Day 56 - those escalators again

Another phone pic at the station, trying to use the long exposure to blur the steps. A bit wobbly when hand held of course.


Location : 1 Station Rd, Huddersfield, Kirklees HD2 1,

Day 55 - photographing metal... scoop revisited

It's the scoop again!

This time I've got it resting on a grey board.  One flash with blue gel and softbox is used to light the surface.  This is from behind and doesn't affect the scoop as it isn't directly reflected in any of the metal.  The softbox gives the soft shadow you can see under the scoop.  A second bare flash, camera right with 1/2 CTO (warming) gel is aiming at a white board camera left and gobo'd to prevent direct spill onto the flat grey board.  This is what you see in the surface of the scoop.

Day 54 - photographing metal... scoop

This is an icecream scoop, which presented rather more of a challenge than I had anticipated.  The shiny, curved surfaces reflect almost everything in the room, so controlling the look of the surfaces is incredibly hard.  This was a first attempt, however, so I'm not too disappointed.

This used two flashes.  One is camera left, with a gobo to stop flare on the camera lens.  This gives the two highlights on the edges of the scoop.  A second flash is positioned low down to light a white foam board above.  This creates the lighter area on the inner surface of the scoop, giving the separation between inner surface and outer front edge.

I've still got some unwanted reflections, but its as good as I could manage in an evening!

Day 53 - photographing metal... trophy

I'm working through a book on lighting at the moment so this week you're getting some experiments in lighting difficult things.  First up, shiny metal.  This is an old fencing trophy...

This was lit using a small softbox close to the right and a large reflector to the left.  The softbox is close to make it a large light source, giving a soft shadow and bigger highlight, but this also gives a stronger fall off of light across the image.  The reflector reduces this and provides a matching highlight on the other side. Both are kept out of the family of angles that reflect in the flat central part of the trophy.  This was angled to reflect the unlit ceiling, making it dark grey and making the writing visible.

Things to work on... the highlight is still intrusive, so perhaps using a bounce card or similar instead of the direct softbox would help?  The shadow is still a problem, so the softbox really should move higher to minimise it.  I'd need to be careful to keep its reflection out of the main surface though.

Day 52 - Sian and Anna

Much to the relief of my two regular readers, here's a picture of two Taylor girls.  Gorgeous, no?

There's another pic and the lighting info after the click

Day 51 - Tonight Matthew, I'm Eva Gardner!

Well, thankfully it isn't me as Eva Gardner, but our good friend Tracy giving us the Hollywood glamour look.

Strobist: YN 460-II into shoot through umbrella at 1/8 close camera right.  Sigma 530 DG Super at 1/32 high camera left.  Snooted Vivitar 730AFC on low power on the background from camera left.

Day 50 - Tristan

I had a lovely photo shoot with Alice and her little boy, Tristan today.  He's a lively, happy boy who's full of smiles, so it was a real pleasure to take some pictures for them.  This is one of my favourites from the day.

Day 49 - guess who?

More experiments with the background today.  This is using our wardrobe to create a frame within the frame and the snooted flash to give some separation and and shape to the background.

Strobist: Sigma 530 DG Super @ 1/16 with reflective umbrella centre right.  YN460-II at about 1/32 with foam snoot on background from camera left.

Day 48 - me me me

Sorry folks, it's another self portrait today.  You might get quite a few of these while I play with lighting and composition.

Strobist: Bare flashes @ about 1/16 power, camera left and right.  Third bounced off the ceiling for a bit of extra fill.

Day 47 - Jessica's art

I was at a local art group meeting on Tuesday.  I didn't have time for anything clever in the photo department, so I took a picture of Jessica's beautiful artwork instead.

Day 46 - in the background

Although I like to keep things as simple as possible in my photos, I wanted to get away from the plain black or white backgrounds that I've been using for most things.  I quite like use of textures that some people introduce in photoshop, but I wanted to do something in camera, rather than add it afterwards.

This shot used second flash, close the wall, to bring out the texture of the old wallpaper in our living room.  Given a bit more time I would have experimented with moving that flash back to avoid the hot spot and fall off in this one.  Although I quite like the gradient across the frame and the double duty the flash offers in giving some shape to my right cheek, the effect could be a bit more subtle.

Strobist: Sigma 530 DG Super @ 1/16 with Lumiquest Softbox III as key, high centre right.  YN 460-II bare camera left.

Day 45 - shoot your greens

Short of moggles in the evening, I've once again turned to the kitchen to provide a still life as well as sustenance.  This portrait of a slightly soft member of the brassica genus is lit with a three light set up.  Bare flash 45 degrees camera right as key, one with mini softbox as fill and one with snooted behind left for separation from the background.

Day 44 - Coffee Beans

I wanted to produce something that looks a little commercial.  The sort of image you might see hanging in your favourite local multi-national, super skinny soya grande mochaccino serving coffee house.

Ta da! Some bouncing coffee beans in an espresso cup!

Strobist info: Sigma 530 DG Super @ 1/16 power through Lumiquest Softbox III camera left with a large white board on the right for fill.

Day 43 - water drop

I've wanted to try my hand at a water drop photo for quite a while and finally got around to it today.  As a result, I've got a new found respect for anyone that regularly produces beautiful work like this.

Here's my effort:

Considering how difficult it is to coordinate this, even when the flashes recycle quick enough to allow continuous shooting (only 2.5 fps on the D50), anyone who gets it spot on is either highly dexterous, extremely patient, or possibly just jammy.

Strobist: YN460-II and Sigma 530 DG Super on about 1/16.  One flash to each side, bounced off red and yellow card, respectively.  I used a third sheet of green card as the background.

Day 42 - Oh I love to love / But my baby just loves to dance

Sian bought some little dancing people for the girls, so I've given them the disco treatment.  Glitterball effect courtesy of flash fired through a chrome colander.

Strobist info: Ambient light from a kitchen strip light.  YN460-II on low power fired through colander camera right.  White balance set for ambient so the flash light comes out cold.  Exposure of 1/15s to catch some movement in the little dancers.

Day 41 - flower (no gel)

A similar idea to yesterday, but a bit more thought into the key light and no gel to colour the background.  I don't like too many colours in my pictures and this was colourful enough on its own.  Both this and the shot from yesterday used the new foam snoot on the background and the Lumiquest Softbox III on the key light.

Day 40 - flower and a gel

I recently got hold of some coloured gels to use on the flash, so I tried out some funky colours on the background light in some flower pictures.

Day 39 - station blues

I didn't have much time for photos on Monday, but I grabbed this at the station on the way home.  The blue on the escalator is all real, but I've desaturated the rest.

Day 38 - vintage look

Sian bought a new hat today so we could try a vintage look portrait.  I tried a few lighting set ups, but this was my favourite.

Another shot and lighting info for those who click...

Day 37 - Hannah

We had the pleasure of Hannah's company today.  A rare event as she was squeezing us into a brief window between a European tour with her Australian choir and a trip back to Oz for her sister's wedding.  Hannah also agreed to pose for some portrait shots, giving us this lovely shot for today.

Once again, I learned much by doing this.  We were trying to work on creating flattering poses and working variations to get the maximum value from each pose.  In this shot I like the way the hand frames the face, giving it a beautiful shape.  In other poses the pose combined with my broad lighting was much less flattering.  I originally arranged the lights for a different pose facing to the left (short lighting) and didn't move them for this one.  My laziness spoiled many of the otherwise good pictures.

I'll try something similar another day to work on getting the light and pose right together!

Strobist info:  YN460-II into a reflective umbrella 45 degrees high camera left.  Sigma 530 DG Super diagonally across (rear camera right) with snoot as hair light.  Large white foam board reflector flat in front model.

Thanks Hannah!

Day 36 - photo shoot with friends

We had a photo shoot with some friends today.  The aim was to take some photographs of their lovely children, but as Jessica insisted on sitting next to her friend I grabbed a couple of them together too.

Obviously the rest of the pictures of the day are for the family to share if they want to, but I thought this one was rather sweet.

It was great to have the opportunity to photograph another family and I learnt a lot in the process.  I'm always amazed at how comfortable children are in front of a camera, which lets you capture some wonderfully natural moments and expressions.

Day 35 - Two flash windmill

This is a two flash set up, with two preliminary shots to show the effect of each flash.  The first is lighting the background, which then throws light back through the translucent windmill.  The second flash, screened off from the background, just lights the windmill from the right.

As usual, it was all triggered using the Cactus V4.  I still need to learn exactly how to control the background light to get a clean white.  I suspect in this case I needed a bit more juice from the flash and to increase the distance between the flash and subject so it wasn't overwhelmed by the reflected backlight.

Day 34 - Bubble Box

I wanted to create something of a fantasy picture today, inspired by some photos I've seen recently that exploit the wireless flash trigger to get the light in unusual places.  Please admire the magical bubble box!

This was taken using the YN460-II on its lowest power setting inside the box, covered with a white cloth to diffuse the light and triggered using the Cactus V4.  I used the D50 at 1/250s at f/22 with the Sigma 10-20 at 20mm.  This killed off the ambient light and most the light bouncing back off the ceiling.  My glamorous assistant blew bubbles over the box while I fired away on continuous shooting (only 2.5 frames per second on the D50), which I hope gives the impression of bubbles floating out of the box.

The colours were achieved in Gimp with a little cross-processing style curves adjustment.

I'm pleased with the result, given how quickly this was put together, and I think this kind of set up could be exploited as part of a bigger picture.  That, however, will have to wait for another day.

A quick note on the hardware...  Although it isn't an earth shattering frame rate, the flash was on low power and it was all at close range, I was still impressed that both the YN460-II and Cactus V4 had no trouble keeping up with continuous shooting.  I don't intend to do a serious review of either piece of kit as I'm sure most people reading this aren't interested, but I have been pleasantly surprised at how well these have performed since I got them.

Day 33 - two for the price of one

This blog is nothing is not sustainable.  I've recycled the tulips from earlier in the week, which have now shed all their petals, to make this picture.

I arranged the petals on a white foam board and, to get the soft light, I put the YN460-II next to the petals camera right and bounced it off the ceiling.  To get a little shape and texture in the petals I used the built in mini bounce card to throw some direct light back over the top.

I used the Nikon D50 with a 50mm lens at f/1.8 and 1/250s to get the shallow depth of field and kill off any ambient light.

Day 32 - for those who want to see the back of me

I wanted to try out some more lighting possibilities tonight, but I didn't have any volunteers.  Sadly for anyone following this blog this means another self-portrait.

Strobist info: Sigma 530 DG Super @ 1/4 power with Lumiquest Softbox II down to the right.

Post processing: The muted colours were achieved in Gimp with a curves-adjusted monochrome overlay on the original.

January

When I first decided to do this photo 365 project, I thought I would just aim to pick up the camera every day and, if all went well, learn something along the way. The first month has exceeded all my expectations in terms of what I've learned, the quality of what I've made with such a relentless brief and the amount of effort it has taken to keep it up.

I felt that I'd reached something of a creative plateau before starting this. I could use the camera, I understood about composition, colours and a bit about light. I'd taken some stuff I was pleased with, but rarely felt like I had really created something.

This last month has really opened my eyes to more exciting possibilities and given me something to aim for. I've still got a lot to learn, so expect a few more still life efforts while I work on lighting. I'm also hoping to start some collaborative projects in the coming months, to have a reason for the work beyond just making pictures, so that might get posted here too.

Finally, thanks to everyone who has taken a look at the project this month. Knowing that people are looking really does help motivate me to keep this up.



I was at : Globe Rd, Leeds LS11 5,