In the process of tidying recently, I found a roll of expired Fuji Reala 120 film (expired 2005). Reala has been discontinued for a while, so I couldn’t help but want to shoot with it. There’s a roll of Kodak Portra 160VC in my rarely used Holga, so it was to the Mamiya 645J I went. If you’re not familiar with the 645J, it’s one of many medium format cameras that use a cartridge for the film loading, rather than a dedicated film back. Of course that means I could never use a digital back with it, but it would take a lot of film and scanning to get to the price of a digital back for me!
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It’s been a rather hectic few weeks. If you’re following me on Twitter, you’ll see some of what’s been going on. Last week was spent shooting production stills for Glor Tire. They’ve a new season beginning in September, so there was a lot of work recording bands and contestants. This week I’ve had 3 shoots with Alex Popovici, one for location fashion, one for swimwear, and one for shooting on my medium format film camera. Fun! Here’s a few of the fashion shoot.
I’ll post some of the Glor Tire shots once the programme has been officialy launched.
I was at the Galway Arts Festival launch in the Radisson Blu today. Playing in the band for occasion were a number of local musicians, including Steve Hanks. Steve was at the door as I walked in after setting up the camera, and was the unlucky recipient of my first shot of the evening.
Shot with direct flash, on a camera bracket, I still love Steve’s cheeky smirk.
I had a shoot in the house last week with Alex from Catwalk. Alex is always fun to work with, and this shoot was no exception. While not in the shots here, it gave me a chance to mess with my new camera bracket in portrait mode for Terry Richardson style shots (as in normal shots, not what he might get up to with first time models), which she quite liked.. Good fun.
Ben (from folio32.com) called over to me the other day, buying my ‘not used since I got Quadras’ Tronix Explorer. We were talking about beating daylight using the Quadra and the Maxispot 29ยบ reflector. So despite still being crippled, I set it up by the door to show him..
First shot ambient only, underexposed. ISO100 f22 1/200sec
2nd shot with Quadra added at 5.0 (half power)
For a laugh I bumped the shutter speed to show what would happen once you went past sync speed. I was explaining that the ambient exposure would still work, but the shutter curtain would block the flash exposure. Below we can see the shutter is blocking the bottom third of the flash. Also Ben is in the feather of the light here, rather than being in the full direct light of the flash. The shot still serves it’s purpose. We’re at 1/400sec now.
Knowing this, we can cheat a bit to keep our sync speed up. This next one is at 1/400 sec and looks okay? How is that?
Well that’s easy. Let’s see the original uncropped and unrotated original.
You see, knowing the curtain is coming in 1/3 of the way from the bottom means that if we go wider and shoot upside, we can still get our subject fully light if we have them in the bottom 2/3rds with the camera UPSIDE DOWN!
The final thing we did for a laugh was to put a 10X filter on and shoot at f2.8, changing the other settings to suit. This filter is susceptible to infrared and has a pink cast to it.
Now none of these were serious shots. I literally shot out of my back door as I was to sore to go anywhere. My exterior wall is cream, so Ben was getting midday sun reflected onto him, making him squint. Still I think he enjoyed seeing the tricks performed!
Finally, I’d like to point out that bar white balancing on the last one, no exposure etc has been added, so the images are as out of camera (except where noted). The aim wasn’t perfect, it was showing what could happen in the 10 minutes we were messing with gear.
I’ve been in agony for quite a few hours. Not the excruciating pain you’d have from shattered bones, but the walk like I’ve been on a horse, 5/10 dull pain, that makes live miserable. I had a cyst removed, suffice to say it wasn’t from anywhere visible and I’m not exactly comfortable. So I’ve been restricted to lying or sitting down, without any stirring. It’s killing really me as I’ve all of these plans to make and work on. Still I’ve not been idle. I’m working on the images I shot with the inimitable Anita DeBauch.
Space Age
Flock
I’ve also been working on images I shot with Alex Popovici from Catwalk. Good fun working with Alex.
I’ve just fixed a bug and added a new feature to make LRB Portfolio 2.61, so that’ll be online soon.
I’m also working on a new gallery for Lightroom, which I hope to have out shortly, once I knock out a manual for it.
Photo work is otherwise at a standstill, because I’m not allowed drive for a few weeks. I’ll be in Dungarvan next week, but I’ll be the passenger!I’m looking at getting a new office/small studio to work from, and I’ll be creating new flyers for the various offers I’ve on. Email and ask if you’re interested in Headshots/Fashion Portfolios, Band Promo etc. Remember I also do 1:1 training in Lightroom and Photoshop.
