Week 40 – Tailor Made

Well, things didn’t quite go to plan this weekend.  My original plan for week 40 went wrong due, what can we say, bad ingredients!! …so I’ll save that for another week once I get what I need to accomplish it properly!

Then suddenly got a block on ideas – nothing seemed to work!  I did manage to play around with some gels on rim lights though – really need to use them more for portrait shots!  In the end I got a good shot but was too lazy to clone out the background!

So anyway, had to improvise and incorporated an image I found on www.shc.hu about 2 years back which I really loved and always wanted to do something with it!  Original image of alleyway courtesy of brom

Ok, in my mind originally it was a standard portrait, but I thought I’d take it up a notch and use a tailor’s dummy as well!…unfortunately, only had access to a female one!!!  Click on photo for link to Flickr to get the explanation behind it.

So the final image involved: -

• CS3 – copy and pasting both the dummy and my upper body on the background and then simple layer masking.
• Added a shadow with a low opacity black brush (seperate layer) on the floor and wall
• Little curves/contrast/saturation adjustment
• Back into LR2 – applied “Creative-Cyanotype” preset
• Some cropping.

Sadly, the original image was very low res, so couldn’t do half as much as I wanted to due to the image degradation that kept occurring.  Damn jpegs!!!!  Anyway, at the end of the day, at least I accomplished something!

 

Fragile

Had the day off today and ended up getting a shot of something unplanned for!

The whole story is on the flickr link – just click on the pic to find out: -

Set up was pretty simple – sorry no set up pic – got too lazy to change lenses!  Canon 30D with 100mm on a tripod.  There was a SB25 cam right through softbox feathered a little @ 1/32, and a 580exII with blue gel (I think 3/4 CTB) full zoom at 1/32 into white background (thick card).

The bulb was kept upright courtesy of a little help from some velcro and placed on black plexi-glass for the reflection.

Original:

Post Production: -

• Slight crop on left hand side
• Left WB on Tungsten to accentuate the blue gel even more
• “Direct Positive” preset in LR2
• Exported to CS3
• To get a perfect reflection, copied lower end of photo (the bottom of bulb and plexiglass using rectangular marquee tool, flipped it, layer masked and rubbed out other parts around bottom of bulb.
• Cloned/healed and used a black brush on the reflection to hide the velcro.
• Back into LR for a touch of blue colour saturation/luminance adjustment, sharpening and a touch of noise reduction.

 

Act Your Shoe Size

Well my plan worked out in the end for this week’s portrait!…I had a slight feeling I couldn’t get the lighting right but reckon I just about pulled it off!

As mentioned in my previous post, my original project was sidelined for this shot, given what happened at work – the inspiration for the shot!  Click on the pic to link to Flickr for all the details!

Anyway, for anyone who is interested, here are the original pics I blended together: -

Used the Tokina 11-16 again – mounted on a tripod.  Set up for lighting was just a SB25 high right through a white umbrella.  I used the natural sunlight coming through blinds to replicate the rim lighting from the ceiling tube light you can see at the top of the stairs directly behind me.  The umbrella matching the lighting coming from the landing on the right.  The bad thing is the sunlight hitting the left side of my face – didn’t account for that sadly!!

Took a few takes to get the right angle and distance as well as the right expression!! …fell off the side of sofa like a zillion times!!! …focussing was a right PITA because I run out of batteries for my remote and was too lazy to go out to buy more!!  I ended up using the plant on top of the lamp that you can see in the corner as my focus point!!!

Photoshop work was  pretty much simple blending with layer masks, adjusting the angle of myself, colour and contrast adjustments, motion effects and high pass sharpening.

 

Getting Ready…

For another portrait this weekend!

Was planning on a particular project, but that’s been sidelined now due to certain developments at work – basically adults behaving like annoying children!! …in fact I’ve known children who act more mature than them!  It’s taken my mind away from the other project I had in mind, but at the same time it’s given me inspiration to make light of the situation with a different photo!  Just hope it works out tomorrow and I can pull it off!

 

Starting My Project 52…Again!!

Well, I took a big…BIG break from photography since, like many people, other matters came first in my life!  Trouble was, it sucked the life out of photography after a while – just completely lost my mojo!  Anyway, done a paying job earlier this year, which started to revitalised my desire to get back “in the game” which was nice!

Also, getting my privilege of shooting my old friend’s wedding in October this year so very excited about that now – all working to really getting my creative juices flowing!

Which leads me to this post – I’m actually picking up on my 52 week project, even though I’ve missed out like half the year already!!!  But I’m gonna give it a go anyway and hope I can have enough creative ideas to make it really beneficial for me and above all, loads of fun!  After all, isn’t that what photography should be??

Ok, so “Leap of Faith” was my new one for Week 38 – click on the photo to link to Flickr and see the inspiration for the shot.

Really fun shot to take and edit!…I’m still learning and improving my compositing skills so its in no way a perfect shot!  Nonetheless, for anyone that’s interested in how it was done I’m happy to explain!

Here’s the original background shot I took – its a image of the side of a chapel in a local cemetery taken with a Tokina 11-16mm lens @ 11mm: -

Now I needed to take a shot of me “falling” at the right angle.  First things first, use the same lens for the shot at the same focal length; using a different one will give a perspective that is not going to fit with the original picture easily.

A few people asked how I positioned myself to appear to be falling.  Let me just say straight away, I ain’t a madman!! No way was I gonna dangle myself off the ceiling or anything similar!! …I simply lied down on a footstool (or pouffe if you wanna call it that!) along with a chair behind me.  The chair behind being crucial since I wanted to ensure my legs would show behind me – otherwise it would look more fake when blending in with the perspective of the chapel.   I had the camera mounted on a tripod slightly above me but very near to make sure the UWA distorted the size of my hands!  Added some CTO gel on the speedlights above and in front of me to add warmth and replicate natural sunlight.  Unfortunately, I think I was a little too harsh with CTO so had to cool the temperature down when processing on Photoshop.  The umbrella was placed directly above me on a boom to match the natural light direction of the original photo & the speedlight in the softbox in front dialled down – just enough to illuminate my face.

You can see my original “falling” pose (SOOC), as well as a shot of the set-up – excuse the mess I created in the lounge!!

After I got the most realistic shot (took a few attempts), it was reasonably simple work in Photoshop CS3 – layer masking, then motion effects, along with colour adjustments, re-touch of catchlights in eyes and then sharpening.  I added a touch of reflection in the glass window of the chapel too – you can barely see it but its just there.  Figured that if it was real life, the actual angle I was falling at and the position I was in as I “passed” the window, there wouldn’t be much of a visible reflection anyway!

Anyway, hope that helps anyone that is interested!  Feel free to drop me an email if any more info is required!

 

Man, I’ve gotta start updating this blog!

Sorry, been quite a while since I posted since I’ve been working on my new webiste…finally!

Well, lots to catch up on, but rather than starting with old news, I thought I’d start with todays!

My boss managed to grow some orchids – quite a few really…about 20ish – which is amazing by any standards, especially in the UK!

Anyway, he wanted some memories of them before they start dying…which probably won’t be long, what with all the stress I put them under being my “model” for the evening!

Here are a few processed shots: -

 

Getting Ready for the British Summer Time!

Well, I had a great day today and no doubt helped by the beautiful weather in London!  I know it’s been nice these past few days but today seemed like the best one so far this year – warm, sunny weather even in the morning and as I’m writing this at almost 8pm, the sun’s still shining!

I’m hoping it will be a great summer this year…

…Oh, who are we kidding?  We all know it will be a wash out like every summer!  :p

Hence, the reason for the portrait today – done in the shower…which was spewing freezing cold water because of a low pressure problem!  Had lots of fun though…and made lots of puddles in the bathroom!  Duly cleared up before the wife got home!

Click on the photo for strobist info.

 

Published Soon!

I did a photoshoot for a friend a couple of months back for a book he’s written on healthy eating (How to Master Your Health and Happiness).  I had news before that the publisher was happy with the photos, but yesterday I got a pdf of how the front cover will look with the photo I done – how cool is that! 

Well, the book should be out in a couple of weeks, and once it’s released I’ll add the info here on how the photos were produced (set ups included).

He’s also writing another book soon and I will be doing the photos for that as well – really cool!  Can’t wait!

 

Tamron 28-75 Sharpness

Well, here are a couple of self-portraits with the lens – hand held in front of a window, almost wide open @ f.3.5, minor USM applied – this lens comes close to the Canon 100mm macro for sharpness. 

 

100% crop – check out the 3 vehicles on the street outside!

Gotta love this lens!

 

Tamron 28-75 Low Light Tests

Well, I thought I’d start a new thread as I thought I’d test one of the common complaints about this lens – it’s inability to focus in low light.  Sadly my battery ran out after a couple of shots (even after I’d thought it had fully charged earlier – gotta investigate that later) so I couldn’t do anymore. I was planning on testing it also with the 580 mounted, but will have to save that till another time and add it to this thread.

Now, this test is by no means conclusive but I must admit I’m impressed! I’m sure my kit lens would have struggled to have produced a sharp image.

This was taken at about 8pm this evening, indoors, no lights on. The 30d was at ISO 3200, f2.8, 1/40 (underexposed) but just about hand-holdable.

 100% crop:

  

 Anyway, another example…now that my battery mystery has been solved – I inadvertently thought it had fully recharged when it clearly was not!

Here is the same black ipod (Apple should start paying me for free advertising) placed on my black 580ex pouch on a dark brown wooden floor inside our bedroom just behind the door - the only light is coming from the window 12 feet behind me and I’m partially blocking it. Correct exposure (without a flash) should have been ISO3200, f2.8, shutter at about 1.6″ – extremely low light! But suprisingly, again without a flash, the lens locked pretty much instantly! I tested it again by focusing on something far away by the window and then back to the ipod and still it locked! Obviously the picture, handheld was a throwaway given that it was hand held but still the main thing was that it locked.

Tried the same shot with the 580 mounted and unsuprisingly, with the AF assist beam it had absolutely no problem locking on.

Here are the shots with the flash mounted. Remember the flooring was very dark without the flash, so the only contrast the AF sensors are looking at is going to be the white “Menu” on the ipod.

 

100% crop

Either, I have a stellar copy of the 28-75 which performs well with or without the flash, or the claims that this lens hunts in the dark must be in a pitch black room…or because someone has forgotten to take the lens cap off!!!

If you don’t want to shell out for the Canon 24-70L, the Tamron is an excellent buy and I have no doubt it will match the the L in optics!