Break Those Damn Rules!

Who made up the rules, and why do we have to follow them?

A friend, and long time pro photographer, looked at my portrait photography last year and the first thing that struck him was that I often didn't use the traditional method of framing single person portrait photographs and mostly used "landscape" instead. It got me to thinking about why we have rules at all in photography. Quite often in our attempts to follow these rules (rule of thirds etc.) we make dull, boring, yawn, the same as all the other, yuck, please shoot me now, looking photos and sometimes when we inadvertantly break the rules the result is quite pleasing, and a breath of fresh air to me.

Maybe we should discard the rules and strike out to make photographs that stir the human soul instead. Can emotion ever have a formula? Heck, I want a photo to move me in some way. It should either make me happy, or sad, or nostalgic, or angry, or any damn thing but impressed with how well the photographer has handled the technical aspect of his mundane subject so well.

I would feel a lot more righteous about all of this if I didn't fall into the same trap myself on such a regular basis... oh well, back to the drawing board.

Strobist DIY Beauty Dish Portrait

Taken with my Strobist DIY Beauty Dish. I fire the Nikon SB600 wirelessly in the Strobist DIY Beauty Dish by raising the D90's onboard flash and using it as the commander. By setting the onboard flash at minimum power it has the added advantage of raising the light in the shadow side of the models face just a slight bit.

My Genuine German Beer Mug!

My step daughter in London picked this up for me at a boot sale and sent it to me in South Africa. It's simply the best Christmas present ever! It still says W-Germany on the bottom so it must be fairly old, and although used it's still in great condition.

It might just be me, but a beer certainly seems to taste better when I drink it out of this classy mug!

You can take my photo...

...but I don't have to be happy about it!

Look For A Different View!

So one thing I like to do is find a different way of looking at a scene that's been done a thousand times before. Reflections, unusual angles, or just the videographers LCD screen! Hope his work isn't copyrighted, or he may sue me for using his material, even if it is just a fraction of a fraction of a second...

Sometimes you have to get down and dirty!

In this case it was down on my belly in the aisle of a packed church with people looking at me funny... but I got the shot I wanted!

Note to self: humility is good for me.

Cafe Riche at Night

I took this a while back on a Canon 350D and the kit lens in crazy low light, hand held. It came out a lot sharper than I anticipated. It's a late night bar on the western side of Church Square in Pretoria, South Africa.

Ibanez Acoustic Bass Guitar - 3

Ibanez Acoustic Bass Guitar - 2

...the headstock of the Ibanez Acoustic Bass guitar.

Ibanez Acoustic Bass Guitar - 1

After putting it off for the longest time I finally got to start regular practice with my bass and  I suddenly realised why I wanted an acoustic bass instead of a regular electric bass. It's the sound you see, it's just more organic somehow, even when plugged in. Love it!

How to deal with heavy back-lighting.

Leave the camera on auto and you will end up with an unattractive, boring, black silhouette every time. Take a test shot, check it out on the cameras LCD screen, adjust exposure compensation to overexpose, re-shoot, check LCD screen, readjust exposure compensation to taste, re-shoot and voila! Easy peasy!

Nikon D90, Nikon 35mm f1.8DX, 1/160s, f2.8, aperture priority, +4 exposure compensation, edited in Corel Paintshop Pro X3.

The Death of my Ibanez RM80 Mixer

After many years of faithful service my ancient mixer accidently toppled off a table during a gig and landed on the floor with predictable results. Because it is so old nobody even wants to look at it for repairs so I had to go and get a new mixer... boohoo, and sob!

But the upside is that I could now use it for some photographic fun! Yay!

First the original pic:

Then I got to messing about with the Virtual Photographer plugin in Corel Paintshop Pro X3:

Groovy Baby, Yeah!

Pretoria Skyline

After an absence of a few weeks I feel I need to post something quickly while I have a few minutes to spare. I have been on the road and generally just too busy to get to the blog and will probably be in the same state of being for a couple of weeks more. Please forgive me and enjoy this pic of my hometown of Pretoria.

Ciao, and see you soon!

Old Ford

From a wedding I shot this last weekend:

I just love these vintage cars and I often wish someone would produce cars this shape today with a modern engine. But then it probably wouldn't have the same soul that these genuine oldies have.

Nikon D90, Nikon 35mm f1.8DX.

I know which one I like...

...but which one do you prefer and why?

Maybe you could also share what you might have done differently.