Sun, sand and beauty dishes...

Hi everyone and welcome to another enthralling edition of our Timography Blog. To get you guys in the swing of things, my text looks like this and Sandy's text is in italics... just so you know... :o)

So, what’s happened since our last post? Well, we have received an overwhelming amount of positive comments and support for the series of images that we took down in Albany, so thank you for all who contributed. Warm fuzzies all round! Sandy is getting more and more amazing behind the camera with each new assignment. She is doing such a wonderful job and soon I fear it will be her teaching me a thing or two!

I must admit... that I do ‘come to life’ whilst working with children. I love the challenge of capturing something unique about a child. Jade, my daughter and probably THE most photographed child I know, is most of the time a very willing participant and although I photograph her all the time... I still manage to capture something that’s a little different and unique which just melts my heart.

So, to business. This weekend saw Sandy and I out in the sunshine with her daughter with the intention of taking some outdoor portraits in full sun, using the flash to overpower the ambient light and create a pleasing light on the subject. We wanted to stay pretty close to home for this shoot so we ended up choosing Champion Lakes Rowing Arena here in Kelmscott. This is a nice quiet area with (obviously!) a nice big lake that we could use in the background but it also has a new housing estate going up, which we thought would make for an interesting backdrop for Sandy’s daughter. I also wanted to keep things simple from an equipment standpoint, so we took only one camera body, a couple of lenses, a light meter, radio triggers and the lighting gear comprising of one head and a beauty dish.

When I first started setting up Timography and building our inventory of equipment I wanted to make sure that the lighting gear we purchased would be reliable, versatile, powerful and most importantly, portable. I have been so happy with the Bowens lighting equipment that we now have. It isn’t as cheap as some, but geez it is good. And they make an awesome little battery pack which means that I can power the strobe heads on location; and I have mentioned this many times in the past. Fantastic.

This is the first time Tim has let me drive the beauty dish on location. I must say I have become quite fond of using a strobe head on location for it’s simplicity and exposure stability. I have currently been using my built-in speedlight to trigger a remote flash with TTL metering and I’m very happy with my results. However, with a strobe head, I do like the fact that I can create a desired exposure and know it’s not going to change much which then gives me more time to focus on working with and getting to know the subject better. It still takes me a while for the cogs to start turning on setting it all up and establishing a flash to ambient light ratio... but step by step I slowly get there. I might also add that my son, who is only 18 months old, was also with us on this shoot and this made concentrating a little more difficult so big thanks to Tim for being so understanding and patient :o)

And now, to the images accompanying this post. As I said in the intro, the purpose of this shoot was to practice overpowering the strong morning sun. We started out at about 10am, and already the ambient was reading at ISO100, 1/250th second shutter speed @ f/11! So we ended up trying a few different variations with light ratios. The images with Jade at the water’s edge were all shot with the flash output at about ½ a f/stop above the ambient, whereas the images of Jade in the pink hat were all shot with the flash output almost two stops greater, or about f/16-f/18. The reason for this fluctuation is that for the pink hat shots, Jade was much closer to the light source at only about 1 ½ meters away. She was moving about a little bit (as kids do!) but mostly kept creeping closer to the flash, meaning stronger light was hitting her.

I really didn’t think we would end up with many good shots this morning. Usually Jade is very willing and the better shots are normally some from the beginning of a shoot. It was the other way today. Jade was hungry, and thirsty and wanted her lollipop that I had brought along as a bribe. She was fidgety and acting a little silly, even getting a tad grumpy. But hey, she is only 5 and it was very ‘stop start’ for her due to her brother continuously running in the opposite direction. You will not capture a child’s true personality if you force them or make them feel uncomfortable. You can only work with what you’ve got and if what you’ve got isn’t working... you move on and try something else. So we packed up and headed for the water.

So yeah, we were certainly overpowering the sun with the pink hat images. I really love how the beauty dish has again lived up to its name. It is such a versatile light modifier. It gives out more light than a soft box but is gentler than just a high-efficiency bowl reflector. The trade-off however with Jade standing so close to the light source is that her legs and feet were not quite getting the coverage they deserved. Still makes for a gorgeous shot though I think and helps to accentuate the light falling on her upper body.

The last couple of images here show Jade by the water’s edge. As mentioned we pulled the flash output back to be just over that of the bright sky, that being about 1/250th second shutter speed @ f/13 or thereabouts. The reason for this is that we wanted to make sure the highlights on the top of the water caused by the suns reflections were clearly visible. Both Sandy and I really love this last image. Jades pose is spot on; although she was not being directed at this point, from memory Sandy has just asked her to grab the bottom of her dress and swing her arms from side-to-side.

It was here that little Jade shone :o) You can see it in her face and body language that she was now comfortable and enjoying herself. And what a difference it makes. Jade did a great job, I learnt a little more and we all had a great morning. Oh, and the little man … well, he at this point was soaking wet and muddy so I can assure you he had a wonderful time too :o)

For the record, the "little man" is Sandy's son ok!

So that about wraps up another blog post from us. Thanks for watching. We’ll be continuing to use the beauty dish out on location in the coming weeks, so I hope to share some more images with you all soon. Keep shooting what you love and take care. Bye from us!

Road trippin' and wedding dresses...

Hey everybody.

Wow! What a weekend. What a great time was had by all. Happy times. Ok, let me rewind a little for the sake of those of you who think I have lost the plot a little (more).

For a while now I have wanted to get away for the weekend – for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I have wanted to head to a really nice beach location to capture some wedding images that I could use for promotional purposes. Now these beach locations that I had in mind just do not exist here in Perth. Sorry but they just don’t. Secondly I have been meaning to take Sandy out on a full on location shoot to give her a feel for how things go down and how to deal with situations that a location can throw at you at a moment’s notice. We have now done lots of weddings together but I really don’t get the opportunity to explain what I’m doing and why I’m doing it this way instead of that. So why not kill the proverbial two birds and all that?

It’s also at this juncture that I need to officially introduce Sandy; a.k.a. #1, to you all. She’ll be making some contributions to this blog post and many more to come – so, welcome buddy!

Well, okay ... my first addition. Where do I start and what do I need? Firstly, my life’s most important necessities ... super comfy tracky pants and chocolate! But equally as important I would like to thank my inspirational friend Tim for this opportunity.

So ... Road trippin’ & wedding dresses hey ... I consider myself an average person with average looks, opinions and life experience. I love photography and aspire to be amongst Perth’s best. When Tim and I started to plan this trip I was so excited. What a great adventure and what a great opportunity to share a location shoot with my fantastic mentor. I would model for him, no problem .. how hard could it be!

Thanks Sandy. Ok, back to the road trip. We had picked out a couple of likely destinations using only Google Earth as a reference, but as it turned out they were awesome locations. Important note here though; I usually without exception scout a location in person before heading there for the shoot itself, as local knowledge is invaluable in knowing the lay of the land, how many people are likely to be there at a given time, where the sun rises and sets and so on. Sadly, because we were heading all the way to Albany this was not an option this time around, and if we had our time again we would have swapped the morning and evening locations. But hindsight is a wonderful thing huh…

As it turned out, we were blessed with some really moody weather on Saturday afternoon at Shelly Beach, West Cape Howe and Sunday morning at Little Beach, Two Peoples Bay was simply gorgeous. I had gone on the trip with a shot list of images I wanted to try and capture; right down to the pose, the composition and the lighting. It turns out that we didn’t get to try all of the shots I had in mind as time, lack of daylight and excess goose bumps got in the way. But all in all it was a fantastic trip and one that I will not forget for a really, really long time. So, to the images…

The image at the top of this post is my favorite so far of the 1000+ images that we took. Mind you though, I have only thus far had the opportunity to scratch the surface and I am sure that there are lots more fantastic images to be found. It’s funny, but when you really get into it on a shoot you lose track of what shots you have taken and ideas that you had. It’s only reviewing them later that you think – oh yeah, I remember that – cool! But, I digress. This image was taken close to the end of our afternoon at Shelley Beach. Poor Sandy was freezing her you-know-whatsits off. You can see the rainbow in the distance. Although Sandy’s veil looks motionless here there was actually a cool stiff breeze blowing. The light source for this image was my tri-flash holder with 2x Nikon SB-900’s and a Nikon SB-800, fired by using the Pixel TTL triggers. My D700 was in aperture priority mode with my Nikon 50mm f/1.8 prime lens, 1/3200^th second shutter speed, f/2.8 @ ISO100. Exposure compensation was set to -1.7EV to really darken the sky and the flash compensation was set to +0.7EV to make Sandy glow in the image. It worked. Oh yeah, as usual I want you to know that all of the images in this blog post are shown as they were taken. The only post production applied was to fix a couple of crooked horizions. Thats it.

One more thing to point out here while I remember it. For the trip I had packed two different light sources, or generators if you like. The first was a bag full of Nikon speedlights. The other was my Bowens studio heads and accompanying battery pack that allows me to use them on location without the need for mains power. One light generator is small, light weight and a sealed unit. The other is large, heavy and full of moisture penetrating holes and cooling vents. So for the sake of convenience I kept the Bowens gear in the car for the beach shoots but I was hoping to get the opportunity to use it at some point on the trip.

The next image was the second last one we took for the afternoon. The sun had well and truly set behind the escarpment to Sandy’s left and it was starting to get really really cold now. Even with all my running up and down the beach grabbing this lens and that and then jockeying for position to get the shot I was feeling it. Sandy was turning a lovely shade of light blue - poor thing! So this image is still the D700/50mm f/1.8 combo, and still in aperture priority mode, 1/60^th second shutter speed, f/7.1 @ ISO400. As it was getting quite dark now I had set the exposure compensation to +1.3EV but pulled the flash compensation back to +/-0.0 to balance the ambient being brighter. I love Sandy’s expression here. From memory I had asked her to try looking directly at me but because of the cold breeze her eyes had started to water and she couldn’t do it. D’oh – sorry about that buddy!

I have, and I’m sure most of you have too, always thought that a model has a pretty easy job. It probably becomes easier with time, I don’t know but it really opened my eyes on what it’s like to be in front of the camera as opposed to behind it which is where I prefer to be; by far! I am the first to admit that I can’t multi task ... never been able to and have made more hassles for myself by trying to. Smile or not, just stand there, posed for a while and look gorgeous. Um, reality check big time. Guided by a great photographer, poses are neither motionless nor comfortable. Trying to walk whilst gazing in the photographers suggested direction was a real challenge. Not only because I normally like to watch where I’m walking or at least look at where I’m heading but I also had to remember my facial expressions. For me, bearing in mind my lack of multi tasking skills, a glamorous expression is not that goofy look where I’ve lost balance, stepped on my dress or felt the freezing cold water rush over my feet.

Ok I’ll have to start moving quickly through these last few images now as it is really past my bedtime! We left Shelly Beach feeling (albeit pretty cold) good that we had managed to bag some cool shots – I didn’t know how many exactly but I knew there were a few. The following morning saw us at Little Beach. What a glorious stretch of beach! But it does however get me back to my point that I made at the beginning of this blog post wherein local knowledge and a little bit of forethought go a long way, especially when you have come a long way in the first place to visit a location and you want to get it right while you are there. You see, as beautiful as Little Beach was, we actually scored a sunrise here over the water as the beach faces an easterly direction. This is great but goes totally against what I had in mind with my shot list. Kudos to Sandy here though who encouraged me to keep going and just wing-it despite it not being 100% what I had wanted to achieve – thanks buddy! I have posted a few images on the Facebook album from that location if you want to have a look.

Anyway, on the way down to Albany we had spotted a few really cool looking rural spots that, if time permitted we were going to try on the way back. As it turned out we left Little Beach early and headed back to Albany which in turn meant that we could head back early. We passed a few good looking places on the way home but when we stopped for a closer inspection they weren’t all that good. So we jumped back into the car and kept going. This spot is one that I didn’t actually see on the way down but I am glad I saw it at the last minute on the way back. The highway was only about 50 meters away and we were faced with a constant barrage of trucks and cars going past beeping their horns and yelling um, I don't think I want to know!

So, as we were now away from the beach and the waves and the salt spray I also made a point of using the Bowens equipment and my beloved beauty dish for the lighting in these images. And oh what a difference. I won’t run through the EXIF data for all of the bush images, suffice to say that for these the camera was locked down in manual mode, ISO100, 1/250^th second shutter speed and an aperture that varied from f/9 to f/13 dependant on the clouds that were passing over the sun with great frequency. We took a meter reading of the ambient light and then another for the flash output for each pose, then balanced the flash power output accordingly and made sure we shot the images in close succession to the last meter reading as possible to ensure consistent exposure whilst avoiding over-exposure.

I love the light in these images. I love the way that the beauty dish has bathed Sandy in this even glow of light and it hasn’t spilled too much onto her surroundings, despite the fact that I was not using the grid spot attachment for these images. I also love the fact that the big studio flash was able to pump out enough light to enable me to bring down the ambient background light in the way that it has. I love it, just love it. Finally, I also loved the fact that we were now dealing with a hot afternoon and masses of flies which made me feel a little better as Sandy really doesn't like the cold :)

For me, trying to keep my cool while 100 flies crawled over my face and up my nose on a hot humid afternoon whilst trying to look gorgeous while the sun glaringly invaded my suggested line of sight was… an experience! It’s not pretty, it’s not fun, I used and strained muscles I never knew I had but I did walk away with a much bigger appreciation for what models do for us photographers. What a trip!

Ok, gotta go. Thanks for staying to the end of this post, and thanks again to Sandy for your contributions. Take care, keep shooting what you love and I'll, I mean we'll talk to you soon.