Photography in Canberra - what else is out there?

The wife and I were lucky enough ten years back to have been invited by Sir William Deane to have our wedding pics taken in the ground of Gov’t house. The are simply amazing and if you get the chance to have a good look around without thousand of others also milling around, I urge you to take it. For mine it is one of the most beautiful place in Canberra.

Foo, your enthusiasm for the Botanic Gardens is not shared by The Canberra Times which has done a hatchet job on them on today’s front page.

What else is out there? A whole city and rural surrounds less than 20 minutes away. And thanks to the master plan for the city, we’ve got great tracts of undeveloped land running right through the middle (well, possibly less than we used to). Put your boots on and go for a walk, you’ll find something interesting to shoot, and finding it is half the fun. While we don’t have the history and romance typically found in older cities (of architecture in particular), Canberra’s a great place to shoot. It’s easy to get around, and most things are less than half an hour away.

For flora and fauna, the National Botanic Gardens are OK, but mainly for smaller things like birds, lizards and the odd wallaby. http://www.anbg.gov.au/anbg/ Yes, I know it’s a major attraction, but it’s still good shutter fodder. So is the war memorial, and as a plus, shooting the exhibits can be technically challenging, especially when it’s a fifty foot long submarine in a dark hall.

Tidbinbilla has some great stuff to shoot on the animal front, like remarkably tame emus, and other large birds, as well as some nice terrain. You can even shoot some great pics safari style from the comfort of your heated car if you choose. It’s a bit like fish in a barrel out there in places. Then there’s the deep space tracking station just round the corner. And Gibraltar Falls, and the whole area around Corin. If you can still get into the old Yarrallumla brick works, it could prove interesting. Further afield, some of the older railway stations have a certain charm. The train spotters (I think it’s the railway historical society for proper) can let you know when the steam engines are running (if you’re into that sort of thing).

If you’re interested in shooting people, and your friends don’t have the patience to sit for you, hire a model. Somewhere like ozmodel.com will put you in touch with a number of locals who model part time or as a hobby. Shooting a trained, experienced model is so much easier than shooting an amateur. Some will do a TFP (time for prints) shoot, but an hour or two with a serious model is worth the expense, especially if you’re starting out. And they won’t mind waiting while you fuss around getting the lighting just right.

But yes, future anthropologists could be forgiven for thinking that the extent of Canberra was the parliamentary triangle as that’s about the only photographic record we commonly have. (With the exception of a few talented lunatics taking 10 minute exposures of storm water drains painted with a torch – nice work that one). On the topic, Flickr and Picasa should let you find a few local photographers and you can draw inspiration from their work. Any readers feel like posting a link to their portfolio? And astrojax might be onto something, though the chances of RiotACT organising an event with more than ten people that doesn’t involve bikes and beer might be slim. =)

Happy hunting, make the picture yours.

well, go put yourself in any location at all – really, any location – and then make yourself stand about and look for 24 shots of things within a ten foot radius of you and see what remarkable images you can get.

get a friend or ten to stand next to you and all do the exercise and be amazed at the extraordinary differences in points of views and images ‘seen’.

that said, there are a lot of nice images to be found scouting the grounds of anu, the parliamentary triangle (outside the ‘usual’ touristy places; notwithstanding the lovely image of the suffragette fountain part of the oph eastern gardens posted here recently by a poster whose name i humbly beg forgiveness for not recalling your name…), the wetlands over by duntroon and along the varied intricacies of canberra’s wide bike paths…

happy snapping!