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Day 77 – Jasmine Baby Shoot

Posted in Flash, General Ramblings on December 18, 2009| 3 Comments »

Another couple on the island asked if I would take photos of their child… Here is a small selection of the photos.

Jasmine with her mother, Tess.

I love Lightroom's split toning feature! You can really control the look of B & W photos.

ISO 200, 1/200 sec, F2.8.

ISO 200, 1/200 sec, F4.0. I normally shoot this kind of shot at F2.8 as you can see in the previous 2 frames. This was at F4 for a little more depth of field.

Phill and Tess were great in helping to get the expressions from Jasmine!

I love the way Jasmine hand is out and she appears to be saying something.

I tired different types of angles. This time, I was on the floor looking up.

Now it was time to change the dress to help keep this collection of photos fresh.

The B & W version of this photo worked well too! ISO 200, 1/200 sec, F6.3.

ISO 200, 1/200 sec, F6.3. I normally would have shot this at F4.

I just love Jasmine's expression and her hands! Another shot I would have taken at F4, but stopped down a bit to F6.3.

ISO 200, 1/200 sec, F7.1. Now I'm really wanting to see what happens when we have a lot more depth of field. I think this shots works. I think at F4, Phil may have been a bit too out of focus.

ISO 200, 1/200 sec, F5.6. I like this image as Tess is engaged with the camera and Jasmine is laughing and looking very happy.

ISO 200, 1/200 sec, F5.6. I love this image! There's so many ways to read this photo. All these baby photos were done between 7-9pm at night and I used a single Canon 508EX II speedlite with a 43" shoot through umbrella.

After the baby shoot, I saw a portion of the wall in Phil's apartment and knew I had to do something with it! Got both my flashes out and asked Tess to pose.

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Day 74 – Bali Baby Shoot

Posted in Flash, General Ramblings on December 13, 2009| 4 Comments »

While I’ve been on the island I’ve met up with some great folks! One of them, Andy, asked me if I could take some photos of his new born baby. I agreed and we finally setup a day to do the shoot. Andy lives here on Boracay and has been here for over 2 years so far…

This is my 3rd baby shoot and I’ve now got a fairly repeatable technique. Photographing Bali was quite challenging for me. She is only 2 weeks old and getting her attention was not the easiest thing to do. Here are a few images from the shoot…

I like this kind of shot because of the softness of the image.

Bali with her Mother, Angela.

Bali being fed by Angela.

I like the closeness of this photograph.

Little Bali in the arms of her mother.

I took these images with flash and camera in manual mode.

I love the position of Bali's little hands! I wish I had taken this frame slightly lower.

Angela changed Bali's outfit into a newly purchased dress.

Feeding time again...

I love taking these kinds of shots where the mother and father are interacting with their child.

I always like to show how small those little hands are!

I just like this photograph...

Family group shot... Bali was getting tired at this point in the shoot. I processed some of the others in Black & white which also worked.

My last photo...

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Day 58 – Various Photos

Posted in Flash, General Ramblings, Outdoors on November 25, 2009| 12 Comments »

Here is a collection of photos that I’ve taken over the last few days.

I wondered along the beach and I noticed these 3 girls using a Canon 450D to take photos of each other and having a laugh doing so... So I offered to take a photo of them and then said if I could try something different. They were curious and I took a few frames like this one. After about 5 minutes, I continued and had a beer in a bar called Paraw.

The bar at Club Paraw.

Club Paraw early before it got busy.

Live entertainment at the Bom Bom bar.

I like slow exposures with rear curtain flash. But this was perhaps a bit too slow. ISO 800, 1/3 sec, F4.

Sitting on the beach at Bom Bom.

Willy's rock with the Virgin Mary and is collectively referred to as a symbol of Boracay.

A wider shot of Willy's rock.

You can't see the drama in the clouds in the previous image. So this wider shot gives you more idea.

However, I think this shot really shows what's going on in the clouds.

A HDR image of a kararoki bar. I have a few more shots planned for this location.

The Rumba's bar I attend daily. I have all my meals here and perhaps a few beers! 😉 I took this early tonight with 2 flashes with 1/2 CTO gels..

Getting the Rumba's name in the frame.

Again focusing on getting the bar name into the frame.

A wider shot of the Rumba's Bar.

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Day 52 – Miss Earth Cocktail Party

Posted in Flash, General Ramblings on November 22, 2009| 10 Comments »

In the evening of day 52, I attended the Miss Earth cocktail party and of course my camera came with me! 😉 The first person I saw was Miss South Africa as I was walking to the bar. Said Hello and we ended up chatting for some time. 🙂 When it was time for the contestants to introduce themselves, everybody came out their point-and-shoot camera! Well… I put my 70-200mm lens on and people soon stopped getting in my way! 😉 Long lenses are great sometimes!

The lighting wasn’t that great and I didn’t want my photos to obviously look like they were flash lit. So I ended up using ISO 800, 1/80 sec, F2.8 and the flash at -0.7 FEV.

My first few images weren’t that great because when the contestants were talking through the microphone giving their “save the world” speech, all I got was wired looking expressions. So I decided to shoot the contestants waiting to come on to the stage area. Nobody was shooting here and I instantly got much better results. And when the girls saw my long lens pointing straight at them, they often did a little pose or smile.

I also had the pleasure to meet with Miss Wales’s family. I spoke with them for quite a while and the evening was a joy.

Tonight (Day 55) is the main event. I’m trying to get a pass to be with the other photographers so wish me luck!

I don't normally do head shots, but I figured this worked. Notice how the -0.7 FEV didn't make the contestant look too obviously flash lit.

Miss England.

Miss Honduras.

Miss Japan.

Miss Korea.

Miss Mexico.

Miss Philippines.

Miss Scotland.

Miss South Africa who is from Durban.

A couple of nights ago I met Miss South Africa's parents.

Miss Thailand.

Close up of Miss Thailand. I used Lightroom's tone split adjustment to get this look.

Of course the drink at a cocktail party! 😉

Yes... its me...

Miss Wales.

Miss Canada

Me with Miss England and Miss Wales. 🙂

The winner of Miss Earth 2008.

Miss South Sudan is one of the tallest women I have ever seen!

Miss Thailand enjoying some of the finger snacks.

It was great to mingle with everybody...

Miss Thailand posing for me...

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Day 42 – Owen Portrait

Posted in Flash on November 18, 2009| Leave a Comment »

On Day 42 I had an idea to light up part of the garden for a portrait of Owen. I used both my flashes. A flash on the right to highlight Owen and a flash on the left to highlight the background.

First, I took a quick test shot to look for any surprises…

As you can see, the plant leaf is very distracting! So I turned this plant around...

Now it was time to get Owen into the frame and after about 3 shots, I got this frame…

This is the frame I kept. The flash on the left is wide open and I fathered the light so it just hit Owen and highlighted more of the background.

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Day 36 – Melbourne Cup Race Day

Posted in Flash, General Ramblings on November 5, 2009| 2 Comments »

Today I had to be a photographer! 🙂 My niece’s Gwen and Bronwen organised a visit to a popular race day called the Melbourne Cup. In the UK this would be the equivalent of the Ascot events. All the girls were dressed immaculately and they all looked great! It was my job to take photos…

I decided to the use the stair case of the apartment building and setup a single flash. I did 3 setups.

Stair case wide shot – ISO 200, 1/200 sec, F8. Flash.
Corner wall by the stair case – ISO 200, Program Mode, -2 EV. Flash.
Wall of stair case – ISO 500, Aperture Priority, +0.7 EV, F4. Natural light (no flash).

Here is a small selection of the shots…

My niece Bronwen.

I made the wall pop out to suit the image in Photoshop. This also looks good in Black & White.

I love the way this photo looks in Black & White!

Natural light (with +2/3 EV) close up of Bronwen.

Another natural light photo. Post production using Lightroom only.

Experimenting with different looks...

All the girls looked great!!

My niece Gwen.

A quick group shot before the girls got into Limo...

Girls ready to go off for the big day...

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Day 26 — Mount Dandenong

Posted in Flash, General Ramblings, Outdoors on October 24, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Today all of us wondered up to Mount Dandenong just on the outskirts of Melbourne. A really nice place with spectacular views of Melbourne. We had lunch and admired the view. I also grabbed a few portrait frames of Ryan… Images below…

On our way up the mountain...

Notice all the trees in the distance!

Yes... its me! Photo by Barry Johnston.

Melbourne city centre in the distance...

To demonstrate the power of a 400mm lens, this image is at 24mm. If you look very closely, you can see the city centre in the centre of the frame.

To demonstrate the power of a 400mm lens, this image is at 24mm. On my camera body, this would be 24 x 1.6 = 38mm 35mm camera equivalent focal length. If you look very closely, you can see the city centre in the centre of the frame.

Taken with Barry's 400mm F2.8 lens! I can't even get all of the city centre in the frame! On my camera body, this is 400 x 1.6 = 640mm 35mm camera equivalent focal length.

Portrait of Ryan in natural light.

Portrait of Ryan with flash. ISO 200, 1/200 sec, F13.

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Day 23 – Paul guarding the loading zone

Posted in Flash, General Ramblings on October 22, 2009| Leave a Comment »

I met up with my buddy Paul again and this time I took my camera… yeah!!! We spent the evening having a few beers and catching up on old times. Paul’s wife, Penny, joined later in evening and we continued talking about everything. Great to see them both again…

On our way from place to place, we stopped by a small ally and took a few frames… I decided this particular ally way was good because it had a wall that was similar in colour to Paul’s stripes on his shirt (red). The stands and flashes came out and it was time to try a few different looks. I was mainly looking for an image which shows that “Paul is in charge”! So I asked him to fold his arms while I experimented with the lighting and composition. I think I finally got the image I was looking for in the last photo in this post.

Flash on the left was at 80mm and the flash on the right was at 105mm.

Flash on the left (side of the frame) was at 80mm and the flash on the right was at 105mm. This was one of the first frames of the shoot.

To get the ambience of the background I took this frame at ISO 800, 1/13 sec, F4. The flash used a Honl grid.

I cooled the colour temperature in this frame...

The white plate on the wall says, "Loading zone - 15 minutes". Hence the title of this post...

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Day 18 – Great Ocean Road

Posted in Flash, General Ramblings, Outdoors on October 17, 2009| 5 Comments »

Barry took me on the Great Ocean Road and wow! It is so beautiful! Its quite a long journey so we had had to get up early and head off… We left around 7am and eventually got back just before 7pm. We did a total of about 460Km.

Our first stop was Anglesea where we had breakfast, then on to Leone where we stopped for lunch and finally turned round at Apollo Bay. We chose to come back to Melbourne along the sea front as it was so amazing… There’s something very comforting about looking out over the sea…

Anyhow, here are some photos… choosing which ones to include in this post was agonising as its easy to just publish all of them here… Enjoy…

Our frist stop for breakfast.

Walking to the Lighthouse at Anglesea. Photo by Barry Johnston.

The lighthouse up close.

The lighthouse up close, even closer...

View of the lighthouse. Used a 3 stop Neutral Density Gradient Filter for effect.

The view out to sea from the lighthouse.

View from the lighthouse out towards the coast line.

Portrait view of the above shot. I didn't know which one to use, so I decided to use both.

On the road from Anglesea to Leone.

Leaving Anglesea, we came across this house!

The official start of the Great Ocean Road. Photo by Barry Johnston.

Along the route... see the road on the right, that's where we travelled along.

Quick frame from inside the car.

Just endless coast line...

I love the bird in this frame!

The sea washing over rocks.

We stopped here for lunch in Leone.

Back on the road from Leone to Apollo Bay.

I wanted to try a couple of portrait shots using flash. Photo by Barry Johnston.

And a portrait of Barry.

We then stopped to photograph bikers heading towards Philip Island... Photo by Barry Johnston.

Biker on route...

More bikers...

Barry was across the road and grabbed many action shots like this one. Photo by Barry Johnston.

Where the bikers in the previous photos had just come from.

We stopped to get a few shots of kite surfers.

Unfortunately we didn't have the big 400mm lens with us.

My first frame at Apollo Bay.

Again... I can't make a choice of which of these frames to include, so I included another photo.

You can see the rain coming in from the right...

Even with the rain coming in... Barry's on a mission! 😉

We drove a little out of Apollo Bay and I grabbed this stormy shot.

We decided to head back to Melbourne and I thought I'd get this shot of that house with the lighthouse in Anglesea in the distance.

On the way out of Anglesea (towards Melbourne), we could see this amazing rainbow! We stopped and within seconds (about 15 seconds), the rainbow had gone. I managed to get this shot that shows a slight hint that it was there.

On our way out of Melbourne we had seen the John Deere tractor factory. So I grabbed this sot on the way back. I had never seen so many tractors!

On our way out of Melbourne we had seen the John Deere tractor factory. So I grabbed this shot on the way back. I had never seen so many tractors!

Okay I can't resist... one more frame from Apollo Bay.

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Day 11 – How to turn a brewery into a photographic studio

Posted in Flash, General Ramblings, Outdoors on October 11, 2009| 1 Comment »

The sun rises and it is a beautiful day here in Melbourne! Barry suggested we drive out into the country side… Barry knows best and off we went. Wow!!! The country side is so awesome around here. We drove through small towns and the views from the mountains were quite stunning. We travelled through the areas where those huge fires were about 8 months ago. Very sad to see these huge trees in a densely populated forest that had been burnt, but amazing to see Nature fight back with new growth.

We stopped by a remote coffee shop and had tea with scones in the wilderness. Very relaxing and a very nice place. Barry and I decided to get our cameras out for a few shots. We played with the dogs and had good fun with our cameras.

This is where we had tea and scones. Lovely garden...

The front of the cafe...

Playing "through the stick" with the dog.

Playing "throw the stick" with the dogs.

Me taking photos of the garden. Photo by Barry Johnston.

After tea… we headed off again through the country side. Some really nice views…

A house off the main road... Driving through the country side, there are many houses off the main road like this.

A dam on route...

These trees are huge!!!! You can see the size of the car in front...

These roads are popular with motorcyclists.

There are S shaped roads at nearly every corner.

I'm not sure its visible, but the trees on the right side of the frame are burnt and are showing sign of life once again.

The trees on the right side of the frame are burnt and are showing signs of life once again.

A close up of a burnt tree. It feels strange to be standing in a spot where there was a raging bush fire with flames 60 meters above the trees!

Now for the fun part! Photography is a hungry and thirsty business! So off we went to a Brewery for a fresh pint of beer and a ploughman’s lunch. I looked around and thought, man we could take some nice images in the place. I spoke with the barmaid and asked if was okay to take a few pictures? Well… Out came all the toys!! Stands, umbrella, multiple flash units, cameras, the works!!!

But before we get to the flash shots… here are some normal shots of the location.

Where the beer gets made...

The bottling of the beer...

The White Rabbit Brewery. Barry getting the kit out of the 4x4...

Then it was time to setup the venue for the shots we had in mind. We setup 2 flashes to illuminate the background. Flash off steel edges works really well. A flash to the right, and a flash to the left. We setup another flash about 10 feet away from from the subject of the frame (i.e. one of us). The barmaid had gone home unfortunately 😦 She would have made a good model! 😉

Me reading a magazine called "Beer" 😉 hehehe Photo by Barry Johnston.

Barry is the model... 😉

Then it was time to head off again and stopped by some vineyards where some Australian wine is made.

Fields of grapes. I used a 3 stop Neutral Density Gradient filter to balance the exposure of the sky and ground.

I placed the sun in the top left corner deliberately in this frame.

Then we stopped by a small picnic area for a short moment and there were some Rainbow Loriketts birds. Very colourful!

Eastern Rosella's flying off...

Very tall trees!! Probably 50 meters...

Finally the day ended with meeting up with family. Kyle met Barry and I in Melbourne city center. We had a beer and a meal and chatted all night. We had a lot to catch up on…