Moving to www.p4pictures.com

www.p4pictures.com

The great news is that I have moved this blog to a new homepage so please stop by at the new home: www.p4pictures.com



 - p4pictures -

Taking a big leap in to the unknown

Lake Päijänne - a great place for thinking space

Dear blog & blog readers (if any of you are left),

Sorry I have neglected you for so long, but things have been tough and decisions had to be made. The other morning my daughter asked me to give her a word. I wasn't sure what she wanted the word for, to try and spell it maybe? I don't know why but I chose the word constable and then she wrote it down and started to write down other words she could form using the letters in constable. It's an old game I know, but soon the list was quite long.

stable table ten no on tone cost ant able stance son toe so tale sale scale scab scan scone con cob cone bale sole nose cast cons cant tab stab bone stone stole stolen stale snot nat net not note notes notable noble blot boat bloat cent scent blast bat baton salon talon bet coble best beast boast coast loan loans clot cleat baste cat tone sat at tan

It got me thinking; there's so much that's possible to make from one other thing, but in this word game the problem starts with a solution, all the other words are in there you just need to explore a bit in your mind or on paper. That's where I am right now, exploring a bit…

Let me explain;  last week I resigned from my paying job of fifteen years to try a new world of opportunity and uncertainty. The big thing is that I have said farewell to the old workplace so that I can get the time to work out what I want to do with the rest of my life. Actually I have no real idea as to what the future holds, but I know that this is one of those moments that I am fortunate to have the chance for a complete fresh evaluation of my world and what I want to do with it.

I still love taking pictures and exploring the features and functions of cameras, lenses and flash, but I don't know if I will be a professional photographer any more than I might be a balloon pilot. All I know is that I will take the time to find out.

Keep reading, this might be a fun and long ride as I try to work out my direction. Also if you have other words that can be made using only the letters in constable add them in the comments please.

- p4pictures -

Resolve to change for the better in 2010

Many people have made and probably broken New Year resolutions already, but I've been a bit thin on the ground for ideas that I can share right away. However my first and most important resolution is to shift the work-life balance to a life-work balance in 2010. Given that I went seriously in to the danger zone last year it's probably long overdue anyway.

Here's my resolutions so far:

1. Shift balance to life-work and away from work-life
2. No more random photo gear purchases, but explore all the photo kit I've already got
3. Let other people help me do what I want, by giving me more access to my time - this can mean use online grocery shopping to give me time back in the evening or weekend.
4. Go up in a hot air balloon over the Chiltern Hills in Oxfordshire where I live
5. Print & display more of my pictures - the power of ⌘ P
6. Take more pictures of people
7. Read all the great books I got for Christmas. Visionmongers you are up first
   

So it's not the 10 for 2010 I'd originally considered, but I think this will be sufficient to start with.

- p4pictures -

It's all been done and said before - time for change

Seems like time is ripe for change and a big one. With 2010 nearly upon us the talk of all the New Year Resolutions is building, I liked a message on twitter.com from @grahamwarsap about making a list of 10 things to do in 2010. A few days to work on the 10 things list for me I think, but while you're thinking how about some musical inspiration

Stranglers Something Better Change

Don't you like the way I move when you see me?
Don't you like the things that I say?
Don't you like the way I seem to enjoy it?
When you shout things but I don't care

Something's happening and it's happening right now
You're too blind to see it
Something's happening and it's happening right now
Ain't got time to wait

I said something better change
I said something better change
I said something better change
I said something better change

Don't you like the way I dance?
Does it bug you?
Don't you like the cut of my clothes?
Don't you like the way I seem to enjoy it?
Stick my fingers right up your nose

Change!

- p4pictures -

BUZZed again

A quick post for the first time in ages, seems to be par for the course these days. Lots to come as I've got a pile of pictures from some shoots and a recent trip to Finland but they'll come later.

Last night due to a fortuitous set of events I went to go and see Buzz on their latest 'Rock till it drops off tour'. Buzz is a bit of a special band for us, they were the band that I went to see one Sunday night in July and I met my now wife, and they also played at our wedding. Of course we're all a bit older now but once again Buzz didn't disappoint and the crowd was full of quite a lot of familiar faces from many years ago too.

Just as long as Mac, Sparky, Nobby and Wink can keep on and play that funky music till you die things are not so bad. Technology has moved on and now there's a myspace page for the guys at a URL that can only be described as obsfuscated:

• http://www.myspace.com/buzzaldrinmemorialhospitalsecondeleven
  

- p4pictures -

Coping with massively increased workload

If someone asks you to take on the whole job of another person or two in your company then it's often linked to an amount of corporate restructuring. The problem becomes how on earth did your busy eight hour day just get made in to 24 hours of madness and most importantly can you cope physically and mentally with all the extra. My own approach to this kind of situation has been to radically look at all the stuff that needs doing and booking it in my day in 30 minute or hour long chunks. Blog posting though has taken a back seat for now in case you hadn't noticed.

For the period of time you select you only do the task at hand, that means no cofffee or tea break, let the answer phone take that call and close the email application. Or if you are in the email application for the task then make sure new mail notification is OFF. This is quite effective and helps but you find that the brain doesn't rest easy when it's learning and doing lots. For this you need another strategy or it's a short term of sleepless nights followed by a car accident as you drive to or from work. The importance of brain switch off, or at least on to simmering instead of boiling, cannot be overstated. You have to find something that you can do that completely tasks the brain with not working. For me that's early morning walks in the countryside where I can get some fresh air and concentrate on sheep, insects, plants, flowers, birds, trees in fact anything that's not a computer or a website or a magazine or even driving! Thinking it through, then probably the quintessentially English post on the blog of fellow photographer and friend Nick Wilcox-Brown may be what started my early morning walks approach.

For me it works, I can walk for half an hour or so early in the morning at a fast pace in open country side and then I can get in to work with a state of mind that is not simply frustration and tired. As a bonus you do see some of natures great sights, the sun shining through the long grasses, the swooping flight of red kites over the terrain of Oxfordshire and even the odd early morning hot air balloon.


- p4pictures -

The shoot that nearly wasn't

A chance to take some pictures in a studio doesn't come round all that often, and so with a plan and some fellow photographers the plan was made.

1. Choose a time and date for the shoot we could all make
2. Find a venue for the studio, a nice big village hall plenty of space for a studio set-up
3. Find a model or maybe even two willing to model perhaps time for prints

So you do all that then four days before the hall you booked tells you the builders are coming and the ceiling is coming down. Do you really need all that space, can a smaller room do? Time for cunning plan B (and actually plan C too). With the studio options using a local hall running out plan B was a location shoot in an industrial area a litte off the beaten track. The model was happy to move locations for somewhere unheated and open to the elements, the photographers all charging Speedlite batteries in anticipation. So that was plan B.

The results with big thanks to Lauzie_b from PureStorm are a testament to the flexibility of the Canon wireless flash system. All night the three photographers used the same Speedlites, sometimes setting power individually from the master, sometimes using ratio control with E-TTL II but mostly with novel lighting clamps and brackets.

We made the most of a peeling paint backdrop in the first two then moved to a blue painted door in the next. At the end of the shoot we had four Speedlites on the go in an X shape lighting Lauzie_b from both sides front and rear. It was also nearly dark.

Remember the plan C mentioned above, it happened too! When the hall ceiling issue cropped up I put in plan C in case, an afternoon shoot with a model in some local woods. Needless to say this happened and the shoot finished around 45 minutes before the one with Lauzie above. Time for a swift coffee and blueberry muffin at Costa coffee in between shoots. I'll post some of the Jennie shots later.

- p4pictures -

Where I live update

Two posts in the same month, what has become of me? This is even more important as this is the where i live picture for this month too. This was taken a few evenings ago on a much needed walk around the village. Lately it's got incredibly hectic at work and I've some new assignments that means a lot of learning new processes and getting up to speed to lead some projects that are already underway.

For these kind of walks I like to use the quiet time to move things round in my head to make sense of them and so whilst a camera is a given the lens I took was one with no choices; a simple 24mm lens. Taking macro shots of flowers was not the intention as I set off, but seeing the sunset quite early on the walk I thought that maybe with me laying flat on the ground I could explore the sunset from a whole different 'plants eye view' perspective. I think I need to try some more images exploring the look of the world from a marked different perspective, maybe it will further strengthen my use of wider angle imagery.

I'm already thinking that it will be a 10-22mm lens on the camera for a coming trip to Spain.

- p4pictures -

Time goes by so slowly

Hardly seems like it was February then all of a sudden a dawning realisation that it's May. Did I really not post for that long? Prompted by a post on Martin Gisborne's blog about a barren month dawning realisation that it had been a rather quiet March and April here too. The more strange thing is that I've been out taking some pictures over that time and have some portrait shots I'm really pleased with. Some are taken on a training day where I got to shoot a model or two - nice training.

Bridal portrait taken with the EOS 5D Mark II in natural daylight filtered through some blinds.

Then in an almost similar location just a day or so later I got this one. Not a bride but still a nice portrait and one that has me enjoying the EF 50mm f/1.2L lens again.

Finally still in training I progressed and saw the opportunity for some daylight flash combination. Take a long lens, use it quite wide open to lose the background and wheel in a voice activated lightstand to hold a Speedlite 430EX II just out of the frame camera right.

So March and April were not without pictures, but certainly were missing on the blog posts.

- p4pictures -

Where did February go?

It seems like only days ago since posting the snowy landscape pictures, yet as I sit in a hotel room on some seriously costly internet access (more for 24 hours than I pay in a month at home!) it is scary and disconcerting to see 24 staring back at me from the face of my watch. Duly chastised for 16 days without a blog post I must be...

Bit of a wirlwind, shot a great young couple a few weeks back and posted them in the flickr stream. Even had cause to use one of the shots in my day job, with the appropriate approvals and releases of course.

And no it's not this picture, but it is this model. Still I was a little blown away with the results and the look of this model. Even now I'm wondering if the alternative of a 180 mile round trip from this hotel to my local camera club to shoot her again would have been the better thing to do this evening. There'll be other times I keep telling myself and then find my post about the amazing frosted landscape...
So since I'm at the focus on imaging exhibition in Birmingham tomorrow I'm going to have to keep a lid on my newly reinvigorated enthusiasm for studio photography and avoid a trip to the flash centre booth for some more studio lights.

Ghost Rider / Rush
I've been reading a fantastic and meaty book that I got for Christmas called Ghost Rider, Travels on the Healing Road by Neil Peart. Having a long time enthusiasm for many things related to the band Rush I was pointed in the direction of the book in a random internet search. It's a book I've seen and thought about before, but now seems to be the right time to read it. The story is of Neil's rehabilitation back in to life following the double tragedy of losing his daughter and then wife. So much of the book is packed with an insight in to dealing with grief, and seeing the way he deals with what life serves up. It's also peppered with bits of Rush lyrics (penned by Neil and co.) that seem to be fitting to the music on my ipod - even on shuffle. Just this morning I was stood in a shower thinking how long I had been interested in Rush's music - probably ever since A Farewell to Kings and then almost scarily the iPod serves up Xanadu (from that album) but the version from the Section Quartet on a Rush Tribute album. Weird this coincidence. Still it's a great book that is nearly finished, and I know that at least in reality the end isn't that Rush breaks up as they played a 30th anniversary show - I went it was spine chillingly good, and have since played another studio album tour - I went again...

Rubbish hotels
Travel and hotels is not all it's cracked up to be I've just secured a room move from one with mouldy shower walls and a main room that you can touch both sides of the room if you stretch your arms wide. New room is nice, but the hotel is busy and a bit faceless with mega expensive food and room service that is taking orders for delivery in at least an hour and a half! Hello it's eight thirty I'd like something before 10pm!

February where_I_live
Where I live could be interesting this month... do I post the picture of the mouldy bathroom that an A2 sized print of got me the room move. I really liked walking in to reception as people are checking in to see the duty managers face. He seems more concerned about the possibility of more pictures showing up before I check out. Seems like a picture in this hotel is worth an upgrade to a room with a 300 pound a night price tag more than the one I was in!
Or should I make the where I live of the pictures from the walk in the country side where I took the pictures in the snowy landscapes post. In my thinking it's more fitting to my goal, and was fitting in terms of pre planned shooting, even though I took advantage of the conditions. Does this sound like a cop out yet???


- p4pictures -