is a festival of light, music and ideas.

Canon ran a photography walk where we were are able to borrow a Canon 80D and be shown a few tips on how to get some good shots of Sydney's iconic Harbour Bridge and Opera House.

 The lights were amazing and we were taken to some less crowded areas around the harbour to play around with long exposures, double exposures, and slow shutter speeds, using our tripods. We were completely out of our comfort zone as neither of us has done very much night photography,  but with a small group and a patient instructor we both got some photos we were really happy with.

Here are our two take of Vivid....

Top left, top right- Leanne
Bottom left, bottom right- Justine

At the zoo

Yesterday we went to the zoo. It was a glorious autumn day in Sydney so it was lovely to wander around looking at all the animals. It's such a beautiful location and many of the animals and birds were in fine form.

Here are our two takes from Taronga zoo...

Top left, bottom left- Justine
Top right, bottom right- Leanne

Bradley's Head to Chowder Bay walk

We had a wonderful walk yesterday, we went from Bradley's Head to Chowder Bay in Mosman. It was a very humid and damp day, lots of puddles and brow mopping but it was lovely to be so close to the harbour and marvel yet again at the beauty of Sydney as we chatted along the way. 

Top left and bottom left - Leanne

Top right and bottom right - Justine

Sydney tower

This week we were out & about in Sydney. We decided at the spur of the moment to go to to the top of Sydney tower, mostly as a way to avoid the torrential rain burst that caught us unprepared. With squelchy, water soaked shoes & wet shirts we made our way to the top of the tower. Fortunately the rain didn't last and we had an amazing 360 degree view of Sydney.

So much to see! We took a lot of photos and had a tricky time deciding which ones to put in the grid. It's interesting that the usual Sydney icons didn't make the cut. The Opera house was obscured by a tall building & we just didn't get a good photo of the Harbour Bridge.

These are our two takes from Sydney tower.

top left, top right- Justine

bottom left,  bottom right- Leanne 

January 2017

After a bit of a break we are back with a new project for Two Takes. 

As photographers we're fascinated by the idea that 2 people can be in the same place at the same time but notice & view things quite differently. We usually get together once a month, so each time we do we'll share a grid of 4 photos that show our different perspectives-2 photos from Justine & 2 from Leanne.

 This week we went to Nielson Park in Vaucluse where we swam, had coffee, sat on a rock in the shade, chatted, had some lunch & took some photos. 

Top left, bottom right: Leanne
Top right, bottom left: Justine