January 28th, 2010
As part of the website creation process for my fencing clubs new site I’ve taken several head shots of the coaches. It’s the first time I’ve used a 3 light setup (having just picked up another 580 EX II while back home), and it wasn’t as difficult as I was expecting. I think the trick is just to add one light at a time until everything looks the way you’d imagined. The setup shot is here, where the tripod in the middle is where I had the subject stand.
In this case I wanted to use the colour of the walls in our gym to add a warm, orange-ish background and use a fairly fast shutter speed to kill any ambiant light and make the rest of the image darker. In this way I could get an orange/black look that would match the colour scheme of the website and I’m quite happy with the results.
A couple of examples are here, and the rest are in the gallery.



Tags: Central London Fencing Club, CLFC, portraits
Posted in People, Sports | No Comments »
November 29th, 2009
I picked up a new toy for the upcoming winter months so I can keep shooting without having to go outside. It’s a fairly simple set up with just a couple of flashes, but it’s got a lot of potential. So far I’ve played around and helped Danni with a batch of charms as well as taking some shots of my new toys (a Dell laptop and a Wacom Cintiq 12WX).
There’s a few here, and some more in the gallery like always.




Tags: Flashes, Light Tent, Macro, off camera lighting
Posted in Light Tent, Strobist | No Comments »
October 25th, 2009
I spent a bit of time in Hyde Park last evening trying to capture the latest autumn colours. I think all of the photos that got posted from this set were done with my tilt-shift lens. It doesn’t get as much use as it should, mainly due to being a manual focus lens and the fact that I’m rubbish at manual focusing.
I thought the fact that it would require more attention from me would help to slow me down and think about what I was shooting. It succeeded in this, but mainly it succeeded in increasing the number of out of focus photos I ended with at the end of the day. Always a learning process, and the lesson yesterday was to bring along a tripod and use LiveView
Here are a few keepers from the day and as usual, there are a few more in the gallery.



Tags: fall, hyde park, leaves
Posted in London Photos | No Comments »
October 9th, 2009
I’ve mentioned it to a few people, but for the most part I haven’t really talked much about my new regieme. For the past couple of months, I’ve basically cut out all of the booze I drink plus any food that I didn’t prepare myself (apart from the occassional night out with friends on both counts), in addition to going to the gym. There were a few reasons for the switch, but for the most part I was just trying to keep my mind occupied and stay busy and this managed that all quite nicely.
I had a lot of help from a personal trainer as I’m not really a gym guy, and recently I’ve been working with a nutritionist as I’m well aware I need to put on some weight (10kg according to my nutritionist!). It seems like a lot of weight and I’ve been struggling to eat as much as I’m supposed to each day, but I’m trying!
Anyways, I did a couple of self portraits that are a bit racy! A lot of the look is done with the lights so I’m not quite as these seem (yet!) but I’m getting there. No real photoshoppery apart from the black & white conversions.



Tags: off camera lighting, Self Portrait, Strobist, topless
Posted in People | No Comments »
September 12th, 2009
A few of us wandered out to Sandwich, Kent for an evening of off camera flash shooting. It’s something I’ve been trying to do a lot more of as I really like the looks that can be achieved. I’m still a long way off from where I’m happy with the shots I’m getting, but you’ve got to start somewhere right?
There’s a few shots here and a couple more in the gallery.



Tags: kent, POTN, sandwich, Strobist
Posted in People, Strobist | No Comments »