ProPhotoLife

These videos are really useful for relative beginners (like myself) to see the box-standard studio setups. The guy's website has links to images and text.

It's at least a weekend's worth of stuff to try out.

Product Shot

A weekend project - no less...

Composite shoot

This is a great post about making a very complex image. I always wonder how it's done for this type of picture. There are other great ideas on Brian Niven's blog.

There is also a really cool video on YouTube documenting Brian's workflow (well, sort of) on the photoshoot of Branden Steineckert, drummer from Rancid, and his dog.

Lighting Schemes - pictures worth thousands of pictures...

I have got this irresistible urge to try and reverse-engineer all photos in glossy magazines that I see. I can't help it, but to keep on analyzing shades, catch-lights and specular highlights for ages, just to try and guess how a picture was made. It's a condition that was only to be expected after my first strobe arrived, but it is getting worse.

Websites like this one and this one make it a bit easier to get the few basic setups visualized.

Brand New Beat

Surprise
Sigma 1.4/30mm
available light

Ellen and Nicola
Sigma 1.4/30mm
off-camera strobe, bounced off low celing

How do you switch this thing on...?
Sigma 10-20mm
off-camera strobe, bounced off low celing

Staropramen
Sigma 10-20mm
off-camera strobe, bounced off low celing

DJ @wrk
Sigma 10-20mm
off-camera strobe, bounced off low celing

Studio in a box - Strobist style

My lightstands and umbrellas arrived today. It took just over a week from the US (mpex.com) and there was no import duty to cover. The total price including postage was about what I would have paid for identical stands in the UK + I got two collapsible umbrellas (that nobody seems to stock here) thrown in.

Wicked. Can't wait to go home and play.

Nunhead Cemetery

Nunhead cemetery photoes - more to follow.




The above picture is a combination of 7 pictures that were taken off a tripod to keep the framing constant. There were two flashes pointed at Sara's face to avoid dark shadows. I am not completely happy with the whole thing, but it was a funny experiment.

How far can you go...

Lesson #1: Stealing straws to make a snoot grid can get you chucked out of the Big Chill House in King's X.

I have never been thrown out from a club before. I am a nice guy, until I start drinking Guinness with whiskey. Then I turn reckless and irresponsible.

Lesson #2: It's totally worth it to suffer for your art. Think of Van Gogh!

Is this a bizarre post or what?

If you want some more pictures of how to make a honeycomb snoot - look here at Roland-Thor's Flickr page.

Good Weekend for Riding

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.

P.S. That Sigma 10-20mm lens is such a fun piece of glass and plastic!!! Full writeup of my experience with that later this week.

Colour your light

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.

Brighton Beach Grin

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.

Old Strobes - New Strobes

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.

Powerty Wizards

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: