Shooting Brisbane. Heat, Haze and the River.

I came back to Brisbane after years of shooting overseas, and the first thing I had to do was re-learn the light. If someone was to ask what it takes to be a film photographer in Brisbane, the honest answer is having patience with the weather. The light here does not behave like the postcards. It is subtropical and humid, and for a good part of the day you will get harsh highlights, and racoon eyes. The middle of the day is the enemy. Depending on the season, from roughly nine until four the sun sits high and violent, and it comes at you from everywhere at once. From above, up off the pavement, finds every reflection whether it be puddle, walls, or the Brisbane river. On digital you can sneak some of that data back in later. On film it can become a real war of attrition. While the dynamic range on the professional films is slightly more forgiving, the negative keeps what it is given, so you learn that getting everything right in camera becomes paramount. The haze can be where Brisbane gives something back. On the worst of the humid days there is a softness in the air, a fine grey diffusion that sits over the river and the valley like a sheet held up to a window. Photographers new to the city treat it as a problem. I have come to treat it as a gift. That haze turns brutal overhead sun into something a portrait can live in. It wraps a face instead of carving it. Shoot into it, keep your subject between you and the light, and the river will do half your work for you. Then there is the hour everyone in this city already knows without knowing they know it. Golden Hour. The long gold beam that arrives around four and stretches out until the light finally tucks itself underneath the horizon. It is low, it is warm, and on colour film it gives a characteristic intense pop. It can be wise to plan whole shoots around it. If a subject can only give me an hour, the afternoon golden light is where its at. Technically, I meter for the shadows and let the highlights fall where they land. In light this bright I rate my colour film a stop or more slower than box speed. I would rather a dense, generous negative than a thin one, because film forgives overexposure far more kindly than it forgives the opposite. In the harder hours I tend to keep my subjects in the shade of a building, an awning, even under a tree. The city is full of that shade if you walk instead of drive. None of this is a complaint. Brisbane light asks something of you, and what it asks is attention. Learn its hours, respect the heat, and use the haze rather than fighting it, and it will hand you a warmth that colder cities never will. I had to leave to understand that. Coming home taught me the rest. Side note: Brisbane winter mornings are possibly the best in the world.