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Tag: strobist

  • 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!

  • Castaway

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    The second season of the DPChallenge Photography Leage started this week over at DPC and I decided to submit a warm-up entry before the season begins to get back into the game – I haven’t taken part in the site’s competitions for a while. I decided to shoot something for the Out of the Ordinary challenge.
    I’m staying with Alison in Bermuda at the moment. (My flight was meant to leave 4 hours ago but with the airspace around the UK being closed for some foreseeable time I’m not going anywhere soon.) We borrowed some furniture from her house and drove to Warwick Long Bay. We set the things up where I thought we’d get a wave washing over them once in a while. Turns out that for a long time the only wave that would make it that far was the one that got my feet wet when we set up…
    In order to make the lamp light up I placed a Canon Speedlite 580EXII inside the lamp head. I had taken out the bulb earlier. My initial plans to keep it there with a superclamp didn’t work out because there was not enough room inside the lampshade. So I kept the flash and the Pocketwizard FlexTT5 that was attached to it in place with a ball bungee. A Full C.T.O. gel gave the flash the colour temperature of a tungsten lamp. The flash was set to ETTL, I let the camera do the metering for the lamp, which was easier since my aperture, shutter speed and ISO kept changing as it got progressively darker after sunset. The settings for this photo were f/4, ISO400, 1/30. I also asked Alison to point a snooted flash at the plant to give it a bit of extra definition.

  • Speedlinks March 2010

    • Shoot-out: “What do you get when you challenge David Hobby, Zack Arias and Joey L to make an image of a surprise model(s) in 25mins in a packed auditorium.” A fun video, spiced up with comments by Joe McNally.
    • BBC Wildlife Photography Masterclasses. The BBC has published a series of wildlife photography classes online, filled with a wealth of info.
    • Greg du Toit takes the meaning of endurance to a new level: he spent months in a puddle to get some breathtaking phots of wildlife animals at their water hole.
    • DIY rain cover. diyphotography.net has a how-to on turning a pair of old rain trousers into a protective cover that protects your camera from the elements.
    • LADIG have put together a nice and easy bounce card to use with external flashes. I think I prefer this design to the one by Gardner which I’ve used so far, mainly because this one does away with the need for velcro at the top end.
    • CS5 Sneak Peek: Adobe has posted a YouTube preview of a new feature for Ps CS5: content-aware fill. Looks very useful for photo manipulation.