Monday, 16 April 2012
The Fishing Scientist
An old shot I unearthed while browsing my archive.
I took this during a trip to Berkley's Gulp bait factory in southern Holland. This was a press trip so there were all sorts of people who were trying to get shots of the chief scientist called Franz (or it could have been Frank - he dazzled me with science!).
Because of the melee of journos all wanting to get something for their mags, I had to work quickly so just set up an SB-800 in SU-4 mode behind him, with an SB-800 from camera right trigered by an Elinchrom Skyport. The shoot took about three minutes from start to finish before we headed out to the coach back to the airport.
Can't rememebr the settings but it was all manual obviously.
*Nikon D2x
*Nikon 12-24mm f/4
*ISO 200
*1/100th @ f/8
Although it did the job, this is the kind of shot I look back on and think "I wish I'd done it differently". The shot is fine in general and fitted what the mag wanted, but I know now that there needed to be more fill on the labels, the ambient needed to be dialled down in the background, and a gel on the rear flash could have given it more impact.
Still, it was true 'on-the-fly' indoor shooting, something I don't get a chance to do very often....
Sunday, 15 April 2012
Flatholm Island
Between massive thunderstorms and epic hail (and waiting for fish to bite) I thought I'd grab a shot of Flatholm, one of the islands that lie in the Bristol Channel.
*Nikon D2x
*Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8
*ISO 400
*1/4000th @ f/5.6
Friday, 30 March 2012
Nab Tower
Via Flickr:
I was out on a very long (18-hour) shoot today in the Solent, off the isle of Wight. The feature was to get stock images for Total Sea Fishing magazine aboard 'Wight Huntress'.
While steaming around we motored very close to the impressive Nab Tower, an anti-submarine instalment from WW1. It's a well-known point for sailors, denoting the deep water entrance to the Solent.
It's an impressive structure even if it does have a bit of a lean - covered in rust and against an azure blue sky it looked great, and although I originally envisioned a mono conversion would suit the detail in the iron work better, in colour it does have a certain impact.
More details about the tower - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nab_Tower
*Nikon D2x
*Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8
*ISO 100
*1/100th @ f/9
*Processed in Lightroom 3
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
Hustle & Bustle
Via Flickr:
This was taken at the NEC (national Exhibition Centre) during the recent FocusOnImaging2012 show, one of major photographic expos.
I go every year to have a play with new kit, buy some essentials and watch some great seminars from the major players.
This was taken in the main atrium outside the show at the end of the penultimate day. The NEC is totally a 1980s site and the design, although not something you'd say was classic, does have its interesting elements such as these brilliant ceiling windows.
Shot on my trusty HTC Desire HD, I just set it to a standard monochrome mode.
Tuesday, 20 March 2012
Blackbird
Via Flickr:
Another grab shot inbetween sections while out on a magazine shoot. To be fair, he helped me out a lot, being very obliging - probably waiting for a maggot or two to be thrown his way.
*Nikon D2x
*Nikon 70-200mm VR
*ISO 400
*1/100th @ f/3.5
Wednesday, 7 March 2012
Portrait of a Space Ranger
Via Flickr:
Visited Focus On Imaging at the NEC this week and saw some really good talks on lighting, especially those dealing with portraiture. Now, I won't say I'm great at portraiture but it was, when I was training, something I really got into and it's something I still love today even though I rarely get a chance to do any.
One of the speakers, Damien Lovegrove, gave a really interesting demo on achieving a hollywood-style, 1940s look using continuous lighting. His results were stunning with really simple lighting. I wasn't in the mood to get soft boxes and shoots out tonight so thought I'd try something using light painting with my phone. Only a slight crop and a bit of a vignette have been added.
I did some shots with really shallow depth-of-field but it just looked too out-of-focus and lacked detail in the eyes so I upped the f-stop to f/11, knowing there would still be enough drop-off to give it a look somewhere near what i wanted.
You'll have the excuse the marks and dink on Buzz's face - this is my little boy's toy so gets thrown around all over the shop. Anyway, it's just a bit a bit of fun and it keeps me going :)
*Nikon D2x
*Nikon 60mm macro AF-D
*ISO 100
*25secs @ f/11
Visited Focus On Imaging at the NEC this week and saw some really good talks on lighting, especially those dealing with portraiture. Now, I won't say I'm great at portraiture but it was, when I was training, something I really got into and it's something I still love today even though I rarely get a chance to do any.
One of the speakers, Damien Lovegrove, gave a really interesting demo on achieving a hollywood-style, 1940s look using continuous lighting. His results were stunning with really simple lighting. I wasn't in the mood to get soft boxes and shoots out tonight so thought I'd try something using light painting with my phone. Only a slight crop and a bit of a vignette have been added.
I did some shots with really shallow depth-of-field but it just looked too out-of-focus and lacked detail in the eyes so I upped the f-stop to f/11, knowing there would still be enough drop-off to give it a look somewhere near what i wanted.
You'll have the excuse the marks and dink on Buzz's face - this is my little boy's toy so gets thrown around all over the shop. Anyway, it's just a bit a bit of fun and it keeps me going :)
*Nikon D2x
*Nikon 60mm macro AF-D
*ISO 100
*25secs @ f/11
Sunday, 4 March 2012
A Day On The Waves
Boats and me don't really mix so last week I wasn't quite looking forward to spending 12-hours out at sea. Thankfully, as if it was some special reprieve for a leap year (it was the 29th), we were graced with calm(ish) seas and at times, what felt like T-shirt weather!
Boats are a real challenge to shoot on. It's hard enough working in tight spaces on land, but doing it on a 10ft x 18ft boat deck that was rolling all over is even harder. Add in the fact you are limited on vantage points, and it's something that you quickly have to get used to.
"General shots like this demand a wide lens and getting your timing right not only to get thing level in the swell, but also the lighting and the position of the anglers."
I was out shooting for Total Sea Fishing magazine, a magazine I like working on if only because of the variety of destinations it takes me to. This day we were out of Newhaven, Sussex on the Carrick Lee skippered by Frank Shaw. Franks old Carrick Lee was a large double-hull that was massive, so it was a bit of a surprise to find that he'd changed to a smaller single-hulled boat. Immediately, I knew the majority of my shooting would be on the 14mm Sigma, although I was wishing I'd not sold my 10.5mm fisheye. On boats there's little need for anything longer than 50mm in reality.... it's a crowded workspace with bodies everywhere (plus equipment) and there are so few opportunities to shoot across the deck.
I'd brought a load of off-camera flash gear too, in the hope that I'd have an opportunity to create some funky lighting but again, too many moving bodies meant flashes could be obscured, plus the boat moves around so much in relation to the sun, the lighting is a nightmare; one minute you're shooting in full sun, the next you're shooting into it and having to power flash into the shadows. In the end I just decided to go with an on-camera SB-700. I shot some stiff on TTL but when it came to the catch shots I knew it'd be a bi quicker to set it to manual to quickly change the ambient/flash levels.
Anyway, steaming 25 miles out was a case of focussing and not letting the sickness kick in. The great thing about boat fishing is that you quickly have to bond with the people alongside you. I knew no one but the journalist with me (Barney Wright) and the skipper, who is a no-nonsense guy who speaks his mind and more often than norm has you in stitches.
Thankfully, and I won't bore you with the technical details, we caught a load of fish, mainly cod, with a 20lb 4oz fish falling to Barney's mate, Matt Todd. He was chuffed as is to be expected. I spent so long behind the lens that I only got about 30 minutes fishing in at the end of the day when the tide had slackened and it was pap.
"Matt Todd with his 20-pounder. Framed with a lot of space around the subject so we could possibly use this as a double-page spread (DPS). I also shot a portrait version for use on a single page or a cover."
Feature in the bag, we had a 90-minute steam back to port (we'd been steadily move back to shore through the day) so while the boys were doing the filleting - another bonus of these jobs is a lot of fresh fish for the pot - I got the 70-200mm out to try and get some shots of the gulls that were following the boat. It was fascinating to watch several species of gull all vying for the tit-bits thrown overboard. But at times, there seemed to be something that drew the birds alongside the boat, a bit like those films of dolphins you see in the wake of a speeding boat. They were hanging serenely in the air beside us, often close enough to have leapt out to touch even if there was 40-metres of water beneath! They were fascinating to watch and had me transfixed through the journey back. Safe to say, I rattled off about 8GB of raw shots but the birds' movement was so quick that much of the time it was impossible to track them properly. I probably had about 7.5GB of blurred, out of focus bird photos. I was out of my depth.
I managed to rattle a few good ones off after I realised a two-button reset was required to get my AF back to something useable - faffing around with settings should be left to the experts! I'm actually happy with the gull shots bearing in mind we were doing something like 15 knots. One even got entered into an online photo comp, although at the time of writing I'm not in the running.
On reflection, I loved the day and came away wanting to go out again soon. I love the banter on board, I love the photography challenges, and when it's not rocking and rolling, I love the feeling of freedom you only get when you're somewhere remote.
Boats are a real challenge to shoot on. It's hard enough working in tight spaces on land, but doing it on a 10ft x 18ft boat deck that was rolling all over is even harder. Add in the fact you are limited on vantage points, and it's something that you quickly have to get used to.
"General shots like this demand a wide lens and getting your timing right not only to get thing level in the swell, but also the lighting and the position of the anglers."
I was out shooting for Total Sea Fishing magazine, a magazine I like working on if only because of the variety of destinations it takes me to. This day we were out of Newhaven, Sussex on the Carrick Lee skippered by Frank Shaw. Franks old Carrick Lee was a large double-hull that was massive, so it was a bit of a surprise to find that he'd changed to a smaller single-hulled boat. Immediately, I knew the majority of my shooting would be on the 14mm Sigma, although I was wishing I'd not sold my 10.5mm fisheye. On boats there's little need for anything longer than 50mm in reality.... it's a crowded workspace with bodies everywhere (plus equipment) and there are so few opportunities to shoot across the deck.
I'd brought a load of off-camera flash gear too, in the hope that I'd have an opportunity to create some funky lighting but again, too many moving bodies meant flashes could be obscured, plus the boat moves around so much in relation to the sun, the lighting is a nightmare; one minute you're shooting in full sun, the next you're shooting into it and having to power flash into the shadows. In the end I just decided to go with an on-camera SB-700. I shot some stiff on TTL but when it came to the catch shots I knew it'd be a bi quicker to set it to manual to quickly change the ambient/flash levels.
Anyway, steaming 25 miles out was a case of focussing and not letting the sickness kick in. The great thing about boat fishing is that you quickly have to bond with the people alongside you. I knew no one but the journalist with me (Barney Wright) and the skipper, who is a no-nonsense guy who speaks his mind and more often than norm has you in stitches.
Thankfully, and I won't bore you with the technical details, we caught a load of fish, mainly cod, with a 20lb 4oz fish falling to Barney's mate, Matt Todd. He was chuffed as is to be expected. I spent so long behind the lens that I only got about 30 minutes fishing in at the end of the day when the tide had slackened and it was pap.
Feature in the bag, we had a 90-minute steam back to port (we'd been steadily move back to shore through the day) so while the boys were doing the filleting - another bonus of these jobs is a lot of fresh fish for the pot - I got the 70-200mm out to try and get some shots of the gulls that were following the boat. It was fascinating to watch several species of gull all vying for the tit-bits thrown overboard. But at times, there seemed to be something that drew the birds alongside the boat, a bit like those films of dolphins you see in the wake of a speeding boat. They were hanging serenely in the air beside us, often close enough to have leapt out to touch even if there was 40-metres of water beneath! They were fascinating to watch and had me transfixed through the journey back. Safe to say, I rattled off about 8GB of raw shots but the birds' movement was so quick that much of the time it was impossible to track them properly. I probably had about 7.5GB of blurred, out of focus bird photos. I was out of my depth.
I managed to rattle a few good ones off after I realised a two-button reset was required to get my AF back to something useable - faffing around with settings should be left to the experts! I'm actually happy with the gull shots bearing in mind we were doing something like 15 knots. One even got entered into an online photo comp, although at the time of writing I'm not in the running.
On reflection, I loved the day and came away wanting to go out again soon. I love the banter on board, I love the photography challenges, and when it's not rocking and rolling, I love the feeling of freedom you only get when you're somewhere remote.
Saturday, 25 February 2012
Look And You Will Find....
I love Flickr as a portfolio device but when you actually take time to look through other Flickrites'(?) work you quickly realise that there are some truly great photographs out there in cyberspace.
The shot below is from a Flickr contact, Vincent Gallo, who has done really simple but highly creative combining of shots that had me totally fooled when I first saw it.
Here's Vincent's first shot, done via freelensing:
www.flickr.com/photos/galllo/5561713552/in/set-7215762190...
Here's Vincent's second shot of the Aston:
www.flickr.com/photos/galllo/4735318738/
I love the fact that the car shot on its own is an excellent capture. But the skyline shot use freelancing, a technique I've yet to try and one that looks exciting. I've shot on 5x4" before and loved the tilt and shift elements, but because I don't shoot film these days, I forget that the same effect (schiemflug in principle I suppose) can be achieved on modern gear.
Anyway, hopefully Vincent will get a bit more traffic (and a few more mentions in other blogs) and you'll see more of his work.
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
"Trusty Sidekick"
Via Flickr:
Had a bad day today feeling ill but tonight I just needed to take a photograph.
It's a bit of a 'redux' version of a previous shot in which I gave praise to my reliable Nikon D2x.
Just playing around again with lightpainting - white screen on HTC phone, black velvet as the backdrop with a long exposure. I just urned the camera on to get the LCD glow (the timer is on about 5s).
Not sure about the font though - need something a bit slimmer and more elegant. I can see a font-finding mission looming....
*Nikon D2x
*Nikon 35mm f/1.8
*ISO 100
*20secs @ f/6.3
*Outputted from LR3 into Photoshop CS3 for text additioon
Saturday, 18 February 2012
An evening drive….
Just been having a play tonight to get out of the house while I'm down at the mother-in-law's in South Wales.
This was taken on the road from Treherbert that leads over the Rhigos, where the WRC stages are held for Rally GB in Wales. It's a great road; winding and fast, with breathtaking views that culminate in a viewpoint that takes in the Brecon Beacons and its highest peak, Pen-y-fan.
It was freezing tonight, with really strong winds so i was really quick in getting some shots done. This was more of a test to see how things would look at this time of night with light trails in the scene. I like the green headlight glow from the Xenon bulbs but not so keen on the flare off the rear brake light. I tried another exposure with a flash to pick out some details, namely the wheels, but they just didn't look right layered over this exposure - too false methinks.
Anyway, this is just another stage in my learning about car photography and I'm enjoying it :)
*Nikon D2x
*Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8
*ISO 100
*1.6secs @ f/8
*Processed in Lightroom 3 and Photoshop CS3
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