I’ve been playing with lighting over the last week or so – outdoor fill flash and with the studio lights for portraits again.

The outdoor stuff was nice and simple, well, apart from the fact that I forgot my flash and had to rely on the pop-up flash in the D300! Manual exposure using the 100/100/f16 rule of thumb (I’ll start to deviate from that more once I get consistently repeatable results) and letting the little flash fill in what it could actually proved pretty effective. Lens shadow in some of the shots excepted, they all came out okay. I had a go at under exposing the background in a few of the shots in order to make the most of the flash and heres what happened

would have been better with the SB600 – next time 🙂

So, onto the studio flash – after a few goes with this, we’re getting the hang of it – and also using the outdoor fill flash rule of thumb as a start in order to get the black backdrop black in camera and not relying on post processing to fix.

So, in 5 mins, we were getting these shots

Pleased as punch, me 🙂

Well, a hot Christmas is an odd thing, innit? It is if you’re from Blighty anyway..

Tts been nice – here warm long days, time to get out and about – was lovely.

Got some wicked prezzies – a satnav, which I tested out today with a bissy English woman voice, very funny..

Got Jay a sigma 30mil f1.4 which is such a lovely lens – shes been taking some corking portraits with it – I think it really suits her photo taking stylee, so she’s really pleased.

Had a shark attack here on the beach today – 51 year old man taken just 6m from the beach 😦 thats in the shallow zone, they’re not often seen there – eeep, looks like I wont be swimming in the sea at all then.. 😦

click here for the news article

So its Jay’s first day of paid employment as a teachers assistant today.

means she’s off the blocks and putting funds towards her D700. Or something.

proud of you 🙂

I’m working in Cannington (for you non Perth-ites, its a southern subburb of Perth) at a customer site at the moment, which is a bit of a pain.

Its not that far away from where I live, but as I dont get to claim petrol and dont want big mileage on the car, the only way to get here without breaking the bank really is to go by train. Its simple enough, but it takes an hour and some door to door. I’m at the station at 6:45am and get to the office just after 8.

This place isnt exactly great for photos either, being basicially an industrial estate and shopping mall. Ah well – hopefully after Christmas I can move onto other projects.

Ah well – gonna make the effort to get out this weekend to take some photies. Not sure where though, and what of..have to have a think about that. Answers on a postcard?

Right, back to work…

so, its been a while since an update, been busy with work and life, as you do.

So, whats been happening since. Well, we had a few plays with the Bowens Gemini 500 lights

First we had them out at Hallowe’en, taking shots of the kids dressed up as zombies and vampires etc. That was pretty cool, but it was trial and error and the backdrop really didnt drop back to black. Photoshop and levels and stuff did wonders, but it wasnt perfect. Still – we got some wicked shots.

Then we did a photoshoot for Mel and Eddie and their new baby. Tried out against the black background, different lighting setup (closer and lower power, had them standing away from the background so that light falloff would turn it black without having to resort to heavy Photoshop etc etc)

Pretty happy with the results actually – we made some “mistakes” – more things we left out, rather than things we messed up. I think I’d place the lights a little closer, use more power and use a narrower aperture next time. Also look out for shadows more. And use a tripod and the modelling lamps a bit more, even though they are a bit warm. That said, we got some awesome pictures 🙂

Last weekend we went on a fill flash workshop, working on how to use flash to balance background to foreground – particularly when shooting into bright light/sun etc to avoid the subject being silhouetted. Very interesting course it was too – run by Rob at imagetree.com.au. We got some wicked shots of the model he brings with him (she just happens to be his very lovely and patient daughter) on Coogee Beach jetty, shooting into full sun.

Next step – lots more flash outdoors 🙂

I really dont get the resistance to daylight savings over here in WA.

We’ve had it in Europe forever and it brings a wonderful extension to the day, especially during the week. It means that you can get home from work and have hours and hours of lovely summer light to chill out, do gardening, exercise, walk etc. It also means not having the sun rise at 4am, way before anyone really needs the light..

Why would you not want that? I dont understand!

So if I get the chance, I’ll vote for it, I cant wait to get on my bike at 6pm and wander off for a nice ride in the cooling (I guess thats a relative term over here..) evening breeze.

Its amazing – empty beach on a warm (ish) Friday early evening. In the UK this would be heaving with people. Over here, its just part of the great outdoors and its a bit taken for granted. Hence the empty beach. Some kite surfers recognise how lucky they are though 🙂

its a bit warm today.

just a little bit, but to a pasty faced cold weather climate person like myself, I can feel the Perth summer starting to build up just a little.

Enough that I might have to abandon wearing a suit soon and switch to chinos and short sleeved shirts 🙂

lovely to be able to walk about without worrying about getting wet though 🙂

I’m gonna bring the camera in one of the days this week – get in an hour early before most people start work and get some cool city images.

I get bitten by something.

Presumably it was a small black house spider or something – anyway – I suddenly come over very dizzy. So dizzy that I cant even stand up, even kneeling on the floor was too hard so I had to go to bed for a few hours.

I have a welt on my left hand today and feel a bit under par.

meh!

bloody bitey spidery things.

so, I finally moved from England to Australia and am now settled in Perth.

Its been a mad month, with leaving my job, packing up and shipping my stuff, moving back with my parents for a couple of weeks and generally having as much fun with my kids as I could fit in.

And then I flew out..

Been here for just over 2 weeks now and I think I have most things under control – I even had a preliminary job offer today, which is pretty cool 😀 I should hear back next week with the details and salary and stuff, but its looking pretty promising I have to say. I also have an opportunity with my old company, Oracle, so we’ll see where that goes in the coming days.

I’m going to enjoy my last week of “freedom” with some photo expeditions (well, probably just cafe hangouts and people shots) and if the weather allows, some sitting on the beach – its not been warm enough yet really to do that. Having said that, its a good deal warmer than when I went to Camber Sands with Ella at the end of August.

Watch this space for some more news 🙂