Sunday 9 December 2012

Wow, what has Blogger done to their site since I was last on the scene? It's a work of art now to get up the 'New post' box.
Been so busy doing plumbing and building repairs , yet strangely I've also managed to squeeze in even more photography than ever before with around 4 to 8 photo shoots per week. Most of these have been portrait on location shoots in the woods, by the sea, on hill tops and up to my knees in rivers, plus several portrait sessions in the sea with waves lapping at my pockets. My flashguns and stands have always been with me as my passion for great lighting knows no bounds, even in the surf.

Tonii at WestBay obviously used no flash at all but this is one of the extremely rare moments when I used pure natural light.
Exposing for the brightest part of the sky involves noting the auto exposure settings and then closing down two stops as a starting point. Usually I leave the white balance set to 'Flash' as I prefer the warmer tones. Same too with night photography when I want the tungsten street lights to resemble tugnsten street lights.



Now let's have a look at Tonii in this dis-used wartime building with its gorgeous grafitti. Taken with two flashes, one front and back, with Tonii sandwiched between. I call this sandwich lighting for good reason, preferably with a softbox on the nearest flash while the far light has no modifier and is often wearing a DIY grid.
I quite liked the effect of flare from the rim light and decided to stick with it for the rest of this part of the shoot.



Two softboxes help blend the warm daylight into this image with almost no visible cut off point between the two light sources.
Tonii is so patient and is helpful beyond measure, Although she is never backward in saying if she doesn't like a particular shot, which gets deleted there and then.
So yes, I do show my models / helpers the images as they gradually develope into the finshed product.
The church is run byMichael, a good friend of mine, who says we can borrow it any time he's not using it. Must remember to give him a copy of some of the better images.

 In this shot of Danii leaping over a log in a local forest I wanted to keep the daylight as a blur, plus create a blur behind her. The choices are either go with a stanionary camera on a tripod and catch the blur of white material streaming out behind Danii and freeze her with second curtain flash. Or, I pan with her and get streaky daylight.
After a couple shots of each category an idea sprang to mind - what if I could manage both trains of thought in one shot. By arranging for Danii to be running towards the darker area and panning with her I could turn the camera faster, in the same direction, after the flash had gone off in first curtain sync. I hasten to add that I was using about 1/10 of a second. Also, by the third image, I realise that although I'm turning the camera faster I'm panning it a little too fast. Because the flash is the main illumination here then Danii is less likely to record against the blackness. Her front foot is moving fast enough not to record as a great deal of blur due to the flash, although I did have to go into Photoshop and take out a small amount of blur in that area.