Little Red Ride
Above is a behind the scenes video for a fairy-tale themed photograph I took of my red Ford Focus (2011, Titanium). The video explains how I turned the Little Red Riding Hood idea into an image, from the two-hour shoot with Olivier Kerschen to the six-hour editing process in Lightroom and Photoshop. The two photographs below show an unedited picture with nothing but ambient light and the final edited image.
The same video is also available in Luxembourgish.
De Schnéi lassginn
A brief Photoshop noise reduction tutorial in Luxembourgian.
Dancing on Ice
I’ve pretty much finished work on my dissertation now, so I could take a day off when Coralie and Oliver came down to visit us in Canterbury. Together with David and Alison we drove to the Ice Bowl in Gillingham.
The Attack of the Were-Timberwolf Hybrid
Once I had read Aaron‘s whacky script I knew that I wanted to take part in the project to create this short film. It was a good opportunity to give filming something with an actual script a go. I used two Canon EOS 5D MkII cameras with the Canon EF 24-70mm 2.8L USM and the Canon EF 50mm 1.4 USM lenses. The sound was recorded with the Zoom H4N and a Rhode Stereo Videomic.
We filmed in various locations around Canterbury, such as Aaron’s kitchen, a quiet corner of the Templeman Library, the Monument Pub and Christchurch’s Augustine House. (We got kicked out of the latter though.)
When we were done I handed the files over to Aaron who took care of the editing.
UKC Fashion Show 2010
Design: Alison Hollis
Yesterday the Photography and Modelling Society presented the Annual Fashion Show in Eliot Hall at the University of Kent. Each year, the society organizes this event, in which students from the university get on the catwalk to present clothes from local shops and designers. The sets for this show were Slaters Menswear, Kaliko Minuet, Bhs Casual, Animal, Fancy Dress, Recycling, Noa Noa, Fat Face Streetwear, Bhs Bedwear, Fat Face Summer, Punky Fish, Unique, and Armoire. The show also featured guest performances from the UKC Capeira Society and the UKC Circus Society. The proceeds from this year’s show went to Save the Children’s Haiti campaign.
Hit the jump to see the footage of each set. (Fair warning: there are over a dozen embedded videos.)
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Impressions from London Zoo (Film)
Last week I posted photographs from London Zoo that I took in October, this time I would like to share with you a short film I made in the same zoo last weekend. The trip was organized by the Photography and Modelling Society. I had about four hours during which I could shoot. Some of my favourite enclosures, including the rainforest indoor area, were closed to the public, and somehow I ended up shooting birds more than anything else.
Around 20 minutes before we had to catch the train the delivery guy showed up with my new LCDVF as well! I had been thinking about buying a Zacuto Z-Finder, but since they are sold out pretty much everywhere and cost 2-3 times as much I had ordered the LCDVF from lcdvf.pl. (The buying part was a bit tricky since the payment instructions got lost in translation, but I called them up, got everything sorted out and had the parcel within four days.) I might write a short review of the LCDVF, but in a nutshell, I prefer it’s 2x magnification to the 3x of the Zacuto (which I tried briefly at The Flash Center), and the magnet mount they use seems like a good solution to me. Having the LCDVF with me was really helpful for focusing, especially as most of the animals kept running or flying around. The experience is definitely very different from shooting stills! I had taken my tripod with the Manfrotto 808 head with me. There really would have been no way around a tripod, at least for the telephoto scenes: I used the EF 70-200 2.8L IS lens with both the Kenko 1.5x and Canon 2x Extenders on it, giving me an effective focal length of 210-600mm, and without the IS the footage would have been fairly shaky even on the tripod.
For the wide angle shots I used the Canon EF 24-70 2.8L which was attached to a shoulder mount. This helps to distribute the weight of the camera a bit, but I had to find out that it’s not very practical to use it whilst carrying a backpack.
Unfortunately Canon won’t release the new firmware for the 5DMkII until later this week, so I still had to shoot at 30p rather than 24p. I hope the video doesn’t look too choppy! I also think that I’ll have to invest into some kind of external microphone sometime soon if I ever want to make anything that isn’t overlaid with music. Here I mixed the song with the ambient sounds, but I was fairly limited even with that, since the camera picks up the noise from the IS as well as the wind and the noise when I touch the camera.
If you’re interested in the music, the album by Denis Richard can be downloaded from Jamendo.
London Aquarium
I visited the London Aquarium and decided to film a bit rather than take photographs. I lost quite a few takes because somebody bumped into me while I was filming… The place was really packed with people.
The video is CC-BY-SA.
2009 Favourites
I’ve picked my favourite photos that I’ve taken in 2009 and mashed them up in a slideshow! Some pictures in the video haven’t appeared on the site yet, they’re mostly part of the PAD project with which I’m slightly behind my uploading schedule… oops. August is complete now though! Check it out.
Let me know what you think of my selection for this year in the comments. Better or worse than 2008?
Photogen Fouermeeting 2009
This summer a handful of photographers from Photogen.lu met at the Schueberfouer (like last year) to hang out, test the rides and chat. I decided to film rather than take pictures this time. It’s fairly busy there and I didn’t have my shoulder-rig yet; my apologies for the shakiness. I still have loads to learn about the whole SLR-video thing.
Scout Vakanznomëtteg
Each summer the schoolkids from Pétange visit the scouts on the Prënzebierg for an afternoon of adventures and games. The scouts get an opportunity to interest children in the movement, and the kids get to have some fun as well as finding out whether scouting is something they’d like to see more of.
After my first attempts with DSLR video the day before I decided to practice filming a bit more.
Wedding: Stéphanie & Alain
On May 16th this year my friends Stéphanie Valenti and Alain Engelmann got married in Pétange. I met Alain in the scouts when we were about 10 years old. Sté joined the scouts a bit later; that’s where they met as well.
I’m glad that I could actually make it to their wedding; it was during the exam period at uni. The wedding was on Saturday, I traveled back to England on Sunday and wrote an exam on Monday. Alison had come down to Luxembourg with me. We were their photographers for the afternoon and their guests during the evening … although when I saw an opportunity too good to be missed I got the camera out again for a couple of photographs after the dinner.
You’ll notice that I’m on some of the photos from the evening, Alison took those after setting up the lights with me.
Réserve Naturelle Albert Hopp
In 2004 the CFL presented a project to add a second track to the railway line passing through Bascharage, Luxembourg. For the laying of the tracks and the underpass replacing the level crossing, about 1 1/2 acres of woodland were chopped down. In 2009, the works are nearing completion. These are impressions of the Réserve Naturelle Albert Hopp.
Arcelor-Mittal
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This summer, knipser from Photogen invited me and a couple other photographers, mostly members of the Photogen community, to visit the Arcelor-Mittal steel plant in Esch-Belval. It was an impressive mixture of deafening noise, smoldering heat and a thick layer of dust covering every inch inside the plant. Not the kind of place where you want to change lenses all that often.
All photos: 5D MkII and 24-70 2.8L USM.
Update: I’ve added a bit of video from the trip, also recorded with the 5D MkII.
Thorpe Park
My friends and I went to Thorpe Park to relax a bit after all the exams. I took the Canon G9 along and made some videos, which I put together in Premiere.
Credits: Rakieta and Dom from Alterwizje Single by Babilon, http://jamendo.com/en/album/42291. My video and Babilon’s music are licensed separately under the Creative Commons “Attribution Share Alike 3.0” license.
Über den Wolken
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Our flight route
Anyway, we drove to a field near Hivange, asked the farmer for permission and got ready for take-off. I had to help get the balloon ready so there are no pictures of that. We flew over plenty of small towns that I didn’t really recognize from up above, one of the places I did recognize fairly easily though was the Aire de Berchem (and in case you were wondering, no, the police car did not stop at the stop sign), the pig farm near the Kuelbicher Haff (the latter is hidden rather well in the woods) and the Mariendaller Haff, near which we landed gently in another field – this time we didn’t ask the farmer’s permission beforehand though :) And with gently I mean that none of my camera equipment got damaged when the basket tipped over during the landing. That’s all that matters, my head has seen its share of bumps.
The title refers to the song Über den Wolken by Reinhard Mey.
Fashion Show 09 Photos
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My computer’s decided that stitching panoramas isn’t going to happen tonight. Instead, here are some photos from this year’s edition of the University of Kent Fashion Show, organized by the Photography and Modelling Society. We had guest appearances from the Pole Fitness and Capoeira societies. All the profit that we made has been donated to the British Heart Foundation. I still have to find out from our treasurer exactly how much that was but I think it’s something around £700.
This week will also be my last as co-president of the society, on Saturday we’re holding committee elections and a new team will take over. Ooh I’m getting all sentimental about it… :)
Fashion shoot: BHS & Burton in Abode
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[The video may take a moment to load and contains strong language.]
The inQuire newspaper features a section on fashion. For this issue the focus was on suits, which we got from BHS and Burton Menswear. I met up with features editor Laura Harrison and five models in the Abode Hotel in Canterbury, who kindly offered us a common room and one of their regular rooms to shoot in. Alison Begeman assisted me for this shoot; since things had to move relatively quickly with changing models, scenes and clothes I needed someone to position the lights where I needed them and set the required power settings.
The common room had a great antique athmosphere to it. The furniture looked expensive enough to stop me from attaching superclamps to any of it. I was shooting with my 40D and the 17-55 at around 1/15-1/50 @ f/4 throughout the shoot to balance ambient and strobe light. I used an ST-E2 to trigger the flashes using Canon’s wireless system and the main flashes were gelled to make them match the colour of the ambient light. One of the advantages of the common room was space, I didn’t have too many problems putting the lights exactly where I needed them, albeit we moved some of the sofas out of the way. I used my shoot-through umbrellas most of the time, but I think it’s time to invest into a softbox to get a better control over the way the light spills.
As you can see in the video, the doors to the room had glass windows. A few of the guests that passed by the room stopped to have a look at what was going on, including one old lady who seemed to check out the models as they were changing… Still the audience was smaller than during the Varsity Poster shoot.
The second part of the shooting was in a regular-sized hotel room (the Cathedral-view room they were going to give us had unfortunately been booked that morning). With six people in that room space was more of an issue but I think it worked out alright. The only thing I’m not so satisfied with is the shadow that one of the flashes has cast in the mirror shot.
Terres Rouges
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In late December I met fellow photographer Shantideva for a shoot in the Terres Rouges industry buildings. The model was my cousin Nickie. We photographed for a few hours despite the blistering cold (something around -4°) and incredible amounts of dust. There was dust everywhere. It took well over an hour to clean all my gear when I got home, but my camera was scheduled for a trip to the Canon headquarters anyway.
If you want to see some behind the scenes footage, watch the video, but keep in mind that I’m not a videographer :)
2008 Favourites
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[The video has 23MB, give it a moment to load.] I’ve made a selection of my favourite photographs that I’ve taken during 2008 (with the exception of those which can’t be published.)
The slideshow is made using Animoto. If you’d like to make videos like this yourself, use vemwztgh as voucher code when you sign up to get $5 off an all-access pass.
Notes to the photos, in order of appearance: (more…)
Wedding: Martine & Mike
Martine and Mike are now enjoying this slideshow in DVD quality on their home cinema, as well as a costum designed hardcover photobook and an elegant traditional leatherbound album, all part of the coverage they ordered for their wonderful wedding in Mondorf.
UKC Summer Ball 2008 Promo Video
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The Fashion Show promotional video which Lee Francis filmed for the UKC Photography and Modelling Society got quite a bit of attention. As a result, he was recruited to also film a promotional video for the University of Kent Summer Ball 2008. I was at the filming location, one of the exam halls at the UKC, to help with the lighting and to take some ‘making of’ pictures, which you can see above. Oh, and I also pushed the caddie for the zoom effects, which led to the Ben Hur photo (taken by David Cater).