Light Tings

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

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

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

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

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