10 things I’ve learnt about parenting

The internet and Malcolm Gladwell will tell you that if you practice something for 10,000 hours, you can become a master. Well I’ve now been parenting for 10 years, that’s 87,600 hours (or 87, 548 if you subtract the hours I was asleep), which means that I am pretty much the Yoda of parenting. So here are 10 things I have learnt over 10 years of parenting.

1. Spinning plates

I can remember a time in my 20’s when I knew that if I just dedicated a Sunday to ‘catching up’ then I could get back on top of pretty much anything. Finances? Check. Clean the house? Check. Annoying little jobs around the house? Check.
But the arrival of Josh lead to a 2 year period where life became a constant plate spinning act.
Finally feel that I’m getting on top of things around the house? But what about fitness? Quick do more fitness! Oh no…what about that Tax Return that’s due? Quick do that. Aaaghh!! What about spending time with the Hull-Browns…Oh God and the Riordan’s? Oh crap, I’ve got to devote some of my time to keeping the marriage together, and the dogs could really do with some attention…but I also need to get on top of things around the house!!!
By the time Holly arrived I started looking on in horror as some of the plates I was spinning crashed to the ground…and by the time Xavier arrived I was pretty much walking around with the sound of crashing crockery rebounding around my head. Did the world end? No. Did my marriage dissolve? No. Did the kids become little monsters? N…actually…look, let’s just say it could have been worse. But the simple fact of the matter is that spinning plates is foolish and overly ambitious. Just have as many plates as there are people in your family, put good food on them, make sure everyone uses them at the same time, clean them when they’re finished with and everything else will sort itself out from there.

2. Misery likes company

You need to make friends with people who are going through the same thing as you. Friends without kids will be nothing but a well meaning source of jealousy. Parents of kids who are older or younger than yours are also of little use. Those with kids older than yours have already repressed the horror that you’re going through, and besides they’re a little distracted by ‘Oliver! Get down from there! No don’t jump down!!! Oh God. I told you not to…yes, yes I do think it’s broken.’ And people with younger children have absolutely no interest in entertaining the possibility that things could actually get worse (or as I like to call it ‘bad, but in a different way’).
What you need is people who can look at you through bleary eyes and say ‘Yeah…I actually went in and woke her up at 2am so that I had an excuse to watch the Tour de France’. People who aren’t appalled when you mention your kid has Hand, Foot and Mouth, people who will buy birthday presents that aren’t Axle-F playing toy cats, and people who will occasionally utter to your child the most beautiful sentence known to parents ‘Yeah, of course it’s OK if you come over for a sleepover!’

3. Money

There is no end of things you can spend your money on once you have kids…and roughly 6% of these are things that you actually want. Mortgages, rent, cars, basketball, piano, choir, food, clothes, food again, I have been genuinely appalled at the number of times I’ve had to slink into a bank branch to withdraw money in the days leading up to a payday, simply because I had less than $20 in my account and so couldn’t take money out of the ATM.
If I had my way, the whole family would be living in a tent somewhere subsisting on foraged food and care packages from concerned relatives, while money accumulated in our bank account. ‘Fun costs money!’ I would yell at members of the family as they suggested expenditure of frivolous items such as holidays, or parties, or running water. To say the least, I am a fiscal conservative.
Katie on the other hand doesn’t share my fear of spending money. Indeed, if she had her way, we would probably be living in the same tent foraging for food, but we wouldn’t have a large bank balance and instead would have an amazing array of life experiences to show for it.
Fortunately we have managed to find a middle-ground that sees me spending a lot of time feeling anxious and Katie spending a lot of time feeling frustrated…but our kids have a renovated roof over their head, they rarely have to forage for food, and the care packages come in the form of dinners at our parents house. Which is really the sweet spot you should be aiming for with your parenting.

4. They need you…but you need you too

I’ve seen a few parents who have continued on with their lives after kids exactly as they were before they had kids, and I’ve seen parents whose lives were gradually subsumed into the lives of their kids. As with most of these things, somewhere in between is where you need to be. You need to be there for your partner and kids…but you also need to maintain enough of the person you want to be so that when you look in the mirror you don’t wonder ‘Who is that chubby, dull, old guy?’
Having said that, I have swung to pretty much both ends of this pendulum. On the one hand I’ve spent an entire year training for an Ironman, and on the other hand I’ve spent so much time as the ‘self-nominated child minder at social events’ that I have pretty much become a social ghost in that I’m constantly leaving conversations before they can develop into anything interesting as I’m scampering off to move someone away from a ladder, or playing with a child until they have ‘warmed up’ enough to go and play with the other kids…or not even attending grown-up social events because I’m at home looking after the kids. The net result has been and increasingly reclusive lifestyle that only leads to jealousy about other people’s non-reclusive lifestyles.
So this is ultimately a very long way of saying, if I’m talking to you at a party and I’m really struggling to make small-talk…please bear with me…I’m a bit rusty.

5. Sleep

With all three of our kids we have spent the first two years of their life not sleeping through the night. So I clearly have no advice to pass on here, other than that sleep deprivation is a freaking killer. It kills motivation, patience, creativity, passion and tolerance…which are pretty much the essential ingredients for a successful family life, marriage and career. There will be plenty of times when you put a strain on these things…but if you feel you are losing them, get help. Try sleep school, ask your friends what they’re doing, see if you can palm the kids off to a relative or friend for the night so that you can at least get one night of uninterrupted sleep. But don’t just try to ride it out. Sleep deprivation is like an insidious gas that distorts your perception and clouds your judgement, the only cure is a few nights of unbroken sleep…or failing that coffee…lots of coffee.

6. Mini-Me

Have you ever wondered what the personification of all of your insecurities and weaknesses would look like? Well let me assure you it looks a lot like your child as you watch them loitering around the outskirts of a social occasion, or you see them being dragged along the beach by a dog because they have absolutely no body weight…but are determined not to let go, or of course in that precious moment when at 3 years old they drop something and say ‘Oh, for Christ’s SAKE!’

7. They’ve got to take risks

This is one is really hard. Put simply, if you never let your kids take any risks you will probably have an unblemished report card when it comes to visits to the Emergency Department. But I also think you will have a child who will compensate wildly for this lack of risk taking in later life, or a child who is too scared to take the risks that we need to take as human beings to progress in life. With that said, I still feel a pang of fear each time one of the kids goes for a ride around the block, or heads up to the shop to get some milk, or stands on something very high and asks me to film a slow-mo video of him jumping off. But that’s nothing compared to how proud of themselves they are when they do it.

8. Parental guilt

One of the most brutal parts of raising kids, is realising what a turd you were when you were a kid. How hard you made life for your parents, how ungrateful you were for everything that they did for you, how ignorant you were of the myriad battles they were fighting. You want to apologise to them, you want to say ‘Is there anything I can do to make up for it?’, you want to do anything you can to assuage the guilt and feeling of indebtedness.
Instead, you say ‘Can you PLEASE look after the kids this Saturday night?’…and dig that hole a little deeper.

9. Some things you grew up with were actually really good

Growing up in Melbourne, and in a family that liked sport. I was pretty indoctrinated into the worlds of Cricket and AFL Football. But in my late twenties, I found that I was actually getting way too involved in the actions of 18 men on a footy field who I had never met and slowly started to divorce myself from footy. I also stopped hanging out with people who enjoyed watching cricket (or perhaps more accurately started living with someone who didn’t enjoy watching cricket) and I slowly lowered my cricket status to ‘aware of enough to make conversation if necessary’.
By the time Josh was born, I hadn’t watched a game of footy or cricket for years and so he has grown up without doing AusKick, or going to a footy match, or watching an ODI or 20/20 cricket match.
While we were down at Wilson’s Prom in January some kids came over and asked if he’d like to play cricket with them, he tentatively said ‘Yes’, but then admitted ‘But I don’t really know the rules’. In an instant I realised that at his age I was out pretty much every night in the backyard bowling at an imaginary batsman, or bouncing a ball off our back wall and catching the rebound, and that Saturday nights always held the potential of watching a Day/Night match at the MCG with my Dad.
I’d deprived my kids of this, just because I didn’t like the way it turned out for me…not because it was a bad idea. What’s more, in a city that lives and breathes sport, I’d deprived them of key information that will most likely provide the backbone of thousands of future conversations.

10. Don’t listen to people on the internet

For the love of God, you’re an adult…and a parent. Why are you reading this? You don’t need advice from someone on the internet about your own children. You know full well they’ve probably just plonked the kids in front of a screen so that they can find the time to write a blog about how to be a good parent. You also know that the photos that people post on Facebook showing the happy family engaged in an educational/cultural/physical activity was preceded by 5 minutes of screams and threats. You know that the parent humble bragging about their child’s achievement at school/sport/lion taming is glossing over the part where their child also nearly set fire to the cat.
So don’t surround yourself with someone else’s curated version of parenthood. Surround yourself with real life parents living with real life kids and share the good, the bad and the ugly. Because that’s what parenting should be about; sharing the dazzling highs and commiserating on the soul-crushing lows. But most of all it’s about talking honestly about what your kids are doing and what they are going through…and then walking away and thinking ‘well at least my kids aren’t doing that!’

Scaling back, changing tracks or dropping out?

10 years ago I’d been made redundant twice in 3 years and was then out of work for 3 months, I’d taken a job 2 days after Josh was born and was subsequently working long hours for very little money for people I didn’t like, making videos and TV commercials that I knew were going to come back to haunt me in later years.
So I took a lateral step into the Public Service, on the basis that a bit of job security would probably be a good thing with a young family…but that I would only do it for 2-3 years, so that I didn’t get ‘institutionalised’.
By ‘institutionalised’ I meant becoming someone who had become reliant on the perks of working in the Public Service. As I saw it, the trade off was that you took a pay cut, you said goodbye to any ideas of creativity and independence, but in return you got job security and sensible work hours.
You also got access to things like ‘flexible work hours’ and ‘sick days without a certificate’ and ‘working from home’ and ‘long service leave’. But I knew what these things were. They weren’t mana from heaven…they were tests from the Devil. Once you had started taking advantage of these, you had succumbed to the dark side. You would soon start referring to taking a day off work when you weren’t sick as a ‘mental health day’, you would have an email signature that looked like a weekly planner had vomited on the bottom of your email as you tried to explain the days and times when you would be in the office, you would sit down at the start of the year and map out all of the public holidays and work out when you could take a day of annual leave and gain a four day weekend. In short, you had become lazy, and the private sector would never look to give you a job.
But this wasn’t going to be a problem for me, I would be done in 2-3 years. I would have the experience of working in government, but without the stigma that is attached to long term public servants.
I was too strong to succumb to the devil’s wiles.

That was 10 years ago. I’m now due for long service leave…you know, that baffling thing where an employer pays you to not come to work for three months because they haven’t fired you in 10 years?
Last year I worked from home every second Wednesday. I’ve already booked annual leave for Jan 25th so that I can make Australia Day a four day weekend. I’ve become pretty much everything I feared I would become…and I’m about to take the final step into the warm embrace of the public service and cut my work days back to 4 days a week.
Which, to be honest, is kind of freaking me out.
I feel as though I’ve suddenly caught myself halfway down a slide, and I can either choose to work my guts out and climb back up the slide. Or I can fully commit to the ride, let go and just yell ‘Wheeee!’ as I slide into the unknown. Will I get to the bottom and discover I’m now the mediocre and uninspiring cog in a very large machine I feared becoming? Or will the bottom of the slide actually yield the opportunity to hop on another ride? There’s only really one way to find out.

So for this year, my Wednesdays will be focussed on the 4F’s: Family, Fitness, Film and Fuji (and if you think I’m going with ‘Fuji’ instead of ‘Photos’ purely to shoehorn an alliterative 4F allusion into this…you know me too well). This means that if you have a photo or video project you’d like me work on, then let me know, I now have Wednesdays and weekends to work on them. If you want to make Wednesdays a regular early morning run/ride/swim/gym then let me know. If you’ve ever wanted a portrait photo taken of yourself, or of someone you know…then let me know. And if you’re a member of my family hoping that I will be able to spend more time with you…then I’ll be there for you…provided I don’t have a better option available.

‘Wheeeeeeee!’

An open letter to Zack Arias

It’s a strange world we live in where you can have a mentor that you’ve never met in person, but followed from thousands of kilometres (or miles for our American viewers) away via the internet. But that’s how I feel about Zack Arias. I’ve never met him, but his videos and website have had a more profound effect on my photography than anything else. So Zack I’m genuinely bummed to know that you’ve had a less than ideal 2015. Especially as, under your proxy mentorship, I have had one of my best years.

Your Onelight video cajoled me to try shooting with a flash…and your John Keatley video dared me to take the plunge and approach a stranger and ask to shoot their portrait.

Your ‘Inspiration Interpretation’ blog made me rethink the way I use exercise as a way to inspire my photography…and I got so carried away I wrote a blog about it and tried (admittedly unsuccessfully) to get it published on your site.

Your ‘Art of editorial’ and ‘Shoot Rabbit’ videos gave me some amazing pointers on getting people comfortable and getting them to pose, that I tried out on my Dad.

But most, most, most importantly, I watched your Fuji guides and read your descriptions of the cameras and lenses so much that I think I wore down that part of the internet. The net result being that when I turn 40 in three days time, I’m putting all of the money I earned on a recent job, into purchasing a Fuji kit. And I am so excited about this, it’s concerning.

So I’m genuinely sad that you’ve had a rough 2015. But if I could have produced even 10% of what you did this year, then I’d be shouting it from the rooftops. But more than that, you’ve put so much back into the world. So thank you. If ‘what goes around, comes around’, then you are going to have one hell of a 2016!

Shooting your first wedding

Last year a mate of mine (the inimitable Tim Arch) asked if I would be interested in shooting a wedding. I thought that this would be a good opportunity to work with someone who knows what they’re doing and to learn a few tricks of the trade, so I said ‘Sure.’ But a few days later I re-read his message and suddenly realised that he hadn’t actually said that I would be assisting him, and after a flurry of DMs on Twitter I came to realise that in fact Tim would be attending the wedding…and I would be shooting it by myself. So I explained that while I felt happy with the way my photography was progressing…I didn’t really feel comfortable being the ‘be-all and end-all’ for someone’s wedding day. So Tim said he would explain this to the Bride and Groom, and a few days later he let me know that they were still happy to have me shoot their wedding. So it was time to HTFU and shoot my first wedding!
Was it terrifying? Yes. Were there things I could have done better? Yes. Did I learn more in about 4 hours than I had in the previous year? Yes. Will I ever shoot another wedding? I don’t know…but at least it’s not a definite ‘No!’.
So I’m no expert on wedding photography…but here’s what I learnt.

Preparation

Admittedly this is not going to come as a massive surprise…but the more prep you do, the easier the day will be. I had a few meetings with the groom before hand and a meeting with the bride and groom about a week out from the wedding. This was invaluable for making sure we were all on the same page in terms of what I was going to shoot.
I also headed over to the venue the day before at about the same time as the wedding was going to be to make sure I had a few good ideas for where I could shoot the group shots. While I was there I also roped a friend into walking towards me so that I could work out what shutter speed I would need to get shots of the bride walking towards me.
You may not use any of the the info that you glean from this preparation (Lord knows I certainly did!), but you will be able to carry yourself with the confidence that comes with being prepared.

I discovered this location on a walk a few months earlier and thought it would make for a great shot.

Improvise

Preparation is great…right up until that moment you when the spot you had in mind for the group shots suddenly isn’t available and you have to come up with another option. Or when the bridal party is crossing the road to get from one location to another and you see a chance to shoot them with an iconic Melbourne tram in the background (admittedly this shot didn’t work…but at least I got it!) So keep your eyes open for opportunities, and don’t freak out if you have make a last minute change.

Make sure you get a few shots that 'tell the story' of the day. This one serves as a good introduction. — Make sure you get a few shots that ‘tell the story’ of the day. This one serves as a good introduction.

Carry a shot list and ideas for shots

I’m sure that once you’ve done a couple of weddings you will know what shots you need and how to get them. But for me, having a list on my phone of the shots I needed to get and a few ideas for setups was invaluable. If you’re shooting the wedding by yourself you’re going to be flat out trying to keep people happy for the camera, taking the shots and making sure that they are working. You won’t have a whole lot of time to think about where you should be shooting next, or what would be a good set up. So if you’ve got a list, you can just refer to that and know that at the end of the day you’ve got what you needed to get.

I hadn't intended to take a shot here, but the light was great and the grey background really made the bride and groom pop...also the bride suggested the photo and I'm too smart to refuse. — I hadn’t intended to take a shot here, but the light was great and the grey background really made the bride and groom pop…also the bride suggested the photo and I’m too smart to refuse.

Go with what you know

I spend a lot of time taking photos of my kids, so I know the importance of waiting for a shot to happen, rather than trying to manufacture it. I’m also more comfortable shooting people with available light than with a flash. So there were moments like these where I knew I had nice light and I knew I could get a good shot if I waited for the right moment

And there was a moment where the bridal party wanted a photo in front of the fountain with late afternoon sun behind them. I thought that with about half an hour of mucking around with the flash I could get a good shot…but I also knew that I didn’t have that sort of time, so I had to just say ‘I’ll take the shot, but I think the sun is going to be too bright behind you.’ They were happy that I took the shot, and in the end the shot was too blown out…but I’m glad I didn’t waste precious time trying to make a shot that my skill level was unlikely to achieve. Because two minutes later I got these shots that I wouldn’t have got otherwise.

The Gear

Going into this, I think I was more concerned about the gear side of things than actually taking the shots! Will I need two cameras? Will I need a full-frame camera? How will I go shooting on a different camera when the pressure’s on? What lenses should I pack? Should I take a prime or zoom? How do I carry it all? AAAGGHHHH!!!!!
In the end I was very lucky and got to borrow a Canon 7D and a 70-200mm f4 lens. I also took my 550D with a 17-55mm f2.8 lens and a 50mm f1.4 lens. I had one camera on a sling and the other camera just on a strap and so carried them everywhere. I also had a tripod, flash and reflector.
So, did I need two camera bodies? Yep. There’s no way I could have changed lenses quick enough to get both this shot on the 70-200mm lens and then this one on the 17-55mm.

Perfect...apart from that creepy photographer in the background. — Perfect…apart from that creepy photographer in the background.

Did I need a full-frame camera? No, I’m happy with the shots I got on the 550D and 7D. How did I go shooting on a different camera when the pressure was on? Fortunately the navigation on the 550D and 7D are pretty similar, so I didn’t have any issues. But had I been shooting on a 5Dmk3 or different brand of camera, I think it would have ended in tears.
Should I take a prime or zoom? Given that so much of this was just running and gunning I definitely could have left the 50mm prime at home. I toyed with the idea of borrowing an 85mm for the portrait shots, but I’m glad I didn’t as I don’t think I would have had the time to change lenses and it would have just been another thing to carry.

How did I carry it all? Well…I just carried it all. It was freaking hard work. My shoulders were cactus by the end of the day, and there was one awesome situation where I had a camera set up on a tripod in preparation for the group shot, and then was asked to take some photos 100m away in another part of the park. So I was left getting people to pose for some photos, while desperately checking over my shoulder to make sure no one was running off with the camera and tripod I’d left set up. This was not in any way, shape or form relaxing, and if I was doing it again I would definitely rope someone in to assist me.

Eating and drinking

If you’re someone who likes to eat (and I am) then you should definitely try to get some food into your system before the ceremony begins, as there will be very little chance for you to eat anything other than snacks for the next couple of hours. Fortunately I was pretty much running on adrenaline for 4 hours straight, and it wasn’t until I stopped that I realised just how hungry and tired I was.

I would also recommend taking a water bottle with you if you can. I was shooting in the late afternoon of a warm Summer’s day (about 30 degrees) and knew I would get pretty dehydrated if I didn’t drink a fair bit of water before the ceremony. So I drank plenty of water in the lead up to the ceremony and carried a water bottle with me. While I certainly didn’t get dehydrated, spending the next 2 hours with a full bladder and standing next to a fountain was not ideal.

Conclusion

What I don’t know about photography could fill a library…but fortunately what I do know about myself could fill a small self-help pamphlet. I know that I achieve the most when I push myself out of my comfort zone. So while I was terrified about taking on the job of photographing someone’s wedding, I just told myself that it was like any other photography gig and went for it…although admittedly it is ‘like any other photography gig’ except for the fact that it’s one of the biggest days in most people’s lives…and you only really get one shot at getting the photos…and people are almost definitely going to print the photos and look back at them over the years…in hindsight, I should never have done this.

But I was also really lucky to have a really lovely couple to work with. They said from the outset that they were going to be relaxed and easy going…and they were. I think that if they had been a high-maintenance couple then this would probably have been my last wedding…but as it stands…if the right couple came along…I reckon I’d do it all again.

How to deal with pesky onlookers telling you how to do photography.

Around the Bay 2015 – The plan

After spending exactly zero hours training together, the three members of a team for the Around the Bay meet to discuss their strategy for the day. Chris Riordan lays out his plan:

‘Ah gentlemen, glad you could make it. Austin, could you please close the door behind you? We don’t want everyone hearing our plans for the ride.’

‘Excellent. Thank you. Well this Sunday is the big day and I feel it’s probably a good idea to discuss our tactics for the day. Now, as the team leader…yes Austin…no, no you are not. While you have excelled in the logistical side of arranging our entry to the race, I’m sure you will agree that on the day we need a team leader who has a shot at winning.’

‘Well it’s exactly that attitude that makes you such a poor candidate for the role Austin, eye rolling and exasperated sighs aren’t going to help us at the pointy end of the race now are they? Also, quick show of hands everyone who was at this year’s Tour de France’…no one else?…That’s what I thought. So it’s agreed that I’m the team leader? Good.’

Melbourne – Queenscliff

‘Now as there are only three of us I’m suggesting we alternate between a 2:1 formation (in which two riders sit at the front and one sits behind) and single file formation. Clearly as the team leader I will not be able to sit at the front in either of these formations, so you will need to organise yourselves as to how quickly you want to roll the rotations…but with our 0 hours of training together, this really shouldn’t be a problem.’

The ferry

‘A lot of teams will be using the ferry as a chance to rest their legs. We will not be. I’m a firm believer in ‘active recovery’ and so I will expect one or both of you to work on my legs for the duration of the trip. This is not some pansy rub down…but nor is it a deep-tissue, let’s use our elbows on his hamstrings affair either. I can’t be more specific at the moment, but rest assured I will tell you everything that you are doing wrong on the day.’

Nutrition

‘Clearly stopping at the aid stations to collect food runs the risk of an accident with all of the merging cyclists…it will also diminish my ‘numbers’ in terms of average speed for the ride. So 500m from the aid station I will be passing one of you (I would suggest you rotate this role) my drink bottles, two of us will then ride past the aid station and skirt around the danger, while the other will stop, grab food, replenish the water bottles and then put in the hard yards to catch up with us. I will be easy to spot as I will be sitting on the wheel of the person who I’m riding with and taking selfies.

Sorrento – Melbourne

‘Clearly we will adopt the same riding formation on the ride back to Melbourne. However on the climbs, Paul it will be your responsibility to set the tempo (Austin I will need your legs of the flat section from Frankston). As we near the top of each climb I will swing past and claim ‘King of the mountain’ points. Ideally one or both of you will take photos of this. The social media plan for distributing these images will be covered in the ‘Social Media’ section of this briefing.
Once we hit the 10km to go mark, it will be important for me to start getting the legs ready for the final sprint. So I will be moving to the front to get the legs warmed up. These moves to the front will only be for 200-300m max, and it will be your jobs to adjust to these sudden surges in speed, and then allow me to tuck in behind once I’m done.’

The Finish

‘This is what it’s all about. All the training we haven’t done comes down to this moment. All the time we haven’t spent away from our families, all those mornings when we got up at 4.30am and then went back to sleep, all those sacrifices we didn’t make will all be worth it. But we need to execute this correctly! I do not want you screwing this up on me.
At 800m to go Paul will wind up the pace and start stretching the elastic of the weaker riders, then at 600m he goes flat out, I want to see some Tony Martin style drool coming from out of your mouth, then at 400m, Austin, you swing around the exhausted corpse of your brother and really turn on the after burners (while also checking behind you to make sure you haven’t dropped me…if you have, you must wait until I catch up and then start sprinting again). At 200m I swing past Austin (If I don’t have the leg speed to do this, Austin will start braking to create the impression that I am flying past him), then it’s all on me. I will power to the finish line, victory Riordan!
I will of course acknowledge your efforts in all post ride interviews, however (and this is very important) all winnings will stay with me. After all, I was the one who came up with this plan, I was the one who had to sit behind you two all day, and I was the one who put himself on the line for that last 200m to take the victory. So while there is no ‘I’ in team, there is in ‘win’. So you think about that before you start sending any snide tweets about me.’

Social media

‘Clearly any time I roll to the front it is incumbent on you to take photos of this so that the people at home know that I’m a team player and willing to do my fair share of the work. I’m suggesting hashtags of #whataguy #trueleader #sunsoutgunsout (this is only to be used if it is in fact sunny, and you have managed to capture an angle at which it looks like I have muscles…please let me know when I should flex).’

‘So that’s it. It’s a going to be a great ride, and I look forward to having a few drinks after we’re done (although I should stress that this will not be with either of you).
Go team!’

Shooting the Tour de France: An amateur’s perspective

“The tour, it’s like Crack isn’t it?” laughed the pro-photographer with the South African accent, before hopping on the motorbike to follow the peloton “Every year I say it’s my last time…but I keep coming back!”
Well I’ve never actually tried Crack, but thanks to the good folk at Cycling Tips and Exodus Travel I did get to see the tour this year, and while it’s pretty unlikely I’ll be able to afford to get back there any time soon, here are some things I learnt about taking photos at ‘Le Tour’.

Travel light…but not too light

The best way to get to a lot of the climbs and good vantage points to watch the race is to ride or walk. So whatever gear you want to take, you will be lugging with you on your back. On my first two days I carried just a 50mm prime and my Canon 550D. Which was good from a weight perspective…but made shooting a lot of things difficult. First of all, the 50mm being a prime lens means you can’t get a good spot by the roadside and then zoom out to get both the riders and the beautiful Alpine background…no, you need to step back a bit. Which means you are going to either have to shoot through a crowd (less than ideal) or shoot the riders quite tight (good to have, but you don’t want all of your shots to look like that).

Sagan tightening the straps for the descent

So for the remainder of the time I carried the additional weight of the 17-55mm and pretty much shot everything on that. At the end of the day, riders on a road could be anywhere, so you need to be able to get wide enough to tell the story of where they are.

Geschke on his way to a stage win at Pra Loup

I didn’t take a 55-200mm lens on this trip…not because I didn’t want to…but because I don’t have one.

Use a motorbike.

All the pros get to use a motorbike…so why shouldn’t you? Well, because you’re not accredited so you couldn’t get access to the course…plus it costs too much…and let’s not forget helmet hair. But you will find that you can use the motorbikes in the tour to your own advantage by using them to set your shutter speed. Now if I learnt one thing from my time on the tour, it’s that professional cyclists go freaking fast…so you want to make sure that you have all your settings dialled in before they arrive. But if you’re an amateur like me, then you’ll have no idea what shutter speed you should be using. So I just experimented with different speeds and shot the motorbikes as they went past (there are quite a few that come through before the leaders arrive). If the motorbike looks sharp, then you can be quietly confident that the cyclists will be sharp when you shoot them.

Providing valuable info to fans, riders...and photographers — Providing valuable info to fans, riders…and photographers

You’re a photographer or a spectator…you can’t be both

It was embarrassing the number of times I thought there was still another big group of riders to come because I hadn’t seen the yellow jersey yet…only to go through my photos and realise ‘Oh…he came past five minutes ago…here’s a photo of it!’ Or I would be chatting to the guys I was watching the tour with and they would say ‘Did you see the look on Cav’s face on that climb?…he was suffering’ and I’d think, ‘Crap! That must have been while I was taking photos of the Colombian fans!’

These guys were having a good chat the whole way up the climb

You can try to occasionally just leave the camera in the bag and soak up the atmosphere…but deep down you just know that as soon as you don’t have the camera ready, Sagan will go past doing a wheelie…or a Yeti will attack the grupetto as it goes past. It’s just not worth that risk!

Don’t ‘spray and pray’

Nah just kidding, if you’re a professional or a purist, you can crap on about just focussing on taking one shot and really nailing it. But for you and I, when those riders go past, you are going to keep shooting until the cache is full. There’s no shame in that. After all, you’re the poor bastard who’s going to have to go through all of them later.
And sometimes as you’re shooting madly, the guy next to you will create a perfect frame through which to view the riders as they disappear into the distance…and you’ll look like a genius.

Don’t shoot the same shot every time.

I spent pretty much the whole time shooting and thinking ‘Well I’m just ripping of Kristof Ramon with that one…that one’s pretending to be Veeral…and look, I think I’m both Jered and Ashley Gruber in this one!’ In short, you’re remarkably unlikely to come up with a shot that’s never been done before. But by the same token you don’t want to come back with ‘Here are photos of 50 different riders, shot from the the same angle and with the exact same execution!’ So drag the shutter a little, focus on crowd not the riders, shoot tight, shoot wide, shoot portrait. Do whatever you can to make a shot that someone who doesn’t obsess over cycling will still want to look at.

'That's close enough' — ‘That’s close enough’

Do the boring stuff.

Load your photos every night. Tag them with metadata. Back them up to some sort of storage so that if the worst happens, they are in two (or ideally 3) places at once. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, so spend the extra half hour to make sure it’s a story you can tell that doesn’t start with ‘I took this amazing series of photos, but then…’

A quick look to see who's coming — A quick look to see who’s coming

But above all just have fun. You’ll learn a lot just by being there, and if you end up with a pile of crap photos at the end, just hide them and tell people you were too engrossed in the experience of the ‘Le Tour’ to take any photos…they’ll never know any better.

France vs Melbourne

Having returned from my recent jaunt to France, I’ve realised that there are some things that the French do very well…and some things that the French could learn from us. I’m quietly confident that they’re not listening to me, but here is my list anyway.

Things the French do better than us.

Driving

Now admittedly as you approach, drive through, or leave a town you will be met with a bewildering number of speed limit changes (they even put 30km/h signs in front of speed humps), but once you are out on the highway it’s 130km/h (or 110km/h if it’s raining). 130km/h! That really makes a difference on long journeys. Plus they don’t sit in the fast lane and hold other people up…no, they just sit in the lane that they’re comfortable with, and if they have to pass someone, they do and then move back into their lane.
Plus they pretty much all drive manual transmission, which means they actually have to pay attention when they’re driving. Chapeau France!

Cheese

I had always thought of myself as relatively knowledgeable about cheese. I wasn’t scared of blue cheese, I’d cooked with Taleggio, I’d tried Rocquefort. But arriving in France made me realise just how much I didn’t know. Over here, Chevre is pretty much a one trick-pony (or goat as the case may be), but over there, there are dozens of types of Chevre. Not to mention sheep’s milk cheeses, local specialities like Neufchatel and a dazzling abundance of all of the cheeses you already knew. Best of all, everything I tried was delicious.

Drivers vs Cyclists

The French appear to have taken an unusual approach whereby the cyclists aren’t jerks, and the drivers aren’t arseholes…and in a complete surprise, the ‘Drivers vs cyclists’ problem is non-existent. The two groups just co-exist. All it really takes is people being willing to forego 10% of what they want in order to accommodate someone else…but unfortunately with our new found national sense of entitlement, any time we don’t get 100% of what we want is seen as a calamitous loss. So I can’t see this happening here any time soon.

Mountains and chateaus

One of the downsides to having a nomadic population up until about 1788, is that we didn’t have thousands of years of people constructing buildings to basically say to anyone who was looking ‘You want to know how I rich I am? I’m this rich…and I’m so French that I built this one for my mistress!’

Also, as a photographer, you’re always struggling to frame a nice shot that has a good material in the foreground and background. But in France, if you’re in the Alps, then you only have to worry about getting the foreground right…as having those mountains in the background makes every shot a winner!

Just place flowers in the foreground...and voila! — Just place flowers in the foreground…and voila!

Things we do better in Melbourne

Coffee

On our last day in France, as Katie and I sat drinking a cup of black, plunger coffee I said ‘You know, this really isn’t that bad’. But I now see that it was that bad…it’s just that over the course of two weeks my standards had fallen so substantially, that what previously would have been considered a ‘coffee flavoured hot beverage’ at best, was somehow being passed off as coffee.
Now I know that you seem to put 98% of your milk into cheese and butter, and so need subsist on long life milk…but come on France, even your espresso was crap! Stop using crappy little machines and get something that can actually extract a decent shot. Don’t leave the group head in the machine after you’ve made a coffee until the next customer arrives, and get the grind right so that it doesn’t just look like a cup of warm coke.
With that said La Pommetier and Le Petite Atelier, you will always have a warm place in my heart for the coffees you provided.

Cheese

Ok, so I am already on record in this blog as saying that I love your range of cheese. But cheese should be enjoyed in refined moderation. It should be like that person at a dinner party who knows how to drink just enough so that they’re interesting and entertaining…but not so much that they become a bore. France, you are currently like someone at a 21st birthday party, drinking wine from a funnel! For the love of God, show some restraint!
Every time I didn’t know what a menu item was, it was invariably cheese. I had a pizza that looked like it had been on fire and so someone had tried to put it out by smothering it in cheese. Another time, my entree turned out to be a pot full of cheese, with occasional bits of ham and some bread to dip in there. If you’re going to serve fondu, at least have the decency to admit that it’s fondu!

Breakfast

For the first week of my stay in France I was riding at least 80kms per day, up some of the steepest hills I’ve ever seen, and in 40+ degree temperatures. The breakfasts provided were, a selection of pastries (3 days) and a croissant, tub of yoghurt & container of stewed apple (4 days). Now this is OK as a breakfast, provided it is either Mother’s Day in 1994 or you’re a 3 month old. But not if you’re an adult who is hoping to get something done that day.

Conclusion

So there you have it. France has more things to recommend it…but Melbourne has better coffee. So let’s call it a draw.

Tour de France and the ‘Ultimate Job’ with Cycling Tips

Growing up, my Mum had a word for someone who was particularly lucky; ‘tinny’. If the right cards came up in a game of 500 more than a couple of times, you were ‘tinny’, if you got more than one prize in the Cup sweep, you were ‘tinny’, win a raffle you were ‘tinny’. It was a term often applied to my younger brother…but not to me. I’m a very lucky guy…but just not in a ‘Hey you just won a prize’ way. So I think it’s fair to say that I was pretty freaking surprised when I found that I was one half of the winning team in the Cycling Tips Ultimate Job competion. So now instead of staying up to ungodly hours of the morning listening to the dulcet tones of Phil and Rod and watching the French countryside try to outdo itself in a ‘which area looks the most like a fairytale’ competition…I’m actually going to be over there watching it live…and begrudgingly reporting back to you about it.

So how does it feel?

About 5 years ago I suddenly came to the crushing realisation, that I was never actually going to own a Porsche 911. For some unfathomable reason I had spent the preceding 35 years thinking that seeing as I really liked these cars…I was clearly going to one day own one. Then I suddenly realised that ‘Oh wait…that car costs more than our house did when we bought it, and has fewer bedrooms!’ Similarly last year I came to the realisation that with 3 kids under the age of 10, by the time I could afford to get everyone over to France to see Le Tour (let alone tackle some of the famed climbs) I was going to be too old and fat to actually do it. So to be suddenly told that I will actually be following the tour, on a bike and taking photos and videos is pretty amazing. But at the same time it’s a bit like someone giving me an owl as a present…sure, I’ve always wanted one…but I never really expected to get one, so now what the hell am I going to do with it?!!

Hopes and fears

Let’s start with the fears…because most people come to the internet in order to feel that at least someone out there is more worried than them.

Riding in the Alps- I’m sure most of us had an experience when we were teenagers of drinking waaay too much of an alcoholic beverage (usually a spirit), and then vomiting, and then spending the next five years feeling as though we were going to vomit every time we smelled that drink or even thought about it (Sambuca, I’m looking at you!) Basically your body says ‘Well that was freaking horrible…let’s never do that again’. Well after doing an Ironman earlier this year, I think it’s fair to say that for the last 6 months I have felt about as keen to hop back on my bike and go for a hard ride as I have been to give birth to a chair. So the prospect of suddenly reacquainting myself with cycling via a series of mythically steep hills is not filling me with confidence.

The internet- While I’m more than happy to put my musings online for my normal audience (love you Mum and Dad)…it’s quite another thing to be putting stuff up to a world of internet experts. I’ve seen content that I’ve really liked get ripped to shreds in the comments section. I’ve seen videos that would have taken ages to create, and photos that would have taken a lot of skill to pull off dismissed so cavalierly that it almost made me weep for whoever had created it, and I know that regardless of how many nice things people say about something I’ve done, it’s the person who has a go at me that really stays with me.

My hopes are thankfully a lot less angsty.

Zero responsibility- I won’t have any kids to look after, I won’t have a 9-5 to go to, and at the end of the day, no-one who reads Cycling Tips will be any worse off if my content sucks, because Lord only knows there is enough other content for them to enjoy. So all I have to do is ride, eat, sleep, take photos, make videos and write stories. Which is more than just the ‘Ultimate Job’ it’s pretty much the ‘Ultimate Life’.

Le Tour- I get to watch the tour during daylight hours. I get to see all these guys I’ve only ever seen on TV, in real life. I get to shudder when I realise how fast they actually go…and chuckle when I realise how skinny their arms really are. I get to travel to a country where cyclist aren’t treated like an unwelcome hindrance. I get to ride up hills that until now have only been spikes on an SBS course map or footage from a Sufferfest video. And I will get to see my travel companion Riley’s face fall further and further as he realises that my ‘fluent French’ is in fact just what I learnt from Pepe Le Pew as a child (look out black cats who have had some white paint fall on them!!).

For all of this I’m eternally grateful, and I can’t wait to get over there, soak it all up…and hopefully distill some of it back to you. If there are things that you would like me to talk about, then please let me know. But if you are reading or viewing any of my content for the time that we’re over there, I only ask that you remember that old saying ‘If you haven’t got anything nice to say…you’re going to feel right at home on the internet.’

Fitness and photography

A couple years ago I spent 12 months focussing on being more ‘creative’. I spent more time writing, taking photos and making videos…hell, I even took singing lessons. The net result was that I think I became a happier human being. I had a creative outlet (even if the world probably preferred it when I didn’t), my problem solving improved (although admittedly the ‘problem’ was normally someone asking me not to sing…and my ‘solving’ was agreeing and apologising) and I started to see creative options where I hadn’t seen them before. But for the last year and a half I’ve been training for the Ironman (well admittedly I’ve spent the last 2 months basking in the afterglow of having completed the Ironman) and I’ve been amazed at how focusing on keeping yourself physically fit, can have massive benefits for your creative endeavours.

The basics

Granted, the actual act of pressing the button on your camera, looking at the screen on the back, sighing, and then dejectedly deleting the photo, is not all that physically taxing (the emotional and psychological onslaught is of course another thing). So you could argue that increased fitness won’t make a big difference to your photography. But a bit of cardio fitness may have meant you walked a bit further to get a better vantage point, a bit of endurance work may have meant that you carried an additional piece of gear in your bag that helped make the shot and a bit of muscle may have allowed you to elbow your way through the scrum and get the best shot of your daughter’s dance recital (Oh sorry other parents, maybe if you’d spent a little more time at the gym you would be the one taking this awesome shot…instead of rolling around on the floor moaning ‘My nose, my nose…I think you broke my nose!”).

Location, location.

While training for the Ironman (and yes I will continue to drop that into conversation wherever possible) I would often head out on 1.5 – 2hr runs. Now don’t get me wrong, running along main roads and having the local bogans loudly question your sexuality as they drive past is pretty awesome. But eventually you will want to get off the beaten track and run somewhere different, and this will open up a world of new photographic locations. Old buildings, new bridges, creeks, graffitied walls, velodromes, rolling hills- you never know what you will find, but you can bet that it’s not something that many other people have used for a photo.

I stumbled across this one morning while out for a run...then scampered back to get my camera. — I stumbled across this one morning while out for a run…then scampered back to get my camera.

The early bird

Do you know what’s awesome for photography? Early morning light, deserted streets, sunrise, frost and that crossover between late night revellers and those who get to work early. Do you know what sucks? Getting up early to take these shots when on any other day you’d still be asleep. But if getting up early is now part of your daily routine (because it’s the only time you can work your fitness regime into your family life or work schedule), then getting up early on another day to take some shots really isn’t that tricky.

Admittedly this photo wasn't taken superearly...but it was early when we started! — Admittedly this photo wasn’t taken superearly…but it was early when we started!

The people you meet

I’m firmly of the opinion that the most important factor in taking a great photo is not your skill level…but being there. A photographer with basic skills who is actually there, is going to take a much better photo than an expert who isn’t. But the problem is, how do you meet people to take photos of? How do you hear about events that would be great to photograph? How do you hear the stories that would translate beautifully to the captured image? In short you have to get out and meet people and do things, and getting involved in a sporting group or club is a great way to do this.
Plus, if you are actually doing an activity, you will have a much better idea of where the best photos are going to be. Everyone is going to be at the finish line, but where will the race be won? Where will the hearts break? Where is the bike most likely to stack? If you are actually doing these activities day to day, you will be able to walk up to any event and have an advantage over the other photographers.

Confidence

OK, if you’ve made it this far into this post then you’re probably willing to let me get a little tangential. If you are exercising regularly, you will be happier with yourself physically. When you’re happy with yourself physically, this tends to manifest itself in greater self confidence…and you know what is an incredibly powerful tool when trying to convince strangers to let you take their photo? Self confidence. It makes no sense, but I know that for me personally, knowing that I could run 20kms on any given Sunday, gave me the confidence to approach Luke and ask him to pose for a portrait.

Of all the photos, I think this one carries the most weight. — Admittedly he does look a little like he’s regretting agreeing to let me take his photo.

Time to think

If you’ve got kids, or a full-time job, or remarkably persistent cats, you’ll probably find that you don’t have a whole lot of time to think about your photography. But head out for a swim, ride, run or gym session and you suddenly have time and space to think, although for the first couple you will just be thinking ‘Christ I hate running!’ and ‘Why am I doing this?!’ and ‘Who the hell put the Wiggles on my playlist?!!’ But eventually you will be able to do the physical side of things on auto-pilot, while you use your newfound firing synapses and endorphins to come up with some stellar ideas.
The best ideas I’ve had for photos, videos and blogs have been while I’ve been out exercising.

Selfish portrait. ISO 400, 17mm, f3.5 and 6sec — Selfish portrait.

In conclusion, your Honour…

Having swung the pendulum between focusing on creativity and focusing on fitness, I have settled on the idea that I need to have a balance of 60% fitness and 40% creativity…with that additional 20% focus on fitness leading to more than a 20% improvement in my creativity. So go out and try find your balance. Before you buy that next bit of gear, buy a a decent pair of runners instead, before you book a photo-tour, go for a run around your local area and see what you find, and instead of putting your head back on the pillow at 5.30am get outside and break out of your comfort zone…your photography will be the better for it.

The photographic waiting room

It can be very easy to think that the modern photographer’s life is one of instant gratification. After all, Ansell Adams often had to wait weeks before he knew if that shot of a rock had worked as he wanted it to…nowadays we can take a photo of the rock, add a few filters and send it to an uninterested world in a matter of seconds. But much like a young tradie being sent to the shop to get a ‘long weight’, there are still a few times that photographers find themselves waiting, and then realising that they are too embarressed to tell anyone about it.

The time between taking the photo and getting to work with it in Lightroom

Pretty much every photographer has had the experience of looking at a shot on the screen on the back of the camera and thinking ‘Nailed it!’, only to get the photo onto a larger screen and realise that in fact it’s soft (slightly out of focus), or noisy (ISO too high) or shit (shit). So there is always a degree of paranoia about your shots until you can load them into your computer and see what you’re really dealing with. After all softness can be sharpened, noise can be reduced and shitness can have 100% clarity added to it and passed off as ‘HDR’. But you just don’t know what you’re working with until it’s loaded onto your computer…and so the wait between clicking the shutter and clicking on the mouse can seem like an eternity.

Last year I shot my first ever wedding. By the time I got home that night and loaded the photos onto my computer it was late and I was too shattered to do any work on them. But then the next day was chock-a-block with family activities, and the day following that involved a 5 hour bike ride. So I spent over 48hrs freaking out that I had no idea if I actually had any decent shots…it was torture.

So if you live with a photographer and want to be nice to them, give them an hour off other duties and let them load in their photos and have a look at them on a big screen with access to some software that can hide their mistakes…it will make them a lot more pleasant to be around.

Waiting for feedback

I think that people who don’t take photos can underestimate just how much a photographer invests in a shot. As the photographer you’ve chosen to take a photo, you’ve composed it, you’ve chosen your settings, you’ve forged a brief alliance with your subject, you’ve taken the shot, you’ve spent time doing post-production on the shot, sent through the final product, and then…well then you’re in the hands of the recipient, and the longer you wait for a response, the more you become convinced they hate it. It can be soul crushing. It’s a bit like finally plucking up the courage to call someone you have a crush on, but getting their voicemail and having to leave a message and then having to wait them to call you back. Or maybe you should call them…to make sure they got the message…or maybe I should I see if they’re available on Facebook…wait, it says they’re logged in on their mobile…why didn’t they answer my call then?… Oh God they must be trying to think of a nice way to say ‘No’…Oh God I feel like such an idiot!…but why don’t they just let me know? Why do they just leave me hanging? What sort of psycho are they?! Screw this, I’m going to send them a really nasty text message telling them that I can’t believe I ever I had feelings for them, but not to worry, I can take the hint, and I’ll never bother them again!
Meanwhile, in the time it took to go to the bathroom, the subject of your desires has received one voicemail message followed a few minutes later by a bafflingly angry text message.
In short, you are a tad vulnerable when you put a part of yourself into a shot for someone else’s judgment, and paranoia + time = teenage boy.

So if you have the misfortune of living with someone who fancies themselves as a photographer, or someone has taken some photos for you, here are a few things you can do to assuage our fears:

Let us know you got the photos. Even if you haven’t had a chance to look at them yet, just let us know they’ve arrived. Sometimes, due to the vagueries of the internet, photos don’t make it from sender to reciever, and there is nothing worse than waiting for feedback on photos when the other person is still waiting for them to arrive.
Give feedback. Look, I know we’re all time poor, but I’ve had photos that I’ve taken hours working on, uploading to a gallery on Flickr and sending through, only to recieve ‘Great, thanks’ as the feedback. What was great?! Which ones did you like? Why?
When I did the recent photoshoot with Luke from the Cobblers Last he actually went through and listed the photos he liked and why. It was awesome because going into a shoot you have no idea what people are hoping for, so it’s great to know how close you came to what they were after.
Oh, and if I’ve seen you write ‘Cute pic’ or ‘That’s so great’ to someone’s clearly out of focus photo of their child on Facebook, your feedback has no weight with me.
Tell it like it is We are precious flowers…but sometimes we need to hear what you don’t like. Yeah, it hurts and we will probably spend the next couple of hours in a huff, but we need to know why you didn’t like a photo. I can pretty much guarantee that if there’s a photo you don’t like it’s either a photo the photographer had doubts about themselves, or there is a specific reason why they included it. As a photographer you take a lot of photos…the real skill is culling them down to the ‘good ones’. The more informed we are about what constitutes ‘good’ the better we’ll become as photographers.
Be our muse Yep, standing a spot while the photographer stares blankly at the display on the back of their camera and then adjusts the the off-camera flash for the umpteenth time can be boring as batshit. But consider it an investment in the ultimate prize; a photo of yourself that you actually like!

So there you go. We photographers are in fact incredibly misunderstood and under-appreciated geniuses who thoroughly deserve your respect and admiration. Just please tell us we’re good…please!