Michelle Wrighton Fine Art and Photography

Living in a rural area provides me with a constant supply of inspiration for my art.  This young hereford heifer was the only one to stay to investigate what I was doing when I stopped beside her paddock to get some photos.  The rest took off running as if I had jumped out of the car yelling “Hamburger!”

Hereford Cow Painting

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Commission your own Pet Portrait Painting by Michelle Wrighton: Animal, Wildlife & Landscape Fine Art & Photography

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I can’t help myself, I take thousands of photographs of everything around me, both for reference material for my artwork and because my camera is just another medium to create art.  I don’t always have time to go through all my photos and select my favorites to display, but the other day I realized that my photography galleries were very outdated and thought I had better add some new ones.  This is just a few of the new additions, the rest rest can be seen in the Landscape and Animal& Wildlife Photography Galleries.  These photos were all taken within a short distance of my home, except the Tawny Frogmouth which was found a little further south.  Enjoy!

Harvest Landscape © 2010 Michelle Wrighton | South West Photography

Sunset Silhouette © 2010 Michelle Wrighton | South West Photography

Long Shadows © 2010 Michelle Wrighton | South West Photography

Dark Sky © 2010 Michelle Wrighton | South West Photography

Up Close and Personal - Tawny Frogmouth © 2010 Michelle Wrighton | South West Photography

I have just changed over from using Photoshop CS4 to Lightroom 2.4 for processing my photographs – all I can say is I wish I had done this sooner!  As much as I resist learning new computer programs (fuzzy mummy brain I think), Lightroom is so quick to use compared to CS4, the time out I have taken to learn how to use it is going to be a huge benefit in improving my workflow, especially for batch processing.  Here is a selection of the first images that I have processed through Lightroom from my road trip down south to Boyup Brook.

The only nitpick that I have with Lightroom is the watermarking ability or lack thereof.  I have purchased the mogrify preset which allows me to use my standard watermark…but it places them at the same location in every image, which can obscure important elements of the photograph. Plus I need to make additional copies of the watermark for different opacity and colours so that I can select slightly more subtle watermarks to suit individual images better…either that or just continue to use CS4 and apply the watermarks manually for each image.

Other than that one issue, I can highly recommend Lightroom to any photographer looking to speed up their workflow.

I hope you enjoy these images, some of them will be available for purchase as prints http://southwestphotography.com.au in the near future.

Cheers

Michelle

Orange Flower © 2009 South West Photography

Boyup Brook Farmland © 2009 South West Photography

Boyup Brook Farmland © 2009 South West Photography

Blackwood River, Boyup Brook © 2009 South West Photography

Blackwood River, Boyup Brook © 2009 South West Photography

Rustic Relics, Boyup Brook © 2009 South West Photography

Border Collie, Boyup Brook © 2009 South West Photography

Border Collie, Boyup Brook © 2009 South West Photography

SOUTH WEST PHOTOGRAPHY: Portrait, Event, Landscape and Fine Art Photography Prints

Sometimes life just gets a little bit too stressful, and the best way to deal with it is a few hours in the country re-connecting with nature and the beautiful land that we live in.  Yesterday was one of those days, and what a joy to just take a few hours and enjoy the sunshine and the beauty of our South West.  I rarely go anywhere interesting without my camera in hand, so I do have a few of my favourite shots to share with you all:)

I’m very happy with these for several reasons, firstly every single shot was taken in full manual, and while I have always been pleased with the 50D’s output in the other creative settings that I normally use with changing light/movement situations, I can honestly say that nothing beats pure manual for getting the best images!  Secondly, and this is a biggie for me, I was shooting with the beast (70-200mm 2.8L), but every shot was hand held – the monopod didn’t go on the camera once!  This is truly amazing (to me anyway) as after my first attempt at shooting handheld with the beast when I first got the 50D was a disaster, it was so heavy it made my wrists hurt and every photo had severe camera shake and I never thought I would be able to use it handheld.

Purple Flowers at Harvey ©2009 South West Photography

Rustic Farm Building ©2009 South West Photography

One Tree Hill Boyup Brook ©2009 South West Photography

"panoRAMa" Boyup Brook ©2009 South West Photography

Boyup Brook Farmland in July ©2009 South West Photography

Scarlet Breasted Robin Boyup Brook ©2009 South West Photography

"Bird on a Wire" Boyup Brook ©2009 South West Photography

Donnybrook to Boyup Brook Landscape © 2009 South West Photography

Scarlet Robin, Boyup Brook © 2009 South West Photography

"Flight" Birdwatching in Boyup Brook ©2009 South West Photography

Blackwood River, Boyup Brook ©2009 South West Photography

Boyup Brook at Dusk © South West Photography

Little Lamb backlit by the Sun ©2009 South West Photography

The Golden Hour ©South West Photography

I have to say that I was really pleased with the last two – the little lamb was shot through a ringlock fence and I wasn’t sure if my settings where correct for the lens to blur out the wire strands, but obviously they were (yay for me).  I had to jump out of the car, over a muddy ditch and up a hill to say hi to three very friendly horses that came over to the fence when I called them.  It was the golden hour and the light from the sinking sun behind them was just magnificent while this big bay gelding happily posed for me to practice my silhouette shots:) In the full size, his chin whiskers look like threads of pure gold.

Ok, I think thats more than a few photos (I know, I just can’t help myself)…although I do have heaps more that I will add at some stage when I get time to process them.  I’d love to know which of the photos is your favourite and why, so please feel free to leave me a comment:)

Cheers

Michelle

South West Photography