AFREAKIN PHOTOGRAPHY

Gavin & Morgan

2011-04-08T04:32:00.001-07:00

2 April was the BIG day for Gavin Pietersen & Morgan Tomes & what an amazing day it was! Everything was perfect! Sun out, a few puffy clouds & smiles all round. A special day to be a part of & here are a few shots from this gorgeous wedding.

♥ All the best to Gavin & Morgan Pietersen! ♥

BMeggs

2011-04-08T03:14:00.001-07:00

A new stunt filled site/blog is up! BMeggs is dedicated to my BMX shots & missions. Go have a look, feel free to comment. There are articles, galleries & links to your favourite SA BMX sites & blogs... and a few interviews with our local stuntmen coming soon!

DO IT NOW!

Wayne Reiche flairing the roughest tranny this side of Sea Point main road!

Working for the Lord...

2011-03-18T04:22:00.000-07:00

Nope, I haven't gone religious, I was asked to give Lord Irvine Laidlaw & his wife Christine a two day macro course at their amazing house, Noordhoek Manor. It is the most expensive property in South Africa & it is not difficult to see why. Irvine has been making serious changes & have been many additions since my last visit.

He loves walking through his garden (which is more like a private Kirstenbosch than a garden) & enjoying it through a macro lens. The privilege I had to share that with him & his wife was amazing.

I didn't shoot much myself, but did get a few to help explain a few techniques.

Bellville Badassness

2011-01-28T05:06:00.000-08:00

Mr Reiche has some tricks up his sleeve & he pulled a nice one out yesterday. He took me to a grass bank with about a foot of tranny on top. After struggling a bit to find my angle I saw he was getting so much more height than I expected & was looking so good. Halfway through the session my wizards batteries went on strike & got a few natural light ones & as the sun dipped I sorted them out & could actually see what my lighting was doing. Bazil & Werner were sessioning with Wayne & got a nice no hander from Bazil & down whip from Werner just before Wayne pulled the flair.

I've added a bit of "The Riot" spice to the shot & posted it nice & big so you may grace your desktop with some Afreakin goodness if you so desire.

British Invasion

2010-12-24T01:24:00.000-08:00

Well, with the wedding came some of Greg's family & friends. A great bunch of crazy & talented guys. I had to organise a shoot with them, it was mainly just fooling around & getting random silly stuff. I was keen to get a few of Stuta & Kirk, Stuta is a hip hop & dubstep MC & Kirk is a master on the guitar & they are planning to do a bit of a collaboration, so thought I'd get some shots to see if they'd be keen to use them.

Kirk Raddon

Mister ST

composite of individual smoking shots

Mr. & Mrs Hinds

2010-12-23T02:21:00.000-08:00

Craziness of anticipation & organisation took over our our house for the past few months in preparation for Colette Palmer & Greg Hinds' wedding. The 1st of us 3 siblings to tie the knot & what an amazing day it was!

The week prior to the wedding was really hot & windy & had everyone stressing about things they had no control over, so a pretty much normal week in the Palmer house. ha ha Woke up Wednesday morning & looked out the window to see what the weather man had in store for us... well, it couldn't have been more perfect! Overcast, but high cloud, so no rain & plenty of light with no harsh shadows.

My job was obviously to capture the event & was off to the boys 1st. They were getting ready at the Hinds residence & after trying to think of somewhere to shoot I decided to go to a little jungle at the bottom of their garden & had some fun. With Greg & his friends things always turn into fun & games in a few min, so was a nice relaxed start with a few fun nonsense shots, but thought that captured their relationship way better than stiff organised poses.

After that we made our way to an olive orchard near their place for a few more & again the nonsense started, so got my fisheye out to have some fun.

Packed up my toys & then it was off to shoot my sister getting ready. When I got there they were still busy with the makeup, so grabbed a few of that & then a few with dress & shoes & putting it all together. She was looking gorgeous & radiating so much happiness, my Dad came in to see the result of all the preparation & little secret trips. His eyes welled up & a quick clearing of the throat & hug to keep it under control, such special moments are what days like this are all about.

It was time to make our way to the old manor house on the reserve we live on. My parents met there & have had many parties there over the years, so is almost part of the family. I had to move like mad to be in the right place in time. All of the preparation paid off & everything went so smoothly & I was just running back & forth trying to catch as much as I could.

Some champagne & congratulations followed, with the family group shots & then it was time to get the 2 alone & have some fun! We went to a field just below our house to have a nice view of the mountains & were lucky to have some sweet peas flowering just next to the road with millions of little purple & white flowers which added a nice touch of colour to the shots.

Strobist Setup:
SB-600 either side behind on full & 85mm
SB-900 right on 1/8 & 105mm

After some fun with my flashes we made our way back for speeches & some dancing. My buddy Koos helped me out with the flashes to make things go nice & quick so we didn't keep the couple away from the guests for too long. I shot the speeches & a bit of the dancing & then put my toys away to join in & enjoy what was left of my sisters wedding.

Contermanskloof Downhill

2010-12-19T07:02:00.000-08:00

The 12 Dec saw another DH race, this time in Durbanville Hills on the Contermanskloof track. It was a new one for me & was eager to check it out & see what I could do. It was a scorcher of a day & the 1st thing I noticed was that the shuttle pick up & end of the track were pretty far apart, this meant my usual technique of catching the shuttle up wasn't going to work. I decided to park at the bottom of the trail & walk up to save a long walk back to my car after the race. It's really open & can see just about the entire trail from the finish line, so some long shots were definitely in order.

The track is really steep & was getting dusty, so I was amped! The heat was killing me on the walk up & decided to start shooting at a rock garden just after the road gap. I'd seen enough spots on the way up to keep me busy on the way down & was going to need to get to some shade in the lunch break, so didn't want to be too far from the end.

After shooting the rock garden I moved down to a little drop after some tight switchbacks for the faster guys & some quick lens changing & running into place I managed to catch Pottie from nice & close with my fisheye.
After that I missioned back down & got something cold to drink & chilled in the shade. The 2nd runs started & I shot a corner close to the finish for a bit & then moved up to a little gap for a few more & then down to the last long tabletop. By then it was seriously cooking & could feel myself frying in the sun. I don't know how the riders were handling it with all their kit on, must have been the red bull.Pottie crashed in his 1st run & Stefan was 1st, that put the pressure on Pottie to push it on his 2nd run & he did just that taking it by a few splits.

So in the end it was:
1st Johann "Pottie" Potgieter
2nd Stefan Garlicky
3rd Darryn Stow

That's it for this years DH in the Western Cape, I just want to thank all the sponsors for making it all possible & to Chris Nixon for asking me to shoot for them. It's been a great season & will be starting off early next year again, so see you on the slopes on the 22nd & 23rd January 2011!

A Cape Town Wedding

2010-11-30T00:35:00.000-08:00

A good friend Lloyd Goss got married to Candice Abrahams on the 20th. They asked me to shoot on the day & while thinking of a good location for the shoot they decided that in town & along the fan walk would suit them much better than going to a garden. At first I thought it would be a serious challenge to shoot in a busy city, but after walking around the weekend before scouting for interesting things I was seriously liking the idea more & more.

I went to Candice's house to get some shots of her getting ready & couldn't resist getting my flashes out for a few shots. Then we were off to the church, low light, high ISO, grainy, but a great atmosphere.

Then it was time for town. Lloyd, Candice & their entourage walking around town was an amazing sight, cars hooting & passers by congratulating them made such a great atmosphere. We were super lucky. I'm still not sure what was going on in town, but half of the roads were blocked, so we had the place just about to ourselves. A nice overcast day made shooting easy under earth's softbox. We went along the fan walk & stopped at anything that grabbed our attention & with some of the world cup decorations around we didn't have a shortage of interesting props & spots to work with. We finished with some group shots at Thibault Square & I couldn't resist getting my flashes out again & after shooting a few long I thought I'd try some fun shot with my fisheye just for something different. The overcast skies & dark buildings were working perfectly with the bright colours.

Then it was back for dinner, speeches & a few songs. It was tricky to shoot in the dark & didn't want to start with flash setups, but high ISO, f/2.8 & a steady hand was good enough to capture the romantic atmosphere.

Congratulations to Lloyd & Candice Goss. Thank you for letting me be part of your special day & hope married life treats you well! ♥

Up Close & Personal

2010-11-11T04:29:00.000-08:00

This past weekend we had another great macro workshop with great people & amazing images. We had 4 shoots. The 1st was in the garden of 33 Stellenbosch & didn't shoot anything myself, just walked around helping & making sure everyone was happy & managing with this tricky form of photography.

The next morning we were off to Eagle Encounters at Spier. That's always one of my favorites. I've been there a number of times & tried to get a few shots of as many birds as possible, but this time I got stuck on the Martial (Brutus) & the Crowned Eagle. When I first tried to get close to Brutus I got some serious warnings telling me I might be lunch & with as much power as a lions jaw in it's feet I was very aware of every movement he made. 3 years later, he was calm & letting us get really close. The Crowned Eagle was still not 100% comfortable with us getting in his face, but with some patience we managed to get some great shots of him.

The next shoot was in Rose's Garden at Rustenberg that afternoon. I wondered around just looking at what our options were & enjoying the amazing garden & variety of flowers. I eventually went to get my camera to see what I could do. After a few shots I felt like I was just doing the same again & helped someone with multiple exposures, I had never gotten round to doing myself for some strange reason & after a few test shots I thought of trying to focus on the far petals of a flower & as I held the shutter in burst, I moved slightly back to bring the focus past the front petals. My idea was to get a combination of a multiple exposure & orton image. Quite happy with the result & will need to play with that more. I couldn't help myself & found some flies & by then a little breeze had picked up & made life quite tricky, but kept going & managed to get a few sharp flies.

Sunday morning was another one of my favorites, Butterfly World. They are always working hard there & the place had a few new additions again & was swarming with Glass Wing butterflies. I was keen to shoot a bit wider than I normally do with these guys & after a few shots I went into another section to find a nice group of them sitting on some palm fronds. I was super excited, coz I knew the lines of the leaves & all the butterflies would give the opportunity for some cool stuff. I spent quite a while there & just walked around looking & decided to shoot the pupae. Something else I'd never gotten around to. They were quite tricky to shoot, but were too good not to give it a go.

That wrapped up the shooting & everyone was tired & had been working hard, but very happy. The standard of work was amazing, even with quite a few people that had never done macro before. Have a look at our Dance of Light group to see some images the participants shot during the weekend.

Moe Staants

2010-11-10T03:36:00.001-08:00

Moe & I have been busy capturing loads of staants on his new SALVO MP01. I've been keeping a lot of the better stuff we get under wraps, but with his consistency we get so much every mission that I really had to choose the best of the best & thought I'd share some of the "keepers" that didn't make the cut. He's now onto the 2nd proto & by the sounds of things all the issues he had with the MP01 have been sorted & is getting put through it's paces. Expect a little something on that in the not too distant future.

The MP01 looking sexy in the sunset

Flairs came back on the 1st shoot... the frame is obviously made for staants!

Session No.2 ... flair training well underway with lots of SALVO branding

Session No.3 ... Moe Flairs & a sunset

Session No.4 ... So the mini & flairs got done, we had to see how the MP01 & Moe could handle the streets. All I'm gonna say is; for not being a street rider at all Moe could've fooled a lot of people that day.

Session No.5 was at Moe's home in the dirt. Trick jump got killed & then some practice adding a little spice to the flairs on his soft dirt quarter.

Session No.6 ... more trick jump slaying & flair steeze! Wait till you see the topping these flairs are getting.

The 6th & latest session was a Halloween Jam warm up & just had some fun... He also treated me to a trick I had ordered a week or so before & was amped on something a little different.

We will be shooting & filming lots more. I can confidently say that Moe & his SALVO are a force to be reckoned with & is almost too good to shoot!

Face2Face

2010-10-20T02:59:00.000-07:00

Our September Face to Face workshop couldn't have been better, perfect weather, great people & amazing images. Once again I was helping on the shoots & not shooting too seriously myself, but manged to get a few setups going to get some different shots for the models. I find I'm finally getting to grips with posing people, still need a LOT of work, but it's getting there.

As usual a few of my shots from the weekend.

Have a look at our Dance of Light group on Facebook for some of the participants images.

Spring Course

2010-09-30T02:46:00.000-07:00

I was asked by the Stellenbosch University to be part of their spring school & handle the advanced photography class. It was a week long course the 1st week of Sept. My class was really small, only 3 people in the end, but was great to have a more personal course & could help everyone individually nice & easily. We had a lecture & shoot each day & processing in the afternoon. All the shoots were on campus, 2 at the botanical gardens, one at the Jan Marrais Park & the walk up & the last on the infamous rooi plein. I focused mainly on vignetting & creative use of DoF, movement, use of lenses & finding good interesting angles so that your image says what you want it to.

I didn't shoot too seriously myself, but did take a few shots to help explain & show the participants what I was after, how I think & look for other interesting elements around my subject to make the shot more dynamic. Here are a few shots of mine from that week.

Aamz

2010-09-23T01:02:00.000-07:00

Some more portrait practice. 1 model, 3 spots & a few flashes later...

Natural Light

Langebaan Park

2010-08-05T02:44:00.000-07:00

A new park has just graced Langebaan's presence & we (Ryan, Zynn & I) went through for a session on Tuesday. We made an early start to make the most of the warm winters day & got there around 12. It's been a while since we've made any missions & the park was looking good! I can't remember when last I've really been in a hurry to get my skates on & was so keen to see the possibilities the park had to offer. Just rolled around for a while & noticed there are a few dead spots that need a bit of attention. I overheard the "superiors" talking about it, so hopefully they'll get sorted out soon. Other than that everything is looking & feeling really good & had a fun session.

After quite a while I decided to get the cam out & snap a few shots. Started off with a double flat rail & just shot Ryan & Zynn sessioning for a while. I was quite keen to have a pic or 2 of myself & didn't have anything too special in mind, so just stuck with a fish on the bowls extention & set up & got Zynn to be my trigger finger. My legs were starting to cramp after the marathon session & we were all feeling a bit finnished.

I nearly started packing up, but decided to see what the hip would look like with the fisheye & just took some nat light shots of Zynn. I liked what I was seeing, so set up & caught a few more airs. My legs were feeling good again & was keen to see how high I could get, so put Zynn on the trigger again. After 2 or 3 goes my legs were not too happy, but was too amped to get the shot & kept pushing a few more. Kinda got what I was after & decided to call it a day.

I had just packed up & was feeling finnished from a day in the sun on a nice reflective concrete surface. My body decided to give up on me & had a bit of a spiritual heatstroke experience & made use of the drive back to recover. Bit of a crap way to end a great day, but was well worth it & def initely going back soon for some more, are a few things we didn't get to that I'm keen to try.

Ryan - AO Fish

Ryan - Backslide

Ryan - Misfit

Zynn - 360 Top Soul

Zynn - True Savanna

Ryan - AO Top Porn

Zynn - 360 Fish

Eric - Fish

Zynn - Abstract Mute

Ryan - Mute

Zynn - Stale Grab

PoorTraits

2010-07-22T07:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday seemed like the right time to play with some self ports again, so I got out my old school uniform. Just about ten years since I last wore it or tied a tie & still can't do it properly. haha

We've set up my mom's studio for a photoshop workshop tomorrow & decided to use the screen in there as my background & after a few shots I decided that I've done enough with a white BG & turned it around.

Not too sure what I was after I just played around a bit & eventually thought of using some toothpaste to have the "getting up" theme going... that & I knew with the lighting I had that the toothpaste would glow a bit. I took 1 test shot to see if the framing was ok & was happy, so got my toothbrush, pressed the selftimer & began squeezing... then to look at the camera & think of an expression quick! Put everything down, had a look & was amped. Got it 1st go, doesn't happen too often with this type of thing & didn't need to crop at all.

Today my mom needed some portraits, so set up exactly the same, but lowered the strength of both flashes behind her to not have quite such a harsh rim light.

Strobist Setup
Key stays the same
Me: SB-600 1/8 & SB-900 1/4
Mom: SB-600 1/16 & SB-900 1/8

Blazed Days

2010-07-22T07:35:00.000-07:00

Blaze is back from a month in Durban & hooked up with him for a session. We first set out to find some quarters in a sketchy area & am kinda glad we didn't find it coz Blaze didn't remember exactly where they were. It would've been asking for trouble to haul out all my equipment there, so we opted for spot 2.

That was a bit safer, but in the parking lot of a mall & security stopped him from doing a wallride, but said he could ride, but at his own risk. We were amped to not get bust, so I took my stuff out, set up & here he comes again... now his story had changed & said we can't do this here. We tried to work something out & mid conversation he just mssioned off. Well, we didn't need an invite to take advantage of the situation & got to buisness.

The spot was a one brick bump up 3 stairs & after about 70 tries he got one. Wasn't as clean as we were hoping, but pedal to top tube & rolling away would have to do for now. He was tired, I had the shot I was after so we decided to call it & go get Pierre & see what else we coud hit.

After that it was a lot of sitting around in parking lots wondering where to go & didn't really get anywhere from there & decided to end the day.

Back to Boarding

2010-07-01T03:56:00.000-07:00

I got a ring from Al saying they were keen to go skate Markotter & was keen to shoot some skateboarding again. Looking through my pics made me realise how long it's been since I made a street mission with any plankers. Markotter was a no go & me not being too keen to go back to De Jagers gap again I suggested PRG's double set.

Immediately Al called Dylan out on a tre flip. It was nearly a bust, but I managed to sweet talk the guard there into letting us have a quick session.

A warm up ollie & kickflip went down pretty quick, then it was onto the tre.

I took a few with the fish, but thought I'd try a different angle & shoot long & was a much better idea. The sun was getting low & giving the whole shot a warm glow. Flare was a bit of an issue, but between my lens hood & hand I managed to get rid of the worst of it.
It took a little while before he landed it, but the light was just getting better & better, so just kept shooting.

Pretty amped on it & keen to make more skateboard missions in the not too distant future.

Sir Lowry's Pass DH

2010-06-30T03:39:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was the second leg of the provincial DH races & was such a good weekend for riding & shooting.

I did a write up for Pinkbike, so check it out for a bit more detail, but here are a few shots from the weekend.

Steve

2010-06-18T11:24:00.000-07:00

Footage from 2006... been sitting on one of my hard drives & decided to finally get to it (my photography kinda got in the way). Just a quick edit, nothing special but Tony Yayo's stunts. Some tricks go on after the music & bummed I can't use the audio from the footy, but oh well. ENJOY!
-AFREAKIN-

Box Edit

2010-06-17T06:31:00.000-07:00

Footage from between April & September 2007 when the park in Stell just got started. Not the most amazing editing or camera work, but just wanted to get it out there... expect a few street edits soon too.
-AFREAKIN-

RIDEbmx

2010-06-09T02:22:00.000-07:00

So amped I managed to get an article on Cape Town BMXing in RIDEbmx. Keep your eyes open for the next issue. Can't wait to get my hands on a copy!

Girls in the Grass

2010-06-09T01:53:00.000-07:00

My first more serious model shoot experience was different, but fun. Cot in Contact with Jeanne via Modelbase.co.za & she brought 2 of her friends along, Somarie & Lindsay. I was keen to shoot in a nice open area with a view & decided that the bottom of the cycle track at G-Spot would be it. I was keen for some sunset backgrounds, but started off facing the mountain & kept going that way for a while playing with my lighting as always & the warm sunlight was adding a great feel to everything. The girls were a bit of a hazard to the cyclists with a few crashing into trees trying to catch a glimpse. haha

It was good to have 3 models & was like a relay so I could keep going as they got changed & didn't waste a minute. Of course a few group shots were needed & then once the light was low enough I turned around & took a few into the last sunset colours & ended off with a fun group shot of them all jumping.

Definitely keen to work more on my model shots more, so expect a few more portrait posts in the future. Thanks to the girls for coming out to model for me, is much appreciated!

Dirtopia 2010

2010-05-24T06:20:00.000-07:00

Dirtopia, a biking festival full of fun & of course great riding!

I did quite a long write up for Pinkbike, so not going to have too much of a story with this one, but here are a few shots that didn't go into the other write up.

Impromptu Exhibition

2010-05-17T01:21:00.000-07:00

My mom & I were asked to be part of a local exhibition & I was quite amped being my 1st time exhibiting my work. We needed to send one piece of work & a shot of ourselves & I sent my HDR of Simonsberg thinking it would be a strong shot to be put on the invite with a piece by all the other artists. They had other plans & used the shot of me on the invite & poster. It was quite a surprise when we got it & after going around town I was getting more amped on the fact that I'm holding my skate in the pic & hopefully reminding people that rolling is not dead. Who knows, maybe some kid gets amped to start or an OG dusts his boots off & get on the wheels again.

Anyway I hope to see you at the opening on the 18th at 6pm!

Peace!

What’s New Doc

2010-04-20T06:45:00.000-07:00

I was asked to take shots of a good family friend Graham Ellis a physician & poet in his spare time. It was for an article in a medical magazine called "What’s New Doc". These are a few shots that I liked that aren't being used.

Light Tings

2010-04-18T06:11:00.000-07:00

I've been playing with some more lighting setups the last few days. Have seen & done shots where one strobe is pointed at the BG to create a halo around the person so shadows stand out & thought I'd try the opposite. Lighting the sides of the screen very softly & played around with intensity, spread & position for a while before I was completely happy. Having a darker BG behind me meant that the sides of my face would have to be lit up to stand out, so put a strobe either side through an umbrella & played around a bit till I had them balanced with the other 2 strobes on the BG & then the fun began.

Going for something a bit smarter & not my usual silly self portraits this time & found some props & played around with the post a bit too. Somewhere between all this I noticed all the nice grey tones & thought I'd go grab my big Razors hood & with the lighting it worked better than I'd hoped for, hiding my face in shadows. A bit creepy & looked like the hood had a life of it's own, just with hands sticking out. Had a bit of fun with that & then was back to the smart ones for a bit.

Strobist:
SB-600 either side on me on 1/4 & 85m
SB-600 left on BG on 1/32 & 24m
SB-900 right on BG on 1/64 & 24m
triggered with PW's

Playing with Myself

2010-04-10T03:36:00.001-07:00

I've been a bit unlucky with shoots lately & between work, broken bikes & no replies I havn't managed to shoot much action the last little while... so I reverted back to (what I like to call) the masturbation of photography, self portraits.

I don't mind looking silly for a laugh & got my dad's riding gear & road bike & decided to have a bit of fun with one of the most unflattering sport/hobby outfits there is. I was laughing the whole time I was working on the shots, so it's purpose was served long before I'd even finished it.

The next day I got to another prop I'd been keen to use with a model a while back, but got stood up, so I decided to have some more fun. I'm my best model, I'm always around when I need myself! Out came the old army helmet my buddy Koos found in someones attic while he was working & they kindly donated it to him. Not quite knowing what to do or what I was after as far as posing goes I tried a few funny expressions & random poses to see what was working & what wasn't. My shoot kinda got ended by the family coming home & wasn't sure if I'd actually gotten anything I was really happy with & loaded them on the PC & had a look & started working on a few that stood out & then had a little inspiration & decided to carry on with my playing in photoshop & quite amped on how it turned out. I fiddled a bit with the processing & have a manual way of getting an HDR feel & was liking it, so decided to do the real thing & have 1 shot of my normal processing & 1 HDR that I'm quite amped on. Definitely mustn't stop playing with HDR, it kinda took a back seat for a while, but think it's ready for a comeback!

Also popped in a setup shot for the army shoot for anyone keen on a behind the scenes shot.

Face to Face

2010-04-02T04:02:00.000-07:00

On the 19th we presented a Face to Face Workshop, where we aim to help people improve their portraiture with the equipment they have. It was a good one & saw some really good images from the participants.
I shot a bit as usual & had to play with my toys a bit, but was rather tricky with all the other photographers around, but managed to get a few nice shots & even took a few without all my flashes.

A few of my faves from there...

The Ditch

2010-03-29T03:50:00.000-07:00

We made a mission to "The Ditch" yesterday to get a few more shots for an article I'm busy with. I met the twins at Gums & had an interesting drive there, it's quite far out, but more than worth the mission! Literally miles of prefect concrete halfpipe with a few fun things on the way down. We started off right at the end of it, was a nice walk down & was a bit smaller & tighter tranny, but a nice view of the dam in the BG was good to shoot. We didn't stay too long & went further up to get a shot of something Wayne was keen for. That shot is staying hidden for now, but I will say it was one of the most challenging lighting setups I think I've ever done. Climbing up the sides with steep loose banks either side & not much to grab onto & trying to balance a flash up there was fun. We got the shot pretty quick & then to face the next challenge of packing up & getting out. We then drove a little further up to a spot with the best tranny & surface of the whole thing & had some fun shooting there with the last bit of light in the BG & got a few nice shots there. Am keeping those hidden for now too, but I have so many sick shots of Moe for this article already that I thought I'd put this textbook (as usual) Turndown in here too. Was a good day & amped on what I got, think I'll be returning to this spot for more soon!

:EDIT:
Just put up another 2 shots I'm not gonna use.
Jason getting some height & Wayne just chilling in the sunset

Macro Workshop 2010

2010-03-08T03:02:00.000-08:00

This weekend my mom & I presented a macro workshop in the lovely heatwave, thank God for an air-conditioned lecture hall! The 1st shoot on Friday was at 33 Stellenbosch in the garden & we had all sorts of toys to shoot as usual. Saturday morning we shot at Eagle Encounters at Spier & is one of my fav shoots & played with my flashes again. I missed the afternoon shoot at Rustenberg in Rose's garden & were at Butterfly World on Sunday morning, another spot I really enjoy. Here are a few of my favs of the weekend & a little tip for any keen photographers.

Ok, now for my tip of the day. haha

These 3 shots were taken of the same butterfly at the same spot & pretty much the same composition, but a completely different feel in each of them. I wanted to use this series to show how important your BG is. So many people get caught up in the subject so much that they forget about the MOST IMPORTANT thing in a shot, the BACKGROUND!
When you're shooting something focusing on the subject you're shooting is the obvious thing to do, so take the next step & concentrate on what else you're making your viewer look at.
First off I made sure not to have any distracting elements in the BG of any of them.
The first was shot standing at the height I just happen to be & had a nice soft BG with all of the OoF greens of the plants behind. I then thought I needed something else a bit more interesting & bent my legs a bit aiming more toward the roof & had some nice backlit leaves in the BG that made some nice specular highlights. On the next one I went even lower to have the sun behind the butterfly & have a seriously contrasty shot, but keep some nice specular highlights.

I personally like the middle one the most, but might change from day to day, but I hope I've opened your eyes to look at what you're not shooting just as much as you look at what you are!

Have a look at the Workshops we present at www.nicolepalmer.co.za

Mo Money!

2010-03-05T14:10:00.000-08:00

Went to shoot Malcolm on Thursday & had a sick session. He was keen to get some shots of a few tricks I hadn't shot in a while & got those done quick & easy. I heard he was practicing a new trick into the foam in Stell & he got it super dialed on the trick jump & I got the timing for it just in time to catch the one he got. That's gonna have to stay hidden for now, but as usual a post is not a post without some visual treats.

Tasty Trails

2010-03-01T05:15:00.000-08:00

Another tough day in Africa spent at Bel Aire. There was a nice session yesterday with Mo, Jason, Barrel, both Werners, Nicholas, Kevin, Julian, some MTB kids & the new Stellies local Mr. Rigby. Was cooking again & thank god for all the trees. Mo broke his brake cable early in the sesh, so was out & Jason was on form as usual with big flips & 3's. I won't say anything about David, the last pic I got of the session says it better than I could. Let's just say I'm super amped to have someone like that around to shoot!

Deer Park Boom!

2010-03-01T01:35:00.000-08:00

Went for a session with the rollers on Sat, has been ages since we've all rolled together & felt like a school reunion, but way better!
Started off at Bonwit ledge & was fun, but after being spoilt with smooth surfaces in the park, the cracks caused more trouble than I remember. We moved on to Deer Park before we melted in the sun & was a good choice with the boom & run up in the shade. I was struggling to decide weather I should skate or shoot coz the spot looked fun, but decided to shoot a bit. Was a tricky spot to shoot being in the shade with dappled light & a brightly lit BG, but between all my flashes & D70 I managed ok.
We're all getting way too old & were done after 2 spots, granted it was really hot, but was a fun sesh & good to see all the guys again. Hopefully make a few more missions with the guys soon.

Ultimate-X

2010-03-01T00:52:00.000-08:00

On the 20th of Feb the Waterfront was abused by BMX, MX & skaters in masses. Quite a scorcher of a day & was finding any form of shade to shoot from, but still managed to get a little crispy.
I shot the BMX most of the day & tried a few MX shots in their demos & left the skating to the other 1000 photographers there.
The BMX demos were sick, with all the usual suspects killing it. Mo with his double whips & 3 whips, Colin with some flip turndowns, Buddy just styling the crap out of everything & Wayne was on top form dominating the session! Two huge front flips, both clean as hell, dialed 3 tables & a nice 7. Havn't seen one of those from him before & got it perfect.
The MX guys were jaw dropping as usual jumping right over the BMX track & last trick of the day saw Sick Nick backflip the gap.
Everyone moved to Assembly afterwords, but after a day shooting in the sun, being nice & smelly & still needing to drive home I opted out of that one.

All in all a great day & event by OSP.

If you're keen to see these guys in action get yourself to zone 7 this weekend (6 & 7th) for the Pro-X

Night Skies

2010-02-12T01:24:00.000-08:00

I was up working on pics on Tuesday evening & heard a little rumble of thunder & went out to have a look. For the first time in quite a while there was lighting & proper forks, not just clouds lighting up. I've been keen to try to get a shot of lightning for a while & went to get my cams & tripods & started to shoot away with 30 sec exposures & as the one ended I just clicked another one & kept going for at least an hour. It wasn't too serious of a storm, so the lightning wasn't coming to often, but managed to catch one so nicely it feels like I composed the shot knowing exactly where the lightning was going to strike. Without any cropping I got a full frame of lightning over Stellenbosch. I could've stopped there, but was greedy & hoping for more & got a few little ones, but nothing half as good so I merged the other 2 into 1 shot. Am amped I managed quite so well & am keen for the next storm to give it another go.

Thursdaze with Chris

2010-01-29T03:01:00.000-08:00

Chris & I went out for another session around Stell yesterday. We've both been keen to session & shoot some different stuff & not just rail after rail. The 1st spot was at Boland College & was something quite different, but cool. We then went to Coetzenberg to session a boom & with our luck for crowds lately there was rugby tryouts for the 1st yr students, so it was packed! Is kinda good in a way coz then we blend in a bit better & get to session longer. This time was a bit better than the last as far as comments go & most people were quite interested in what we were up to & getting amped when they saw Chris roll (most people in SA have never seen real rollerblading live). Makes me love what we do that bit more! It was quite a tricky spot to hit being so high, so Chris rolled on a skinny bit of pavement with one foot & then hopped onto his trick. So hard to focus on the pavement & then immediately on the boom, but Chris is a champ & got a few nice tricks on it.

Again the shots are being saved for The Conference interview, but have 2 that we're not using.

Medieval Mini

2010-01-29T00:54:00.000-08:00

Went for a shoot with Malcolm at Kevin's mini last Sunday. Hooked up with Mo & were off to Kevin's place. I'd seen shots of his mini, so had an idea of what to expect. My expectations were not 100% tho, thought it was a 5ft ramp only to find something a little larger & was more like 7ft. A nice big ramp with a castle as a backdrop with the sun setting... what more could I ask for? Started off shooting long & was struggling a little with the strong light through the trees & loosing the riders in there. I needed more pop & managed to find some angles with darker more solid BG's & as the light got softer I could overpower it through the trees a bit more & got a few straight on shots. Anticipating a little bit of nice sunset colours with the castle I left the fisheye for last. Nothing too amazing as far as sunsets go unfortunately, but the low light is always good to get nice deep blue/magenta skies.

As usual Mo was putting down trick after trick & Kevin was nailing some big 3's to fakie & learning tables & getting stoked off the pics seeing how much better he was getting them.

A nice chilled Sunday afternoon session & a few shots in the bag. Always a good way to end a weekend!

Chris on Conference

2010-01-22T02:44:00.001-08:00

My friend Chris has recently been put on the Xsjado team as an ambassador for The Conference & was asked to get some shots together for an interview.
We went for a shoot with yesterday afternoon & started off with some portraits near the park he's put together & then went off to hit some street. Chris is a champ & we got 3 spots down in a 3 hours despite the traffic & madness of the student carnival. He's not only a damn good skater, he makes sure he leaves spots just as he found them & with the help of the BEST security guard ever, (we asked & he let us session the 2nd spot & got some soap & a sponge & helped Chris clean the wall when we were done) made my day to know there are such cool people! Those are staying under wraps for now tho, but here are a few of the portrait shot's we're not using, so thought I'd give a sneak peak.

Lighting Setup

Keep your eyes on The Conference Blog & Be-mag to see what we've been up to.

Downhill Hotness

2010-01-22T01:01:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday was the year opener for Western Cape Downhill in Paarl & was hotness on all fronts.
When it's warm in CT you're guaranteed a few extra degrees in Paarl, which took the thermometer to just over 40°C. I decided to scrap my usual plan of catching a shuttle up & walking down the track because the top section is completely open with not a spot of shade anywhere. The lower half of the track is more bushy & into a pine forest, so stuck to that.

I have shot the Paarl track quite often, so know it quite well & have shot so much of it I needed to look for different spots or at least try different angles to what I've done before (I can't shoot the same shots twice unless there is something I really want to improve on). I walked up to a small rock hop through trees that leads into an off chamber granite slope. I had shot this spot with my fisheye before, but thought there was still some potential in this spot that I hadn't managed to capture, so opted for a longer shot & after a bit of "gardening" I had a nice rock to stand on (in the shade). It was still practice, so guys weren't going all out, but still really amped on what I got there! While I was setting up I heard someone sliding, turned around just to catch Devin Chadbourn catch a thin tree with his visor. Thanks God he was wearing a leatt brace, coz from the way it looked it could've been quite serious. Went to make sure he was ok & was fine, but a bit shaken.

After the 1st spot I wanted to set up a little way down the track, but patchy sunlight was not working with me, so went down to the road gap. I normally steer clear of it, because it's normally the hotspot for anyone else shooting. Luckily this time there were only a few spectators, so set up & chilled there for the 1st run.

After that I headed to the last berm that basically ends on the finish line. As I was walking up I saw Gary hit it & get pretty flat & had never shot it before, so was keen for it. Started off long & Stefan went over the berm & nearly sent one of my flashes to hospital for the 2nd time, but luckily it was safe! I wasn't really feeling the long shots, didn't quite capture the energy I was seeing, so opted for my good old fisheye & played around a bit. Was waiting for someone to really tear it up & Jonty Neethling did just that. Nearly ate it, but managed to ride it out & gave me a nice dust shower. That was just what I was after tho & was amped with what I got.

Check Crank for more info & results.

Thanks to Stefan Garlicky for organising the race! Good to see someone so young really doing something good for the sport.

A New Line...

2009-12-20T23:30:00.001-08:00

I was asked to try my hand at some food photography & am always up to try something new, so was pretty keen to see what would be prepared & what I could manage to do with it. Photography is all about shapes & lines & this was no different. A really cool advantage is that you can easily position everything just as you want, so does make life a little easier & having someone with me for some more specific direction was a great help & managed to work quite quickly & smoothly. My "trial run" went really well & will be shooting for a fresh water fish book next year.
I don't go anywhere without all my toys & flashes & just put a lighting set up shot below.

Roll Model

2009-12-02T06:31:00.000-08:00

Have been looking around for some inspiring portrait shots to get ideas for lighting & get away from my fail safe rim light. Found a few nice things & decided to play with a technique I have actually already used in Namibia. Remembered we have a big screen my mom used to project on, so rolled it down & it worked like a charm. Started out just testing & doing random poses & have wanted to do a shot of me with my skates, so got one from the car & had to wear my Denial "Go & Roll" tee. A good reminder to keep me rolling a lot these holidays. Took a few tries to get my arm & head at the right angle for the shot & lighting & was alone, so used the selftimer & ran into place. Didn't take too long before I started to get something decent & just kept going so I had a few to choose from & here are 2 of my favs with some lighting info.

A few more self portraits I've been playing with. Just needed to have some fun.

Publications...

2009-11-30T01:56:00.000-08:00

Had a shoot with Karin Brynard a while back for her book "Plaas Moord" (Farm Murder). Tried a few softer shots, but wasn't the right feel for the book, so went for more earthy colours.

Savage Sundays!

2009-11-18T02:13:00.001-08:00

Been making a few missions with Stephen Savage shooting for an interview for Sunday! The interview is up, so go have a look. We had a few fun sessions & was good to go on solo missions & focus on the 1 trick/shot. Savage has mad energy, is always full of fun & always wants his trick a lil more perfect, so is good to shoot & while he tightens things up it gives me a chance to do the same. I'm really happy with what we managed to get & keen for more missions with him.

Here are some of the shots that didn't make the inteview.

Savage has also just joined The Riot team, they have a sweet new park edit with him killing it!

In the Streets

2009-09-04T02:24:00.000-07:00

Got a shout from Wayne that the guys were having a street session in Bellville. I've been keen to get out in the streets, shooting too much trails lately (loving it tho) & needed something different. Was quite a crew there & was good to see so many guys riding together... reminded me of the rollerblading street sessions we used to have & was good to watch the different style of riding again.

Blaze is Back!

2009-09-04T01:48:00.000-07:00

My boy Blaze is back on his bike after a bit of bad luck. After a cut on his hand & a broken ankle, he's back on his bike & almost back to normal. Just taking it easy strengthening his leg & looking forward to some good missions with him again. He gave me a shout to come get some shots at Camo's & I was amped to see him again & watch his quick snappy riding style.

Pinkbike Article

2009-09-04T01:00:00.000-07:00

I was asked to write an article for pinkbike.com & thought I'd put it up here to help anyone starting out with photography especially the action side of things.
___________________________________________________________________

Hello Pinkbike,

I have been asked to share the story behind my photography & way I go about things when I shoot, so here I am. I often get asked technical questions from keen upcoming photographers, so Jordan & I thought it would be a good idea to cover a few things that should help you out in understanding your camera better & how to get the best out of it. I’m sure that even if photography isn’t your thing it will be interesting to see what’s going on in a photographers mind while you pin it past them or float over some dirt jumps.

So, here we go…

Name: Eric Palmer

DOB: 26 July 1983

Afreakin Photography

I took up photography in June 2007, I was lucky enough to be given a Nikon D70, few lenses & SB-24 flash that has since expired. Photography was not a foreign subject to me, my mom is a professional art photographer & teacher & have been abused with photographic theory for the last 15 or so years & was never too keen to start with film because of the cost & what would I do with a huge collection of slides. It just didn’t seem worthwhile to me, but after studying animation for 3 years & doing a short editing course my interest in media grew quite a lot since I left school & with photography going digital it meant I could play with my shots & get them out there much easier than before.

An old family friend & professional photographer Willem Oets had recently changed from Nikon to Canon & still had his Nikon gear & offered it to me, which was the start of something quite life changing for me. Rollerblading was my life & the reason for my interest in action photography & because of the lack of rollerbladers in SA I set my sights on downhill. I live really close to a track they use for nationals every year & that’s how the bikers got me hassling them… I knew quite a few BMXers from rolling parks with them, so they have me bugging them now too.

2 years later here I am, having spent all my money on equipment & still spending what I don’t have yet on my wish list. Here is what I have at the moment

My D70 is the camera I use for the action the most. The fast sync speeds allow you to shoot at 1/640^th with flashes, I can push it further to 1/800^th. There is some darkening of the flash light when using the remote triggers, so try to stay below that as much as possible.

My D200 very seldomly gets used for action shots, mainly because I can only sync up to 1/250^th & is not very helpful in bright light, so if I do pull it out for action it would be in much lower light usually evening shoots. I use it more for landscape, macro & portrait work when I don’t need the faster syncing. On it is my 105mm Macro lens & also don’t use it for action often, mainly because it’s a fixed lens & I often can’t get to the right spot to get the shot & have to “zoom with my legs”. Is a great lens, extremely sharp & an f/2.8, but I have to run around too much with it to really enjoy it.

My 24-85mm is what I’ve been using the most for longer shots. It has a nice range from relatively wide to a good zoom, but I’m not always 100% happy with the quality of it & am replacing it with a 24-70mm f/2.8 to have sharper images & more control with the wider aperture.

My 10.5mm fisheye. I love this lens & maybe too much sometimes. It handles difficult lighting situations really well & allows you to get really close, but still keep a lot of the scenery in & is also an f/2.8 & a really sharp lens. Lately I’ve been trying to stay away from it & use the longer lenses, but the quality & fun distortion often is what has me pulling it out of my bag a little more often than I would like. That will hopefully change with the 2 new f/2.8 zooms.

My 70-300mm. I hardly ever use this lens for action because it’s never sharp enough, for landscapes you can get away with it, but on people I find I’m always disappointed with the quality, so it very rarely makes an appearance .

My new 70-200mm. This lens is a beast & is pretty much the best lens out there at the moment, super sharp, f/2.8, weather sealed & all the zooming & focusing is internal which makes it extremely fast & quiet. The only downsides to this lens is that the quality doesn’t come cheap & it’s rather heavy at just under 1.5kg. I haven’t had a proper shoot with it yet, but this is the Rolls Royce of lenses & sure I’m going to be super happy with its performance. Have taken random snaps around the house & is amazing so far, but can’t wait to get out & shoot some action with it!

My SB-600 & Pocket Wizard. This combo was a must have for me, Pocket Wizard are the leading off camera flash transceiver brand & are very simple, but work like a charm. Their range is up to about 450m, so can be pretty far away & still have your flashes fire, so if you like using long lenses these are a must have. 1 on each flash & 1 on the camera to trigger the flashes & the only time I’ve had a misfire is when the batteries in the flash or wizard are dead. The SB-600 is a great flash & has all the control you need with intensity settings from full to 1/64^th & spread settings from 14m (the widest beam) to 85m (the most concentrated). The only downside to this combo is that the SB-600’s don’t have a PC port on them to connect the wizard directly, so you need an extra little cable to hotshoe & adapter. I have 4 Wizards & 2 SB-600’s & am getting a SB-900 in August & that has the PC port, so I won’t have to worry about fiddly connections.

My backup flash, an old Pentax AF-330ftz. I’m not all that fond of this little thing. It has no intensity settings & spread from 24m to 85m, so you can’t control it all that much & it goes into standby every 5 minutes, which is really annoying. It does help me out in tough times though & when 1 of my SB-600’s was in for repair this allowed me to still be able to use 2 flashes during that time, so is not great, but better than nothing.

Something very simple, but not to forget is the rechargeable batteries. Each wizard takes 2 (they last really long) so that’s 8 for the triggers. Each flash uses 4 (lasts 1 shoot if I’m lucky & each flash often goes through 2 sets on a long shoot) so that’s 16. So now on an average shoot I need 24 batteries & now with the SB-900 coming it’ll probably add another 8 to the equation. Making sure your batteries are all charged & ready to go is obviously really important & having spares is never a bad idea, because as luck would have it it’s at the best time of the day that you run out & can miss the best opportunities if you’re not prepared. The same goes for camera batteries & making sure you’ve downloaded the previous shoot & formatted your card so everything is clean & charged up.

I also have 2 Manfrotto tripods for my flashes, I find they work much better than most light stands because you can position each leg individually & works better on uneven surfaces which is where I shoot 90% of the time.

All that goes into 1 Lowepro backpack that I lug with me everywhere, so the hard work starts long before I even get my camera out & work up quite a sweat just getting to some spots.

I’d like to get into & explain shooting in RAW & it’s ups & downs, strobism, which is basically the use of off camera flashes & how they handle in different light situations & how I go about deciding on what camera settings to use, processing, composition & a bit of my philosophy & way I approach my subject.

Shooting in RAW has some great advantages. The main difference between a RAW file & a jpg is that the RAW stores all the cameras settings with the image so you can fine tune things when you process the image much easier & better than you can with a jpg, because with a jpg the camera settings are merged with the image. The down side to RAW is the file size, a RAW shot is normally about double the size of a jpg. Your cards will fill up way faster, so you need to choose your shots a little more wisely. The other thing is your computer needs to be set up to handle RAW files. Most image viewing programs can’t view RAW’s, so you need a program to view the files, I use Nikon’s ViewNX to select the images I’d like to work on & delete the rest. Then to be able to convert the RAW into an editable file in Photoshop you need a plug-in & that’s what allows you to do the RAW processing & output the file to a .TIFF or .jpg that can then be opened in Photoshop itself to edit further. So it’s a bit more work, but worth it in the end.

Strobism is something I really enjoy doing & makes it possible to get studio type lighting on action sports. It is also quite challenging to get to grips with using more than one flash & shooting with the flashes & camera on manual. I enjoy figuring things out & spent many hours photographing random things in my room just to work out what setting did what on my flash & once I had worked that out I was ready to start with the action.

So in photography your aperture controls the depth of field (DoF), which is the area of sharpness in the shot. The shallowest DoF will be achieved by the lowest f number e.g. f/2.8 & largest DoF will then obviously be the largest f number, usually f/22, but with digital these days it can go up quite a bit more. The aperture controls the size your lens opens up inside to let the light through & the lowest number will be the widest your lens can open up & highest f number will be the smallest your lens can close down to. I like to compare this to a tap & that analogy has helped me with exposure like crazy. If the aperture is how much you open the tap f2.8 would be wide open & f/22 would be open only a touch to let a trickle through. To get a correct exposure you will need to fill a glass & at f/2.8 you will fill the same sized glass a lot faster than at f/22. So in the same light condition you will get much faster speeds at the lower end of the scale than the higher end & is the reason most people use rather wide apertures for action. Faster speeds will freeze the action & slower speeds will not & you will get a nice shot with a blurred rider. The next thing concerning exposure is the last thing you have control over & that is your ISO. The ISO is the sensitivity of the sensor to light, so keeping with the analogy the ISO would be the size of the glass you would like to fill. A low ISO of say 100 would be a big glass & you would need a lot of light to fill it & get a good exposure. On the other side an ISO of 1600 would be like filling a shot glass & would not need as much light to get a correct exposure. The downside to high ISO’s is that the image becomes grainy, so I generally keep it as low as possible. The last thing you need to keep in mind is the variable, which you are not in control of & that is the strength of ambient light at the time. This I like to compare to the water pressure. In strong sunlight you have a good solid water pressure & will get nice fast speeds, but at night or low light there isn’t much water pressure, so even if you open up to f/2.8 there still won’t be much light coming in & that is where your ISO will help to keep your speeds up. Remember the small glass & that will fill up in relatively good time even with just a trickle of water coming through.

So basically your:

Aperture controls DoF

Speed controls movement

ISO controls grain

& never forget the ever-changing variable, the ambient light at the time of pressing the shutter.

Now when we add flashes to the story, the same applies, but there are a few more things I like to keep in mind. Because the flash burst is so fast, probably about 1/10 000^th or so your speed doesn’t affect the flash exposure all that much, because even with the fast sync speeds of the D70 the fastest I can go is 1/800^th, so the flash burst has come & gone long before the exposure is over. So to control my flash exposure I use my aperture because the size of the opening in the lens will affect how much of the flash’s light will reach the sensor. If I need to get more light from my flashes when my lens is wide open the only other thing I can do is up my ISO.

So when using flashes the same applies as before, but your:

Aperture will control your flash exposure

Speed will control the ambient light

ISO will control both the flash & ambient light

Lighting set up, using the sun as a rim light.

The result

Ok, so now that that’s out of the way I have a few of my images shot in different light conditions & will explain why I chose the settings I did & flash positioning.

Colin Loudon – NFCC at Dirtopia

Nikon D70

1/800^th

f/5.6

ISO 200

Shooting during the day with bright sunlight can be quite a challenge, but luckily I have my D70 on my side with its fast sync speeds. The sun was quite low & coming from back left & put both my SB-600 bottom right of the landing & both on full & 85m to get as much light on him as possible to balance the strong sunlight & then using the quarter at the end of the line to hide the flashes & add a bit more depth to the shot. I really enjoy using the sun to get a strong rim light & using the flashes as a fill & it’s not often that it’s at the right angle, so was amped that it was working with me for these.

I pushed my speed up as much as I could to underplay the sunlight & opened my lens up to f5.6 to get as much light from the flashes as possible & because of the strong sunlight I left my ISO on 200 (the lowest I can go with my D70).

Malcolm Peters at his local trails Bel Air with a super clicked 3 Table.

Nikon D70

1/500^th

f/4.5

ISO 500

Being winter in SA at the moment trail building has been going off. Malcolm a.k.a Moe has put in a good amount of work here & I wanted to have him riding, but show all his recent work off at the same time. He’s one of if not the best dirt jumper in the country, so is always a treat to shoot him.

For this shot luck was on our side. Between me having some timing issues & him not getting the trick as clicked as he wanted we only got this shot 3^rd go, but worked out better that way. The sun just made a little appearance for us at the perfect time & lit the jumps up better that I could have hoped for.

As far as my lighting goes on this, I had 1 SB-600 just next to the landing of the 1^st jump (can see it in the shot) set on full & 14m & the other in line with the landing of the trick jump also on full & 14m. I often pull out the built in diffuser to widen the spread, but not put it in front of the beam so that I get maximum strength & width. I had them both on 14m to have a nice wide beam so I could light the jump & Moe at the same time & on full because I wanted to get him to pop & not get lost in the trees.

Malcolm at Bel Air getting his Turndowns clicked

Nikon D70

1/640^th

f/4

ISO 400

This shot was a bit of quick thinking, the trick jump is not the best from the front which is usually a good angle for turndowns, so was forced to try something else & tried the 90° approach, but it wasn’t working here because just to the right of the shot as it is now is an opening in the trees & he was getting a bit lost in the sky & it was giving me some issues with exposure, so thought of going between the 2 & getting it at 45° & then the BG was working with me. Some nice shadow area in the trees to make the brighter colours pop, but having a black bike & dark jeans on I needed to rely on my lighting to get that to stand out. This time I had 1 SB-600 just to the left on full & 14m to light his back & side (got a bit of the flare in & am not too amped on it). The other SB-600 was on the far side of the landing to the right, on full & 85m to get a more concentrated beam on him to nearly get a rim light to get his back wheel out of the shadows.

Shooting wider like this means I can’t get my flashes in as close as I might like, so to get as much power out of them as possible I had my aperture wide open, so between f3.5 & f5.6 (this is where that f2.8 puppy will make my life a lot easier) speed was between 1/640^th & 1/400^th & upped my ISO as I needed for each shot & often wanted more of the flash & ambient light to come through, so went a little higher on this shoot than I normally like to & was anywhere between 200 & 500 ISO.

Pierre van der Merwe flying in Tokai

Nikon D70

1/400^th

f/4.5

ISO 500

I saw this shot on the shoot before this one & had to get it on the next visit.

Pierre’s kit helping me out big time, that green really pops, so with a bit of flash light on him I had no problems in getting him to stand out from the BG. Besides him there were 2 things I wanted in this shot that caught my attention on the previous visit & that was the logs up front & the bush with white flowers on the takeoff. I had an SB-600 next to the takeoff on full & 14m to light the bush, jump & him & the other SB-600 off to the right on full & 85m to get more light on him from the front. It was a little overcast & had my flashes quite far from him, so needed to up my ISO again to get a good balance between the flash & ambient light.

Wayne Reiche – Unturndown at Dirtopia

Nikon D70

1/320^th

f/5.6

ISO 200

For this shot I was lucky enough to borrow 2 of Wayne’s flashes, so had a 4 flash setup on this & was so good to be able to have so much control.

I had 1 flash either side of the landing on full & 14m to light him & the jump & 2 either side of the take off on full & 85m to give as strong rim as possible. The light was pretty low, so could slow my speed down a bit to get some light in the sky… could’ve gone for 1/800^th if I wanted a just about completely black BG, but his dark pants would’ve blended in, so went for the brighter option.

Werner Matthee – Turndown at Richwood a.k.a The Farm ---- Front Curtain

Werner Matthee – Turndown at Richwood a.k.a The Farm ---- Rear Curtain

Nikon D70

1^st shot on 1/25^th

2^nd shot on 1/20^th

f/4.5 on both

ISO 250 on both

With these 2 shots I had a slower exposure to get more of the sunset colours to come through & when you work with slower shots like this & flash, you have the option of bringing in the flash timing & weather it goes off as you click the shutter (front curtain), or just before the shutter closes (rear curtain). I had one SB-600 to the right on full & 14m at about 45° to the landing & the other behind the jump on full & 85m for the rim light.

There was just about no light on the rider, so the fast flash burst freezes the action, but on the 1^st shot I saw that the movement was after he was frozen & liked the effect, but was on front curtain & it wasn’t adding to the shot as much as it could have with my lighting the way it was. I also tend to try to go with rear curtain more often, because it gives the feeling as if the rider is moving forward, where the front curtain often makes it look as if the rider is going the wrong way.

I quickly changed to rear curtain & on his next run got the same shot, but this time I feel the “shadow” & rim light work together much better & the bright rim against the black makes him stand out much better & as I mentioned it gives more the feeling that he’s moving forward. I also slowed my speed down a stop for the 2^nd shot, because obviously the later it got the lower the light was, so had to slow it down to get the same exposure on the sky & left the aperture as is for the flash exposure & pushed my ISO up 1 stop on both to get the flash exposure stronger.

Damion Devlin – Hip Boost at Richwood a.k.a The Farm

Nikon D200

1.6sec

f/4.5

ISO320

It was just about pitch black when we got this & needed a really slow shutter speed to get some light in the sky behind him. The orange glow was from Cape Town’s lights reflecting off the mist, so had to slow down a lot to get some colour out of it. Once again a rather wide aperture to get enough light from the flashes on Damion & the jump & upped the ISO a bit because the flashes were rather far away from him. I had 1 SB-600 to the right on full & 14m almost at 90° to the jump to get nice harsh shadows & bring the texture out of the jump & the other on top of the jump to the left on full & 50m to light him & get a bit of light on the landing also nearly 90° to get good shadows that side too. The timing of the flashes/trick needed to be spot on & because of the long exposure I opted to go with front curtain so when I clicked I froze the action & movement happened after. There are 2 other options I could have gone with. The 1^st would be quite tricky & that would be to use rear curtain & click as he hits the jump & hope the timing is good enough that the shutter closes & flashes go off as he’s at the peak of the air, but as I said, that will be tricky to work out where to click & was dark already & after a long session, so fiddling with that wouldn’t be too fun just then. The other option would be for me to put my cam on a tripod, take the trigger off my camera, possibly slow the shot down even more, click the camera as he leaves the jump & trigger the flashes manually at the right time, freezing the movement & then have the “shadow” trail go from the jump to the landing with him frozen in the middle. That was not an option for me at the time as both my tripods were under my flashes, but I’m keen to try something like that out in the near future. Have done it with friends just fooling around, but not with any serious action.

Gary Barnard – George DH Nationals

Nikon D70

1/80^th

f/6.3

ISO 200

Another thing flash can help you with is panning & helps the most when your subject is in the shade. Just like the last shot the flash burst freezes the action & there isn’t enough ambient light to give much of a blur if you don’t follow the rider perfectly. I had 1 SB-600 to the right on full & 14m (can see the difficulty of using off cam flashes & fisheye, I got the shadow of my wizard on the floor to the left.) & the other o the left on full & 85m to have stronger light on his back & help freeze him with the stronger burst.

I kept my ISO down so I could get the slowest speed possible, aperture for flash exposure again & speed for ambient light in the treetops & just click & follow as well as possible, but mainly rely on the flashes to freeze the action & the movement is more to blur the BG than anything else. For these I use front curtain, because again I want to freeze the rider as I click & not as the exposure ends.

Pierre in Tokai --- Processed RAW & Unedited

Edited image

Nikon D70

1/640^th

f/4.5

ISO 200

I would also like to touch on a very controversial side to photography… the post processing. Most people think that if an image has been through an editing program like Photoshop you have cheated & the image is “fake”. If you are one of those people I’m addressing you specifically. In the analogue days you would take your film to a processor & the next thing you see is a roll of slides or envelope with prints, because you were not aware of what they did behind the counter, the fact that your image had been “worked on” didn’t even enter your mind. Now when you do the exact same thing in Photoshop today people do not accept it, mainly because those people have no clue about Photoshop & have probably never opened the program up. So ignorance is a big factor to Photoshop’s bad rep. Fine, you can do more with an image in Photoshop than you can in a darkroom, but most of the time you don’t want to spend hours doing crazy adjustments to your images & I try to shoot correctly as much as possible to shorten the processing. I shoot quite a lot & try to get out at least twice to 3 times a week & if I got 15 good photos from each shoot & spent an hour on each I would spend my entire week editing, which is the last thing I want. I will admit though, in the beginning I did like to play with my shots more, but mainly because my skill behind the camera was lacking & to make up for it I would work more on my shot to get it how I wanted… but this is not the norm for 99% of professional & amateur photographers out there. A minor tweak in contras & colour is pretty much all I do to my images & every image of mine goes through Photoshop no matter how small the adjustment.

The 1^st of the 2 is an unedited shot, only the RAW adjustments have been done & the 2^nd is the edited one, so you can see it’s only really minor adjustments & on this one there was a little bit of root on the bottom left corner that was bugging me, so removed that, but I generally just crop edge problems out & very seldomly remove objects like this.

On the technical side I had one SB-600 behind the log on the right on full & 85m for the rim light on his left shoulder & the other just to the right of the landing on full & 14m to get light on him & under the goggles. I was lucky with the sun again & it was coming from back left & gave a good rim light on his right shoulder & top of his head. Again a fast speed & low ISO to underplay the sunlight & a wide aperture to get the most out of the flashes.

With all the technical aspects of photography one usually forgets about the most important thing in photography… composition. I have the luck of growing up surrounded by art photography & photographers & think that has given me a great advantage. Most riders get caught up with just framing the rider in the shot forgetting that the scenery is just as important if not more so than the rider. I always like to compare a tightly cropped shot of a rider with no scenery to a shot of a cricket ball against the sky. You have captured the action, but nothing else… you won’t know who is playing, where or how many spectators there are etc. A picture can say 1000 words… does yours say what you want? You need to think clearly of what you would like before you even touch a button on your camera. I often just walk around at a spot & watch the riders to see what looks good from where & how I can include the elements in my image. I then don’t need to struggle quite so much with my lighting & positioning of my flashes, because I see my shot or at least potential angles before I set anything up. Another important thing is to know the riders so you can find out what they are going to do so you can get a good angle for the trick & spot. Being a rollerblader I have had to learn all the BMX tricks & technicalities of DH lines etc. It is really important to know about the sport/subject so that you can capture it properly. Most of you on here won’t have that problem because you ride yourselves, but it’s a good thing to keep in mind when approaching a new subject.

I try to handle my subject from an art point of view & have the rider in the scenery rather than go for the tight shots. Don’t get me wrong, those are fun too, but I find that each spot is unique & offers different interesting elements & using them will give you much more variety in your work that just having a rider in the sky with maybe a little bit of the top of the jump or a DH rider tightly cropped in a berm… those type of shots generally look the same no matter where you shoot them & find I get bored very quickly if I shoot like that. I also like to try to get my work to be different & as unique as possible so that it stands out from the crowd. I don’t want to follow in any professionals footsteps, because that style has been done & then, just like copying a riding style you will always be 2^nd best to whoever you are emulating.

There is so much to cover in photography that I could go on forever, but think this is a good start to understanding what it takes to get good quality images. So the next time you want to copy someone’s work without their permission, just think of them carrying 20kg’s of gear up a mountain or the years it takes to get the knowledge to capture that image or the amount of money they’ve spent on gear to be able to capture it & that’s not even touching on the drive to get to the spot. It’s so easy to say, “Chill man, it’s just a photo.” To the photographer it’s loads of money, sweat & years of hard work & is not very nice to take that from them… remember, we make you look good… it’s in your best interest to keep us happy so we can keep you happy & looking good! ;)

I’m hoping to stay with action sports & make a career out of it & work for the big international mags like Dirt, MBUK, RideBMX, etc, but wanted to get my work to a certain standard before I approached them & get top of the range gear to produce images worthy of being in those top magazines. I think I’m just about ready. I have already been asked for some photos by RideBMX & had 2 shots in the April issue, which I’m really stoked on. So… so far, so good. Hope it keeps going that way & that my dream of traveling the world shooting the pros & meeting great new people will become a reality.

Thanks for taking the time to read me rambling on about what I love to do. Hope this is helpful to any aspiring photographers, educational to the rest & explains my take on things…

PEACE!

Eric

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More Wood?

2009-07-10T08:14:00.000-07:00

A few shots from some downhill shoots in Tokai for the new Morewood booklet & some fun ones.

Enriching Woods

2009-07-10T07:25:00.000-07:00

Some shots from a few trips to Richwood early last month.

Dirtopia Looseness

2009-06-02T03:42:00.000-07:00

1st to 3rd May in Greyton was a weekend for bikers of all sorts to come & spin their wheels at Dirtopia's bike festival. After last year I was pretty amped for it & went through on Thursday afternoon. After some traffic & roadworks stops I arrived at the campsite to see Buddy strolling out of the BMX headquarters... AKA "The House of Love". I was just in time for a lil jump session, so just got my cam & pods & made my way to the jumps & left the camp setting up for later.

Wayne & the boys have been going up there & putting mad effort into the jumps this yr & it definitely paid off, they were looking mint & had a few more added to the collection. The 1st session was pretty much just Chris Bester, Wayne & Colin & was a good start to the wknd. Colin, one of Durban's finest was just back from a knee injury, but that didn't stop him from getting some super clicked turndowns to get back into things. The sky was performing wonders & Wayne lent me 2 of his flashes, so I could play with a 4 flash setup & it made all the difference. After that it was off to set up camp & the beginning of bonfire madness in the House of Love. The first evening was pretty chilled & a nice warm up for the rest of the weekend.

The next morning brought the twins, Savage & Pieter... needless to say the severe loosness began right there! After a good day of jumping we were back to the bonfires & next to the night XC track was a dangerous combo. In not long there were coals on the track & some grumpies not too amped on it, but some others felt the spirit & hopped them... The rest of the night was a blur & our fire started to attract quite a crowd.

Saturday was more jumping, DH practice & some freeride carnage. Smittie I think lost his balls on 3 failed superman attempts & Johnty Had some good tyre grabs off the big drop, but the jump claimed him on a whip that never came back. Shooting it was quite tricky with all the spectators & constantly had people standing in front of my flashes and me which was a little annoying to say the least. After that we were back to the dirt jumps & a wall was added to the quarter at the end & made for more fun & trick possibilities.

That night was duels & night jumping & was going really well until a lil kid, Stefan, way too amped for his skill level, ejected out of the 3rd jump where I was shooting, went over my head & crashed on my flash & tripod behind me. Needless to say my flash was out of commission & top tube of my tripod was bent flat & had to rip it off completely. The joys of action photography, but at least it wasn't my head that met the bottom of his bike. That was the end of shooting that night & back to the crazyness.

Saturday night could be a post on its own, but I'll just say... Bonfires, water balloons, camper van trance madness, river stumbling, aerosol antics & ending in being bouncers of The House of Love.

Sunday was an early start... not as early as I had planned, but made my way up the DH course with the shuttle & still feeling rather delicate. The sun came out nicely & helped me feel human again & had a chilled shoot, feeling a bit naked with only 1 flash, but managed ok with the good sunlight. After that I was overs & made my way back to the camp to pack up. I was pretty keen to drive back before dark & the hunger, loosness & abuse was catching up with me & didn't want to be tired on the road, so made my way back through the roadworks enjoying the last sunset of a really good weekend. Looking mad forward to the next one & hope to see you there!
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Seeing Sounds

2009-05-16T02:46:00.000-07:00

Did a shoot for a local singer/pianist Laurinda Hofmeyr a little while back for a poster for one of her gigs in Stellenbosch. Was good to get away from the action shots a bit & was a good challenge to get something different & the feeling she wanted. We started off in the Conserve in Stellenbosch & shot quite a bit there & then moved up to the Jan Marrais Park for the last few.