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.

With the beautiful weather today, Nicola called over to let me do some fun test shots with the Elinchrom Maxispot. It’s a large, efficient reflector that allows me to overcome the Sun, to give a day for night look using my Elinchrom Ranger Quadras.

After a quick test on the green, I noticed something rather unusual down by the train tracks: a burnt out car. We used this as a background before moving down to the tracks. My aim here wasn’t producing portfolio images, but rather getting used to new equipment. It would be a sad and sorry state of affairs to be working and not be familiar with ones tools. As I’ve recently invested in new modifiers (some of which I’ve already posted about), testing is an absolute necessity.

Here the Maxispot is lighting both Nic and the car. Given that the Quadra is only 400 w/s and it’s not at full power here, it’s doing a fantastic job with coverage from about 8-10 feet away. The Sun is coming from camera left, behind Nic. You can see this acting as the hair light in this shot.

We moved onto the railway gates from there. Again the Sun is from the rear, this time the right. While reflectors are a hard light source, I think this has a softer transition, with reasonable fill in.

The final setup with this light was at the bikeshed. Being in shade I was able to drop both the aperture on the camera, and the power from the pack, almost to lowest power in fact.

I did do one other test that day, but it wasn’t Quadra based, it was with the ‘O-Flash’, a modifier in the Ray-Flash vein. It doesn’t have a full circle, to allow ETTL to work. I test this, but to be honest, I prefer working it in Manual mode and working with a fixed distance. I have to say that, while ringflash is not a flattering light, I really missed the top shadow from this more than anything else.

I don’t shoot this as an award winner, it’s really just taken to examine the shadow pattern. The left and right shadows are immediately visible, but there’s none on top, which is a little disappointing. But as this device is only €30, it’s hard to complain. It’s reasonable sturdy bar the clear plastic front, which is a little flimsy. I’d like to try this with 2 rear grids and see how it does.

Considering we shot for only a little over an hour and got 4 locations (even though I’ve only shown 3 here), it was still a productive shoot from a test point of view. I’ve a much better understanding of these tools, and have utter confidence using them again in the future in a commercial situation.

I dragged Quays colleague John Mullen out today for some quick tests shots with a mix of new and old gear. I’ve done a few shoots with the small reflectors and the 18cm reflector and easily overpowered the sun using my Ranger Quadras, but I was interested in seeing how I fared out with a beauty dish. I had also intended trying the Maxispot, but forgot to pack it in the unexpected rush to pink John up (I lost track of time!).

So here’s the silver Minisoft 44 on the Quadra (with El Adaptor) at full power (6.0). Exposure is 1/200,

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While I’ve only completed a beginners course in makeup, I know from experience in other fields that buying cheap tools, means buying more. I have a large range of MAC brushes (129, 190, 187, 266, 239, yada yada), and a few NYX ones (the better, silver, range). I needed an angled brush, so I just bought an Avon model. I paid €7.50 for it, but I see that it’s only €4.25 in the current catalog (Brochure 7 2010, page 29, number 5, code 10926). Well, what can I say about such a cheap brush? I’ve used it for contouring and I have to say: Perfect. It’s exactly the right size and shape, and doesn’t shed. That last bit is what clinches it for me. Now with the price dropped that low, it’s an even better buy. I also got the foundation brush and the kabuki. The kabuki is much smaller than I expected. I may just use it for falloff, and the foundation brush is much smaller than the MAC 190 (like a 189 maybe)-good for fixing under the eyes, etc.

And now for the photographers. Would you believe that the shot about was done with one old battery flash at 6:30am? I used a modified 540ez (I’ve added a sync cable) in manual mode at 1/128 power into a Micro Apollo micro softbox from the rear right. This then bounced off a white sheet of paper on the left held up by a book (Makeup by Rae Morris to be exact). On the right I had another sheet of paper filling in, held by my makeup case (it’s okay, it’s a small flight case). Finally I had the cover of the softbox, turned inside out over the top, to fill in the top hairs. It’s silver on the inside BTW, hence being good for fill. The setup shot is below. I’ll also mention that there was no background. You can kinda see the mess in the room in the setup shot, but at the higher shutter speed I shoat at, combined with the distance to it, it’s gone black in the shot.

Next time, I’ll do a better job cleaning the brush, the static from it was attracting dust after I rubbed it clean!

I did most of the Connemara Loop today. I didn’t head up to Tully Cross as the road was literally white from the ice on it. This morning shooting portraits of dead leaves covered in hoar frost, when I got a text from an acquaintance from Clifden letting me know there was snow on the mountains in Connemara. I packed my bag, scraped the frost off the car and away I went. While around my house was clear, the city and the road all the way to Ougtherard were covered in fog. The icy road would’ve kept my speed down anyway, but the little old lady 3 cars up made sure we all stayed below 40kph!
Based on prior experience my plan of attack was to go to Lough Inagh first, then Derryclare, and then perhaps Ballynahinch. I opted not to go to Ballynahinch as the snow on the front of Benlettery had melted quickly. The mountains at the top of the Inagh valley were also more compelling looking.
Even though there was a plan, I could help stopping once the fog had cleared. The Maamturk mountains were looking splendid, so I stopped to shoot my first panorama of the day. As it’s long, it’s not going to look great at 600 px wide!

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Some recent shots of Alex with the Elinchrom Ranger Quadras

These 2 were shot using a tilt shift lens:

For me the Macnas Parade is less about the floats and spectacle, and more about the people. And not necessarily just the performers either. That’s not the first time I’ve said this on the blog either! This year the parade took on a different guise as a ‘Happening’ where all the bits went different ways and met up for a finale. So here’s a little slideshow of some of the shots from this year.

I’m delighted to have gotten another Gold in the Contemporary Portraiture section of the May SWPP Competition. While judging sometimes can seem hit and miss, this month the standard is high and I feel very lucky to get Gold. That said, personally, I would not like to be judging the sheer quantity of images that go into this competition.

Click here to see the announcement.

The shot is of Jaime O’Connell, a contestant in ‘The Model Agent’ and the shoot was for local designer Sarah O’Neil. Jaime is off to London shortly for agency interviews. I wish her good luck.

Processed mostly in Lightroom with a mix of cooling White Balance and my normal Cross Process settings, I finished the skin on this in Photoshop. Yes, it is a very deliberately stylised image.

This was a very windy day, so the 80X120 softbox got packed away and I brought out my 70cm Maxisoft Beautydish. It was on a Dlite 4 at half power (5.0), which was powered by a Tronix Explorer. The sun is lighting the back and shoulder.

This actually gives me great confidence that the Ranger Quadra system I have on order will do well outdoors against the sun.

The second annual world wide photo walk takes place on the 18th July this year.
I applied and was accepted as walk leader for the Galway walk. There are requirements to lead the walk, such as having lead a camera group or teaching classes. As I’ve done both, and seeing no one else had applied, I applied.

Anyway, the walk is limited to 50 people, so if you are interested, go to the page on the world wide photo walk page and sign up.

worldwidephotowalk.com/galway-gy-ie/

What is a Photo Walk? Well pretty much as it sounds, you takes photos and walk. There are prizes for the best photo of the walk, and photos get featured on the website. The idea of a world wide photo walk is the brain child of Photoshop author Scott Kelby. It’s all about meeting other photographers and having fun in the process.

The Followers of Otis were the unplanned extra support act from last Friday Night. I popped off a few quick snaps before it got busy and real mixing was required. Again, I’m just testing the Slideshow plugin. I think I may have it nailed from an automated point of view!

oops, spoke too soon!

Okay seem to be on top of it at last!