Light Talks the Lens Light Life Podcast Episode 3

In our third Episode of Light Talks, Gail and Sarina talk about the way that Photography has changed the way we see the world, the challenge set for the next few weeks and how you can contribute to the LLL community. 

We apologise in advance for any inconsistencies with sound for the podcast, trying out new equipment and we were mobile this week.

Notes:

The documentary Sarina talks about is Fantastic Funghi - The Mushroom Movie

To subscribe to the magazine go to www.lenslightlife.com or to explore the community content. 

To contribute to the magazine email us on hello@lenslightlife.com or message us on Facebook or Instagram

To follow us on Instagram go to @lenslightlife 

To follow us on Facebook go to @lenslightlife

Website www.lenslightlife.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Gail Mitchell episode three.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Oh my god, it's three to Jackson. Here we go.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Here we go. Lance Light Life podcast. What do we call it? Light tracks. Light talks. Light talks. That's what it is on our website. Light Talks.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Will we ever talk about light? That's easy.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

It's very popular, isn't it, as a photographer? How's your week been? Let's talk about that quickly.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Oh my god, it rained up here for the last three days, but the sun's out today, and this morning the fog rolled in before I even woke up, and it didn't lift till 9.30. So you know you know that minimum. I was still in bed.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

But I was here.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

I tried to get you up. You know that minimalism that we were talking about and we're looking at for the next issue.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

And we'll talk about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

I went out and um tr in fog, at least there's so little to see that minimalism is a little bit easier when it's not your strength and you actually like colour and and things.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Is this the is this the photo that you secretly just sent to me and I said to you this is not your best work?

SPEAKER_01 1:22

As I said, it's a phone shot from my screen. It might get better. But a judging little version.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

You did show me the unedited version, so no, that's the edited version.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Okay. Well see, this is what friends are for. I know, to be honest with you.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

We often say that to each other.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

We do, we do.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

And I love it when you're wrong and I put it up and it gets hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of likes, and I go, Serena said that was not my best work.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Uh just because someone likes it doesn't mean it's a good photo.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

That always works on Insta because we're on some colour.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

I know. I think it's funny because some we we talk about this all the time, but when um when I put a photo up that I think is I really love it, and I think this is a great photo, the work that's gone behind it, everything. And it just no one likes it.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Yeah. Anyway, there was that's okay. I put one up last week from Vietnam and it was this lovely little old lady, and she was Oh, I like that shot. Oh, so did I, you know, pathetic, like probably a quarter of what I would normally get. And I love it. And and there was the light was coming in the window and it was lighting up her face, and it was just I've been saving it, I don't know what for, because I put it up and it was like it got a quarter of what the bright red sunset the night before it got, and it took so much more work, and to me it meant so much more, but yeah it's always the way, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Always the way.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Don't judge your success on your likes on Instagram.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

This is true. Now we've got a couple of sort of topics to talk about this week because um so I'll just sort of chat about how I it's a it is the perennial question for photographers, I think, but it's how when you are a photographer or when you start photography, how it changes how you see the world. So when you walk down on a bus or on a train or on a plane, for example. So we're gonna have a chat about that. We're also gonna set ourselves a challenge so that we can report back on it next week. And and I think we we we're gonna go down this minimal minimum minimum, I can't even say the word. Minimalism minimalism, and we're gonna talk about what is minimalism because we, you know, between you and I, we still haven't nailed to the wall what minimalism actually is. And then we've been asked a lot um on how people can contribute to Lens Light Life, both the magazine, the Insta, the website, the however. So we're gonna have a little bit of a chat about that. But let's start with, or did did anything massive happen for you this week apart from rain for three days?

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Can't see too many things.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Did you did you like get the best shot ever?

SPEAKER_01 4:09

No, it's raining all week.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Me neither. I haven't taken my camera out, so surprise. Okay, so you've been a you've been a photographer for most of your life. So I wonder, and but so I have two questions. When were you more of a landscape photographer? Because I know that you were a photographer of you know, black and white, developing your own things way back when, but um, and I was as well when I was younger. So, but I became a landscape photographer, sort of I guess 2018, 2019. So very different. So I definitely see the world differently now to what I did before. So talk to me about you and when you started taking landscape and did that change how you see things?

SPEAKER_01 5:07

I don't know whether it's a timing thing, but 2019 I started taking photographs up here. And 2019, end of, you know, we started to be locked down into the whole COVID thing. Um and I was allowed to shoot local. We were allowed up here. I could go out to the main highway and I could go up as far as the Queensland coast, so you know, Port Macquarie. And I really got a a passion for for our local area, for you know, up to Barrington tops we can do waterfalls, beaches, harbours, boat ramps. There's a lot to shoot here, and it's all landscape, and there were no people around, there was no street, and that that was never gonna happen. Um and I loved the slowing down of it. I I I'm one of the few people that um and I shot a lot of the time by myself because there were only another there were probably only a couple of other photographers up here, but I really got a passion for it that has never gone away. It's landscapers. I look at I look I look at my photographs and it's I don't know, 75%. I try street and I try portrait and I try architecture and and I come back to landscape. What about you? Was it earlier than that?

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Uh 2018 um for me, just before COVID or 2019. Yeah, not not not much, but just um um I I had a drone. Um I always had took photos, but I never really took landscape photos. And I was with a mate down in the um Sapphire Coast and started shooting um handheld and then came back to Sydney and uh and and that was really when it started and found myself down at Bronte and Kudji every morning for months taking sunrise, which I don't do now, but um and yeah, I just started seeing colour and light very differently. So it it wasn't necessarily everyone talks about how you suddenly see things in a you know in a frame. I didn't see things in a frame, I saw the light around things. So I would walk into a room or I'd look at a tree or I would look at you know a cliff or a and the light bouncing around and and how you get the hard light and the soft light and the golden light and the blue light, and and all of the light suddenly became so real that that was what guided how I looked at everything, as opposed to, oh, isn't that pretty, or that's nice, or it's a nice sunset. It was just so now you know when people say, Oh, we're chasing the light, or we're light chasers, or you know, it's it's all about it to me. That's how I see everything. It's now I just see the way things work with the light.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

And I remember when I first started, someone asked me the question, what do you prefer, colour or light? And I knew it was a trick question. And I at that stage was like so all over colour, and I knew the answer was light, and I knew that I needed to think differently.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

I love I love colour. I mean, I'm usually my shots are punchy and have got lots of colour in them. But to me, I mean, you don't have colour without light, so in a dark room, there's no colour. Um, obviously that's that's that's that's natural, but um just then you start walking around the cities, just so it's not just you know, beautiful light on a sunset or a sunrise or a a tree or a cliff or a you know light bouncing off your beautiful rooms in, you know, streaming through the window or a rainbow. It's you know, you walk through the city and it might be light streaming between two buildings and or bouncing off windows or glass or bouncing off puddles or reflections and and you just see everything differently. Driving down the road, you're looking at, you know, you you're in a plane and you look yeah and you you're in a plane and you want to sit in the window seat so you can see the clouds and you know what's going on outside and and you just it just brings uh it just brings a level of joy that you you know that you don't that you never had before, I think I think that's that's what I've found that I that I love. Yeah when you just it makes you happy when you just you just see this soft, beautiful light, you just want to capture it and it I can talk about it for hours because I just love it. But that's the big difference for me about how I see the world before and after.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

I'm quite enjoying playing with other genres though. Once you get your head around and and not that I will ever know everything, and not that it won't always be a matter of learning. Um but I do like the the discipline of of um photographing people and I love uh I love balance. So I so but I do enjoy buildings and leading lines and and trying to take them in camera perfectly so that so that there's no need to you know to edit them afterwards. It's it's that's quite a discipline. Still light, as you say. I mean, because I think some of my favorite architecture is in black and white, like that you know, the wonderful stuff that you the the that we see online like Graham Gordon. But yeah, it's it's it's worth it's having the time. And if you do have if I have the time, I go outside.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Yeah, but even even your you you were just talking about your your shot of the lady in Vietnam, the light in that photo is what makes it.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Yeah, yeah. I mean it was craggy skin and it was late afternoon light, so it was soft enough that it didn't destroy her face, but the character and she was she was thinking, she you know, she wasn't looking at me, she wasn't, she was concentrating on what she was doing, and she just looked up and looked out the window, and it's like, wow, that's just lovely. Yeah, nice.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

And when you see a photo shoot outside or inside, it's all about the light. So they're trying to either redirect the natural light or create artificial light to look like natural light. Yeah, so yeah, I mean it's I'm not a I don't think I've ever taken a good shot of a human on purpose. Uh occasionally by accident, I might, you know, someone might be in a frame and and there's a I'd love to do some or attempt to do some portraiture, but it's um animals and children and humans, they they m they ruin a good photo, but less they're in a yellow jacket or a drone shop somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

We've got a few of those.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

We do. Well, I have a yellow jacket specifically for that and a big orange backpack. Um so I guess uh I mean, is that if you were going to speak to someone, I mean you just said that question that you asked, do you like colour or light better? Obviously, we both would say light, because you get colour from light. But if you were talking to someone who was starting out, how and and they were trying to understand how to take their their work from beginner to the next level or just understanding, do you think to me, and and so therefore I'm I'm I assume you because we have a similar brain cell when it comes to shooting, but do you think you would try to if light would be the key? The key to that?

SPEAKER_01 12:55

I I think it would be, but until you get your head around it, it's it's it's not as simple as saying light, it's not as simple as saying look at that beautiful light. Because I've I've walked with friends along Jimmy's beach here, and we get some beautiful, beautiful light, uh sort of prior to sunset. And I and I'll turn around and I'll see that trail that that comes across the water and and the softness of it and the colours that are gentle and their pastels, and and I'll go, wow, that light. And they'll turn around and go, wow. And they just it they it's I I think I don't think it's it's how we see things. I think colour comes first. And I think it's once you realize that it's not as you just said, you get the colour because of the light, and until you start to see light and not only see it, but start to think about how you want to capture it and how you're going to put how you will take a shot that will show people what that light looked like. And and I think it's why I often go to long exposures, because it allows the light to play so much better. I just I love the richness of it, the slowing down of everything, you know, a quick shot, and you get messy water and you get clouds that are maybe too heavy, where you know you are you two minutes of that, and it's the light just comes to the fore and everything else. Well, maybe that's my minimalism.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Maybe that could be a leading line into the next conversation, could be yeah. I mean, it's funny because um you look at and you just mentioned uh Graeme Gordon, and he he most of I mean I know he does some um other stuff, but he's he's very well known for his black and white, and the light in that is it is so extraordinary, the way that he captures that in his in his shots. But that to me is just the harnessing of light completely differently, it's seeing it differently, and he understands it so differently to how I understand light, and so it's a perfect example of of how you can use light to create your own style, not just a style, if that makes sense. Like light is his style, the way that he uses it is his style. Not I'm gonna take long, long, long exposures and have you know three minute cloud lines or you know, flat everything, it or you know, I'm I take uh your amazing drone, whatever. That is his style, is and he uses it in every different way.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

He does black and he does white and he does every gradient in between. It's just his work's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Incredible. And I've tried to mimic it and I can't.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

I don't I I think you've really, really gotta drill down to pixels. I think you have to get that close to the image, and I don't think it's a fast process. He he says he spends hours editing photographs, but the end result is just so stunning.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

I I don't have that patience, but I don't either or or the time, but I wish I did because I yeah, if I could get photos like that, maybe that's another challenge. We'll set that another day. Let's try to be Graham Gordon one at a time for a women's photography podcast. Um I suppose that takes us through to um having a a chat about challenges. I think we we we've got to set ourselves a challenge, whether it's whether we realize that we're weekly or fortnightly it's gonna be because we we are talking about, we did say this in the I think last week we we talked about that we we were going to do minimalism in the next issue, but neither of us knew anything about it. So we're gonna go and try and learn about it. So I think our challenge for this week is is to go and shoot something in a minimalistic fashion, but what is that? What what is minimalism to you?

SPEAKER_01 17:01

I think if I if I'm going to shoot the minimal minimally, I would like to shoot a single subject with a lot of space around it and no clutter.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

So it's still vast or is minimal small?

SPEAKER_01 17:23

It could still it could be small, it could be a drop of water on a leaf.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

I've got one of those.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

That lovely boat that was floating on the river with all the fog behind it, with nothing else around. But I don't think but but I've been doing a lot of research on minimalism and it's not that simple. It can be it can be pull it's not it's not as simple as black and white, but it can be space, allowing space around whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Because one one definition of minimalism as well is is like a colour.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

So you could have a vast scene and it could be quite busy, but it's minimal because it has a red umbrella in down the bottom or something like that. So I've I've heard people say that that's minimalist. So a busy street with lots of people, black and white, and there's a red umbrella down the front, and the the subject is minimal because it's a red umbrella, but not a busy scene. So to me, I that to me is not minimalism, to be fair, but um I know some people would see that as minimal. I would, yeah, I I don't know why colour, probably artistic, I don't I don't know, artistic street. Um so we're gonna go and shoot minimalist. What okay, well, that's our challenge. We're gonna talk next week about how we shop minimalist.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

We could throw it out as a bit of a bigger challenge as well, because the the article could be accompanied by images from Lynn's life followers.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Oh now's an eye. We do, and I don't think we're that good to have uh a full article about all that could be our shots, is how badly we do minimally exactly after my uh underwater, you know. You know, lovely underwater. Yeah, interesting. I suppose, and that probably leads us into our conversation around um people questioning us how they can contribute and how they can um support and and and and be involved with the Lens Light Life community. I mean, we we have lots of ways, I think, and it's growing. Um so we have people that can contribute. So we have our our um each issue, we have about 10 contributors who um get a pretty cool little feature. They get a a page of a work and then a page about themselves, which I think is pretty cool. Uh, and then obviously there's our a life artist who is of of one person who gets a significant um uh and um you know we've had Victoria and Mika and and Lucy and um next next uh edition we have Isabella, so that's um amazing. Um and then we have um ways that people can contribute is to to to help write articles or submit an article for review that might might make it to the magazine or put up um uh contribute. So now you've just suggested the the whole submitting minimalist shots for our for our upcoming article. I think that's a great idea.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

We have never wanted this to be about you and I. We've always wanted it to be about a about a community that shares and we want to lift women. What better way? If you don't think you're particularly good and you've taken one shot that you are super proud of and it it fits minimalism, and ignore our descriptions because we'll find a better one and we'll stick it on our website. Send that send it in. We're happy we will post it in our article, we'll we'll give you name, name it and put give us your name, and we will we'll look at them because there's no way that you and I are taking 20 good shots in the next month.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Uh no. No, definitely not. That's no you know what, it's funny. If we went back and looked at our catalogue, we would probably find some minimalist shots. I I posted one a couple of weeks ago, which was a black and white tree down in Dove Lake in Cradle Mountain National Park. Yeah. Um, and I think that was minimal because it was just a tree and the fog with some water and a lake, and but it was very dark and very black and white and very minimalist. I think that that to me is minimal.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

I've got I've got to tell you this. So I hated it. I no, I quickly. Said, what is minimalism? Because we should have done this beforehand. And it says it's not having very little in the frame. There you go. Wow. It's simplicity, it's negative space, it's a clear subject, it's strong composition, as you just said before, limited colour or tone, and an emphasis on shape, line, or texture. Not all of those things. Any one of those things. And this could be so wide. I know. You know, you take some beautiful ICM that pick up tones of sunrises or sunsets that give you sweeps of colour. To me, that's minimalism.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

It's oh, I could put that in the article. Yeah, you can do that.

unknown 22:41

One!

SPEAKER_00 22:42

I've got a shot, I've got a shot. Woohoo!

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Nine to go.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Okay. Help Serena come up with minimal shots. Help me, I'll come up with minimum shots. Send a message on our Instagram or send us an email at um hello at it's hello at lenslightlife.com.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Feel free to help.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Yeah, give us a shout. That the hello is there, please. Hello, like us and and uh give us a hand because we're we're a bit short on the the ideas there.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

But that's I think that's a good idea though. When we do these articles, if we let people know a couple of months in advance, because this is the September 8th issue that we're talking about, it would be fantastic if our community provided the images. And we can write the stories around them, we can have the stories written around them, we can get people to you know to help with the stories. I think that that could that could work really well.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

I mean our aim is to build a community that people contribute to in all ways. Um we're also also quite if you're interested in being uh interviewed on the podcast, then yeah, give us a hoi and we'll we'll see if you you know you you fit the bill to have a chat with us if you can if you can go toe to toe with with Gail on the uh if you can get if you can get a word in eachways, you're welcome. Oh that's so harsh.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

No, me as well.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Yeah, well that's between the two of us is very difficult. I I I I wish anybody luck that has to uh has to get get stuck in the theory.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

It would be cool to interview photographers who uh shoot different genres. It would be nice to have somebody who's an expert, you know, who who is as passionate about portrait as we are about landscape or architecture or whatever. That would be cool.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

Yeah, I know, but even if you have uh some suggestions on who we should interview, yeah. It might not be yourself, but it might be who you think would be an amazing woman to interview around any genre. Um I watched um a documentary recently called Oh, was is it Magnificent Fungi? Or um I anyway, but the footage in that it just blew my head off. It was um was mushrooms and fungi and and all of that kind of stuff, and it was all really macro and and it was sort of also slow motion. Oh, the growing of fans, and and it was just shot so incredibly well that I'm so keen to speak to someone who knows how to do that because I just think it the skill and precision in that where everything is in focus and it's sharp and the colours perfect and the light is incredible because you can see the water. I mean it just it just blew my head. Yeah, um I ble might blew my head up around A, the the fungi, and B, the shooting of it. Um I highly recommend it.

SPEAKER_01 25:40

But um because you'll be able to find some video about fungi. What was it called?

SPEAKER_00 25:47

Um Magnificent fungi. I'll put you know what I'll put the I'll I'll put the the the actual name of the proper video in the show notes to the podcast. So if anyone's listening to this and wants to know it, it is worth watching, a because of the amazing fungi, but b because and the mycelium and I could go on and on on about it, but b because the the footage is stunning and it just blows your head up. But um um yes, I'll probably stop talking about fungus now. Good idea.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Um we don't we don't want you doing a Tahiti.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

No, I'm not sure what that is. Is that me trying to shoot something that I'm terrible at?

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Listen to the last podcast. I think you were a smidge excited about your trip.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

Yes, I was. That's true. Um and I guess, you know, we we're gonna keep it a bit short and sweet this week because we've we've um we've talked about what our challenge is for this week. We've talked about what we think and how light changes the way that we see things and how photographies change the way we see the world. And we've talked about how people, our listeners and our our readers and our Instagram followers and all of that sort of thing can contribute to our community.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

So please do. We're we're we would love to feature people other than ourselves, and we're starting to now. We had a fantastic article article from Carmel Montgomery in our last issue. We've got two very talented photographers who are doing articles for the September issue. So, you know, we're we're starting to look at what we're doing in the lead up to Christmas.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

Yeah, fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

Well, Gary, it was a pleasure to talk to you again, even though we're getting closer. I'm only I'm only 12 houses down the road this time rather than three hours drive away. But we'll we'll get to the same room soon now that we're you know we're getting there.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

I'll see you later today.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

Yeah, we'll see you for lasagna later tonight.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

Perfect. Okay, thanks for watching.