Best wishes to Nicholas, Minh and all at Deer Duck Bistro!

How do you describe Venice? Some say it is grubby, falling apart and dilapidated, a tourist trap. Pick a busy season and the wrong time of day and you’ll find it full of tourists; thoroughfares and piazzas like Piazza San Marco and The Rialto Bridge will be will be jammed. The permanent population is only 60,000 odd; each day more than this arrive to parade around taking in the sights before disappearing into the night.

For me, I felt like I was in one massive movie set, surely I was an extra in someone’s academy award production. In 2009, we lived  just 20 minutes by train from Venice, this feeling never dissipated, even after many visits to the medieval city.

My favourite pastime in Venice was to walk with my camera. Getting lost is part of the fun, make a rendezvous time and place to meet friends at your peril, your excuse for being late will be you were hopelessly lost. No matter. Getting away from the tourist streets and finding the back streets is where the charm of Venice is to be found. I remember the sound of local Italian voices reverberating around tiny narrow streets. Get up or arrive early in the morning and explore before the tourist invasion, you will see the city come to life.

These images are just a few of my favourite images from Venice, I hope you enjoy them, it really is a place that is a must for those with a travel bucket list.

Have you bought a new Digital SLR camera recently? Are you confused about the buttons and dials? Photography is an art form, yes a shiny new camera helps, but you have to know how to control it to get fabulous images. Spend a day with me and you will have so many new camera techniques to use.

We’ll begin our day together in my studio examining images from my travel collection including many of my award winning images. I’ll reveal the camera settings I used to capture them and what inspired each image. I’ll share my foolproof recipe for creating an image so you can be in complete control of your exposures. My “hands-on” approach means you will soon know what all the buttons and dials do!

We’ll explore:

• aperture and shutter speed
• depth of field and ISO
• focal length, lenses
• light and image composition
• RAW versus JPEG.

After a break for lunch, we’ll meet on location for our afternoon photoshoot where you’ll get to practice your new knowledge. I’ll take you on a guided walk where we’ll photograph streetscapes, landscapes, architecture and food, all the stuff we love to photograph especially on holiday.

What past workshop participants say:

“The blend between theory and practical components was great. I loved that after each new thing we learnt that we walked outside had a go. It really helped me understand everything and remember it later” Kay-Lyn

“The workshop has made a huge change for me, I don’t feel my camera is wasted on me now” Jenny

“To have the control of my photos by knowing when, why and how to adjust ISO, aperture and shutter speed has made me eager to use my camera daily and make photos I can feel proud of.” Barbara

“I would definitely recommend this workshop to others, in fact I already have! It’s great for anyone who has a DSLR and isn’t using it manually. Whether you’ve had your camera for a while and aren’t sure whether you’ve been using it to its full potential or it just came out of the box, the workshop is very educational.” Kay-Lyn

Please bring with you:

• Your Camera: A digital SLR with lens or lenses
• Your camera instruction manual
• Memory cards
• Fully charged camera battery, plus spare if you have one.
• Tripod if you have one
• Notebook and pen
• Hat and sunscreen.

I recommend you wear comfortable clothes and shoes you can walk in, you may need to kneel down to take photos.

Workshop Details:

Date: Sunday 15th January 2012

Where: Brisbane, Australia

Numbers: This workshop is “hands-on” with a maximum of only 12 participants only. (8 participants needed for event to go ahead).

Workshop Fees: $225 per person. Want to bring a friend? Register two places and receive $50 off each registration.

Times: 10.00am – 6pm

Bookings: Please email me your contact details to reserve your place in this workshop.

Additional individual tuition is available. Please contact me for further information.

About your Workshop Leader John Reyment

Master photographer John Reyment has been taking photographs for more than 30 years. He is the owner of Reyment Photographics, a boutique wedding and portrait studio in Coorparoo, Brisbane.

John lived in Europe throughout 2009 with his family photographing European life, landscapes, producers and food. John’s images have been published in the Australian press accompanying articles by food and travel writer Karen Reyment. His documentary style of photography won him the 2010 Epson AIPP Queensland Documentary Photographer of the Year award. He is the 2011 Epson AIPP Queensland Runnner Up Photographic Artist of the Year. John has won many AIPP print awards for his images.

John left a career in training and development and management consulting to pursue his photography dreams. He is eminently qualified to help you learn photography.

In the magazine is a three page Australian Traveller promotion featuring some of the images I took recently for the Spicers Group’s Retreats, Hotels and Lodges. My photo shoot at Spicers Clovelly Estate and Spicers Tamarind Retreatwas documentary, capturing the eseence of the experience guests enjoy there. I love photographing at Spicers properties, there is just something magical about them.

If you feel like you need a break and want to escape with the one you love (leave the kids with the grandparents), head up to Montville’s Spicers Clovelly Estate or Maleny’s Spicers Tamarind Retreat for a midsummer break, I’m sure everyone at Spicers will make your experience a dream.

This food photography photo shoot is part of a series of documentary food photography photo shoots I am doing for Weston Milling and Red Candy Creative Agency. I am travelling all over Australia to photograph Weston Milling’s clients, the images will be used in the 2012 Weston Milling calendar and other corporate marketing material. The style of the photo shoots is documentary, my brief is to capture the passion and action behind the scenes action in each bakery.

We arrived early one morning and got straight into the photo shoot, bread baking waits for no one. Nick, John, Frank and Ralph are Italian brothers, they have been working together for years and have the production process down pat. Their work routine is like a dance, they make it look so easy, dough is worked, shaped, racked, then baked, hot out of the oven it is ready to eat. These images show what goes on behind the bread racks from prepping the dough to taking the loaves out of the oven. What they can’t do is share the smell of hot bread coming out of the oven. Now if I can find a camera that will do that…

The loaves of ciabatta bread are a house speciality, the steady stream of customers means they just walk out the door. Many customers are know by name and pop in for their usual order, you can tell their clientele just love the bread and the friendly smiles behind the counter.

I’m known to love a jam donut, especially ones from Melbourne’s Vic Markets. I queue for them every time I go to these famous markets. Not anymore, I’ll be going to visit the guys at Sunstar and get some of their hot jam donuts, they are plump with jam and just the perfect treat.

I have family who live just 10 minutes away from Sunstar Hot Bread Kitchen, every trip I make to Noble Park will now include a stop at Sunstar for some ciabatta and hot jam donuts! Thanks guys, it was a pleasure to photograph you all!

Bread. It is central to life and has been for thousands of years. Families come together to break bread, everyone has a favourite style of bread.

As part of my ongoing Australia wide documentary food photography assignment for Red Candy Agency and Weston Milling, I went behind the scenes at Riviera Bakery Adelaide. This family bakery has been baking bread since 1968. Today, Riviera blends authentic Italian baking skills with traditional techniques in modern facilities. They use premium quality ingredients and focus on on quality and taste.

As I look at these images, I am reminded of the passion and love that goes into their bread, now if only my Mac could share that fresh out of the oven hot bread smell!

Along the way, Brett has won heaps of awards, he has so many stories and random facts about bread he’s happy to share.

Brett was interviewed on 612 ABC Brisbane radio last Saturday about all things bread, catch Part One of the interview here, Part Two of the interview here.

These images are part of a collection of documentary food images I am providing for Weston Milling and Red Candy Creative Agency. To see more of these images, click here.

Weston Milling are an innovative company converting agricultural products into bakery ingredients. With locations across Australia and New Zealand, Weston Milling partners with their customers, be it a small local bakery or a large national manufacture. Weston Milling only ever use the finest raw materials and work at all levels of the supply chain to produce the best possible product.

So where do I fit in? I was selected by Red Candy Creative Agency to provide documentary style images for Weston Milling. I am visiting some of their key clients across Australia and going behind the scenes and photographing various production processes.

What have I learnt so far? Bakers work really hard, even with state of the art machinery, it can be extremely physical work and is very hands on. Quality is paramount, The lengths each bakery goes to to deliver you a unique and beautiful loaf of bread needs to be seen.

Oh and the smell of bread coming out of the oven is just delightful!

Here are some of the photos from this my Brisbane and Adelaide photo shoots, keep coming back to see the latest images.

Not to miss are the ‘Chefs’ Favourites’ listings where some of the stars of our restaurant kitchens including Matt Moran, Ben Russell, Shinichi Maeda, Ryan Squires and Alastair McLeod  tell us where they like to shop for personal supplies.Published by Hardie Grant Books, our own Karen Reyment authored “Foodies’ Guide”. Karen spent much of her childhood with her mum in the family kitchen; she has since travelled the world and broken bread with producers, growers, artisans and chefs. Her food writing is widely published in Australia’s print and online media.

Catch up on some of Karen’s food and travel articles here.

Now for the good bit, “The 2012 Foodies’ Guide to Brisbane” will be available in all good bookstores early October 2011. This advance copy is already our constant companion.