Vintage
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The Photography and Modelling Society organized a 50s themed photoshoot in Keynes college at the University of Kent last month. I’m not sure if the clothing styles the models came up with all matched that exact time span, but let’s say it was all ‘Vintage’ to give the whole thing a coherent style.
The shoot was a bit of a challenge because there were about 20 people, both photographers and models, in a fairly small common room stuffed with tables and sofas. Without much space I made use of superclamps and magic arms to get my lights where I needed them to be.
The last image isn’t me, by the way, it’s this year’s (well, last year’s, since the elections were right after the shoot) Photography President Mikey, shooting Bert Stephani style with reflectors to shape the light from his main flash.
The editing is based on Matt Kloskowski’s ‘Ralph Lauren’ Lightroom preset which I adapted to my own needs. After that, some Photoshop to clean up the place: I mainly got rid of some stains on the floor and fix scratches in the leather.
Thanks to my models, Pulo, Laura, Solenne, Nicola, Chris and Rachel!
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.
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
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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
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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
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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
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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… :)
Rugby: Kent Men’s 1st vs St Bart’s & London Men’s 1st
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.