The second model who I shot on my trip to Invercargill was Samantha. She was looking for an urban theme so in the afternoon I had wandered around the town and found some interesting alleyways and rear areas that look promising.
f1.7 1/50s ISO800
We started in an alleyway an old door with peeling paint that provides a great texture. As the shoot had begun at 5:00pm, in the middle of winter, we were on the last light of the day hence I was shooting on a wide open aperture and slow shutter speed.
The next location was a rear parking where I found a set of stairs. By now it was quite dark so I used a video light on camera and a speedlight positions behind Samantha to light the back of her head.
F3.5 1/60s ISO200 Video Light & Speedlight
The final location was in an old warehouse that has been turned into a carpark. As in many cities the walls had attracted graffiti artists. I used the same video light as my main light but positioned a speedlight behind Samantha but aimed at the wall so that we would see some of the environment. Without that light it would have been a black space.
F6.3 1/100s ISO200 Video Light & Speedlight
The whole shoot took around 90 minutes even though we were moving from location to location. My earlier visit to Skype out locations paid off as I did not waste time figuring out where we could shoot.
Samantha seem to be pleased with the final images.
In July 2021 I travelled down to Invercargill to be the host on a Photographic Society of New Zealand (PSNZ) dance workshop. At the time I was president of PSNZ, and was also not working, so when I discovered that the Southland Photographics Society had their meeting on the Thursday before I travelled down early to visit them. That meant that I had the free day on the Friday.
On a previous visit to Invercargill I had discovered an area of Queens Gardens called the Stumpery. They have arranged large tree stumps into an area that you can walk around and through. Essentially it is a botanical piece of art.
From that visit I knew that I wanted to shoot there so in addition to packing my usual clothes, and gear for the workshop, I packed several lens of fabric and a lightstand.
Via a Facebook modelling group I reached out to see if there were any models interested in shooting with me on the Friday and Raj replied. We arranged to meet at the entrance to the gardens and made our way to the Stumpery.
After sum initial shoots in the centre of the Stumpery we moved to the edge and started to bring in the longer pieces of fabric. She was keen enough to climb up on the structures. By this stage we were losing the natural light so I wedged the speed light after the side to add more light.
1/160s f5.6 ISO 200. – bare speedlight
Moved around the gardens to an area with a Japanese Asian influence and I used the archway to pose her. I covered the speed light with an orange gell to fake golden light.
For the final set of images moved to water feature and I use the second piece of lace that I had brought down. Again I used a bare speedlight to add a little bit of light to the image.
One of the things that’s important when shooting at any location is to look at how changing your angle can change the image. In the images above and below Raj is essentially in the same location but I have moved to a different shooting point and in the process change the feel of the images.
1/60s f6.3 ISO 200 – bare speedlight
It was a good shoot and I was pleased with the result.
Pano of nine images. 10s f2 50mm ISO3200 Nikon D600
In June 2021 I travelled up to central North Island at Horopito to be the host on a Photographic Society of New Zealand (PSNZ) Astro workshop. I had shot astro before, so I had a fundamental understanding of how to do it but the opportunity to shoot on Mount Ruapehu was too good to turn down.
I am not going into the technical details of Astra photography here as it is quite complicated and they are plenty of other articles on it but put simply you have to use the widest lines you can have the west aperture and shoot long exposures sufficient to have the stars shout. Most of the really good images that you will see are the result of stacking lots of images together in specialised programs which I do not have.
After a briefing in the afternoon followed by dinner we headed around the mountain to National Park to a car park at start of the one of the tracks on what is referred to as the Tongariro crossing. Astro is weather dependent and unfortunately the gods are not in our favour. They had been cloud coming in through the day and when we arrived at the car park light rain started to fall. Number in the party gave it after that stage but the rest of us get it up and heat it out into the dark. We had literally gone no further than five minutes down the train when the clouds cleared and the stars appeared. That gave us the first opportunity to practice everything.
Astrophotography has an almost magical element to it in that when the photo appears on the back of the camera you can see much more detail than what you are seeing with the naked eye. I think that is what makes it so appealing.
When the clouds rolled in again we continued on up the track to one of the huts on the trail. One of the tricks with astrophotography is that if you want to improve an image then have a foreground element in it. I’m not sure what the people in the hut thought of the group of photographers camping out in the dark.
30s f2.8 14mm ISO3200 Lumix G9
I had taken both my Nikon D600 and Lumix G9 with me. The Nikon. was used for the main images while I had the Lumix set up for timelapse. Unfortunately the clouds limited that and all I got was a two second clip.
Timelapse
Day two of the workshop started after lunch with a session on post processing the images. Then late in the afternoon we headed back around to National Park where we stopped for dinner. We head up to The Château and walked up the track to the Tauranga Falls. unfortunately the weather was still not playing ball and we only managed about 10 minutes at the falls before the cloud packed down once again. At that stage most people gave up and we decided to head back to our accommodation for a little social.
Pano of six images. 20s f2 50mm ISO3200 Nikon D600
When we got there we discovered that the cloud above the area was clear and so we were able to shoot for another hour. The grounds had a lake in the and David (the presenter) had brought with him some steel wall so I final shoot we created our own stars.
6s f8 50mm ISO3200 Nikon D600
It was quite an enjoyable weekend even if the weather did not play for. Most people did manage to either get some usable shots or at least improve on the techniques which ultimately is the goal of any workshop.
I met Chris at the very first Wellington Cosplay Photofest where he came in an stormtrooper outfit from Star Wars. You can read about that shoot here.
In May 2021 I organised a location shoot for my camera club at the World War 2 gun emplacements at Fort Balance on the Miramar Peninsula. I reached out to Chris and he came along in his own creation Stigpool. This is a combination of the Stig character from the Top Gear television series and Deadpool.
Chris had a fully kitted car to go along with his character so we started at the roadside with some shots there. These were all shot under natural light 1/200s at f8.
Then we moved up into the bunkers in shoot at several locations initially outside.
We then moved inside the complex and I positioned Chris and let him with a speed light in a small soft box on a light stand to the side. Positioning of this light was very important to avoid reflection within his visor. For the inside shots the settings were 1/125s f7.1 ISO 200.
The words on the floor were a complete coincidence but they worked in so well with the character.
For the final shot I had Chris climbing through a hole in the wall. The main light was again positioned to the side with a small speedlight in the room behind him to provide separation.
Shooting a character in a full face helmet is quite tricky as you cannot rely on the eye detect that modern mirrorless cameras. Fortunately my Lumix G9 switches to head and body detection when it cannot lock onto the eye.
It was a fun day and everybody seemed to enjoy themselves.
One of the benefits that comes with belonging to a camera club is that occasionally you get given the opportunity to shoot somewhere where you would not normally be able to.
At the 2021 Photographic Society of New Zealand National Convention in Christchurch one of the offsite options was entitled industrial photography. We were taken to a fabrication factory that was closed for the day but where a number of staff had come in to use the tools that they do every day for us to photograph the sparks that they generate.
All that was asked in return was some images that they could use in their marketing and promotion. (the final image on this page is the one that presented to them).
In many of these shots they were deliberately making more sparks than would happen in normal use. Obviously having pieces of molten metal flying around is potentially dangerous so we will given plenty of advice of where to stand and importantly not to stand.
We were also told to focus the camera without looking through the lens as some of the bright light particularly with the welding torches could damage your eyes.
This was a perfect opportunity to try long exposure to capture the sparks and flight. The images were captured on a tripod at 1/10s at f16.
I did want to capture one particular image for the set I was submitting so I took long light stand and a Lume cube so that I could light up the worker. The Lume cube is pretty indestructible so I knew that it could handle the situation.
The final image of the welder was actually a composite of three images put together so that we could maximise the effect of the sparks.
The sports my daughter has played has had a big effect on my photographic journey. When she was a lot younger it was shooting a netball game that showed a good digital SLR could be and resulted in us purchasing her first one.
She went on to artistic rollerskating which pushed my gear and my own understanding of how to use the camera even more.
She eventually gave up the rollerskating when she went to university in 2021 she got interested in rubble Derby. In theory this is a low contact sport played mainly by women who all take on different personas for the games.
Unlike many of the others Samantha could skate very well so she ended up in the position of Jammer (denoted by the star on the helmet) who is person who once they have made it past the other skaters (called blockers) score points.
I had photographed Roller Derby on two previous occassion and found that it was even more challenging to shoot that roller skating. So when Samantha invited me to of their training sessions. I decided to give it another go as I could try out different settings without the pressure of delivering any images.
All of these images were shot with my Panasonic G9 using a 100-300mm lens. This is a full frame equivalent of 200-600mm. I had a setting of f4 and played with shutter speeds of 1/125 and 1/200s to freeze the action with ISO provisions the boost (2500 at the lower end and 4000 at the upper).
Focusing what the main challenge and ultimately you end up taking a lot of images and rejecting them.
Sport is a great way for anyone to learn how to use their camera on the fly and particularly the limitations that the gear will give you. You make lots of mistakes but in the process you learn heaps.
Ideas for shoots quite often start with prop and develop from that. That was certainly the case with my Sharman shoot which started when I was given some pieces of old fur costume that had been used by extras in the television series Xena Warrior Princess.
I knew that I wanted to do something tribal and primitive with them. And that developed into the concept of a witch doctor. The top of the costume was a single piece but for the bottom I glued pieces of the fur onto a nude coloured pantie. I made a headpiece out of dried vines embellished with feathers. In my original design I had antlers as part of it but for these proved to be too difficult to stay on the head so they were used as a prop instead.
I had shot with Casey before on two occasions and I know that she would be willing to play the part. I also recruited a make up artist Erin Gibbons to create the look for me. I used a previous image of Casey that I altered in Photoshop so that she could see what I was going for.
I wanted to create an authentic looking environment for the Sharma so I made the facade of a hut at the bottom of our garden. I used two lightstands with a crossbar to which I attached pieces of hessian that had come from a double mattress. This was sewed to the uprights.
I then used three sticks and sewed them around the doorway closing off the gap with coco sacks that I had. I finally adored the door with three seal skulls that we have found the year before.
I was concerned about wind and so I had the structure both tied to the fence and anchored down. Fortunately wind did not become an issue.
In front of the heart I built a small fire pit using rocks gathered from the river.
As I wanted to control the light, and the set was outside, it was necessary to shoot in the evening. My main light was Godox AD600 in a 1.5m octagonal softbox. In addition I had a small LED constant line that was simply used to assist the camera to focus.
I wanted to have a real fire in the images but I also wanted to ensure the safety of my model. So in the initial shots a small lume cube with an orange gel was placed inside of thefire pit. This created a glow on Casey which I was unable to use in a composite if the actual fire. For this reason the camera was mounted on a tripod so that it would make compositing the images much easier.
As often happens it took nearly an hour to apply the make up and then we move Casey into the garage to apply slip clay to her body relying on a hairdryer to speed up the process.
Casey really got into the character and this really brought my idea to life.
As it turned out Casey did interact with the fire and this added further to the series. Although in some images I also added more of it for effect.
From a technical viewpoint the initial images without the fire we shot at 1/160s f8 ISO 200. When the fire was added the shutter was slowed to 1/100 as the fire was not as bright as the LED.
I was really pleased how the images came out and they were well received when they were posted one was submitted for New Zealand Camera and it appeared in the 2022 edition. This is an annual print publication of the Photographic Society of New Zealand and it is quite difficult to have images selected.
Amongst the mini positions that my wife inherited from her parents with several boxes of slides. She asked me if it was possible to digitise them so that we could save them on the computer and also show other family members without the need of getting out a projector which we did not have.
Egmont
They are commercial outfits that will do this process but it is quite expensive and equally there is gear that you can buy that will enable you to use a camera. I decided to see if I could achieve the same result.
Masterton
Using the table that I had built for the dressmaker series I mounted a LED light below it and created a paper frame on which to place the slides. The camera was mounted above using the arm of my tripod. It was fitted with a 105mm macro lens.
Focusing on a flat surface is very tricky and with the incredibly shallow depth of field on the 105mm macro any movement in the camera created issues. I was using live view on the back of the camera zoomed in to enable me to focus but even there is was not easy. In order to minimise movement further I was using a cable release to fire the camera.
Vicky New,
The images that we got were acceptable especially as they were either not necessarily the most interesting, or they had emotional value.
If I was to do it again I would make a couple of changes. Firstly I would be using a mirrorless camera, rather than the DSLR, to eliminate any shake with the mirror. Secondly, I would shoot tethered to the computer so that I could see the images in greater detail.
The World of Wearable Arts (WOW) is an annual event in Wellington that attracts thousands of people. Designers from all around the world submit outfits made from the most unusual materials.
Designers who have never entered before have to go through a pre-elimination round but those that have been successful in the past managed to skip the step. They are still required to submit images of the design plus a video showing how it is fitted to the model.
Through the connection with previous collaborations for a number I’ve been providing photographic services to a number of the designers. We would set up a simple studio that enable them to show off their designs in the best possible way.
In 2021 I worked with outfits creates by Jenny (above), Fiona and Vicki (below) all previous wow finalised. In fact the back Fiona was a previous category winner.
The requirement was a simple look-book shooting the garment from all four sides against a plain background. To achieve this are used two lights on the background and a main light and reflector on the subject. The background lights used my Elinchroms 400 while my Godox 600 provided the key light.
The Elinchroms and Godox lights use different triggers however this is not a problem as the Elinchrom also have optical slaves enabling them to fire when the main light goes.
Once the look-book images had been completed we were able to shoot more creative images which again was to demonstrate how the cost the outfit blocked.
The amount of detail that goes into these outfits is truly amazing as shown with this closeup of the dress.
My final shoot at 2021 Wellington Cosplay Photofest was with Bianca who goes by @Happy_Cookie-Snapper. She had a number of possible costumes and we agreed that she would play Toshiro Hitsugaya from the Japanese anime series bleach. Given that anime cosplay allows people to be completely different characters it is not unusual to find them portraying characters of the opposite sex.
During our discussions we settled all the shit in Wellington Civic Square and the entrance to the Michael Fowler Centre as we could make these resemble the environment of Bleach. She she mentioned that to her her friends were also taking part in the car fest and they were playing characters from the same series and as such could we shoot it as a group. I was more than happy to do so.
After the incident of the armed police call out at a previous Photofest I was taking no chances that somebody would report us as the characters were carrying samurai swords. I called the police ahead of time and told them that we were doing a photoshoot. As the event ran over a long weekend I knew that the square would not be as busy as it would normally be on day.
When they arrived it turned out that the other two where Jasmine and Ruan had shot a couple years before at the very first Photofest. We shot around the top of the square and then moved down to the entrance of the centre.
Most of the shoot was done in natural light, however for the ones outside the centre I did position a speedlight behind to columns to ensure that the back two characters stood out.
Once I had selected the final images I used Nik Software to create a heavier contrast before delivering them.
I was very pleased when Bianca told me that they had ended up looking exactly how she had imagined and that they fitted the bleach world well.
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