Honey, I shrunk the images...

Well hey there everyone. What I wanted to share today are just a few of my favourite images from the "A Touch of Wool III" catwalk show from this year’s Perth Fashion festival. Yeah I know I am a little late getting these online but I have managed to finally catch up with all my backlog of post-processing work and I found myself with a little, yes that’s right, just a little bit of time to spare before things start to get crazy again... man, I love my job. Really, I do!

Ok, so to the images. On this particular shoot, I learned a very important lesson. You see, nine times out of ten I will shoot full resolution, fine detail JPEG’s. On rare occasions when the client specifically requests or I am in the mood then I will shoot in RAW. Why? Because I can. Because I can get four times as many images on a memory card. Because I, and I am being truthful here, have never really found a need to rescue an image that was "that" bad out of camera that it needed to be a RAW file in order to fix it. But mostly, because it saves me a bit of time in post production as even though I now have a brand new super dooper kick-butt light speed PC, working with JPEG’s is just, well... quicker compared to RAW files. Ok enough of that.

Anyway, for this particular catwalk show I decided that I would turn the resolution of my Nikon D700 right down, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, these shows are usually over before you know it and the action is non-stop so I didn’t want to be wasting time changing memory cards and potentially missing some of the show. But the main reason is that I knew I would not be printing any of these images larger than postcard size, and the majority would only be used for putting on the internet for promotional purposes. So I set my D700 to shoot 2120 x 3184px images, which is just over 6 megapixels, ISO2000, f/2.8 and a shutter speed that varied from 1/320th to 1/500th second depending on the amount of light falling on the catwalk at the time. But the kicker was that I turned the compression up so that the camera was spitting out "Basic" JPEG's. Oh dear.

Here’s the kicker though. Compressing the image size compresses the dynamic range of the image too. You know, in all my time doing photography I had never known this because until now, every image I took was at full resolution and fine detail. The end result I found is that my exposure had to be spot on for the entire show (with its changing lighting scenarios and all) otherwise I was getting blown out highlights all over the place. It took me a few minutes to figure it out but I decided to stick with it for the remainder of the show; what better way to test ones skill while shooting a fast moving show, with the camera in manual mode and keeping the exposure within 1/3 of a stop the whole time. It was interesting.

That’s all for now. Take care and keep shooting what you love.

The best thing that happened to me...

Well hello everyone. I wonder if any of you thought that I had dropped off the face of the earth or something? Not quite, but over the last couple of months it has been really hard to try and find the time to write a blog post. But enough excuses, it’s time to write something meaningful.

So, what’s been happening you ask? A whole bunch of stuff actually. Shooting, meeting clients, post production, more shoots, more meeting clients and on and on it goes. You get the picture. It’s starting to get back into wedding season so to be honest they have been taking up most of my time. But that’s a good thing right? Hell yeah!

You see, I used to loathe weddings. Not because I am some sort of sour puss who doesn’t like to see people be happy; but because I was quite frankly terrified of photographing the things. When I am in my studio I can set things up just the way I like them. I know how the lighting will respond and I also know how to set the lights to give gorgeous flattering shadows and highlights. Everything is very controlled. Safe. Once the lights are set my exposure will not change from shot to shot.

But I also love doing location modelling shoots. I love to use flash to overpower the ambient sunlight to create dramatic contrast and saturation. I am also learning more about using natural light to my advantage. It’s a challenge, but not a scary one. We only have one or two models at a time. I pick the locations. Even though we are out in the elements I am very much still in control if things start to go a little pear shaped. We can stop, change things around, try something a little different and it isn’t a really big deal.

Now as for weddings, not so much of this applies. Any of you out there that have done any wedding shoots will immediately understand what I am talking about. These are a different kettle of fish altogether. If things aren’t going well you have to... well, deal with it. No real second chances. Sure you may get a little time to try and change one thing if it really isn’t working but if you start to do this too much during the wedding the bride and groom are gonna start to get (understandably) a little cranky. Plus, it doesn’t really look great if you keep stopping and changing things around. In the worst case scenario I guess the bride and groom could completely lose confidence in your ability. And I am guessing once this happens it would be pretty much impossible to regain any kind of rapport with the couple that is of any meaning. Not good at all, would you agree?

So have I sold you on wedding photography yet? Gimme a couple of minutes and it will all start to come together. You see, what do you think will happen to your own ability and confidence if you are placed in this otherwise uncomfortable situation on a regular basis? How do you think it will affect your photography? Will you crumble into a sloppy heap in the corner, or will you start to (very quickly) learn what works and what doesn’t. I’m hoping that you are thinking option “b” is applicable here. And you know what, it is.

Now I am not for one moment suggesting that I am some kind of phenomenal photographer that is about to turn the world on its ear. Far from it. But when I sit back and think about things, about different scenarios I’ve been forced in to, different locations that have gone sour and times when my equipment isn’t producing magical images just like those in the advertisements that made me want the thing in the first place, I am truly pleasantly surprised. I realise that being thrust into these situations has made me a better photographer than I was before I started.

Now this is true of any situation that you find yourself in, photographically speaking. But what I am trying to say here is that I have noticed a visible, tangible improvement in my own abilities that has been fast-tracked since I started photographing weddings. I used to loathe them. Now I love them. I love the challenges, the people you meet and the locations that you get to go to on a regular basis.

I used to think that there were famous photographers living the high life and doing wonderful things, and then there were the rest of the poor slobs stuck photographing weddings. The guys who really couldn’t make it in the real world so they settled for second best. Oh how my mindset has changed. There is something about being put in a situation that does not offer second chances. You arrive on location, assess the situation, the lighting and the environment. And then you have to make it happen, in the best way you know how. Sure it does not go according to plan all the time. But the times when it does fall in a heap are less and less. We are human, we make mistakes. The trick is to actually learn from them and move on, knowing how to recognise them in the future and not make the same ones over and over again.

I’m getting off my soap box now. I have a bunch of images to post from this week’s Perth Fashion Festival, so stay tuned for those. Take care everyone and keep shooting what you love.

Quick update - a simple headshot...

Good evening everyone.

This is another quick on the fly update just for the purpose of sharing an image from a shoot we did yesterday for a local hairdresser. The owner of the business wanted to approach one of her suppliers for the purpose of showcasing her hairdressing and styling skills. That’s cool.

So the lighting for this shot was just a single Nikon SB-900 shooting through a portable Lastolite collapsible Ezybox 60cm softbox. The flash was being triggered using another SB-900 on top of my Nikon D700 using CLS.

The lens however was one that I don’t use very often, but it’s a great bit of glass and an awesome portrait lens. It was my Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro. I’d use this lens more often but it is too long to use in our studio as we cannot get full length shots with this focal length; 70mm is the longest focal length for that. Oh yeah, to clarify, this shot was taken on location at the hairdressers premises. We simply used one of the walls as the backdrop.

The lighting style is just a simple Rembrandt set-up. One light. No fuss. Just make sure that you get the model to turn their head slightly to the direction of the light. No, wait – thats not entirely correct. Where the model positions their head is entirely up to you and the particular effect that you are going for. I have done some awesomely attractive shots in the past where the model is looking down and away from the light and the end result has been really yummy. So – its up to you. But... you can see how the end result looks when the model does turn their head to the light.

So this shot is wide open at f/2.8. Click on the image at the top of this post to see it a bit larger - it does it better justice. I like it. Just wanted to share that. Good night.

Still here... just...

Hi everyone

Just a quick blog post to let you all know that I am still alive and kicking, but just taking a bit of a break after my wife and I had our second child a couple of weeks ago. Oh yeah, #1 is on an overseas holiday (the lucky thing) so it’s just me for now.

So what I thought I’d share is a couple of images I took a couple of weeks ago for Dani, a local model. Dani has been a friend for a few years now and has been a great support to us here at Timography. Whenever I want to try something new or simply have a spot in my calendar and wish to fill it with a shoot of some description, Dani is always willing to help out.

This particular shoot was organized with the intention of showing another photographer and friend how to use studio lighting, as my friend had not had the opportunity to shoot in a studio environment before.

Ok, to the lighting in these shots. It was really simple, just one light and a foam core panel. The lighting diagram template that I use to represent the studio set-ups does not have a foam core preset so I have used a circular reflector to represent it but I’m sure that you get the idea. The umbrella was actually by beloved Paul C. Buff 86” Parabolic umbrella. I love this thing. Like my other favorite; the beauty dish, it provides a nice soft(ish) light that is really easy to control. But unlike the beauty dish, it lights your model from head to toe – literally. These umbrellas are not available in Australia as yet, but I rang the company in the USA and placed my order, their customer service was great and I had my umbrella in my hands five days later! Oh yeah, the whole thing + shipping only cost $168AUD to get it to my front door. Sweet.

So there you go. A simple set-up that gives pretty cool results. Sure, it’s not the most complex lighting set-up that you have ever seen, but that’s not the point. In my opinion, photography is about presenting the subject in the best possible light (pun intended). If the viewer starts to decompose your set-up and spends 2o minutes trying to figure it out, have you really done your job? Shouldn’t they be more interested in the subject? Lighting is the tool that we as photographers use to our advantage, but it’s not the star of the show; the subject is – right? Subtly is the key; it’s not a contest to see who can set up the most lights and make the image look like one big and expensive drivers license photo. That’s what I think anyway. It’s all about the subject – the end.

Speaking of the parabolic umbrella, I have been wanting to try it out on location ever since I got it, but being such a huge “sail” in a strong breeze I have been reluctant to do so. Have a look at the image on the right, which I posted shortly after I received the umbrella, as an indication of its size. The top of the umbrella is about 4 inches from the roof and the bottom of the umbrella is only about 12 inches from the floor. I have recently purchased a couple of hefty sandbags but I still am unsure that they would be of much use. I usually work alone for these random modelling shoots like the one I have tomorrow afternoon otherwise an assistant or two holding it in place would do the trick. Tomorrow’s location however is up in the hills in a bit of a valley so hopefully there won’t be much breeze around. I will take it and the beauty dish but the weather will determine which one gets used for the shoot. I’ll post some images of that shoot in the next couple of days. Wish me luck!

Keep shooting what you love and I’ll talk to you soon. Hopefully #1 will be back by then too…

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.

Taking time out... and staying in control...

Hi everyone. Hey can you guess what kind of week it has been? HA. Yep – flat out.

The entire latter half of this week was spent at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre shooting the WALIS International Forum 09. This was basically three full (and I mean full) days of shooting seminars, keynote speakers and an Awards night to boot. I pretty much used the Nikon D700 as my main camera, shooting inside the conference rooms and theatres at ISO1600, no flash, and hand holding my 70-200mm telephoto lens with shutter speeds of about 1/40th to 1/80th second. Rest assured I have perfected my “sniper grip” and was able to get shake free images even when zoomed all the way into 200mm. Cool.

The highlight (pun intended) of my week however was today I was able to participate in a wonderful workshop held by the awesome Louis Pang. Louis is an award winning wedding and portrait photographer who is sought after the world over by his prospective clients. Have a look at his website if you have not done so already. Wonderful stuff. What made this particular workshop better than any I have been to is that Louis is such a nice approachable guy. Some courses and workshops I have attended have had good content teamed with an arrogant or egotistical teacher. Bad recipe. Not the case today! All of you really missed a good one today…

Anyway, now that I have made it pretty clear what a nice and approachable guy Louis was as well as being a phenomenal photographer, lets quickly talk about the images in this blog post.

It’s a sad reality for me that in the day to day photography I do lately is pretty safe. Safe in the fact that I have learned what works well to get good images with the minimum of fuss. I have discussed this in a previous blog post for those who really care to remember. The point of the matter is that when the pressure is on and the client has their money on the table; right there and then is not a good idea to try and get all creative. Just deliver what the client wants – thanks very much and have a nice day.

Therefore, invariably I tend to live in [A] Aperture Priority mode on all of my cameras. I set the aperture to the effect I wish to achieve and then let the camera figure out the actual exposure all by itself. And it usually does a reasonable job. So with this in mind it was really refreshing when the very first thing Louis told us to do was to put our cameras into manual mode and leave them there. Ok.

Oh yeah, I should point out that each and every image in this blog post is how it was straight out of the camera. No Photoshop or any sort of manipulation other than to apply the watermark and reduce the file size for the web. So what I want to do now is just give you all a quick run-down on these images, how they were taken and what/where the light source was.

So, the first image in this blog shows Jess from Chadwick’s up against one of the tall pine trees on the grounds of UWA. I love the way the natural light looks on Jess’ perfect skin in this shot. So, do you think it is over exposed? I thought so too, but now think about it again. What really is over-exposure? Am I loosing any image detail in Jess’ skin, eyes or face? No. Is the background blown out slightly? Yes. So what – it’s all about the effect that you are trying to achieve right? This shot was taken with my 70-200mm f/2.8 telephoto at 200mm and f/2.8, 1/200th second shutter at ISO400 with 100% natural daylight. This was two full stops over what the camera thought was “correct exposure”. There are no reflectors or foam core panels in this shot. I love the way the image appears to have had the diffuse glow / Gaussian Blur filter treatment in Photoshop. Not the case folks. Like I said, this was straight out of the camera. The gold hue to the image was achieved by manually setting the white balance on the camera to [Cloudy].

The next image shows Terrance (forgive me if I have your name wrong – can someone help me out here?) in one of the hallways in the building we were in. He is standing directly across from an open window. This image was taken once again with the 70-200mm f/2.8 telephoto at 155mm, handheld, f/2.8, 1/40th second at ISO200. I like the way here that the white wall he is leaning against is filling in the all of the shadows on the right side of his face, and how the background is nicely blurred by the bokeh of the lens.

Moving right along, this is Jess back out side against the exterior of the building. Can you tell what the light source is in this image? a) The sun or b) artificial flash? The answer is ‘b’! I purposefully set the white balance on the camera to cloudy in this shot to make it look like late afternoon sun. This shot was taken at 2pm. This time I used my 24-70mm f/2.8 lens at f/2.8 and 70mm, 1/250th second shutter at ISO200. The camera was set to +1 stop over-exposure according to the in-built meter and the flash was set to -1 stop under-exposure. The flash was a Nikon SB-900 shooting through one of Louis’ Lastolite Softboxes and was being triggered by another SB-900 on my camera in i-TTL mode. The whole soft box/flash assembly was placed on a monopod and held up about 1 ½ metres above Jess’ head. I love the way the light is particularly soft on Jess and also the overall warmth of the image made simply by making the aforementioned white balance change. Cool.

Next image. This one was pretty much the same scenario as the previous one with the exception that the metering was reversed; that being the camera was set to -1 under-exposure according to the in-built meter and the flash was set to +1 stop over-exposure. This was in an attempt to bring the background down a little, which was a little hard to do in the afternoon overhead sunlight. So yeah, the flash was fired through a soft box, which was on a monopod and this time about 2 meters away from Jess so it would spread a little bit more. I used the 24-70mm f/2.8 lens at 26mm, still at f/2.8 at 1/640th second shutter speed at ISO 200. I do like this image but it isn’t my best for the day. In hindsight I could have used my 12-24mm ultra wide angle lens and got the blue sky and top of the building into frame. But still, it isn’t that bad…



Ok, almost done. And thanks for reading this far down the page. Good for you! We were running out of time so we headed back inside for a change of scenery. Also because of the time issue (we were shooting in groups of four and only had limited time each to photograph Jess) we stuck with the flash/soft box/monopod arrangement as it was working so well. I am not really happy with how Jess’ hair is all bunched up against the railing here – alas I did not notice that when I took the shot. This again was my 24-70mm f/2.8 lens at 46mm, f/4.0 at 1/100th second shutter speed at ISO1000. The camera was set to -1/3 stop under expose according to the inbuilt meter and the flash was set to -1 stop. I originally took the shot at ISO200 but the background was too dark for my liking. So the shutter and aperture and flash were all left alone and I only upped the ISO.

Oh yeah, I think it relevant to clarify it here, but you may have noticed that I have been quoting camera over/under exposure “according to the inbuilt meter”. This is for very good reason. When you are shooting in Aperture (AP) or Shutter (SP) priority modes, if you wish to shift the whole exposure up or down you can use the exposure compensation function on your camera which automatically shifts the shutter speed up or down if you are in AP mode or the aperture up and down if you are in SP mode. So clearly; if you have everything locked down in manual mode this exposure compensation is NOT going to work. The camera will let you make the exposure compensation adjustment with the controls but it does not have any effect on your aperture and shutter speeds that have already been locked in and will therefore not affect the image. So you have to do exposure compensation manually also by adjusting your aperture (for controlling the amount of flash in your image) or shutter speed (for controlling the amount of ambient light getting into the image). Simple!

Ok, last one. I had actually finished my allocated time-slots with Jess but this was a bit of an opportunistic shot! One of my fellow workshop attendees was struggling with her manual camera settings, so while Louis gave her a hand I made a couple of posing changes to Jess and managed to snap this shot. I’m glad I did, it’s my favourite from the whole day. I used my 70-200mm f/2.8 lens at 85mm, f/3.5 at 1/100th second shutter speed – handheld, and ISO 320. In hindsight the background is a little distracting and I could have dropped the ISO down to 100ish… but I LOVE the light on Jess’ face in this image. Gorgeous.

So, there you go. Thanks again to Louis and his wife for putting on a fantastic day – and one that I will remember for some time to come.

Ok, well I think that well and truly wraps up this blog post. Take care everyone and I’ll talk to you all soon!

Thank God that's over... but I miss it already...

Hey – guess what? It’s another quick blog post! I think I have had sufficient time to catch my breath from this weekends activities. As some of you know, I ended up getting a slight reprieve in that two of this weekends six shoots got postponed due to models being ill or otherwise unavailable. That’s fine, the client has re-scheduled for a couple of weeks time, so that’s good.

The wedding shoot went well, even though I ended up getting soaked – twice – while shooting the bridal party in the middle of Kings Park. The chauffer came to the rescue of the bridal party with a swag of huge golf umbrellas under his arm, but nothing for the lowly photographer I’m afraid. Suffice to say that I can tell you all with full confidence that the Nikon D700 D-SLR camera body and SB-900 Speedlight are definitely 100% “weather-proof”!! As for the SB-800 speedlight being used as a remote off-camera light via Nikon i-TTL and my Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 lens – well so far so good but I am keeping an eye on them; especially the lens. I really hope no moisture managed to work it’s way inside the body of the lens. I took it, along with everything else out of my (damp) camera bag as soon as I got back, letting it just re-acclimatize to room temperature without excessively altering its temperature in the hope that any potential moisture issues will just go away. I used that lens for two studio shoots this morning and again this afternoon for the beach shoot and all was ok, I did not notice any unusual flare or distortions, so fingers crossed…

Oh yeah, the beach shoot. As those of you with a keen eye may have noticed, the image I have attached to this blog post was taken from the last shoot of this hectic weekend. Layla is a brand new model whom I was happy to provide a start to her portfolio. I tried to keep the lighting as subtle as possible for this shot and I think I did it pretty well. Layla is being lit on her left side by my Nikon SB-900 in wireless i-TLL mode. I wanted to keep the aperture fairly wide open for this shot, so I used the high speed flash sync (AutoFP is I think what it's called) feature Nikon are famous for. The camera was set to aperture priority mode, ISO 200, 1/1600^th second shutter speed @ f/4.0. I dialled in -1 stop exposure compensation for the flash. I like the way this image looks naturally lit, only the shadow thrown by Layla’s left arm against her torso gives it away. It was quite bright this afternoon so I wanted to use a really fast shutter speed to tone down the exposure instead of having to resort to shooting at f/22. I think I managed to achieve that!

I really had fun, amongst all of the stress this weekend. I really am disappointed that it’s back to the grind in a few short hours. Needless to say I am looking forward to doing it all again, very soon; this coming weekend is looking almost as busy at this stage! Bring it on I say… After all, one only becomes a better photographer by taking more images, and more… and more… you get the picture (pun intended).

Ok, I’m outta here again, catch you all later.

On the fly update...

Yet another quick blog post to let you all know how this weekend of shooting is going. The first of six shoots between now and Sunday evening took place this evening at our Perth based Photography Studio, a shoot with Amee. She is a new model who has just signed up with Perth’s own Xtreem modelling agency.

Amee has only done a couple of photo shoots before so she did very well considering. The pose you see in the image was one that she chose to do; and I think it works well with the lighting of the set.

No prizes for guessing the lighting scenario… it’s my favourite White seamless (yes, that’s right – it’s white!) backdrop with a single overhead light source with the beauty dish modifier with the grid spot attached. Simple yet effective… and it takes about 2 ½ minutes to set up…

I’m outta here. I’ll try to post more updates over the course of the weekend.

Less of the “how” and more of the “why”…

Here we are again, another week has gone. This last week has been full of just about every different aspect of photography that you could imagine… almost. Probably the most stressful part of the week gone was the fashion shoot that we held at our Perth based photography studio, here in Kelmscott.

Overall I am pretty happy with the images and the client was over the moon – so that’s good. A very brief collection of images are shown above.

As you saw in the previous blog posts, I was very eager to try out the new parabolic umbrella that I had just received from the wonderful folks at Paul C. Buff in the Nashville USA. In the days preceding the shoot I had tried a few different scenarios – moving the umbrella from one side of the studio to the other, focussing the beam, this angle and that and I have to say I was a little worried that it wasn’t going to live up to the very large expectations that I had heard of it.

This all went away though once Chloe from Chadwick Models stepped in front of the lens. I remember looking through my somewhat extensive catalogue of fashion magazines; which I often do for inspiration and to nick the odd pose or three, and wondering how the photographers were able to achieve a gorgeously soft full length light that encapsulated the model and at the same time left basically no shadows behind the models except by their feet. I for a long time thought it was achieved by using a strip softbox, so I went a bought one to try it out. It was close, but there was way too much shadow behind the models. Hmmm. Then I saw a video about a fashion shoot and the photographer was using one of the Profoto Parabolic Umbrellas. Problem solved!

After a little bit of finessing I was able to get the light positioned just were I wanted it to produce a lovely full length light. It was amazing too, that despite it’s 7 foot span, it was actually focussing the light so much that I was getting quite a bit of fall off along the top of the backdrop!

I was listening to one of my favourite photography podcasts the other day and I remember the photographer saying that his followers wanted to hear less of the “how” and more of the “why”. So, here goes. Why did I use the parabolic umbrella? Well if you want to produce beautifully even wrapping light with minimal shadow this is the puppy for you. Why do I like the umbrella? Despite its size it is not overpowering. I love the catch lights it gives in the subjects eyes. I love how soft it is. I love how the light wraps around my subject.

On this shoot I also used my beloved beauty dish with its grid attachment. It gives a very similar light on the subjects face to the parabolic umbrella but it falls off quite quickly. I really like the way the light from it totally falls off towards the edges of the backdrop. From the images above – you can tell that the ones on the left are from the parabolic umbrella and the ones on the right are from the gridded beauty dish.

Finally – why did I give the images a green cross-processed and de-saturated finish? Well the client and I decided that this finish really suited the same green-and-grey colours in the fabric of her designer garments. I ended up doing a couple of other different sets of tonal effects on the images but these were my favourites. If your looking at an un-calibrated monitor right now you are probably missing the whole effect and are just seeing a grey and green mess... its a shame really, they do look great I assure you!

And to finish; this afternoon I had a really great artistic nude shoot with a local model. It was a little bit different as the theme of the shoot was “anonymity”. Hence in almost every image you can see the models head but it is turned away or in shadow so you can’t really tell who it is. I was inspired by the work of Pascal Baetens and wanted to try and interpret his ideas - which I think we ended up doing fairly well… stay tuned for those images in the coming week or so.

Take care everyone. Bye… for now.