Tag: SS 1/4000

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Week 6 | Shadow

Nikon D5100
35mm Prime Lens
ISO100
f/1.8
SS 1/4000

Struggled with the picture for this week.

Not for the idea, had that Monday, as soon as I saw Shadow was the theme I thought of Pol Úbeda Hervàs series “I’m Not There“.

The struggle was the dull overcast weather we’ve had all week, thankfully the sun came out for the weekend!

Also struggled with the shadow a little, I was eager to get out and get this shot before the sun had a chance to disappear (I’m British so it’s pretty much a reflex to enjoy the sun whilst it lasts) but the early afternoon light left me with quite a short shadow, this though has pushed me to learn another new photoshop trick, free form transform tool.

The image creation itself was fairly straight forward, set the camera to manual and dialed in the settings I felt worked given the bright light, Pam standing in for me to get focus (which was also set to manual).

We swapped positions and I fired off the camera with a wireless remote. Scarpered out of shot, leaving my flip flops in place and took a second shot.

This is where having all the settings on the camera set to manual are important, it gives me two shots that are close enough to overlay in photoshop to erase myself. Even a slight change in focus or aperture would mean they wouldn’t line up and make this more hassle than it’s worth.

Week 6 - Behind the scenesI’m presuming this is the technique Pol used (though probably a timed shot rather than remote, as he has great detail of his hands in some of the shots – I lost detail on my left arm trying to get the remote to fire).

In retrospect I should’ve probably focused more on the shadow than having a nice backdrop to the image, though I guess when you directly compare your work to a great artist you will find it lacking.

I picked this style though as it resonates a lot with me at the moment. We moved to Australia a little over eighteen months ago but I’ve not really had much time to enjoy it. The job that brought me here has been very challenging and I’ve worked so many hours overtime (my record so far is a twenty-seven hour shift) that I’m simply left with very little free time to enjoy such a beautiful place or, to be honest, the volition to do so being lethargic and drained constantly. “I’m Not Here” as an emotion is a constant companion.

Behind the scene shot to the left here, original two images pieced together. Link to the original Facebook thread here.

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Week 1 | Self Portrait

Week1

I get that this is a great way to introduce everyone to the photography challenge, it still doesn’t mean I’m happy this side of the camera! 😉

Nikon D5100
35mm DX Prime Lens
ISO100
f/1.8
SS 1/4000
DoF ~ 4.5cm

Given this is supposed to be a challenge each week to improve yourself (so the only one you’re cheating using an old pic or straight off your phone is yourself) I wanted to get the most out of it and tried to get the best image I could without any photoshopping (apart from raw conversion and resize for the internet).

With that in mind I Googled the infamous “Golden Hour” I’ve heard much about, found myself a location nearby where I’d be in direct sunlight and sat looking like the ultimate narcissist snapping away at myself with my camera being remotely activated from an app on my tablet giving me a live view to check focus.

Was fun, made me think about the challenge with the light (had maybe ten minutes before it dipped behind some housing and was gone), looking forward to next week! (where hopefully I’ll be on the right side of the camera :p )

Week 1 - Behind The Scenes

This is a bit of a ‘behind the scenes’ on how the photo was taken, I was using my tablet along with Helicon Remote control software, this is a handy little app that allows you to have a large ‘live view’ on the pads screen and zoom in to set the focus just right along with some other fancy features (it’s  bracketing system is brilliant).

Link to the original Facebook thread here.