Shedding some light on the matter

I spent Easter Monday with a professional photographer Damian Comans learning about lighting (especially incorporating artificial lighting).  It is something I had not looked into and I knew there was a lot to learn and did not feel confidant in going out and buying any speedlites without knowing how to use them.  Damian was introduced to me through a work colleague of mine who said his mate was looking to do some photography workshops and would I be interested. Of which of course I said  yes. It turned out that lighting happened to be one of his strong points so it was all looking good.

We covered a lot during the afternoon and I had written up lots of notes during the day.

Things we covered:
- Getting the basics right (Aperture/shutter speed)
- Setting the position of the light source
- Setting the power of the light source
- Using only 1 light source e.g. shots indoors
- Using another light source e.g. outdoors!
- Using reflectors and positioning of reflectors
- Using gels and adjusting the white balance (OMG this is where I need my notes)
- oh and shooting in RAW files (of which I had to convert to DNG as the Aperture seemed to not like portrait photos!)

It was a brilliant insight and can’t wait to play around with lighting shots again.  I just ordered my Canon speedlite 540ez, reflectors (5 in 1!!), light stand, umbrella and wireless trigger thingy!!


Here are the shots from the day which shows my learning curve. Ignore the compositions, the purpose is to show you the different shots I took throughout the day of which there were looooaaaaads of. (well that’s my excuse anyway). Thanks very much Damian for an enjoyable afternoon and thanks to the lovely model Nadine for braving the windy weather outside! 

Light source to left 

A bit too light?

Aperture: f/4 ; Shutter speed: 1/125; ISO 400

Too dark!

Aperture: f/4 ; Shutter speed: 1/125; ISO 400

Almost right!

Aperture: f/4 ; Shutter speed: 1/125; ISO 400

 Light source behind

Aperture: f/4 ; Shutter speed: 1/125; ISO 400

whooo - halo affect!

Outside 

Standing too close to Nadine with the lens in her face gives her a bulbous head - a NO NO when taking pictures of people! (picture of left)  Instead, stand back and zoom in instead (picture on right)
   






Light source from sun and flash




This one looks like the power was too much from the speedlite
Aperture f/13; Shutter speed: 1/160; ISO 100

This one incorporates both light sources (the sun and the speedlite), but still has harsh shadows in her right side of her face

Aperture: f/9; Shutter speed: 1/125; ISO 100

Using Gels
This is really cool! The use of colour gels stuck on the speedlite gives the photo a completely difference feel. It colour gel removes that colour from the scene.  And the white balance is re-adjusted using a grey card as a reference.

So looking at my pictures this was using an orange gel, and the shot of me using the grey card to re-adjust the white balance

and hey you get this…

And so we used a blue gel

and the outcome is this…

Cool huh?! Yeah well it will be once I find my notes!! :/
Reflectors were used throughout the afternoon - but I can’t remember which shots - but they will be ones with less shadows on the side of the face!

View Finders Gallery

Out in Public
The Open Salon…gives anyone a chance to exhibit their photographic work which can be on any subject, from any genre; by professional photographers or first-timers.  This event is organised by the Viewfinders Photography Gallery

I ended up choosing the same picture again I had used for the 100sqft gallery ‘Universal Energy‘. I just had it framed this using an IKEA frame. There were over 100 entries and 2 gallery locations, one of which was near Greenwich Market and I was the lucky few to have my picture in that location as it’s quite central. Quite an exciting feeling to see your work all framed and hung up on the wall

Thanks to Ben and Lisa for letting me know about this gallery event and big thanks to Shaf for coming with me to the opening night and taking this picture (and putting up with me driving round in circles trying to find a parking space!)  Anyway I bought you a GBK (nom nom!)

It's a Millwall Movember

Movember
So a few of the boys were taking part in Movember which is about raising money and awareness for charity -  prostate cancer.  This is all about ‘bringing the moustache back and having some fun for a serious cause’.
Cue Lily with the camera….

Got a few of the boys together for a photo-shoot, but unfortunately due to transport problems not everyone could make it or reschedule. So we were not able to do group shots and execute some of the original ideas I had. I was hoping the boys would dress up in their old ‘tour’ gear (i.e. can-can girl, monk, pirate, knight, cowboy etc) I was then going create a surreal HDR type group shot where they are getting ready in the changing rooms …but nah, I did individual shots instead as we didn’t have enough time for ‘dressing up’. All good though as a few people bought their aviators and cowboy hats along!

I took some shots at the clubhouse of Larry and Andrew and then I went back to the paddock just after rugby training to capture whoever was still left.  I was pleasantly surprised with the results of the shots in the club house.  There are halogen spot lights in the clubhouse ceiling and by experimenting with the ISO, aperture and positioning people directly under the light we managed to get a ‘Bohemian Rhapsody‘ look!!  For the guys at the paddock - this was more tricky to do and we had to make the most of the floodlights.  So I had taken the shot so that the floodlight was coming in from the left.

Here are the ‘better’ shots (different montages were created and I can’t remember why!)

All good fun and look forward to a Millwall Movember again this year!!

Big thanks to Andrew, Larry, Olly, Luke, John and Shaf for taking part and being such fantastic models!! Thanks to Olly for arranging it all!

Millwall Calendar

Better Late than Never!
So…yeah there was no way I had time to do a 2010 Millwall Calendar in time before Christmas 2009 and it was late November already.   However, I did manage to do a Movember photo-shoot for the boys so I could include that.  For the rest of the months I decided to use my old photos.

So I ordered about 20 (or was it 40? I can’t remember) and they arrived late January 2010 (Oops!).

This time I used vista print who were surprisingly good (although beware you will be bombarded with email offers everyday)  I did try Snapfish and I was really disappointed with the quality of the calendars as I have ordered photo prints from them before and they were of excellent quality - so don’t know why they decided to skimp on the calendars.

Even though the calendars were late, they went down a storm!  All sold! done (and stupid me sold them at cost price! Well at least I know they will sell well next time).

I used the Millwall montage photo I had created for the greeting cards for the front cover.  The rest were various shots I had taken over during the previous season.

Millwall Greeting Cards

Cards you like
Ok so I can’t remember how this all started,  but it was back in late November 2009, an email conversation between the Millwall Chairman, Treasurer, Social Secretary and Venus Manager and I got copied in later and was along the lines of…”wouldn’t it be great if we could send some Christmas cards to our sponsors…the girls seem to be a bit more creative, and it would be good to get some photos in there” (or something like that - the email thread was quite long) So to cut a long story short I ended up providing 3 photo based cards. Here are the designs….

Millwall on black

Millwall on white

Millwall Montage

Print Options
Time was tight as it was already late November and to find a suitable printers/supplier was difficult.  I ended up using Moo as I had used them before for my business cards and they link to Flickr really easily.  Look out for seasonal discounts too as well as the discounts based on larger order volumes.  They were really good and delivered before stated date (1 to 3 business days).
The process is quite simple.  You upload your chosen photo, and you can choose to add text inside and on the back.  We opted for a logo and Millwall website on the back. We decided not to include ‘Merry Christmas’ or any other message as we would be stuffed if we could not order them in time before Xmas

Well they all liked the result, and asked ‘Can you do Calendars also?’…..grrrrrrr like I said, it is late November