Sports Stars: Lauren (Rowing & Netball)

Our week 3 sports star in Lauren, a student at Saint Margaret Mary College in Townsville. Leiden Studios has been fortunate enough to have know Lauren since she was very young and have watched her develop into who she is today.

ls: What sports do you play?
Lauren: Netball & Rowing.
ls: What clubs do you play for?
Lauren: Phoenix Netball and Saint Margaret Mary College Rowing.
ls: What position do you play?
Lauren: WD, GD, GK (Wing Defense, Goal Keeper and Goal Defense) & I row in 3 seat.
ls: How long have you been playing?
Lauren: 6 years netball and this was my first year of rowing.
ls: What representative honours have you achieved?
Lauren: Div 1 Townsville Netball 2012-2013, Div 2 TCNAI 2013. I won the under 14 single sculls rowing at the Queensland State Titles  earlier this year.
ls: How did you get involved in these sports?
Lauren: With netball, my mother started watching and encouraged me to join. With rowing my brother, Tom, had started the year before and I was determined to give it a try 
ls: How much time is involved?
Lauren: When both sports are going it is about 18 hours a week, only including the official training sessions.
ls: What is the best part of playing sports?
Lauren: The feeling that you have achieved something you never thought was you could accomplish.
ls: What is the worst part of playing sport?
Lauren:The worst part is making a mistake that affects the whole team.
ls: What was your favourite event?
Lauren: I loved the State championships because of the friends going and because of the bus ride and competition.
ls: Why did you choose these sports?
Lauren:I chose netball because it is fun and always challenging. I chose rowing because all my closest friends are also doing it and it's an all round fitness sport.
ls: What is your biggest accomplishment in your sport?
Lauren: Winning the under 14 single skulls at the QLD State Titles.
ls: What one or two things do you currently do in your training that are keys to your success?
Lauren: Always pushing how hard I can go, how strong I really am.
ls: What would be your ultimate achievement?
Lauren: My ultimate achievement would be to win the under 15 single scull for Queensland and maybe to go to the nationals, eventually.
ls: How do you set your goals?
Lauren: I set my goals with small distances so that I can have something to look forward too.
ls: What is the best advise you were ever given?
Lauren: YOLO (You only live once).
ls: Do you have a saying or motto that you live your life by?
Lauren: Life is not measured by how many breaths that you take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
ls: Where do you draw your inspiration from?
Lauren: My Family.
ls: What do you do in your spare time away from the sport?
Lauren: watch movies.
ls: Do you have a pre-match routine?
Lauren: I talk to myself coming up and crack my right thumb.
ls: Anything else you would like to share?
Lauren: Not at this stage.

After the first couple of interviews we were getting quite a variety of responses. We also had a range of parents asking what the requirements were to be included in this project with a couple not being able to go to representative sides due to a variety of reasons. So we though we get get a bit of feed back from the parents as well.

ls: Thanks for your time deb and for bringing Lauren in for this shoot. How much time is involved  with travel to training and to compete?
Deb: The bus takes Lauren to school, but for the rest about 2 hours a week with pick ups and drop offs.
ls: Is there a limit to the number of sports they can play?
Deb: Not really as long as there is a balance with their sport and school work.
ls: Are there benefits to them playing different sports?
Deb: the diversity of friends and the different muscle groups that it works. 
ls: Are there difficulties in getting them to play the sport and in getting them to practice and train?
Deb: SMMC helps with transport but netball we have tot drop off and pick up.
ls: Do you enjoy going to the games?
Deb: Always.
ls: Thanks for your time Lauren and Deb, good luck in the future with you goals and ambitions. As a rower I know how difficult and time consuming the sport can be, so good luck defending the title next year.

May News Letter

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Wedding Season Wedding season in Townsville is now in full swing with weddings being held every weekend. We have a couple of Fridays booked as well as the traditional days. In fact we booked a Monday wedding yesterday, so they are not limited to the traditional Saturday. Your wedding photography is one of the most important aspects of the day. After it is all over and the guests have gone home, all that will remain is your memories and images captured during the day. Don't risk it. Find an accredited photographer that you get on with. It is a long day if you do not get on with them. Occasionally you get the most amazing skies that can add drama to your wedding images. We were getting ready for Alyce and Jason to go into their reception being held at the Picnic Bay Surf Lifesaving Club. We were hoping to get a good sky, but could not dream it would be like this. Once the sky turned to these beautiful shades we had barely 10 minutes before it was gone.  To do this you need to be proficient in off-camera flash. Exposure is set for the background so that you get the beautiful colours, in fact you can under-expose a little to increase the drama. The couple are exposed using off-camera flash with a diffuser. The flash exposure is balanced to the sky's exposure. There are a couple of ways to do this, one of the easiest is simply moving the flash closer and further away, depending on the desired result. Even diffused, the flash does need to be a little distance from the couple. Here I had my assistant on the rocks and to the right. The final image can be manipulated so that more of the detail of the club can be seen. It would be an excellent final image in an album, with lots of impact and nothing really required in Photoshop except to bring out the detail in the background. This image has had a bit done in Photoshop. The original capture is taken on a 10-20mm Sigma lens that caused quite a deal of distortion. The verticals have been corrected so that the building does not look like it is going to fall over. However there is still a little horizontal distortion.  I do like some of the effects that wide angle lenses provide and often use them on my group photos. You have to be careful that you do not have the group too close to the edge of the image as that is where most of the distortion occurs. Other than that, the image has been darkened to add drama, and using a layer mask, the couple bought out so they are more obvious in the image. The sky is real so already had a bit of drama to it. This image became our most liked Facebook image at more than 140 likes at last count. Summer Wedding Offer Getting married or know of someone getting married later in the year? We have several spots open from October through to December for weddings. As a special incentive we will throw in a 16x24" print valued at $300 to your package for anyone booking a wedding during this time. Education We will be announcing the next photography course and Lightroom course in the next week. Any enquiries please call the office or send us an email.

David Jodi & Family

Nice family shoot in their newly renovated house near the Townsville Golf Club. The house is an old Queenslander so have fantastic available light, and lot of spots to take the photos. Has to be said that the house was absolutely immaculate as well. The family has a couple of twins and a new born baby. Nearly forgot the dog.





Kelly and Mal went to this shoot, one of the great advantages of having three photographers in the business is we will always send two photographers to a shoot. It takes a bit if pressure of the first photographer and gives a different perspective to the shoot. We will continue to use two photographers at our shoots as long as it is available.

Talking about photography.

Hi all

With the advent of Facebook, yes it took us a long time to actually start using it, a lot of our actual photographs are now posted on that site instead of this blog. With this in mind we have decided to use this site more as a educational site to show what we do and more importantly, how we do it.

There are a lot of photographers out there, many are fantastic at what they do, many have an incredible eye for detail or creativity and produce some stunning results. Unfortunately there are a lot out here that start by getting one of the modern hi tech cameras and start taking photographs. Some of these take good photographs and decide it might be a good way to earn some extra money, so they turn "pro".

There is a lot more to photography than setting the camera to P and firing away, and this is the problem that is common in Professional photography. A photographer needs to have the basic technical knowledge to be able to shoot in all conditions, they need the equipment to be able to shoot in all conditions and be creative enough to work with whatever is in front of them.

By basics I mean getting the knowledge to understand f-stops, shutter speeds and ISO. How they interact and how they can be used to produce stunning images that simply do not need huge amounts of Photoshopping to get the result. How to see light and use it to it's best effect and how to work with the people being photographed.

We hope that you find our articles helpful, and if you disagree with comments by all means let us know.

The team at

Leiden Studios.