Easter weekend was pretty cool, after the revelation of the Friday leading to the photos of my wife from two posts ago, plus her Birthday on the Saturday and shooting Sarah on the Monday, it was quite busy!
Sunday was no different as more than fifteen of us got together at Carla and Binho’s house for a good ol’ Brazilian Barbecue! The meat had been marinating all night, and it tasted amazing! Also worked out pretty cheap... a tonne of meat and only £4 per head!
Well, I’ll have to post some of the shots of the BBQ itself at some point, but midway through the afternoon (as in midway between lunch and lighting the BBQ again for supper...) we got some photos of those who had hung around after the first round of eating. We where practising this manual lighting trick we had just picked up so that we had it down well for when Sarah graced our presence on Monday - thankfully it came quite naturally so no problem! Full manual flash and exposure for most of this. A few are natural light... but not many I do find it quite amusing how some of these photos look like we set up a garden within a studio which we certainly did not! Definitely something I will be watching though, I do need to check what look I am going for... I certainly don’t want somebody’s wedding looking like it was staged...
First up Jonas and Rejane whom you have of course seen before. Re is newly pregnant with her second child (some eleven years after her first one) so we made sure we got some shots of the growing belly!



Next up was Sylvie with her gorgeous little daughter Bia. They are new to the area, but Sylvie and her husband (who was working unfortunately) where Groomsman and Bridesmaid at Jonas and Re’s wedding!



Carla and Binho (the hosts for the day) always look great in photos... these photos just need a little more treatment too




And finally put it back to full TTL flash and exposure before handing the camera’s over to Re and Carla so me and the missus can get at least a few shots together which is something we do miss.



Whilst Re was showing the others some of the photos she took, I took the opportunity to demonstrate how all of these shots had been done. Pretty simple right? By this point I was 1/125sec, f/4 ISO 100 and something like 1/4 on the flash.


Right... that’s it for now. Few more nibbles for shoots so hopefully we should have more new stuff for you coming up soon too...
Take care all! Read More...

Right, as promised here we go... we found a great model here to try out some of this work we are doing, and on Monday we spent about and hour and a half spread over two locations making the most of the locales and of her.
We started off under this great old railway bridge on the southern edge of Swindon (which I have featured before) which offered loads of texture and colour. Whilst Graffiti can be a pain, it can definitely make great photos! The photos at this location where all done with the D80 and the 70-300mm lens. Also some fill light come from off camera flash (using my new tip...) coming through a satin brolly:



You see what I mean about the colour?



Moving slightly around the corner (on the path going up to be on top of the bridge in fact) we changed the style a bit with the way we used the flash to give a more fashion feel to the whole thing:




We then moved over the Coate Water where we relaxed a bit and went to using just the lovely gentle sunshine that had been peeking its way through the clouds gradually. Of the shots Cátia got throughout the day, these two are definitely my favourites! Sarah works at the same place as I do during the day, and this first photo is spot on to her personality, whereas the second one is just a beautiful shot! These where taken with the D40x and 55-200mm VR lens:






Once more my wife’s eye for detail beats my own:






One of the best things about this time of year is that the trees tend to be doing some pretty cool things, like this one was:


We had to get the flash back out again for these ones, using it bare:


We where really happy with this shoot, and Sarah was great to work with!
See more on her page in our portfolio or through my Facebook account.
I still have photos from the barbecue from Sunday to do as well as a write something worthwhile about my Granddad, but that will need some real though to do him justice. Expect more coming over the next few days! Read More...

Right... quick technique post for you based upon something I learnt only yesterday. I don’t know how I have managed to get by without this so far, but this opens up a lot for me. This tip came from Scott Kelby’s and Matt Kloskowski who run D-Town TV Episode 05. Great videos for anyone who uses Nikon, and this episode dropped one little hint about controlling flash from the pop-up of my D80. I have used it on many occasions, but I didn’t know you could set it to manual, I had all of them left on TTL. This meant that on many occasions I would end up with photos like this even running the camera on manual exposure:

I have often had issues with this, but after this first shot, I went to manual flash, messed around a little to get the right exposure, and found this:

Much better isn’t it? Watch the Scott Kelby vid to know how to turn it on and then sift through the Lighting 101 course on Strobist.com to find out how to use it. I am a very happy man.

As a little bit more info, the sun was creating beautiful colours this evening, so we ran out to a patch of grass near to our house and I got the chance to play with this new trick. I was using a 1/2 CTO Gel filter on the flash to warm it up getting closer to the sun which was most of the way down by this point. The actual setup was pretty basic, with the single SB-600 on a lightstand which was also doubling as a coat rack:

I just squatted down a little to get the dramatic sky above the line of houses behind Cátia.
These two photos are more finally treated and have been fully cleaned and whatever else. Nice enough birthday present for her? Well... she did also get the matching earrings and necklace:


Tomorrow we are at a BBQ which should be good, and we will try and get some cool shots of that, hopefully much more under control using the off-camera flash now with this new tip! I am looking forward to that, then a two part shoot with a very nice young lady on Monday will make this a photographic weekend to remember! Certainly great experience for me... Read More...

Right... its been a couple of weeks since I have blogged but it has been pretty busy for the pair of us and we have some interesting photos to show and more to come over the next couple of weeks...
To start with we where in Milton Keynes last Friday as we had my Granddad’s funeral. I was there with my Dad, one of my Uncles and my cousin carrying the coffin into and out of the church. It is pretty tough, but with somebody like Papa (which is how all of us grandchildren always knew him) its hard to be too sad... although we will miss him greatly he has left so much behind in terms of his love and influence. I will post some of the photos from the reception another time, but while we where there we went for a walk with my Uncle and Aunt near to the home my Grandparents where in. Spring is such a great time of the year, and despite the mixture of weather during the day, everything was just so beautiful.






I grabbed some nice informal shots of my Uncle and Aunt as well as my cousin as well:



My cousin sporting his Hillsong hoody which is the church he goes to.
Cátia was just breathing deeply in the gorgeous early evening sun we had in glimpses.

I love this time of year, and with the whole family together it was just so beautiful. I will write more about the great man that Papa was (and in many ways still is) when I put some of those photos up, but it really didn’t feel like a funeral at all. The fondness and love displayed and felt by all made it feel more like a wedding or something like that.

He will truly be greatly missed.

I am going to be doing an interesting shoot tomorrow which hopefully I will be able to post before I am back to work on Tuesday... this one should turn out beautifully... and that’s not mentioning the Barbecue on Sunday!

Well... I have to go prepare for tomorrow’s shoot, and eat something, but I will have a couple of good posts for you over the next few days, so keep your ears to the ground... Read More...