Sixty Strangers

Street photography can be a challenge for a number of reasons - busy pedestrian traffic, changing light conditions, and the fear of approaching strangers and asking to take their picture. Now chuck in the added complication of trying to do it with off-camera flash, and setting yourself a goal of sixty strangers in a morning.



That was the aim of my latest expedition. It's an example of the latest fad in photography called Street Strobism. Not easy to do on your own, so I've joined up with some other guys to form The Light Brigade, an informal photographic project group. "Sixty Strangers" was our first project together and as usual with my photography, it involved a steep learning curve and mixed results!



I actually enjoyed approaching people the most. Nearly everyone was happy to participate. I think we'll do it all again some time. Now that I've got the basics, it'd be nice to finesse the picture details - more creative exposure, backgrounds and posing strangers quickly.



Stay tuned for more Light Brigade projects!

My Kind Of Bubbles

I decided to experiment with a high-key shot today. I found an unsuspecting subject having a bubble bath and used my Orbis Ring Flash to get that nice even light. I removed the colour, whacked up the exposure a bit in photoshop and voila: My Kind of Bubbles.



Note to self: The less darks in the subject, the better. Have a nice light background that you can blast away with exposure, and overexpose in camera. Finally, little girls don't like B&W very much.

Donated to Science

This week I decided to start some portraits of my friend Dr Paul Trotman (aka Dr. Know). Paul's a Dr who makes film and TV. He's just finished putting together his film Donated To Science, which I did some stills shooting for. Much of the film was shot in the dissecting room at Otago University's Dunedin Med School, and despite the ick factor that may elicit, I think its a great little documentary. Now it's time to wind up the publicity machine, and that means some publicity pictures!



Paul has been cutting his film at home. The backdrop was a little busy with all those books, but I needed to expose for the ambient light level, so that the editing screens behind him would be visible. Film-maker in front of edit gear... it's such a cliche, but you have to cover the bases, These pictures were just a start, I'm looking forward to shooting him in more... anatomical surroundings soon.

The deadline has closed for Strobist Boot Camp II assignment 1, and the standard of entries is pretty high. I'll be happy enough if my shot of Boog doesn't get rejected, since it's quite a bit looser than the traditional head shot the assignment called for. I can't wait to see who's picture was judged the best - and of course what assignment 2 is going to be.

I've also been involved in a new project with some fellow Dunedin photographers. Not a lot more to say about that yet, except that the group is called The Light Brigade.

Charge!

He Tangata

He aha te mea nui?
He tangata.
He tangata.
He tangata.



So far I've been a lot more comfortable shooting landscapes than people. So I knew Strobist Boot Camp II's first exercise - a head shot, was going to be a challenge that would do me a lot of good. As the week has gone by though, I've been stressing more and more about the whole thing. I've accumulated enough gear to attempt many styles, and have been practising as much as I can with it all - learning to balance flash with ambient light; lighting from multiple angles; hard and soft light sources, coloured gels... Last night though, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all.

I knew I wanted Boog as my model, and I wanted to capture his Kai Tahu side rather than the muso in him, but I really couldn't think of a suitable background. I was thinking about dark rooms or bare brick. Thank goodness I went on a recce this morning, and found the ideal backdrop: A copy of the Treaty of Waitangi on display at the Otago Early Settlers Museum. They had no problem letting us shoot there, and Boog showed up with a great prop and half moko. Once I'd settled on the light I wanted, the stress dropped away. I chose hard light with bare strobes - just a little CTO gel on the flash at camera left just behind Boog's shoulder. I also did a few shots with the umbrella on my key light, just for a little variety.



I'm happy that I pulled off something that pushed the limits of my present ability and more importantly, have discovered that taking pictures of people is fun. Next week I'm planning some street photography. It's just like the Maori proverb goes:

What is the most important thing?
It's people
It's people
It's people.

Black and White and White and White

Snow has struck the city today. Schools are closed and most people are stuck at home because of a layer of ice under the snow, making roads treacherous. It's a family day if ever there was one, so not a lot of opportunity to make pictures other than family snaps, but I did get this:



After several months taking photos, I'm finally starting to enjoy black and white. I think what's working for me here are the curves Georgia is making in the snow, the upright of her trunk and the diagonals her arms make. Colour didn't really have much to add, especially since her ski suit is largely grey.

The Many Moods of Marcus

My much-anticipated shoot-through umbrella and stand arrived yesterday and I didn't hesitate to put it to use in part II of my portrait shoot with Marcus Turner (Shots from the first shoot here). So here's "Accordion now for benefit of proletariat"



The shoot-through makes for a nice big soft light source, and I'm looking forward to using it for some more portraits. I love the idea of balancing flash with the background ambient light, and when I saw the view of Otago Harbour from Marcus's living room, I really wanted to get a few shots with the view as his background. Some of the other shots in this series were better in terms of light - a little more shadow, but I like Marcus's pose best in this one. He reminds me of a Stalinist propaganda hero. I quickly moved onto a few shots with the Orbis ring flash:



Then I moved on to try a more moody setup,with a high-placed flash aimed down through a gridspot to constrict the light path, and another coming from the side.







Painting with light. I think I'm starting to get it now. This pretty much completes the little portrait job Marcus asked me to do. It's been a lot of fun and a great learning experience. Hope you like 'em Marcus!

Everythng I've learned about lighting so far has come from David Hobby's Strobist Blog. It's an amazing resource, and if you go there now (the link is on the right), you can join up for David's Strobist Boot Camp II. I intend to be part of it!

Now, do me a favour and leave a comment, or sign up to receive regular updates when there's something new to look at here!

Vulcan

Do you like welding? I like welding. My Dad was a fitter and welder who worked on big hydro projects around the world... Spain, Rhodesia, New Zealand, so it's got herioc connotations for me. Arc welding is a challenge to photograph. The arc is a dramatic source of hard light on the welder and the sparks add colour and action.

To get the spark streaks, you've got to have a nice slow shutter speed. I got this at 1/30 sec at f/8. The problem is that the arc can be so bright, either that part of the image is all burned out, or your welder can be way underexposed. If you're trying to get the arc in shot like this you may also have some serious lens flare to deal with.



I was pretty pleased to have gotten this on my first try. I have to confess to a little digital buggery to get some detail in those arc highlights, but nothing major.

There are also risks to this kind of photography. Those beautiful little sparks can seriously damage your lens or filter, and looking into this light for even a little while can give you a nasty UV burn that feels like sandpaper on your eyeballs. I remember my Dad would occasionally suffer that, and he was so inured to little burns that they seldom bothered him. Ah, the age of heroes.