The Wonder of Sex

Well if that isn't a title to get me some hits, I don't know what is. Unfortunately it's not really mine. It's the title of an upcoming show at Dunedin's Fortune Theatre. Just before Christmas I had the pleasure of shooting some promotional material for the fortune's upcoming season and now that they've had their live preview it's okay for me to share a few shots.

This one is of 'The Wonder of Sex' writer Patrick Barlow. I knew Patrick in a previous life when I was writing a kids science show for TV and Patrick was acting in it. For this shot, since we were shooting for a few different productions on the downstairs stage at the Fortune, it made sense to take my studio lighting kit. We could have relied on the house lights to get the full theatre effect, but I didn't have time to muck about with an unset lighting grid. Gotta say I'm not in love with the grey background and the line through Patrick's head, but the shot was to be cut out and photoshopped later.  On the Fortune's Website, you can see their graphics maven Nikki has done some saucy Photoshop magic on the original. I like it a lot.

The shot below reveals my set-up reflected in Patrick's eye: Octabox high left for Key, softbox left for fill, and a kicker/separation light high left rear, provided by one of my bare Canon flashes.




And there, if you look carefully in the middle of it all, is me at work -something you often have to look very hard to find.

The Photographic Assignment With Almost Everything

You can click of any of my pictures to go to my Flickr site for a larger view. For a really good look, click again to view them on black.



Some days one of those assignments with almost everything lands in your lap.  Just before I left for family vacation, I got a call from a client looking for someone to photograph the transport of some wind farm components from Dunedin Wharf to the installation site above Lake Mahinerangi. I'd have to take some days out from my camping holiday to do it, but this job had it all - cool stuff to photograph, technical challenges, and a great excuse to get up before dawn.  My only disappointment was that wharf security wouldn't let me as close as I wanted to the ship, let alone on board, or that I couldn't ride on the trucks.  It would have been nice if there'd been a budget for aerials of course, but apart from those tiny niggles, the only drawback was the lack of an insulated coffee mug with a one litre capacity.





The shipments rolled out from the wharf at 4.00 am, which meant 3.00 am starts for me. I love any excuse to light shots, but my chances here were limited since nobody was going to wait around for me to faff around with flashes, stands and radio triggers, and the safety guys were not prepared to risk me dazzling their drivers, so while I did manage to quickly pop a flash into the cab of one of the trucks (top) and some others on the payload, much of my pre-dawn work had to be done with the ambient lighting at high ISO and long exposures - as well as a little of Lightroom's fill light slider.



I spent a little time up on the Saddle Hill overbridge trying to combine second-curtain flash with long exposures to get some light trails leading up to a static image of the vehicles. One reason for my choice of position was to show more of the payload rather than the tractor units (the main part of the brief) as well as show where the stuff is heading to rather than where it's coming from. The other reason is that it shows the trucks heading down the wrong side of the motorway out of town. Some units were so long, they wouldn't be able to negotiate the Mosgiel roundabout or some corners on the left-hand side of the road. This was a hard shot to get right. Only 3 trucks make the trip at a time, and because the weights of the components are different, they travel at different speeds, making the exposure for the light trails different every time. Add to that the fact that nearly every time a truck went under me, a logging truck went by me just a meter away on the overpass, making the whole thing rumble and sway.



Nice shots to be had as the trucks started climbing the hills above the Taieri Plain, but again, without the risk of dazzling the driver, I couldn't employ second-curtain flash and shutter drag to get the effect I really wanted - not that I think my flash would have been as distracting as the lights of an oncoming vehicle, but safety first.






Dawn saw the 3-truck convoy come together at the Mahinerangi Road turn-off, where I was able to use a little flash during the drivers' short break. Again I would have liked to go all Joe McNally or Strobist on it and place flashes in cool places, but there was really only time to keep the flash on camera and do the old run-and-gun.





It was hard to get a meaningful perspective on some things other than from far away - the blade units are 44 metres long, not counting the added length of tractor unit or trailer. Get up close, and they're just weird shapes tapering to a tiny tractor unit half a rugby paddock away.



Finally there was the long slow grind along gravel roads up to the wind farm site above Lake Mahinerangi. I'm not a huge fan of these things in our valuable high country landscapes, but this is a pretty good location: lots of wind naturally but it's way out of view in pasture land overlooking an artificial lake, surrounded by pine plantation forest. This place lost its natural values a while ago. And these things do look kind of cool in their own right.





Images captured, lessons learned as always. Now I just have to wait and see if the client is happy - and catch up on a little sleep before the next job.

On Vacation

Well, not quite on vacation. I'm back in town doing some commercial shooting for the day but I can't wait to get back to our camping ground and more of this...









... and who in their right mind wouldn't?

Back later.

A Retina-Searing Kaleidoscope of Chiffon

In my last post I said the Tautuku wedding would be a hoot and it was, so I had to share this:



I'd have to describe this wedding as tasteful. In a lime-chilli-chocolate-peppermint-honey-soy-mustard-wasabi kind of way.

15 chiffon-clad sirens in a rainbow of colours, a beach, and Elvis. I'm lucky enough to be selective about the wedding jobs I take and I'm glad I took this one. The chance to play with all that colour was a dream and an inspiration. My grateful thanks goes to Bridget and her "bitches" for letting me be a part of it all.

Wild Weddng

I'm in the lucky position of only taking on wedding work I really want to do.  Weddings can be great gigs, but there are issues, like working on your weekends and dealing with bridezillas (not that I've actually ever met any apart from the one I married).  Believe me, full-time wedding photogs earn their money.  So I'm really looking forward to heading here to shoot a wedding this weekend.



Tautuku Peninsula, in the Catlins district. It's beautiful wild country where my client will be getting married at an outdoor education camp. Group photos on that wonderful beach and the nearby cliffs. Now here's the interesting bit: 15 Bridesmaids in 70's style Chiffon dresses. Talk about contrast! It's going to be a hoot.

No Wasted Walk

Yesterday I was full of good intentions... striding off up a track that leads up Maungatua, camera and lenses in my bag, hoping to get some landscape pictures from the treeline, but mainly intending to get my legs in shape for the Hump Ridge Track I'm walking in a couple of months time.  I'd allowed a few hours for the exercise, but a little over five minutes in, I was confronted by this:


Lee Stream in flood. (Not to be confused with the Lee Stream that flows into the Taieri upstream of Outram Glen). In other circumstances I'd have crossed and carried on with my walk, but the rain was still falling, and while I had a watertight gear bag, I really didn't want to risk returning to a higher stream and hazardous crossing. I could jack it in and go home, or I could wander back down the track, trying to see the great subject material around me and capturing it. Four hours and a few hundred metres of bush track. I decided that would be just enough time.

OK first photo opportunity. Stream in flood? Time to pull out the Neutral Density filter and make that water dreamy-soft.



I was using exposures from about 4 to 10 seconds here. What I've learned with long exposures like these is that foliage can be a problem. Your rocks will be nice and sharp (assuming you've got your camera rock steady), the water will be smoothed out, but if you've any breeze at all, the foliage will be moving about and blurred in the final picture. OK if you want it, but you start to lose the effect if you haven't got plenty of good sharp stuff in frame. Unless things are really still, it's best to frame for just the rocks and water.

Then I was off down the track, getting some details of the walk: reflections in puddles, macro of leaves, bark textures... I've been into strobism for so long, I was kind of missing my flashes, but you have to be able to work with what you've got. The light was mostly overcast, but occasionally some dappled light hit the forest floor, isolating or back lighting a fern.




The tripod was invaluable, allowing me to get nice sharp shots in the low forest light, but if I hadn't had it with me, I'd have adapted. That's going to be my mission on the Hump Ridge Track - to help people make good pictures no matter what the circumstances, no matter what their gear. Puddles, dead leaves, flooded streams...the world is full of great subject material. We just have to learn to see it.

Over Another Hump

Welcome to 2011.  I know for certain that it's going to be a good year.  That's because I've got some challenging new projects in the pipeline that I'm pretty excited about.  Foremost in mind is my celebrity walk on the Hump Ridge Track.



For three days starting on March 2nd this year I'll be doing the walk and sharing all my photo expertise with those who join me. That's going to leave us with about two days, 23 hours and fifty minutes to fill, so it's a good thing that there's so much to enjoy along the way.



First, there's the spectacular scenery. You just take that as a given on New Zealand walking tracks. For instance on day two we'll descend through the coastal rain forest via the Percy Burn viaduct, a remnant of the forestry industry that once exploited the area.  More of the track's eye candy to come in a later post.



The Hump Ridge celebrity walks are much more than bush-bashing your way from scenic wonder via epic outlook to awesome vista. I've done my share of sweating up the hills and mountains with a 20kg pack, eating only what I was prepared to carry and sleeping in spartan huts, tents or rock bivouacs. This March, we'll be walking the track, but all our heavy gear will be transported to our accommodations by helicopter.  (I won't tell if you won't.)  Personally, I know I'm going to struggle with the temptation to carry more photographic gear in its place.



Those accommodations? Comfortable?   Make that very comfortable. Forget about sleeping on a thin groundsheet on top of gnarled tree roots while your companions snore like an engine test at the airbus factory (although it's hard to forget if you've ever experienced it, believe me). Think private rooms with King-size beds. And while I'm enough of a masochist purist to still enjoy a strip wash in a cold mountain stream, on this trip I'll be enjoying hot showers. Now lets talk about the food and drink.


 Leave your dried food and water purifying tablets at home. The Hump Ridge guided walks offer excellent food on licenced premises.  When I walked into Okaka hut last year, I expected to be greeted by the traditional aromatic mix of camp stove fuel, damp socks and insect repellent.  Instead, I was welcomed by the smell of baking brownies.  Something to drink? Great wines, cold beers, take your pick. Let me tell you there's nothing like a mulled wine as you take in the coastal and alpine views from Okaka hut and that's just what I plan to do.  In moderation of course, there'll be two more days walking to do.

But that's not all we'll be doing.  On my walk, we'll be making stunning pictures together.  Let me tell you how, in another post.  If you're interested, click your way here to find out more about the track, and make a booking.