Halloween 2009 Studio Photos
It’s good to see that the Photography and Modelling Society is getting along nicely this year. I haven’t run for a committee position so I don’t have much say on what’s happening, but I can’t help adding my 2 cents once in a while 
The photos the society took in Eliot college this Halloween (I was there only to help set things up) are available at the following link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeyrap/sets/72157622735463912/.
Kew Gardens
The Photography and Modelling Society’s new committee scheduled a trip to Kew Gardens for the summer turn. About half a dozen photographers from the University of Kent got up at an insanely early time in the morning to spend a few hours amongst thousands of shrubs, flowers, trees, cacti and whatnot. You can tell that my knowledge of the botanic world is fairly limited. Until I saw the flower in the second but last photo myself, I thought it had been invented by THX.
Urban Glam
The Photography and Modelling Society at the University of Kent organized a re-shoot of the Urban Glam shoot which was a bit too short seeing as it was followed by the society elections. This time we met in town and moved around a bit to different locations around Canterbury’s south wall.
Models: Christopher Willmott, Daniel Neighbour, Bekki Hawkins.
Canterbury photolocations
One of the last meetings I organized as photography president of the University of Kent Photography and Modelling Society was an exploration of the places in Canterbury that would be best suited, from my point of view, for photographers to shoot, be it because they are worthwile in their own right or because they offer themselves as nice backdrops for photoshootings with models. First we went up to the Westgate panorama tower which is part of the Westgate Museum, as most participants had not yet been up there and it’s only around 75p for students to go. Then we made our way to Greyfriars, a former monastry which has its nondescript entrance in Stour Street. Some of the monastry’s walls still stand and it’s a nice park-like place to hang out and just read too. From there we went to Canterbury Castle, or the remains of it rather. It was used by a gas company decades ago and they knocked through some of the walls to get their pipelines installed.
While we were there the rainclouds which are inevitable when I organize a phototrip caught up with us and we returned to town centre to take shelter in Starbucks. — What? Which one of the three?
Fashion Show 09 Photos
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…
Rugby: Kent Men’s 1st vs St Bart’s & London Men’s 1st
Yesterday I spent an hour on the UKC’s sport pitches. The Photography and Modelling Society had its workshop on sports photography there and I was covering some games for inQuire, one of which was our Rugby team playing against St Bart’s & London.
Dover Society Trip
In autumn I’ve already visited Dover, this time I went with the Photography and Modelling Society. Most of our trip was spent exploring Dover Castle, which was closed last time I went.
Halloween Studio Session
On Halloween, the UKC Photography and Modelling Society set up a studio in the Lighthouse at the University of Kent. The aim was to raise some money for the society to buy more equipment, and it worked out quite well.
The last photo shows out setup. The trickiest part was lighting the background without having too much spill on the people since we only had about two metres in depth with which to work. The backdrop is lit with two Canon Speedlite 430 EX flashes, both with gobos to make the light hit the background only. The lights left and right of the camera are a Canon Speedlite 580EX MkI and MkII with Manfrotto 001B Nano stands and Westcott 2001 double-fold shoot-through umbrellas. All flashes were set to slave mode and triggered with a Canon ST-E2.
DPChallenge London GTG
Once again a bunch of crazy photographers met to walk around London in the rain and take pictures. This time the get-together had a slightly more international feel: Olivier and I represented Luxembourg (we’re used to the rain and the cold). Alison and Mikey from the Photography and Modelling Society represented Bermuda and Barbados, respectively (they’re not used to temperatures below 15°C). The four of us who are or have been studying in the UK met up with Natalya, Andi, Robert, Dain and Matthew. Some of their photos can be found in the DPChallenge.com forums, here. Apart from taking photos, by walking about three miles we also contributed to the Walk Around the World for Brain Tumours.
Related links: International Brain Tumor Alliance, Rose McGill, Digital Photography Challenge.
Photography Society Meeting
Before the Easter holidays the Photography and Modeling society met up for a last shooting session. We started in the Cathedral Cloisters where the basics of flash photography and balancing it with ambient light were covered. I lent my camera to someone else so I have no pictures of that part. After a delicious Sunday lunch in the Dolphin we decided to take some group shots in the nearby park area as well as the pictures of Charlotte in the daffodils. For the eTTL adepts out there I’m happy to report that the 430EXs had no trouble picking up the master signal from the 580EX in broad sunlight from about 15 metres.
Kent Law Temple Society Annual Dinner
Every year the Temple society invites its members to meet established prominent legal professionals (mostly senior barristers and judges) and academics. If I took your photo at this event, you can get a copy of the photos from the Temple Society.
UKC Fashion Show
Today the University of Kent’s Annual Fashion Show promotional poster has officially been released and posted all over campus. The Fashion Show is hosted by the UKC Photography and Modeling society and more information can be found here.
Click on the first picture to see a larger version of the poster. For the photographers among you, I’ve included some behind the scenes information. The second photo should give you an idea of the setup. Shooting tethered to a laptop gave me the possibility to get instead feedback on a large screen and accurately solve potential issues. It was also practical as the camera on the tripod was raised a good deal above eye level.
The 580EX Speedlite was aimed at the ceiling just above, which is angled and bounced the light softly onto the models. It also acted as a master to trigger a 430EX (thanks Sebastian) in manual slave mode to the camera right. Its light was bounced into a reflector to allow for softer light. The camera settings were 1/200th second at F/8.0 with an ISO setting of 800 and 28mm focal length.
Post processing started with crating a composite of the best expressions of the different models. Next the background had to be cleaned up and some colour changes applied to clothes. Then a gradient glow was added to the two main models and the light burst created. After feedback from photogen.lu some further changes were made. Together with David Cater the logo and text layout were finalized.
The Fashion Show promotion has seen some other creative minds at work as well, below is the trailer filmed by Lee Francis:
The eagle-eyed may spot me among the extras.
Thank you for smoking
I’ve spent the entire weekend listening to Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. After 20+ hours of non-stop audio book listening to finish in time for the next seminar you too will begin to see strange things in abstract shapes. Take a look at the pictures, guess what they could represent and then mouse-over to see my interpretation.
Caution: After 100 shots on full power, the batteries coming out of a 580EX Speedlite flash will burn your fingers.
Photographers and Models @ UKC
Yesterday the Photographers and Models @ UKC society, of which I am now vice-president, had its introductory meeting. Rather than just talking about what the society’s plans for the year are we jumped right into the action with a spontaneous session of what we call Speed Photography. Every photographer worked with a number of models and vice-versa to capture a set of given emotions. I’ve uploaded the pictures from the models I’ve worked with. After that we initiated models and photogs to the versatile Painting with Light technique. By accident Dave and I bumped into a few fire artists next to Rutherford college, so we put the technique we taught earlier into practice right away.
I’m looking forward to the next sessions with the society.