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.

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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.

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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.

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