Category Archives: People

Competition Entries, Concept Images, Models, People

The Tarot Reader

December 26, 2020 whittyp Leave a comment

Generally speaking if I go to the effort to build a set and arrange a model, I will try to get more than one look out of the shoot. So when Neena came out for the Fortune Teller we decided to not only do a series with the crystal ball, but also ones with tarot cards. These I had borrowed from my daughter.

The lighting for the shoot was very similar to the first part, with the large octobox providing Rembrant lighting.

The difference with these sets of images was that I was free to move around and try different angles rather than being locked onto the tripod.

I have placed quite a number of candles on the table and so to replicate a glow that would come from them I positioned a gridded speed light that was gelled orange on the floor on a very low power and aimed at Neena’s face.

Although a lot of the candles were that there is very little light actually coming from them. I now realise that I should have added some flame in post.

I made one really big mistake with this shoot, and tat was not checking my camera setting properly before starting. For some reason the camera was set to JPG and not RAW so the amount of adjustments I would do in post was considerable less than what I would have normally done.

Competition Entries, Concept Images, Models, People

The Fortune Teller

December 22, 2020 whittyp Leave a comment

One of the topics in the 2020 Wellington interclub print competition was “illusion”. When I started to think about it the notion of a fortune teller came to mind especially one using a crystal ball.

Neena is a fashion/costume designer who I had met through the Fashion Collective. When I took part in the shot at Staglands in 2019, Neena had arrived in a gypsy style outfit which was exactly the look I was going for. So I reached out to her to see if she would recreate it for me. She agreed and we set up a date for the shoot.

I built a set in my studio so that we could cover any angles that I wanted.

I had decided to use a simple Rembrandt lighting for the main character. The studio is not wide enough to do this effectively however the room has a window in the right location. So i simply fitted a large October to my strobe and shot in from outside.

In addition to the main light I wanted the crystal ball to be omitting light and therefore I decided to position a speed light below it.

I wanted to have a circular table, which we didn’t have so I cut a sheet of plywood into a circle. This then let me drill some holes in the middle under which I then placed to lengths of timber below so that the speed light could fit between them.

I tested this will the stand I had for the ball and it seemed to work okay, although it was not as strong as I would have liked. The advantage of having the light hidden would have been that I could have produced the images in a single take and not had to composite anything.

As it turned out when Neena arrived she had a brass stand with her that looked perfect. The only problem was that the triangular base was solid. This mean that the light had to be positioned on the table rather than below it.

When I am working with multiple lights I always introduce them in the scene one at a time.

I then brought in the main light and played around with the staging of the set.

While originally there was quite a lot of items in the background I decided to simplify them as I would be coming in much tighter on my main character.

To get some extra impact from the candles on the rear table, I positioned another speedlight behind them which was gelled orange.

It was then a matter of taking a series of images with the light on the table aimed at the ball, and then a series where the speed light was removed.

Then in Photoshop the two images were brought together and the speedlight was masked out. Although the candles were lit the glow from them was a little dull so i gave it a little boost.

I then went into Nik software and added a old film simulation to it.

I was quite happy with the results but when I showed the image to some other people, the comment came back that the red candles on the right of the image were distracting. So in the final version they have been removed.

As it turned out it did not get selected for the category but I have no regrets as it was a fun shoot.

Awards, Concept Images, People

A Glint of Silver

June 2, 2017 whittyp Leave a comment

The Iris Awards are the annual measure of excellence for members of the New Zealand Institute of Professional Photographers. Over four days hundreds of images are graded and as a result the members of the NZIPP obtain the levels in their honours system.

When my image of the reflection did well in the Central Regional conference, Esther Bunning told me that she would nag me to enter into Iris, because she was convinced that it would do well. Although I am not a member of the NZIPP I could enter as they recognise my membership of the Photographic Society of New Zealand. It would just cost me more.

In the lead up to Iris a lot of the local sections of NZIPP arrange mock judging sessions where you can anoymously enter images and they are assessed by a panel of experienced members, some of who are the actual judges in the awards themselves.

So given the encouragement of Esther I decided to enter two images into the local mock judging to see how they would go, and I was really pleased with the result. Both images were received well by the judges and audience alike. They accessed that both could be in contention for a “High silver” which was awesome to hear. It was also great to hear the positive comments that were made as well.

While it would have been nice to have taken the images through into the actual judging life has intervened. There is real uncertainty about my job and I decided thati had better uses for the $410.00 that it would have cost to enter. Just knowing that they were of a high standard was reward enough.

Exhibitions, People

Exhibition over

May 29, 2016 whittyp Leave a comment

This afternoon we closed the doors on the exhibition that has run for the last fortnight that combined painting by my wife and photos by me. The title of the exhibition was “Life’s little moments” and as such my images mainly fell into the genre of “street photography”.

Now that the exhibition is over I can share the images with a wider audience. While the digital images look good there is nothing like seeming them in white mattes on the wall of a gallery. The images are presented in the order that they appeared on the walls of the gallery.

Commerical Work, People

Fitness Shoot with Simon

December 3, 2015 whittyp Leave a comment

While I have been photographing portfolio sessions of people for a number of years, if you look at my work, you will see that the vast majority are women. So when a friend suggested me to her friend I jumped at the opportunity.

Simon is a personal trainer who operates out of a local gym. He has a background in marketing so when we initially met he had some very clear ideas what he was after, and also what he did not want. We agreed to do two separate shoots, one being in a studio and the second in the gym.

For the studio shoot I had originally booked a place in Upper Hutt that is set up as a full photographic studio. Unfortunately it is based within one of the grandstands at Trentham racecourse and on the Tuesday before the shoot I discovered that another event being held that weekend would make access to the studio virtually impossible.

I then reached out to Freya who runs Poleclass.co.nz in Wellington. I had shot in her place a number of years ago. While the space did not have all of the gear of my original choice it had large spaces as well as large area of natural light which I ended up utilising for the shoot rather than relying on the studio strobes.

We finished the shoot in an alleyway behind the studio for a completely different look. Simon had asked for a quick set of images for social media so that night I selected and processed 7 images to send him.

For impact I decided that most of the images from the first shoot would be presented in Black & White.

The second shoot took place a fortnight later in a central gym. We scheduled it for late in the evening to ensure that less people would be around. For this shoot I initially started using a single speedlight with an umbrella, however that started to give me some issues in that it would not recycle quick enough. Eventually I ditched the light and cranked up the ISO and shot with the available light knowing that as the images were being shot in RAW I could correct the colour cast that the fluorescent lights would introduce. This worked out quite well.

Simon appears to be very pleased with the images that he received.

People

Maternity Shoot (NSFW)

August 17, 2015 whittyp Leave a comment

Kylie was one of the models on my “naked art class” and is currently 8 months pregnant. She is helping me on another project that will be finished in another two months time. In return for this I promised to do a more traditional maternity shoot with her.

She has created a pinterest board to show me what she was looking for, which ended up having such a wide range of images in it that is was of little use. We settled on her wanting a high key and a silhouette. Such shots involve a lot of back lighting so rather than reply of studio strobes solely I used a large north facing window and natural light.

LR-Kylie-5 In order to fill in some of the feature I ended up using a large softbox set camera right and at very low power.

Kylie suffers from eczema and during her period it has flared up worst. I eliminated the effects of this using the healing brush and skin shooting techniques in photoshop. Turning the image into black & white also helps.

Kylie loves the images which really all that matters.

Models, People

Sunday in the park

September 7, 2014 whittyp Leave a comment

For the last five weeks I have been taking a break from work and so I thought that I would be able to fill the spare time with photoshoots rather than being restricted to the weekend. As it turned out it did not pan out quite as planned and most of the shoots I have got in have been on the usual days.

Rebecca approached me some time ago to see if I would do a shoot with her and I agreed I would. She then mentioned that she would also like to include her daughter as well.

When I found out that they lived in Masterton it was decided that we would shoot in a location around the Hutt Valley rather than travelling into Wellington. As the weather was not looking promising I decided to use Percy’s Reserve in Lower Hutt as I knew that it gave us both open space and also some covered areas should the rain start.

Rather than go for a strictly high fashion model look, I decided to produce a series of images that would fit well into the family type shoot. The images below are mainly shot using natural light with an off camera flash providing a little fill.

LR_24082104-29 — I thought that the gaps in the stone wall provided interesting framing for the two.

People, Travel

Melbourne – People

June 23, 2014 whittyp 1 Comment

Often when you visit a new place it is the people that you see and meet that make the difference to the experience. Melbourne has around the same population as New Zealand but despite that it never felt crowded. The following images simply show the many faces of Melbourne.

I was held up with a large protest about the Budget. This guy made a lot of noise at the back of the march

Street side cafes are in many of the alleys and so are buskers

These two buskers were at the end of the a very dark alley on a rainy day

One of the street artists in Hosier Lane

A street acrobat performs to the crowds outside of Luna Park in St Kilda

Candy Floss is a still a favourite at the fair

A street musician in St Kilda's — A street musician in St Kilda’s

You don't expect to see tall unicycles in the middle of the city. — You don’t expect to see tall unicycles in the middle of the city.

The dog is looking very expectantly of its master

A character in Fitzroy. I say this guy across the street but knew that I did not have enough reach in the lens to shoot as I wanted. So I ant up and asked him if he would mind, and he was cool with it — A character in Fitzroy. I saw this guy across the street but knew that I did not have enough reach in the lens to shoot as I wanted. So I ant up and asked him if he would mind, and he was cool with it

This little shop must have been very good because everytime I passed it there was a queue outside it.

Events, People

Steampunk High Tea

April 4, 2014 whittyp Leave a comment

For some time I have wanted to get into more themed photoshoots and one that had sprung to mind is steampunk inspired. For those of you who have never heard of it, Steampunk is a role playing/costume science fiction type genre where Victorian era clothing and modern equipment is fused. However the modern equipment is made to look like it used the technology available to the Victorians.

Apparently there are two separate streams, namely one based on Victorian England and the other on the American Wild West.

Rather than seek out a model and hire the gear, I thought that it may be quicker to approach those people who are actually serious about it so I found the New Zealand Steampunk group on Facebook and posted a message.

I was then contacted by one of the Wellington members and told that they were having a high tea afternoon, and I was welcome to come along. This was being held in an old villa in Island bay. I took along my speedlights and a single white shoot through umbrella which was used to provide some fill light as the room had a large window to provide natural light.

In order to create a more authentic look the images were turned into Sepia toning. I was quite pleased with this starting point.

Events, People

All the fun of the fair

February 15, 2014 whittyp Leave a comment

Petone is a small centre at the northern end of Wellington harbour. When the first settler boats arrived in the 1800’s they landed here and the first settlements were established. The area has a lot of very old villas and its main street escaped most of the strip mall development of the 1970’s to retain a very old character.

Each year in February the Petone Rotary Club close off most of the main street and set up a street market. Somewhere around 400 stalls sell or promote their services to around 30,000 people. It is therefore a great place to practise a little street photography or to simply enjoy people watching.