Tulips in the Studio

Decided to shoot some tulips in my tiny studio. 

Nikon D850, 24-120mm f4 lens @120mm, f11, two Speedlights fired and controlled wirelessly via Nikons CLS & shot through an octobox to camera right and a gobo from under the table onto the background. Handheld throughout. I have posted a pullback shot at the end so you can see the light setup and layout.

 

...and lastly the promised pullback shot:

Tulips in the Studio

Just a bunch of beautiful tulips photographed in my tiny home studio today. I have included some wide shots of the lights as well so you can get a feel of my setup. Two Nikon Speedlights fired wirelessly via Nikons wonderful CLS system.

 

...and the pull back shots.

Pepper Corns

Today the subject is Pepper Corns! One light from overhead and slightly behind, pepper corns in a plate on a small table, Nikon D750 & Sigma 105mm Macro, ISO100, f16, 1/60s, SB-910 Speedlight triggered remotely via the SU-800 Commander, handheld. Spicy!

P'tit Bleu - a Quick Grab Shot...

 My wife came back from a trip to Marseilles with a tiny bottle of P'tit Bleu which is the most remarkable blue colour you have ever seen. Had to take a photograph of course... 😎 So I grabbed my Olympus E-M5mk2 and attached the excellent Olympus 45mm f1.8 lens. I used my home bar as a studio, turned on the lights above the shelf and my phone's flash-light for front fill, had to ask the wife to hold the phone and point the light. 😁 

Cheers/skål/prost/nostrovia!

Faux Absolut Vodka Ad

I have always admired the Absolut Vodka ad campaign that used to run in magazines worldwide some years ago and always thought of how I would like to try and recreate something similar. I think it is a study in simplicity embracing the "less is more" ideology while having an attention capturing visual impact. The first step was to find a current news topic that would grab attention, hence I settled on Brexit and the "hard" or indeed "absolute" nature that it entails.

Next step, purchase said product and relevant prop, in this case a bottle of vodka and a Union Jack bowtie.

I studied the lighting techniques that the original ads used and tried to "reverse engineer" it. I used three studio lights, one from behind the backdrop shooting through a snoot, and two from the front on either side of the bottle shooting through two softboxes and positioned so as to give the two reflections in the shiny bottle cap.

After metering the lights and setting up the camera I shot two photos from a sturdy tripod mount, one with only the rear light and one with only the two front lights, and then spent a little time on the computer editing and combining the two to achieve the effect I was after.

The final step was looking up which font they originally used in their campaign, download and install it and then finish off the advert with authentic Absolut punchline at the bottom.

Lighting setup pull back shots below.

Food Photography, with whatever camera you happen to have on hand...

I originally (many years ago) trained as a chef in South Africa and I was quite good at it (if I say so myself) but circumstance and providence led me along other paths for many years. However a couple of years ago I received a good offer and took up a position as a chef at a company here in Sweden. This has of course left me with less time to pursue my love of photography, hence the slowing down to a crawl of this blog.

At work I have been called on many times to photograph dishes for the company website and the requesting always comes when the only camera I have with me is my phone camera. I do not have the latest and greatest, but I have found that with my old Samsung S5 and the incredible Snapseed photo manipulation software for Android I can get amazingly good results. While the fine detail and colour management I get from my DSLR is undoubtably much MUCH better I think that at internet resolution the photo below is just great!

Bear in mind that this was taken, edited and published directly from my phone with only window light in between my normal duties as a chef. It is no wonder then that camera sales are plummeting and photographer jobs are scarcer by the day...

Blues Harmonica

Just another quick harmonica pic to get the musical and photographic juices flowing at the same time.

Newcastle Brown Ale - Photographed in Mixed Light

Popped down to the local liquor store in Landskrona today to fill up on wine and other essentials and was pleasantly surprised to see that they had a healthy, but expensive, stock of Newcastle Brown Ale. Best beer ever!

Of course once I got home I was compelled to photograph this delicious beverage, and what better place than in my home made pub.

There is a healthy mix of lighting going on here with the led lights of the bar on as well as some daylight from a window to the right and then a Nikon SB910 hand held to camera left pointed at the ceiling for nice diffused bounce light and triggered via CLS. I had a slow shutter speed of 1/25th to ensure the background light was captured along with the balanced flash to add the right atmosphere. The lens was wide open at f2.8 to blur the background and isolate the main subject.

Harmonica and Guitar

Combining my love of photography and music by photographing my Yamaha guitar with my latest addition, a Hohner Crossover harmonica. Two quality sounding instruments that do not fulfill their true potential by virtue of my enthusiastic yet somewhat limited efforts.

My only light comes from a Nikon SB910 speedlight hand held to camera left, pointed at and bounced off the ceiling for soft light, and triggered wirelessly via Nikon's great CLS system.
My camera of choice was a Nikon D300s fitted with the excellent and sharp Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 non stabilised lens, fully zoomed at 50mm, shutter speed of 1/160th of a second with aperture of f5.6 and iso set at base 200.
Edited in Lightroom.

Continuing with the wine theme...

Photograph of a 1978 Castillo San Simon wine from Spain. Not opening this one. Maybe someday...

Two Nikon speedlights, one gridded and one snooted, on light stands and fired by a Phottix Strato wireless trigger system. Bunch of stuff from the kitchen for decor. Edited in Adobe Lightroom 4.

Photographing a Vintage Wine in it's Natural Environment!

So this evening I photographed a 1990 Chateau Grangeneuve, which is a smooth red wine from Bordeaux and it was paired with tasty spiced and grilled pork chops with a dollop of delicious potato salad! The best part about photographing wine and food is consuming it afterward. It was delicious!

I used two speedlights to create the atmosphere I was after, a gridded sb600 from camera left at 1/64 power and a snooted sb700 from camera right set to 1/32 output. This combined to provide a nice intimate scene full of warm nourishing flavours and mouth watering grilled aromas. The camera was at 1/200s, f3.2, ISO 200, slightly warm flash white balance and RAW, always RAW. Speedlights were triggered via a cheap but reliable Phottix Strato wireless trigger system.

Mmm, another glass of wine anyone?

Photographing Artwork with the NIKKOR AF-S DX Micro 40mm f/2.8G

While the NIKKOR AF-S DX Micro 40mm f/2.8G may not be the ideal macro lens because of it's too short focal length it never-the-less certainly is a wonderful lens with tack sharp distortion free optics that are unrivaled at the price. Therefore it makes for a fantastic lens to photograph artworks like the painting below by talented local artist Birgitte Clark (who also happens to be my wife):

Here is a 100% crop from the painting:

Direct Flash vs Bounced Flash

I am often asked by people how they can improve their photography or which camera they should buy to take better photographs. My advice is always the same, if you already have a dslr then you don't need a "better" camera or lens. There are many skills you can learn to improve your photography, some complicated, but most as simple as riding a bicycle.

One of the simplest ways to improve a photograph is to learn how to use light properly and there are several simple techniques with an on camera flash that will step up your game and produce much better quality photos. For instance, I am always amazed by how something as simple as bouncing a flash off a wall can improve a photograph by 100%.

Three Bottles of Campari on a Seamless White Background

Nikon D300s, Nikkor AF-S 85mm f/1.8 G, f/11.0, 1/160s, ISO 200, 1x Elinchrom D-Lite-it 2, 2x  Elinchrom D-Lite-it 4, 1x Large Sheet of White Cardstock, 2x Long Narrow Strips of Black Cardstock on each side of product, 1x Sheet of Clear Glass.

Campari on Ice - another three light product photograph

Same basic lighting set-up as the photograph in the previous post.

Four Light Product Photo of Baileys' Liqueur

A (reasonably) simple three light product shot of a bottle of Baileys' Liqueur. But how to set up the lights to get this effect? Answer below the photograph of the very yummy Baileys'.

The rim highlight you see on the edge of the bottle is from two strip lights behind the subject, one on either side and about 10" out from each side.

Slow Shutter Speeds with Studio Flash for Ambient Colour and Mood

By combining a slow shutter speed and studio flash I was able to get the nice warm ambient glow of the candle falling on the scene as well as the lighting effect of the studio lights. The shutter speed was a very leisurely 4.0 seconds and the Elinchrom flashes fired at the beginning of the exposure. The Elinchroms are providing light on the label of the olive oil bottle (snoot), some fill and highlights (softboxes).

At a shutter speed of 1/200 of a second the mood and warmth is completely lost:

Doesn't really work for me the way the first one does...

And lastly, a slow shutter speed shot with all the studio lights switched off:

Olympus Trip 35 Hero Shot

I haven't been able to use my Olympus Trip 35 for over a year now just simply because I cannot find anywhere in Southern Sweden to process film. If anybody knows of a good lab please let me know, I really miss shooting my Trip... but at least I can shoot pictures of my Trip!

Here is a typical camera "hero" shot of my beautiful Olympus Trip 35 complete with authentic period Olympus Pen flash attached. The flash has a few small bits missing but that's ok, the pic looks great with it on. ;-)

Tahdah!

Oooooh! Aaaah! *Spontaneous applause*

"Why thank you, thank you very much!"

Five Bottles of Wine - on Black

With studio lighting anything you imagine is possible. Best investment I ever made!

Some good advice, if you want to improve your photography then another camera, or some other lens is not going to do it. Rather invest time in learning how to light your subject better, I guarantee that will have a major impact on the quality of your photos, much more than another high priced f2.8 zoom ever will. The temptation is always to get that new specced dslr with the more megapixels and higher frame rate, or that new VR version of the same lens you already have, but unless you change the way you light you are wasting your money. Next time you have bucks to blow, go get a speedlight instead, or a nice softbox, wireless triggers, light stands, umbrellas, heck just about anything but yet another camera body. Be strong, resist GAS, you can do it! ;-)

Mmmmm, beer! - Lighting is in Layers.

I like to think of setting up lighting as adding a series of carefully thought out layers. I normally start out with a background, work out the lighting for it and then slowly add layers until I match the vision I had in my minds eye for the particular subject.

Here is a final shot of a glass of beer and the can and then I will show the various "layers" of light as I added them in my quest for this photograph: