Life Observed

This is mine, isn't it? You did say I could play with it. What have I done? Why are you looking at me like that? Wrigs looking shifty during a photo session at the weekend.  Four flashes:  Key, Fill and two Backgrounds all triggered with poverty wizard wireless gear.

Oh dear. I had intended to post something witty today, but my head appears to be empty.

Macro or Close up? Well, macro should refer to a magnification of one to one, where the subject is the same size as the negative. (This leads to an ineresting scenario if you use a whole plate camera...) Anyway, this picture qualifies as a close up under these rules. Taken with the Zuiko 45mm portrait lens mounted on a 10mm Kenko extension tube using off camera flash. Strawberries were harmed during the production of this work.

Oh dear - I've been playing with Blog Labels and this previous post ended up here, dated today. Its a mystery. Look on it as a little bonus... One of the joys of taking up a new discipline is the opportunity and the need to learn new specialised terms. This means you have become a member of the club. You can now use these words to confuse your friends or impress your clients. There are plenty of strange words in the science (or art) of lighting. I now casually drop terms such as Key, Fill, Kicker, Barn Door, and Separation into conversations to the consternation of those around me. So, here is another strange term: Snoot. I suspect this is actually derived from snout. Anyway, it is a tubular item added to a light to direct its output and reduce Spill or increase Separation. In this case the primary or Key light is the only source. It's an overhead flash fitted with an expensive custom Snoot* used to highlight the subject and leave the rest of the scene unl...

I rather like these small and compact flowers. We have some in the garden and they are a magnet for bees and other insects at this time of year. All very natural.  What isn't natural is this picture, as it is partly faked. The sunlight is actually off camera flash. The shutter speed was chosen to make the background dark, and Photoshop finished off the process. (I like a bit of black in my pictures, you will find evidence all over the blog: Here's a random example... ) Now you know the secret you can see this one comes from the same neck of the woods, with flash and selective darkening used to isolate the bloom and add impact to the image. I show all of this to remind us that nothing we see in print is quite what it seems any more. The digital revolution has given us an endless flow of potentially perfect images. I do wonder if that is a good thing ...

Here's an unusual view of one of our hanging baskets. I chose the upward looking perspective so I could include the sky. I then added some diffused off camera flash to lift the flowers and selected a shutter speed that would balance the flowers and the sky. Here's another picture along the same lines: Both of these images were taken in so called "strobist" mode. That's where you reject any technical assistance and set the camera to manual exposure and the flash to manual output. Now you are reduced to guide number, luck, or trial and error. There is a blog devoted to doing flash the hard way... There are other examples of this method in my blog - even this one ..

Well, I was asked to do a load of portraits for our church PCC recently. This involves creating mug shots for all committee members quickly and efficiently before one of the meetings. This sounds like a job for Strobist Man, so I took along my three old Sunpak flashes, a home made lighting stand, two home made lighting modifiers and a light tripod to act as a second lighting stand. The home made modifiers are folded matt mylar with velcro, as shown below. They spread the light a bit more, they fold flat and they make it look like you know what you are doing... OK, so I do use flash occasionally for set piece images like these two: I have a set of cheap radio triggers already, and I have read portrait lighting theory carefully :-)   However I don't generally photograph people , and portraits shots are even more challenging. Astute readers will know I have done a fashion shoot a few months ago. The outdoor shots with key and fill flash were OK, but the ...

Here's a mean and moody shot of a storm threatened crop.  Well, all is not quite what it seems, as I took my portable sunshine with me and created the mood myself. It was an overcast day, but I felt the look needed enhancing. This is a standard strobist trick. I used an off camera flash to put light down onto the corn from overhead, giving the look of a shaft of sunlight. It is then just a matter of adjusting the flash power and the camera exposure so that the background goes dark while the foreground is over-lit. The trick can also be used in a more subtle manner. In this case the post box has a small splash of light to lift it, while the background is once again allowed to be dark and brooding. In addition to the lighting trick, narrow depth of field also separates the post box from it's background.

Aah, the humble Chive flower, one of my favourite subjects. Our Chives are raided by the local bees continuouslly, and this flower is slightly on the turn. It was photographed, as always, with my excellent Olympus 50mm macro lens.  Provided you and the subject keep still, then this lens will deliver the picture for you... And here, just a few meters away, is the middle of a giant poppy, also caught up close with that lens. Lovely...

I decided  to try a picture of these indoor Orchid blooms yesterday. The challenge is to illuminate the flowers with a fairly soft light, while keeping the rest of the room dark. Clearly I could bounce flash off the ceiling, that would be nice and soft, but the background would then be visible. To get this degree of separation I will need to get the camera and flash in close to the subject. In fact the camera is about 15cm from the blooms and the flash on radio trigger is about 30cm away. In order to soften the light from a flash that close I added my folding home made diffuser to the front which expands the effective light source. Simples!

Yes, these are truly nice buns. In fact they are hot cross buns, a peculiarly British thing, I suspect.  These are presented on a plain curved white card background with diffuse overhead lighting. This image is available as a strictly limited edition 6 x 4 inch print on Fuji paper directly from the photographer for £7008.00 plus 98p postage. Here is another classic virew. This recreation of the birth of photography honours the humble pinhole camera. This was created directly using a real pinhole, not Photoshop. This image is available as a strictly limited edition 6 x 4 inch print on Fuji paper directly from the photographer for £9300.00 including postage to the UK.

Here we have a couple of examples of off camera flash, and the effects it can create: The first is a long exposure of a moonrise. The shutter was open long enough to bring up some blue in the night sky, while the rose was lit with a hand held flash. Here we have the impression of a gathering storm. The background was deliberately under exposed, while off camera flash gives the impression of sunlight on the flowers. The best guide for manual off camera flash is the Strobist web site mentioned in the box on the right. There are hundreds of pages of examples, tips and hints there... Finally, here is the ultimate lie: A picture of a chive flower taken in daylight outdoors where the flash power and shutter speed have conspired to turn the background black...

Outside your comfort zone, that is... Generally I photograph landscapes or buildings, and sometimes abstract shapes. I am not really a people photographer, and the few occasions I have photographed a wedding, it has been a very trying experience. So, what to do when asked if you can do a small fashion photo shoot for company that sells equestrian clothing. They can call on the services of Sienna, a local model. All I have to do is sort out the pictures. The first thing is to buy some second hand off camera flashes from e-bay. These are the sort that can be operated in manual mode. Next, I need to learn about lighting and the Strobist blog is the definitive pace to start. Now I need some light modifiers, in this case, those large springy circular diffusers.   Finally, its just a matter of going for it and adapting my methods according to the results on the camera rear screen. It was an awful rush in poor light against the clock, but I think I learnt a lot and...

I was asked to take a picture of a rented office to form part of the  for-rent flier recently. I know the room has windows on two sides, but it would clearly need more than that to make it look good. Furthermore the interior lighting is the usual nasty fluorescent tubes. I took my two off camera flashes with their cheap radio triggers and the widest lens I have and I partly opened the blinds to let a fair amount of daylight in. The first flash was set on a stand at head height off to camera right and set to 1/8th power and aimed at the white ceiling. By setting shutter to 1/30th this balanced quite well with the daylight, but the view through the open door was dark and uninviting... So I rigged the second flash out in the hall, also pointing upward. It needed 1/4 power to balance the lighting, I guess it was darker in there and the ceiling is higher. All done and burned to a CD in 15 minutes. Lessons learned: I need more gear (!) like a flash umbrella, a third ...

Here's a thing, how do you feel about chocolates? Can you take or leave them, or are you a  chocoholic?  I ask because I am fascinated by the little booklet thing you find in each box. Some people reach for that first and study it in great detail before making a careful but informed choice from the tray of goodies. Others, like myself, ignore it and just pick a random chocolate. I guess I am not that bothered which chocolate I eat, its only a chocolate after all... I am  also happy to eat just one then put the box away. As a result of this general indifference I almost never read the flowery description of the contents. When it comes to choosing beer - now that is a very different activity, however... Tech note: This choc boc shot was taken on a curved white background using bounced off camera flash.

Three blooming pictures with black backgrounds: This first one, of a poppy bud opening, was taken right at the end of the film era. I shot this outside in the garden under a cloudy sky with a black card behind the subject. The result was a Fuji Provia transparency, which I sent off in an envelope to the pro printers to get a Cibachrome 10x8 done. It still hangs on a wall 12 years later. Printing direct from a transparency! We don't do things like that now. When was the last time I had anything printed without some serious Photoshop work? In fact the digital age has brought  other changes. I now take so many pictures that I very rarely have them printed. They all get their Photoshop treatment, just in case they ever get enlarged and placed on a wall somewhere. This next one was taken with a DSLR, also outdoors, but this time the background was made black using an off camera flash to define the exposure. This final minimal image was taken indoors with ...

Creating light where there was none, or the art of off camera flash. I have a couple of flashguns, a flash extender cable and some wireless triggers. All this means there is no excuse for nasty washed out camera flash pictures. I can't claim to be a true Strobist but every now and then I make a point to use the flashes to create a specific image: Here is a particularly comely vegetable, illuminated against a black background by off camera flash. I stood it on a white card to act as a reflector for the underside. The result is rather dramatic, for a vegetable... Here is a more complex image. I wanted to show both the rose and the moon, but the rose was barely visible in the moonlight, and a long exposure suitable for the rose would burn out the sky. So, I selected the right exposure to bring the sky and moon out then adjusted the flash power and distance to bring the rose up at the same time..