Fun at this years Supanova, saw some familiar faces (well, familiar voices, totally didn’t recognise the faces!). Managed to find a good spot for taking pictures, end of an aisle with a nice black backdrop and bit of carpet (maybe it was supposed to be a stall and they cancelled late?), quickly snowballed as people started asking me to take their picture, even had a queue at one point!
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Given how much fun last year’s “Trashion” shoot was I had to get down and shoot at the Summerama Festival when I saw Marina DeBris would be showcasing her unique style of work again.
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BTW the close ups of the models is for the Hair & Makeup artists to use for promotion, if you were thinking it odd there’s a fair few portraits that don’t include much of the outfits = )
Spent the afternoon with the talented Roxy, Ivy & Pearl doing some web-promo shots for them, had a lot fun with these absolute pleasures to work with.
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I realised what I love about convention photography this weekend, it’s the five second portraits. As that’s the time you have after asking someone if they don’t mind a picture to thanking them and letting them go, five seconds, tops. The flow of people, the rest of the day they have and the fact you’re probably the hundred and nth person to have asked for a picture that day means you can’t really take much of their time (well, to me), so all these shots are done in very little time, camera settings are set for the day at the start and hope they work best for the various lighting challenges that come up in the day.
Cosplay was as fun as ever, some great efforts made by many, including the 3D printed Batman armour that took 6 months, or the guy who spent four hours painting himself to look like Darth Maul, my highlight though was the portrait shot of a Harley Quinn, the eyes are so emotive, I feel it’s the best photo I’ve ever taken
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So this was a fun morning out at Tamarama beach shooting a show put on by Marina DeBris (quite possibly a pseudonym ; p ) who creates these beautiful works of art from detritus that turns up on beaches!
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Lots of fun running around the beach trying to get these, swapping lenses and hoping to not get sand/grit on them! Challenging but rewarding, especially the early shots where I got to work closer with the models, they seem to come out best and are my favorite of the shoot – if I were to do this again I’d try to get more like that..
Went to watch my colleague Faith perform at the Sad Grrrls Club tour in Paddington today – lighting wasn’t photo friendly so had to crank the ISO on these (wasn’t going to start using a flash and annoy the audience) so only got a couple of “ok” shots, still, none-the-less an enjoyable day out and some awesome music by her followed by Zara A and La Luz Music.
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The warmth of a hug from a loved one..
The warmth of the morning cuppa to wake you..
The warmth of a sunset celebrating the days end..
OR a self portrait, sparkle/shine macro, dreamy sunset all set in a triptych about warmth. That wraps January in a bow 🙂
Self Portrait:
Nikon D5100
18-55mm DX Kit Lens @ 18mm
ISO 100
f/3.5
SS 1/15 sec
Speedlight on body, set to bounce at an angle.
Sparkle/shine Macro:
Nikon D5100
50mm FX prime lens with +4 macro filter
ISO 100
f/1.8
SS 1/60 sec
Off camera speedlite remotely triggered with fairy lights in the background to twinkle in the bokeh.
Dreamy Sunset:
Nikon D5100
35mm DX prime lens with a +9 ND filter
ISO 100
f/22
SS 30 sec
No additional lighting.
This shoot was basically “Use ALL the toys” as it’s the first time I’ve broken out the remote speedlite controller, the macro lens, used Pam‘s nifty fifty and the ND filter. Along with all the gear I usually use (such as my tripods, remote shutter controller, pad controller software).
Out of all the images I feel I rushed the portrait a bit (especially in adding the fake bokeh background I’ve accidentally given myself a much needed haircut, but missed a chunk at the front) and I struggled to find a good spot in Pyrmont for the sunset, but given the time I got out of work it’s all I could get (and at least we had a sunset today as it’d stopped raining finally!).
I’d’ve liked some ‘wisps’ from the cuppa too but I think they bokeh’d out as they were definitely there when shooting.
Oh well, just glad I managed to get all five themes into one picture (this is going to get more difficult as time goes on 😉 ).
A little behind the scenes, top image is the selfie set-up and the bottom is the cuppa – I figure a camera on a tripod for the sunset is fairly standard and folk know what that looks like :p
Link to the original Facebook thread here.
Had a few ideas for this one (ironically, three) but this is the best I feel. I love street photography (though have never been happy with much of my own) and really enjoyed the Triptychs of Strangers series by Adde Adesokan so here is my homage to the style (head, body and feet shot to take three personality-matching body shots and make them one). Initially I was looking for the guy who’s been busking with bagpipes around Sydney CBD for the last few weeks, I thought the effort in the face would make a great portrait (plus I could tell him where to stick the bagpipes afterwards as there catawailing pierces even our office on the 26th floor) but alas he was nowhere to be found, that’s where I came across Joe Moore busking on Pitt Street outside Westfield and thought it’d make a great composition, especially with his feet tapping away.
Shot using aperture priority:
Nikon D5100
55mm-300mm DX Telephoto @ 300mm
ISO100
f/5.6
SS 1/160 – Head
SS 1/60 – Body
SS 1/100 – Feet
PP includes colour and exposure correction in Photoshop (lots of shadow recovery to get facial detail) along with cropping in for effect.
This was the second idea, I really liked the idea, moreso than the one I went with, but that’s mostly because I didn’t realise it very well in the three pictures.
When I was wandering around looking for the bagpiper I saw these two homeless guys sat by the Westfield David Jones, one with a sign and the other sprawled out in what looked like a pool of his own urine (thankfully, didn’t get that in shot). I then took a wider shot of David Jones and the Westfield Tower above, I had the idea of the towering elite looking over the oppressed below as some sort of allegory running through my head but once I pieced together the shots it just wasn’t springing out at me.
Admittedly I rushed the pictures as I was on my lunch break and had already wasted half of it cramming down two whoppers (gotta love “two’s-days”) and looking for an errant Scotsman. Maybe with some better composition this might’ve worked – I may scout for some better locations tomorrow (and bring a packed lunch to save time!).
Similar settings to the above for these, aperture priority so the shutter speed will be adjusted slightly for each.
Link to the original Facebook thread here.
[edit]
I found the bagpipier! I also think it’s highly unfair he gets earplugs and the rest of us don’t….
Darling Harbour Christmas tree – it Sparkles whilst its reflection Shines 😉
Nikon D5100
55mm-300mm DX Telephoto @ 180mm
ISO100
f/20
SS 30 sec
The tree loses a little detail due to the scintillation from across the bay (you could see the live view ‘wobble’ through the haze) but I think the reflection more than makes up for it, I love how the trees bracket it too.
I’ve been aiming to keep the photoshopping to a minimum for this but had to flip it so the 2015 was showing the right way around (also took the liberty to straighten it a little too as the tripod’s only so good at holding in place).
Similar to last weeks challenge I used Helicon Remote on the tablet to help focus with a large live view (manually setting the focus was a case of slight touches either direction to get it just right) and then fire the shutter without introducing any wobble to the camera (though I could have used a corded/wireless remote I guess).
Another handy feature is the bracketing macro it has, I set up a bunch of instructions 30 secs / 100 and then adjusted the aperture down a step for about fifteen pictures until I found the best f stop for the early evening light.
To give a sense of scale, here’s a set-up picture of the cam on the ‘pod, live view streamed to the pad and the tree somewhere over there in the distance!
Link to the original Facebook thread here.
My last gig before emigrating and it went with a bang, One Man Glass Factory were awesome (even if they didn’t last all that long) and Esper Scout were as brilliant as always – grabbed a few video’s this time around, even if shooting from the far end of the Packhorse with my telephoto was getting to be the standard way of capturing these gigs!
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