It was a great weekend in London weather-wise. I am so glad I did not miss the opportunity and captured some of the moments. More on my Flickr BMX set.
Critical Mass bikeride swept through the streets of London last Friday (25/01/2008). It was great fun. Despite the freezing cold, about 300 people turned up. The police played their funny games (as per usual) using traffic lights to their benefit to breakup the group along the route. Nevertheless the vibe was very positive and I am pretty sure we all enjoyed ourselves. Nobody got hurt, nobody got into a fight, just a few cabbies got really pissed off.
More info about the London Critical Mass bike rides can be found at criticalmasslondon.org.uk. As usually there are some pictures on my Flickr page.
There is a great website that sells coloured gels for flashes and ball-bungee ties in the UK. My order arrived one day after placing it and the price was more than reasonable. Jason, the owner of FlasGels.co.uk, makes 3 sizes (2 strips + 1 circular) of all sorts of coloured gels for our strobes from Lee gels, with or without velcro strips. If you are into Strobist stuff and live in Europe/UK this is the best source of this kind of stuff - I could not recommend Jason's business more wholeheartedly.
There is an interesting article on Shepard Fairey claimng that he is nothing but a bad plagiarist. I am not sure that one can discredit 20+ years (yes, that's right: the first Andre the Giant stickers appeared in 1986) of hard work on the basis that:
Obey "imagery appears as though it’s xeroxed or run through some computer graphics program; that is to say, it is machine art that any second-rate art student could produce."That is a silly argument IMO. Nevertheless it is an interesting read.
I have been neglecting this place for a while, because I have been extremely busy at work. I have been working on a "knowledge sharing solution" for my consultants. It seems to be coming to a conclusion at last.
This is a shot I took last weekend on Brighton beach near the West Pier. It taught me about the importance of keeping my mind open and experimenting. More on that later, but let's just say that my Flickr statistics went from a few dozen a day to almost three hundred a day after I posted this one:
P.S. Just to make it 100% clear: no photoshop, no combining of two exposures - just a bit of a long exposure combined with me jumping around with a handheld SB-26. I love this off-camera flash malarkey. Like David Hobby says: Less Gear - More light - Better pictures.
I've mentioned Strobist.com in my previous posts - that's because I absolutelly love that site. Its creator and owner, David Hobby, operates under the moto 'LESS GEAR. MORE BRAIN. BETTER LIGHT.' Unlike Ken Rockwell, David gives out advice that is applicable to a wide range of other people (not just him) and encourages his readers to spend less money on photography. I think this is really unique - most other photogs out there use their blogs to brag about their kit; David shows people how using your brain(!!), few bits of paper, elastic bands and old flashes can dramatically improve your pictures.
Therefore, when I was in the market for a flash I safely ignored Rockwell's praise for the tiny SB-400 and spent less on a much more versatile SB-26 (second hand on eBay). It goes without saying that I would love to have a bank of SB-800s. However, being able to go through a big part of my learning curve for a fraction of the cost is really cool. Do not believe Ken Rockwell when he says that: "Other flash features [other than those present on the SB-400] are gimmicks that get in the way of taking pictures." He could not be more wrong in my opinion! A flash that can only be turned ON/OFF is severely limiting to the photographer (me, you). Don't be fooled by simplicity - it is a double-edged sword.
Another website that I found really useful is the photography page on MIR (Malaysian Internet Resource). They list a lot of really useful information about components of the Nikon system including my 1980s Nikon SB-26. Thereby they are making shopping for old stuff on eBay a lot easier.
Thank you guys.
I have started experimenting with small-flash off-camera lighting late last year. For this, I am getting loads of ideas from Strobist.Com.
My 'Poverty Wizards' have just arrived from Hong Kong yesterday. Until this point in time, I have been using the built-in flash of my D40 to trigger old Nikon SB-27 flashes via their optical slave function. While this allowed me to add off-camera flashes to my picture taking at no cost - 'Powerty Wizards' from Gadget Infinity will allow me to take things a step further yet.
I decided to take (what I considered) a risk of not ordering the triggers from Kenro UK, instead going closer to the source and ordering directly from Gadget Infinity. It was cheap as chips, a set of one transmitter and two receivers cost circa GBP 30, compared to more than double that for an identical product branded/marketed by Kenro here in the UK. The delivery from HK took about 3 weeks (over Christmas) and since the package was labelled 'Gift' - there were no customs payments to be covered.
I picked the 16-channel triggers without a hot-shoe mount. Now, I need to get some
sync cables from Flash Zebra and batteries. I will post my experience here.
This is one of the first pictures I took with an off-camera flash. It's my longest friend Standa and his dog David Lyster:
Awright. Christmas is over - it's time for resolutions...
Nah, I don't do resolutions, but since it's January is the time to start new things. I spent the last few months looking around Flickr and blogs like Strobist, ChaseJarvis and A Photographer's Sketchbook. Now I want my own blog.
Last year was the year of major changes for me - moving to London, realizing that I AM going bold and joining the Nikon family by getting my first SLR. Let's hope this year is just as busy and challenging as 2007 was.
OK -this will do for a first post. Let's see what I come up with next time.
