The third shoot on day one of the Great Trentham Collaboration was with Ashley-Jane Cole. I had shot AJ three years previously at the waterfall in Upper Hutt and again when she was at a recording studio as she is a very talented singer/songwriter.
AJ had chosen a swing dress from Deranged, which styled up for a ballet theme. Her makeup was done by Eden Gibbons.
On the upper level of grandstand was a cafe with a Fence look so I made up of a large mural for my first set of images.
We then moved up in the attic area where the large windows surrounded with wines provided plenty of great light and interesting backgrounds
We then moved to the outside and particularly around the base of the vines that encase the building.
I have just had the most amazing two days of photography at what was called the Great Trentham Collaboration. Two Wellington photographer Shonty Rogan and Paul Maka organised a two day event that brought together 24 photographers and models, a dozen makeup artists, and six fashion designers, with clothes ranging from street wear to costumes. This was the second year that it had been run but this year was much bigger than before.
Model: Jordan Carlton MUA:Charlie Timmins Outfit: Evem
It was held at the Trentham Racecourse which is a very large complex with a multitude of rooms and areas to shoot in. It was so big that despite 12 photographers shooting at the same time there was very little competition for space, and when there was that was easily managed. We were originally told that we had full access to both of the grandstands but on the day the security guard needed to unlock the members stand was sick and so we only had the old grandstand to play in. I doubt that that caused much of an issue to anyone.
Model: Jordan Carlton MUA:Charlie Timmins Outfit: Evem
The old grandstand is four stories high including an amazing adandoned attic space, that practically everyone used at one stage. The windows faced the afternoon sun so were perfect for natural light, while other spaces were with easy reach of power supplies. All in all it was a great location.
Model: Ashleigh-Jane Cole MUA: Eden Gibbons Outfit:Deranged
The photographers were broken into two groups and each day was split into 4 1.25 hours shooting session. So at any one time 12 photographers and models were shooting, 12 photographers were on break downloading their images from the previous shoot, and 12 models were in makeup.
The two days went very smoothly with the only glitches being caused by models not being available due to illness. All photographers stuck to their allocated times and while the makeup in some cases took longer than allowed the time allocated for the photography was sufficient to make up the time.
It was a true collaboration of everyone’s effort with photographers also helping each other out either my being assistants or in allowing their gear or sets to be set up.
I have recently taken to wearing a fitbit and it told me that over the two days I walked nearly 33 kilometers, at lot of which was going between floors. It is no wonder that my legs were sore at the end of the weekend.
I have mentioned before that I am putting together 10 images to submit for the first level of the Photographic Society of New Zealand (PSNZ) honours system. At the Licentitate level (LPSNZ) you are supposed to demonstrate proficiancy across a range of photographic styles. Quite often the photographers have used different genres to do this.
I have taken a slightly different approach in trying to show diversity of approach but within the same genre. This is risky but it stays true to my main area of photography.
I already have most of the images shot and are finishing it with two images that emply macro techniques. While normally used on flowers or insects I decided to employ the technique on faces.
I had seen a Lindsay Adler video where she had used coloured powder on a face and shot it up close. It was amazing so I sought to do the same. Sanna works part time at my work, and as she had very vivid eyes, I asked if she would help me.
The powder we used is the same as that used in the “Color Run” however its origins are with the Hindu Holi festival. It is a very fine cornstarch which is deadly on lens so we were taking no risks.
We shot in Sanna’s apartment with her sitting on a wooden stool. A large tarpolin was spread on the floor to ensure that none of the powder stains the carpet. I even bought a $2 t-shirt from a thrift store so that there was no risk I would ruin her clothes.
I had a single studio light with a gridded seven inch reflector to give me a very precise light. The camera was metered at f11. Given that it was a macro shot you have very little depth of field to play with so the camera was set on a try, and live view was used to focus to lens. As a final precaution the camera was set to self timer.
We started with shots without the powder to check that the exposure was right. The shadows on the original images were too dark so we positioned a large mirror to act as a reflector and fill them in a bit.
An initial shot to test exposure
I started shooting with my original macro lens which is a Sigma 70-300mm that has a macro switch that can be set anywhere between 200-300mm. I was initially using this lens becasue it enabled me to shoot further away, and therefore avoid the risk of powder damage.
The problem is that the lens is very hard to sharply focus, and as we had placed rather than thrown the powder I decided to swap to my Nikon 105mm macro which is a much sharper lens.
I was really pleased with the results. One thing that was quite surprizing was how black the background went. This was shot in a well light kitchen with windows on two sides, so to the huma eye is was quite well lit. But the camera set at 1/200s at f11 pretty much eliminated all ambient light.
Hannah is a young model who was looking to expand her portfolio. Kristy recenty graduated from Weltec’s makeup school and was also looking to colaborate for her portfolio. We arranged to do a fashion and lingerie shoot at the Palmer Head gun emplacement.
Over the last 10 years of shooting models I have been pretty lucky that just about every shoot has been an enjoyable experience. Unfortunately I could not rate this among them due to a whole string of issues that seemed to plague it.
The shoot was originally planned for the Saturday November 27th, and as all parties lived in the Hutt Valley I arranegd to meet them and then go in a single car. I was supposed to be picking them up at 4:00pm and figured that with travel and makeup we would start shoooting around 5:30pm. I was not too worried about the time of day as it was going to be light until at least 8pm and there was the promise of a period of golden light.
Unfortunatley Hannah cancelled 50 minutes before her pickup time, by which time I was already on my way. She had run into an issue with babysitting and so we rescheduled for the following Saturday.
The day before the second shoot day there was a drama that could easily make a soap opera script when she hadn’t replied to either a facebook or text message I had sent. Based on some other posts i had seen her make on Facebook I assumed it was not on and so arranged with a second model. When she finally confirmed I had to change the arrangements with the second model.
Then on the day of the rescheduled shoot she arrived 50 minutes later than originally planned at the pickup point. This meant that we started a lot later than planned. While the day had started out fine and calm but by the time we got to the bunker cloud kept coming in and out and the wind had picked up to the point where Kristy was struggling with the makeup. The temperature had also dropped and so the location was turning into a not too pleasant place to be.
We worked through the series of clothes shoots, as I figured this would be a good way for her to relax before we moved onto the lingerie. While this sort of worked the wind and the light made shooting difficult.
Kristy gets Hannah ready for the shoot
I had assumed that shooting so late in the day we would have the site pretty much to ourselves. We had a couple of people walk through while makeup was being done but that did not cause us any grief. But no sooner as Hannah got into the first lingerie outfit then a family arrived at the site, along with a bunch of preteen boys. The family did not stay long but the boys hung around. That meant that we had to stay in one very dark room which was not what I had in mind.
I could see that Hannah was clearly nervous with the presence of the boys and was also getting quite cold. When my flash starting misfiring I decided to call it quits. There was no point in trying any further.
Hannah has asked to shoot again in the new year. Hopefully that shoot will run more smoothly.
I am pleased to announce that at the Hutt Camera Club awards night I received the award for Advanced Digital images in the ladder competition.
This is a competition judged in four sections over the course of the year. Each round has a different set topic and a different judge, with two images maximum allowed. The images below are the eight that were submitted.
On Thursday night I attended a product launch hosted by Wellington Photographic Supplies who have become the local agent for Profoto lights. Sean from WPS and Greg from CRKennedy (the New Zealand distributors) has brought down both models of battery powered lights in the Profoto range.
Now I have often seen these lights used in the videos but it was a real treat to be able to use them in action. While I had my own camera there I also jumped at the opportunity to play with a D800E. The lights use TTL so it was quite interesting to see how they would perform as personally I shoot with lights on manual.
We shot down on the Wellington waterfront with the love Laura. It was a great time.
While I would love to own a set of these babies the reality is that they fall into the “when i win lotto’ category.
This was shot full TTL in aperture priority. As such the camera knew that a flash was in play and set the shutter speed at 1/60sThis is a more traditional image bringing out the model from the background. The sky was much lighter than shown in the image but I had the camera set at f14.As the lights had the ability of high speed I thought I would give it a try. This was shot in manual at 1/1250s F4. It is still maybe a little overexposed, but given of my other lights can shoot anything about 1/200s I am happy.
Over the weekend I attended the Central Regional Conference of the Photographic Society of New Zealand (PSNZ). While there were a number of speakers on offer, the one that I most wanted to hear from was Esther Bunning, who is an extremely talented photographer based in Greytown in the Wairarapa. Esther is a portrait specialist, and Nikon Ambassador, known for her dreamy style of shooting.
In addition to speaking Esther also ran a workshop where she showed various techniques to achieve amazing looks in camera, rather than relying on photoshop. These included the use of multiple exposures, slow shutter speeds as well as placing objects between the camera and subject.
We were lucky to have four dancers from a local ballet school as our models and I got to try several of the approaches as well as having play with her Lenbaby Composer. That was quite fun although manual focus and a moving subject can be tricky. Esther stated that this sort of shooting was very free form as you really didn’t know what the end result would be like until you had the shots. I found that it was quite liberating to simply go with the flow and not have to worry what was being shot.
When I posted the images from my previous movement session online, I got an instant response to the images, and other dancers wanting to take part. Hayley introduced herself as a Salsa dancer who had a number of flowing dresses, so we set up a time to shoot.
I used the same hall as for my earlier shoot, however having learned from the first session, and reviewing a different YouTube clip, I made a couple of changes. The most notable were to make sure I had a second light bank and a much bigger (and taller) backdrop. The new lights were two Interfit continuous lights borrowed from a fellow photographer at work. While not being particularly strong they were more than adequate for the long exposure work. I used a small light stand and boom arm to set them one on top of the other giving me an effective stripbox. I had them positioned behind a large reflector so their light was fairly concentrated. The diagram below shows the layout.
In these circumstances you have to work solely in manual and therefore the first shots are generally trial and error. Focusing is also on manual by selecting a spot roughly equivalent to where she would be when the flash fired. Given that the camera was set at f11 I knew that there was a degree of flexibility in the depth of field.
I initially had the computer tethered to a laptop as this made showing the images to Hayley a lot easier. Unfortunately it is fairly old and struggled to keep up so ended up being ditched. Tethered shooting is really good when it works but can be frustrating when it plays up.
Hayley had a number of outfits which we moved through. He initially one ended up only being used for the test shots as it was blending too much in the background. The lighter coloured dresses worked best, although the speed that Hayley was dancing did cause some issues. With long exposures if the subject is moving quickly then rather than a blur, they simply disappear. Trying to find the right balance in the speed was important.
At one point we placed a red gell over the continuous light to see what effect that would make, especially when she was wearing a white outfit. I would rate this has been only marginally successful. When Hayley was over by the gelled light the red came through strongly but it was too far away for the main light to be fully effective. When she was closer to the main light the colour was essentially bleached out by its strength.
I then moved to a series of shots using lengths of fabric and a fan to add the movement. Hayley added to these by playing with the fabric in the air and the results from these images are really good.
Towards the end of the shoot I changed tack and tried to get the images that would essentially freeze the action. Leaving the existing lights in place I introduced a third lights which I shot into a large silver umbrella. The shutter speed when then put up to maximum sync speed and I shot some images of Hayley jumping.
Some weeks ago I came across a Youtube clip in which the photographer used long exposure and flash together the create images of movement. The flat essentially froze the action at that point whereas the log exposure created the movement.
I decided that this fitted in nicely with my earlier session using the LED lights and dancers which you can read about here. I had a large hall available and Kasia agreed to be my dancer.
The key to the shot is getting a sufficient long exposure to allow enough light in to capture the movement, and the flash set to fire right at the end. I knew that I had to have a very wide depth of field as Kasia would be ranging over quite a large area. Therefore the camera was on a tripod and set at f20, with manual focus set with a test shot.
We initially started with a 1/3 second exposure but that didn’t generate enough movement so we extended that to 1 second. The ambient light was provided by the room lights, and my main flash was set to camera left using the 7 foot parabolic umbrella. I positioned a second light camera right with a small gridded reflector aimed at the backdrop to try to add some more separate.
I had planned to bring in a constant light but in packing the car that got left behind.
While I am reasonably happy with the end results I think that there were some definite things that I would change for the next shot.
The first was to use a much bigger backdrop. I was using a very old support system and it is not that wide or tall. That meant that a number of great looking shots were not useable because Kasia had moved off the backdrop.
I would remember to bring in all of the lights that i needed because the final image is well lit, the movement is a little dull.
Timing is everything. Trying to start the movement with the press of the shutter is quite hard. As shown in the image below if Kasia held her initial position for two long we ended up with a double exposure.
I am trying to arrange a time with a ballet dancer in the next month and hope to take this series further.
Last night we had the results of the third round of the Hutt Camera’ club 2016 ladder competition. This time I had four images in for consideration. There were two digital images, that had been entered specifically to compete for the overall title. In addition I submitted two print images, that I am considering to be part of my submission early next year for Photographic Society of New Zealand honours. The plan was simply to get feedback from the judge.
I was blown away with the results. Both print images were awarded honours, as was one of the digital images. The other scored a merit (which is the grade below honours) so that was pleasing as well.
Against the cold – HonoursThe Old Map – HonoursThe old Accordion player – MeritWilf – Honours.
My image of Wilf is one that proves you don’t need a fancy camera to get the image. This was shot on a small and relative cheap Fuji mirrorless.
The third shoot on day one of the Great Trentham Collaboration was with Ashley-Jane Cole. I had shot AJ three years previously at the waterfall in Upper Hutt and again when she was at a recording studio as she is a very talented singer/songwriter.
On the upper level of grandstand was a cafe with a Fence look so I made up of a large mural for my first set of images.
We then moved to the outside and particularly around the base of the vines that encase the building.
pwfotos 