Cameron Laird - Photographer

Cowboys draw for the 2010 NRL Season

Cameron — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 03:58:32 +0000

I LOVE Google Calendar and use it as my go-to calendar app on my computers and my iPhone. It is pretty much a perfectly developed calendar application and everything is in sync ALL THE TIME. Perfecto. I have a bunch of different calendars all syncing together and have just finished a North Queensland Cowboys 2010 NRL calendar. I shoot all the Cowboys games so having this calendar is imperative. The beauty with Google Calendars is that you can make them public and share with others. So without further ado…

Calendar links – [XML] – [iCal] – [HTML]

You will note the dates for some of the upcoming rounds aren’t set yet. This is because the NRL only schedule about six round in advance. As the NRL announces exact dates and times my calendar will be updated and if you subscribe to it then yours will be too! The calendar below will automatically update as I change mine. If you are a Google Calendar user you can just click the +Google Calendar at the bottom of the calendar below to subscribe.

How I’ve covered the first two days of the Palm Island death in custody inquest

Cameron — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 04:38:50 +0000

Whilst on Palm Island covering a coronial inquest yesterday I was interviewed by a tertiary student from Tasmania for her assignment on editorial, news & commercial photography. I promised I would put the pics from this job online to give her an idea of the type of coverage required for this type of assignment. News reports from this job are at link, link, link. A full set of television reports are at this link

Great calibration with a Gretag Macbeth Eye-One Display

Cameron — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 09:30:32 +0000

I have been using a Gretag MacBeth Eye-One Display monitor calibration tool for quite a while and thought I’d take a few mins to give you a quick run-down showing the simplicity of the calibration process. It really is easy peasy. And the quality of the calibration is excellent! Find out more info on this device at the manufacturer’s link here (note: this product has been replaced with a newer model)

Click here to view the embedded video.

North Queensland Fury F.C. Awards night 2010

Cameron — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 03:20:23 +0000

Photographed the North Queensland Fury’s 2010 Awards night on Saturday and got a great meal tossed in. Ahhh, the spoils of shooting functions! Anyway, if you’re a Fury fan feel free to pop along to http://www.cameronlaird.com/nqfuryawards2010

Robbie Fowler with chairman Don Matheson and his Golden Boot, Players' Player and Player of the Year medals

Cam & Kuttan hit the local paper!

Cameron — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 01:06:19 +0000

Amazing what reach Facebook has nowadays! I posted a quick snap of myself with legendary 90yr old Galle Face Hotel concierge Kuttan on Facebook whilst I was on assignment in Sri Lanka. Mates of mine Scott Radford and John “Ando” Andersen from the Townsville Bulletin spotted this and dropped it in Ando’s “Talk of the North” column. Ando called me “lanky”, not hard when your posing partner is only about 4″10″. Haha

Click to see a fullsize version of the page

Tricky request calls for creative lighting

Cameron — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:16:43 +0000

Today’s assignment was to photograph the new artistic director of Dance North. My brief was to keep it quite plain, maybe even as plain as with a standard white background. Sounds a bit boring? Well – the pic is to be positioned right across the page with text over the plain areas. So, instead of giving only a choice of plain background I threw in a few extras that are a bit more creative. Apart from the wall there was nothing that would help the viewer even identify her surroundings with her profession. I decided to use a glass door that was just next the the exposed bricks to my advantage. Bouncing a 580EXII into white reflector umbrella gave me a nice gentle light on the subject but also had the added advantage of reflecting in the glass door and giving the reader something to identify with. Knowing what many sub-editors are like it will probably get cropped out but what the heck, can’t hurt to get your own gear in the pic every now and then!

Click to see a larger version

1/200th @ f5.0 ISO640 – Shot on Canon EOS 5DMkII with EF 70-200 f2.8L IS USM. Lighting with 580EXII into white reflector umbrella triggered by PocketWizard PlusII’s.

How the story appeared in The Courier-Mail (click photo for large version)

Too much rain foils angler’s best plans

Cameron — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:48:58 +0000

I was asked to photograph the first day of the barramundi season today so I thought I could make a great pic at Townsville’s Aplins Weir where there would normally have been up to 100 fisherman there to celebrate the opening of the season. The recent rains would normally have provided a perfect start to the season as plenty of food was swept down rivers and streams to the waiting barra. The problem however – the dam spill gates had to be opened and therefore instead of a gentle flow, we got 100,000 litres a second over the dam wall.

So, all I ended up shooting was a handful of pics that I got a bit carried way with in Lightroom and a video to show you what the flow was like. [Skip past the gallery for the video]

Click here to view the embedded video.

Got a spare AUS$1,000,000 to splash on an out-of-date camera?

Cameron — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 07:25:35 +0000

Recently I wrote a column for a magazine about my personal transition from film to digital 11 years ago. In that column I mentioned that the invention of digital photography was the biggest change in the industry since Louis Daguerre’s ‘Daguerreotype’ amazed people in 1835.

Well, only a couple of days after writing this column I spotted the “Giroux Daguerréotype” up for auction at an Austrian auction house.

This camera was designed by Daguerre and his brother-in-law and sold in limited numbers from 1839. To add to the value it features Daguerre’s signature and is in stunning condition.

If you have the time take the opportunity to learn a bit more about Louis Daguerre, one of the ‘fathers’ of photography. It really is fascinating reading (did you know that the first know picture of Abraham Lincoln was a daguerrotype?)

The first know picture of Lincoln was this Daguerrotype

Further reading links – WestLicht Photographica Auction’s page on this camera, Louis Daguerre on Wikipedia, Daguerrotype on Wikipedia, Photograph on Wikipedia

Want a customized iPhone security wallpaper? Let me help with that!

Cameron — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 01:22:06 +0000

A while ago I knocked up a custom iPhone security wallpaper that put your contact details on the front page of your iPhone so that if you lost it someone could easily return it. The iPhone has a couple of security settings which are commonly used by people to safeguard their data. First thing is a four digit ‘passcode lock’ which can be set to enable after 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 minutes of inactivity. The second is an ‘erase data’ feature which will thoroughly wipe the phone after 10 passcode lock input errors. Awesome idea, if you phone gets nicked as the thief tries to unlock it then there is no way for them to get to your personal data.

However, what happens if you leave you phone somewhere and an honest soul picks it up and wants to return it to you? Well, if you have your passcode lock enabled then I’m afraid there is nothing you can do. Mr or Mrs Honest can’t do a thing to find out who owns the phone unless you ring it constantly and hope they answer or you plaster the back of your phone with a big ‘contact details’ sticker.

Well, here’s an easy way around that. Stick a custom wallpaper on your iPhone like the one I use below and when someone turns it on they are greeted with your details.

The initial wallpaper when the phone is turned on

The passcode screen, note how the info fits neatly

One tip, make sure the phone number you put in as your contact number isn’t the number of the actual phone! That would be pretty dumb eh? When you get your custom wallpaper just make sure you put it in your iPhone’s photo library and then go into your phone Settings/Wallpaper and then select the appropriate library/album and then your custom wallpaper. Easy.

Now, how to make one…. Well, it is done in Photoshop and I figure many of you don’t have photoshop so I’m going to make it easy. You can email me (to iphonewallpaper@cameronlaird.com) your email address and phone number and I will do it for you and then email it back. You can even send me a pic to put with it, it MUST be 480px x 320px though. Alternatively, if you ‘do’ Photoshop then feel free to ping me an email (to iphonewallpaper@cameronlaird.com) and I’ll shoot you back the PSD file and you can customize it to your hearts content.

If you would like me to do this for you I’d LOVE if and request that you could leave a comment here in the comments and if you are a twitterer then please tweet this by clicking right here on this link

God and I spend an afternoon at the beach

Cameron — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 01:11:37 +0000

Had an assignment for London’s Daily Mail a couple of weeks ago photographing former Brit football legend Robbie “God” Fowler. Fowler is playing for Australian A-League team North Queensland Fury FC as their marquee import and striker. Read Mike Dickson’s story here

Click to read the Daily Mail online story

Robbie Fowler and I during a Daily Mail shoot

Click to see a larger version of the Daily Mail spread