At the other end of the scale, there's my mate Dave. Dave has recently played a few gigs behind the drum kit in my band Bluestone - and very well too. He's played some serious gigs with some serious bands in the UK and is as Geordie a lad as you can expect to meet this far south of deepest darkest Newcastle. Thankfully I was born in Hartlepool, about 30 miles down the road (with its own Yorkshire-influenced Geordie dialect). I had the accent whipped out of me in primary school, but can translate for the rest of the band when needed.
I was just a little surprised when this Blues/Rock Percussion God told me what he does in his spare time. Knowing he puts me just a degree of separation or two away from AC/DC made me expect either power boating, Motor cross or the ancient English sport of shin-kicking. But a couple of years ago, Dave started painting landscapes, and bloody good ones as it turns out. I was already impressed at the images that he had to show me on his phone, but last week he asked me to come around and capture some digitally for him before he offers them for sale. Wow.
Dave takes months to make these pictures, spending weeks prepping the canvas before creating the image, then honing details like reflections and small pebbles, and applying glazes to apply colour effects to things like sky and clouds.
They're lovely, but Dave's canvas prep and glazes make his paintings quite glossy - always a challenge to shoot pictures of. You need to light the canvas evenly, avoiding hot spots and direct reflections. You also need to keep the canvas parallel to the plane of your sensor and get the camera well back to minimise image distortion - not always easy in small rooms or installations. Thankfully I had this all in mind and got the job done in short order. As usual, most of the knowledge I applied came from what I learned over ad David Hobby's Strobist blog (link on the right) but the book I'm reading at the moment would have come in handy too. It's Light: Science and Magic by Fil Hunter, Steven Biver and Paul Fuqua, pretty much required reading for photogs who want to master the technical side of lighting. I'm eating it up, but that's the kind of geek I am. Dave's an artist.
I'm sure Dave's stuff will sell well. Keep an eye out for his signature. Probably a good time to invest in his pictures. I'd appreciate it if you did, cause I'm pretty sure that as well as more canvas and paint, he'll invest some of the money on this really nice set of cymbals he's got his eye on that will make him (and the rest of us in Bluestone) sound even better and let us earn some beer money. Support the arts and you benefit the whole economy folks.
I shot the man himself with my Orbis ring flash adapter. Still loving that smooth lighting effect on human skin.
All in all, it's been a fun week, shooting a story for Woman's Day and doing some event and group photography for the Partners in International Management conference at Otago University. I've got another tourism shoot coming up later this week - which has me looking at investing in some very cool lighting equipment. Stay tuned for that story.
I really love this job's variety and the range of people I get to meet while doing it. They surprise you in wonderful and amusing ways. Kind of like when a 6-year old takes a great landscape picture without even leaving your office.
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