2019 is now here. Just wow. Seems like yesterday that we were all looking forward to 1999! Hell, we sat on the Prince song for over a decade waiting for that to come around! And now... blink of an eye and it's almost 2020... The future is here. Seasons change, people change, times change but the fundamental inner truth still abounds. Most of us spend our time building up internal, almost indestructible walls to protect us from the fury and monsters that surround us. It's

Following is a quick list of 7 items that you can turn into habits to become highly creative regardless of which area of your life you want to be creative in. Creativity is the act of taking your imaginative ideas and making them real. (Note: imaginative does not need to mean completely new and never thought of before!) Innovation is the process of implementing your creative ideas. You can be imaginative but not creative or innovative or you can turn those creative thou

It always makes me smile a little when I see or read photos and articles about candid photography. In most cases the authors always lean towards how simple taking a candid image is. I guess it's the truth if you are just trying to snap away and capture every moment you can. You may even get lucky and get that awesome candid shot you're after - maybe. However, if you're really looking to step up your own level of photography and capture those images that make people go wow the

Melbourne, Winter The drizzle washed down upon me as I stood on the bleak, wet street in the heart of Melbourne wiating for my next engagement to begin. The coffee in my hands tasted as stale and sad as my current mood. To say I was not feeling on top of the world would have been an understatement. The 'temporary' state of working for someone else had turned into my worst nightmare, a nightmare that was getting harder and harder to remove myself from. Something needed to give

The eyes stared back at me from within the flames, filled with sorrow. Questioning. At what point in this life did you decide to hide your true self? Was it a gradual change? Small tokens of change which meant nothing at the time, growing in number and weight until the person looking into the flames bore but a parting resemblance to the one staring back. If it was a question of changing in one split second, would the same choice have been made? Would happiness be shunted asid

It's funny how the human mind works.  A couple of hours after finishing the latest commission (Japanese inspired comic strip), I sat down to chill out with some Netflix.  My hands however, seemed to have a mind of their own as they picked up a pencil and started doodling away on a small piece of canvas on the table. ​ Without consciously realising it, this picture came to life out of nowhere... ​ Inspired or obsessed?  It's hard to tell the difference at times.

The middle of the night, a time when all sane people are peacefully sleeping and dreaming of pleasant things.  Not so me...  I'm up and channelling my inner Kahlo, Dali & Picasso.  Initial sketch begins to come together.  Yes - not all masterpieces start off without a hitch... plenty of fixes still need to be done to this one...

~ Within~ ​ With so much noise, rhetoric, static and the constant useless pounding of others 'wisdom' encroaching our own minds, we all need to tune to our own inner vibration and guidance. ​ It's only when we heed our own internal advice that our lives meaningful, our paths clear. ​ Learn to say No... You weren't made to be say Yes to everything that's put in front of you. ​ Switch off for a while, or rather - switch ON to your inner self. ​ Peace, happiness and the path wil

A freezing cold day with glimpses of sunlight that would stream through the tiniest of breaks in the clouds overhead. I stood there shivering as the break in the weather opened up to allow the golden rays to bounce off the atmosphere and kept my fingers crossed that it would hold out long enough for me to #capture the tree before me. This wasn't the image I had set out to #capture, instead I had been side-tracked from my original intent and casually came across the lonely tre

I just finished reading a very old #book titled 'As A Man Thinketh' - yes, that's not a typo, it was written at the turn of the last century! Around 1904 I think. One word - Wow. All these new-age guru's with their talk of the #Secret and how we think our ways in or out of things in life are at least 100 years behind the times! This book, which spans a little over a hundred pages can be consumed by most of us in an hour or two, but damn does it pack a punch. If you can wrap

Those of you who have followed my posts in the past will know that I'm pretty much into anything that is creative in one form or another. That includes having written a number of different books. Learning how to maximise your own images is not just about the settings you've dialled into your DSLR. If you really want to take your artwork to the next level, you need to know why you are dialling in those settings! This small e-book (free!) is yours to download and carry around

Okay, that is one hell of a crappy title for a blog post. What am I going on about now? I'll simplify as much as I can. Whenever I'm introduced to somebody new, or have to engage in some inane small chit chat with somebody the topics go from - the weather to what do you do? What do I do? Well, let's see. I eat, breathe and generally live life as well as I'm able to. Doesn't really cover the question as it's posed though. Slowly the revelations come forth; I'm a photograph

Al dropped by to pick up the finished piece 'Healing with love'.  It's always a bit of a heart-stopping moment for any artist - that moment in time when the new owner first lays eyes on the finished piece. ​ The smile on her face and the fact that the new image was hanging on its new wall within an hour of being picked up sums it up. ​ The final piece ended up being a wicked combination of impasto, acrylics, some healing crystals... amongst a few other little bits.  Looking i

Recently, I've had the chance to walk around the city, camera in hand just taking shots of all the interesting characters that make Melbourne their home or are here visiting. Surrounded by a sea of unwelcoming, flat and sometimes downright unfriendly stares, you soon come across the souls who are out there, living and sharing their true selves without any masks. Some would call them the crazies, others the unwashed. Me, I tend to look beyond the obvious non-conformance of w

There's numerous sources and articles about getting the 'correct' white balance settings from your camera. I've written some myself to help out those looking to get true color representation out of your images. In this article, I'm going to take a different angle. How to choose the wrong white balance settings. Wait a minute. Why would I deliberately dial in the wrong settings for an image? Simple. Artistic and creative imagery is all about looking at things different to the

Understanding camera lenses will give you the ability to have greater flexibility and control over your creative imagery. When first starting out it can be daunting trying to understand which lens or lenses you should be purchasing. The kit lens that came with your camera will only go so far. Below I've listed some different types of lenses that you will come across and what their main purpose is. A small introduction to allow you to get the basic information on what that par

A lot of beginners I talk to who haven’t had a lot of exposure to photography talk about what is commonly known as ‘Shutter Lag’ – the delay between when you press the shutter release and when the shot is taken. Early DSLR’s and point and shoot cameras had this issue and it was something that we just learned to live with. These days, shutter lag is near negligible and I was struggling to understand why these people were having this issue. What I found when I got them to walk

Photography and art is all about light. The ability to see how the current lighting in any situation interacts with the subject you are trying to capture is one of the key components in any photographer’s toolkit. Like any other situation in life where one person’s trash is another one’s treasure, there will be many differing opinions on the use of artificial light vs natural. Both have their unique place in capturing those images you are after, depending on what outcome you

To stand out and be unique in any field, including arts & photography - we must be willing to embrace the failures that we will find along the way. In a world where answers are only a click away, or better yet - answered by an ethereal voice just by prefacing the question with - 'hey google...' the art of finding our own unique, individual style is rapidly disappearing. Don't get me wrong, it's great to get an answer to your questions without needing to travel around the worl