Tag Archives: photography

Concept Images, cosplay

Harry potter cosplay

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For the second year now I joined the Wellington Cosplay Photofest held over two days. Unlike 2019 the number of shoots was reduced to a more manageable four spread over the two days.

Shooting cosplay is very interesting and challenging at the same time. Th cosplayers are pretty good at getting into their characters, however it is important that you shoot them consistently with what the character does.

Fortunately my first shoot with “Sas it up Costuming” was in a genre that I was very familiar with. She was coming dressed as a Guiddich player from the Harry Potter movies.

We set up the shoot for Saturday morning and she asked that we try to use a park or something that could resemble Hogwarts. I suggested that we could shoot in the park by Victoria University and also around the Hunter Building as it has a gothic style.

I arrived at the park early to discover that it was being used for sports so we ended up shooting around the university. I

I wanted to produce a shot where it looked like she was flying on the broom and I found the perfect location. There was a rail wide enough for her to balance on it. I started with an empty scene then shot her on the rail.

We then shot close ups of the broom handle and end. As the broom she has brought was not a full length we created that illusion in the images.

In photoshop it was a matter of removing the rail and replacing the other images in it. It ended up being more challenging than I thought and this was mainly caused by not getting the angle consistent. Still everyone seems happy with the end result.

Awards, Concept Images

playing with lights with lauren

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The final round of the 2019 Hutt Camera club completion asked for images that reflected movement. I wanted to do this using lights and particularly the combination of a long exposure with a pop of flash at the end so that you get both movement and frozen action in the same image.

One of the elements that I had acquired after we ran the national convention was a hula hoop with LED lights inside it. I posted for a model who could handle the hula and Lauren answered the call.

We set up a shoot in the garage which was a lot of fun because this is essentially a trial and error process with no two images being the same. Given that it would be very difficult to focus I set F8 as an aperture as this gave me a decent depth of field. Lauren was given a spot to stand on and with the lights on I focused on her in manual mode.

I started out with no light and took some tests shots of the hula spinning until I was happy with the result which was achieved with a 2 second exposure. We had to match the speed of the hula with the exposure. If the hoop was spring too fast or the exposure too long then you ended up with more of a blur (as in the image above).

For the full body shots the lighting was provided by strobes in a large softbox. These were metered to f8 so as to be balanced.

After some initial shots we then tried to mix it up and try to get the effect of a light dress. This entitled telling Lauren when to stop spinning and opening the shutter at the same time. This meant that the movement was in one direction.

At the end of the evening I tried something completely different. I put the light in a seven inch reflector with a grid and focused it at Lauren’s face. I then got her to move the hula in a pattern around her face. The image that was chosen was literally the last one taken on the night.

In the assessing it received a “commended” which gained me enough points to win the Advanced Grade Digital Photographer for the third time.

Events, Models

In the chasm with moana

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Towards the end of last year I joined up with a number of other photographers, makeup artists and models for a day trip over to the Patuma Chasm in the southern Wairarapa.

This is an amazing open cave system in the middle of a farm.

For my shoots I was teamed up with Moana (who I had shot before). Over the course of a hour she went through several costume changes as we worked ourselves deeper into the chasm.

She never complained once even though the water was fairly cool.

Given that we were walking through water to get to each spot I was travelling very light. In addition to the camera I brought a single Lume Cube to provide light as I knew this was water resistant.

In the final image we had ventured a reasonable way into the cave and it was quite dark. I then spotted a point in the water that was being lit by sunlight coming through a small gap in the walls and trees. This produced a natural spotlight to use.

Models, Nudes

bodyscapes with shelley (NSFW)

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A bodyscape is an image that focuses on the shape of the body and its curves, rather than the whole. You use light to reveal and conceal, and they are generally shot with a single light on low power aimed to rim the subject.

This series of images was shot with Shelley after we had completed the timelapse series.

Over the years I have shot a number of bodyscapes and I really enjoy shooting them. The lighting is very much trial and error as there is no real formula to follow. Therefore it is both a technical and an artistic challenge at the same time.

In addition to the naked flesh I have found that using beads adds to the interest. At the end of the shoot Shelley applied oil to her body and we sprayed her with water. This again makes for some great images.

In most cases the face is not shown in a bodyscape therefore they are anonymous. Therefore this final image is not strictly fit the others however the pose does emphasis the shape.

Models, Nudes

Shelley timelapse (NSFW)

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This is another post that concerns a shoot that happened last year. I have been really slack in getting them loaded.

One of the photographers I have followed for a while is Peter Coulson from Australia. He posted a stop motion video shot with a nude model that I thought was quite neat. You can see the video on this link.

As my camera can shoot time-lapse and generate videos from them, I thought that I would give it a try. So I approached Shelley to see if she was interested and she jumped at the opportunity.

In my prop cupboard I have a very unusual helmet that I wanted to incorporate, and I manage to borrow some awesome heels. My original plan was to borrow a military style rifle to use in the shoot, but a week before it was planned a lowlife scum invaded a Christchurch mosque during Friday prayers and murdered 51 innocent people. The rifle was no longer appropriate so we supplemented a baseball bat.

The shoot was relatively straight forward. The camera was set on a tripod and for the first shoot was set to fire 1,200 times at three second intervals. The lighting was provided by my two elinchrom strobes who for the most part handled it well. One did start to misfire towards the end of the shoot and you can see this is the video.

Then we decided to change outfits and use a hula hoop and a mask. For this shoot we only shot 400 frames which resulted in a very short video.

While I was pleased with the results there are a couple of things that I would change.

Firstly video is shot in a very wide format (16:9) so you need plenty of space to shoot it. We shot in my garage that has a low ceiling and my backdrop couldn’t go the whole way across. This meant that in post I had to extend it. If I did this again I would shoot against a plain background so the extension is not that obvious.

Secondly despite the fact that it does take a while to shoot you do need to record a lot of frames to produce a video that is not too short. The 400 frames in the second shoot only generated 5 seconds of video.

Finally I would probably shoot using constant light rather than strobes. While they did handle the job you can see the times that one strobe failed in the video.

Concept Images, Models, Personal Projects

Zodiac Series – Leo

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Leo was the second staged shoot in my Zodiac sequence. I had a couple of concerts in mind with Luke was be my main model. In the first part of the shoot I used a mask I had bought online and with a strobe in a small reflector used it to cast a shadow on the wall. I then had Luke remove the mask and a second shot was taken. The two images were merged in Photoshop.

For the second shoot, I had also recruited two additional models Martina and David who were to play the parts of the unlucky staff being bailed out because of poor performance.

David forgot about the shoot which left me one person short. Fortunately the G9 has a phone app and so I was able to position myself in the shot and still fire the camera.

Lighting for this shot was a main fill light in a seven foot umbrella and a smaller gridded light focused on Luke.

Concept Images, Models, Personal Projects

Zodiac Series – Gemini

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I am currently working through a zodiac series with the ultimate aim of it being made into a set for submission for honours with the Photographic Society of New Zealand. It has been on the drawing board for a long time. To make the series more particular I am trying to recruit models that are actually the star signs that I am shooting. I was therefore really pleased when I discovered that twins Evie and Emily happened to be Geminis.

They are both fashion designers who have designed a lingerie range so it was an easy pick to ask them to wear black and white outfits.

The costuming allowed me to play with the notion of a split personality (good vs evil), and we made use of the mirrors in the studio. Then it was an easy photoshop masking to bring the images together.

I also wanted to look at the notion of Yin-Yang and the costume colours fitted well with that. I had them lay on the floor and boomed the camera overhead, under a large umbrella.

I has originally planned for them to be on a fake grass and I was going to surround them with bushed to make it look like they were in the womb. Unfortunately the grass could not be found, and my efforts to cut them out and place them on a real grass background did not look convincing so I ended up scrubbing the idea and giving the image a lot of texture in post processing.

The final image has done very well. It received honours in a club competition, was selected in the North Shore Salon and appeared in the 2019 issue of New Zealand Camera.

Concept Images, cosplay

Wellington Cosplay Photofest 2019 – Jasmine & Ruan

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My final shoot in the Wellington Cosplay Photofest was with Jasmine and Ryan who were dressed as Kisuke Urahara and Rangiku Matsumoto from Bleach, another Japanese Anime.

The shoot took place in the Botanical Gardens and over the course of nearly two hours we managed to wander over most of it.

The shoot happened late in the day and the lighting conditions were quite challenging at times when the sun came out quite low and direct.

Ruan was certainly very confident wearing his Japanese shoes even climbing trees in them.

At the end of the shoot we were back at the Lady Norwood rose garden just as golden light started to appear so I just had to use it.

Concept Images, cosplay

Wellington Cosplay Photofest 2019 – Sarah

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After my shoot with Chris I had a little time before my final shot of the day, which was being held back in the Botanical Gardens. While I was scoping out locations I came across Sarah dressed as Princess Aurora, who was also waiting for her next shot.

Although not planned Sarah was willing to kills some time so we headed into the Begonia House and then onto the Japanese Garden.

I ended up shooting a time-lapse of Sarah spinning but it will not allow me to load it up here.

Concept Images, cosplay

Wellington Cosplay Photofest 2019 – Chris

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The second shoot on Day Two of the Wellington Cosplay Photofest was with Chris who was dressed in a full stormtrooper uniform from the Star Wars movies.

I had discussed with Chris doing two very different types of shoot with him. Initially we started with a serious style shot in the grounds of Parliament. As stormtroopers all look the same it meant that I could take multiple shots of Chris and then blend them together in Photoshop.

Chris drew quite a bit of attention to himself and with practically every shot we had people asking to take photos of him.

For the second part of the shoot I had had an idea of recreating a famous photo from the Vietnam War protests of the woman putting a flower in a soldier gun. I had arranged with a local pub for Chris to be photographed at the bar, and when we walked in he attracted a lot of attention from the patrons, especially a little girl dining with her family. I asked her if she would put a flower in the gun which she if somewhat hesitantly.

I had wanted to photograph the stormtrooper doing regular things, and by sheer chance as we passed the cathedral next to Parliament the choir was just coming out. Three of the choir members agreed to pose with Chris as well as taking selfies.

We ended up at a local supermarket for a shot I wanted with an ATM. It was hard work for Chris to walk in the suit but we were both really pleased with the shots I was able to get.