This was my sixth year taking photos at the Meredith Music Festival and once again a multitude of eclectic acts graced the stage over the weekend. This is a shot of Explosions in the Sky guitarist Munaf Rayani taken on 9th December 2011. More official photos up at 2011.mmf.com.au and aunty meredith’s flickr page.

Lake Eildon, 29th October, 2011

Digital Media Solutions were engaged to record and stream live on the internet all 19 sessions from the Carrillo Gantner Theater in the Sidney Myer Asia Centre building. Here is a behind the scenes view of how it was captured and broadcast.

The live streaming sessions were conducted using Livestream.com and the Procaster software interface.

Over 650 viewers from 10 countries watched online over the course of the week with the top 5 being Australia, the United States, India, Canada and China. Download the livestream analytics pdf report here.

The multi-camera feed was switched live in 720p50 format and recorded to a KiPro hard disk recorder in ProRes format. The HDMI output of the recorder was fed into a Blackmagic Intensity Pro card in the back of a MacPro Quad-Core system. Each camera also recorded on tape or on board hard drive as a backup. On completion of each session, the switched session file on the hard drive was copied to a final cut pro edit suite upstairs where any vision edits were made along with the addition of title cards, lower thirds and end credits.

The completed session was then exported to multiple formats for distribution online and DVD.

Equipment used:

Quad core MacPro
Blackmagic Intensity Pro
x4 JVC HD video cameras
Datavision Vision Mixer
Ki-Pro HD recorder
16 channel Soundcraft audio mixer
8 Channel Sennheiser Wireless radio mic kit
Lots of cables

Software Used
Livestream.com subscription
Procaster software

Shot on a chilly night in Daylesford, 21st August 2011. It’s not often that I’m surrounded by a clear, non light-polluted sky with both my camera and a tripod in hand but thankfully the stars aligned last night. I was surprised how well the milkyness comes out with a relatively short exposure but a high ISO and plenty of noise reduction certainly helps. Canon 7D, 16-35L @ 16mm, f2.8, 11sec, ISO 3200.

Visibility was low, but clearly not low enough to cancel soccer training in Princes Park.

Myself and around 20 other AUC attendees lined up from 4am outside the venue to secure a spot in the auditorium where Steve Jobs would deliver his hotly anticipated  keynote speech.

Once inside the venue there was more waiting around before doors opened, here are some particiapants enjoying the free conference Wi-Fi network on their iPads.

Lionel Rose disembarks at Essendon Airport, Melbourne on February 29th, 1968. Photo © Keith Loveridge

The recent passing of Lionel Rose reminded me of this slide I recently scanned from the family photo archives. It is of the the newly crowned world bantamweight champion greeting fans at Essendon airport after defeating ‘Fighting’ Harada in Tokyo on February 27th, 1968.

My father, who was working as an aircraft technician at the time was able to snap this as he disembarked from the plane triumphantly waving a souvenir sword in hand. (I’m not sure if you’d be able to get that one through customs nowadays!) It was estimated that over 100,000 people then lined the road on his way to a civic reception at the Melbourne Town hall.

During a break to think about what to do next, a shot was fired with the flash randomly pointing upwards. Lo and behold, the photo turned out relatively even, which kind of makes sense given the light was now bouncing off the ceiling. Adding the umbrella on top helped diffuse the light even more and with some slight tweaking, the shots managed to closely match the last ones.