A Heart for Valentine's Day!

"On Location" Studio Portrait Shoot

I shot a series of portraits for a someone over the weekend and decided to share this one simply because this wonderful man's face really caught my eye, some people are just great to photograph and he was a natural!

I had a load of fun and was reminded once again that I am in this because I love working with people, and seeing them happy with something as personal as their portrait just makes my day!

Truth in Photography by Calvin and Hobbs.

Haha! Love Calvin and Hobbs, so much common everyday truth!

You can find it here: http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2012/09/20

Sunflower Centre

Nikon D90, AF-S DX Micro Nikkor 40mm f/2.8G, ISO200, Manual mode, f8, 1/125s, Nikon sb700 triggered wirelessly via CLS and bounced into an umbrella to camera left.

Inside the Crypt of the Domkyrka in Lund, Sweden.

Nikon D90, Nikkor 35mm f1.8G DX, ISO800, Aperture Priority mode, f2.8, 1/6s, hand held, edited in Corel Paintshop Pro X4.

Another Take on Photographing a Bottle of Wine

As you know I recently posted something on shooting a bottle of wine in a light tent, to see it CLICK HERE.

Well, this time around I wanted to try something a little different than the last shoot and go for an entirely different look.

The Power of Bounced Flash!

Nikon sb600 atop my D300s turned backwards and about 45° upwards to bounce onto the wall and ceiling behind me. This simple technique resulted in even and soft lighting from a large light source and great highlights in the eyes of the subjects!

Should I work for Free?

Click on the link below for a well laid out and easy to implement graph to help you decide if you should indeed work for free:

Should I Work for Free?

And here is a handy jpeg (you can download it from the site above) that I am going to print out and hang in my office for easy reference:

:-)

Portrait of Ben (with Attitude)

Elinchrom D-Lite-it 4 snooted and shot from behind and right of the subject to give a little hair light action, Elinchrom D-Lite-it 4 through a smallish softbox aimed to just skim across the subject from camera left without throwing too much light onto the background, edited in Lightroom 4.3 to grunge the portrait up a bit. I used my favourite 50mm f1.8D attached to a Nikon D300s, with all manual settings applied.

Head to Head Shoot-out: Nikon NX2 vs Lightroom 4.3 vs DXO 8

For everyone expecting a full size analysis with clever, long and fancy words I am afraid you are going to be very disappointed. This is a straight shoot-out between Nikon NX2, Lightroom 4.3 and DXO 8. As such I will just show a number of photos that have been given only very basic and gentle massaging in all three programs. In DXO 8 it was entirely default settings, in Nikon NX2 I checked the buttons for auto repair of chromatic aberrations (CA's) while all other settings were left unchanged from default, and in Lightroom 4.3 I checked the boxes that enables the profile correction for camera and lens combination and that corrects for CA's while all other settings were left unchanged from default.

I used a hand held Nikon D90 with a Nikkor AF-S DX 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR attached. The lens is well known for having loads of distortion and CA's.

One Bottle of Wine, One Light Tent and Two Elinchrom D-lite-it 4's.

A very simple set-up to photograph the bottle of Pomerol wine shown above:

Agfa Isolette

I originally posted a little about this camera here: Girl with Agfa Isolette, but this time around I just got a better pic of the camera. More about it at the Camerapedia website, simply CLICK HERE.

Some time or the other I need to get all the ingredients to develop my own film and then I may have a stab at actually using it.

Nikon D300s, Nikkor 40mm f/2.8G AF-S DX Micro, 80x80cm light tent, 2xElinchrom D-Lite-it 4's shot through their softboxes on either side of the tent.

Photographing Weddings is Fun!

Although stressful at times, and tiring to shoot when it stretches to a 12 hour day, I have always enjoyed shooting weddings! I really love to work with people, especially people who are having a whole lot of fun themselves, and at weddings mostly people are very happy, relaxed and in a great mood.

Being properly prepared ahead of time takes most of the stress out of it, however no matter how well you prepare there are always going to be a few surprises along the way, but if you have done the groundwork ahead of time then you should be able to handle the little niggles that come along a whole lot better.

What has always helped me a lot is building a very good relationship with my clients ahead of time, so that on the day they trust me and don't have to stress themselves worrying about whether I am up to documenting their one off very special event that will (hopefully) never be repeated ever again. Some photographers can't deal with that sort of responsibility and hate to shoot weddings, but it is exactly that aspect that gets me revved up! Bring it on!

Premier Hotel, Cullinan South Africa

Bride and Groom Kissing outside the Chapel

An oldie from my days of film, and still one of my favourite wedding photos. I was shooting with a Nikon F801s camera and a Nikkor 50mm f1.8D lens, a real workhorse combination that served me well for many years!

I would still be happily shooting film but in South Africa it became harder and harder to find anybody who could still process film properly and without leaving smudgy fingerprints on my negatives. I think that as time went on and the old film guys who knew what they were doing in the darkroom retired they were replaced by anyone (young, cheap and inexperienced) who thought they could punch the right buttons on the mini lab machine, and the darkroom art died out.

This is the way of the world and unfortunately profits drive everything. Having recently moved to Sweden I have discovered that local processing labs simply don't exist, so film use seems to be off the cards unless I decide to process my own... C'est la vie, now I have been shooting digital for a number of years and the "old days" of film remain as a pleasant memory.