23 Oct 2010

Strobist DIY Beauty Dish, on the cheap!

Some of you may remember that a while back I made my own flash diffuser. The original post is here. Well, I am sad to say that it was a dismal failure! In fact I couldn't tell the difference between photos taken with or without my diffusion disaster... at least it didn't cost me anything!

But for some time now I have wanted to build something more effective, a Strobist DIY Beauty Dish! Woohoo! But would it work?

Stuff I used:

1. Old flower pot
2. CD spindle case
3. White and black spray paint
4. Plain white piece of plastic
5. 4mm rivets and washers
6. White silicon
7. Stanley knife

19 Oct 2010

Monochrome Waterfall - The "magic" of black and white film.


I may have posted this one in the past, but when looking through my photos this morning I was struck by how wonderful real black and white film looks and how, try as I might, I just don't quite seem to be able to replicate that look by converting from digital. Can anybody explain to me what the magic of black and white film is? And have you had any success getting your digital to get that same look? If so, please let me know how, I am sure there must be others out there wanting the same answers!

Nikon F801s, Nikkor 50mm f1.8D, Ilford XP2 Super, polarising filter to get rid of reflections, 5 second exposure on a tripod, developed in C41 by my local lab, scanned on a CanoScan 5600F, edited in the GIMP.

17 Oct 2010

I found a true artist!

As I mentioned here: Am I an artist now? I have heard that you are not a real artist until you have photographed a toilet, so using that criteria I have deduced that my friend Chun Chung Lee over at Light Frame Photography is a true artist in the very real sense of the word! Check out this beautiful photo right here: Time For Reflection

A hearty round of applause is in order!

16 Oct 2010

Welcome to the Free State!

Miles and miles of flatness:


But the people are great! Just love them!

Featured Photographer - John Sevigny

Love him or hate him, the guy certainly stirs up emotions and makes you sit up and take notice!

This is my favourite John Sevigny photograph, something in this pic just speaks to me:


A whole lot more John Sevigny here: www.johnsevigny.com and here: http://gonecity.blogspot.com/

15 Oct 2010

Ellie - Cross Processed!


Another of Ellie, but this time by natural light and run through the "Cross Process" plugin of Paintshop Photo Pro X3.

14 Oct 2010

Low Key Portrait


I attended an excellent studio lighting workshop by Pat Bredenkamp today and at the end we were allowed to play with the lights for a bit, so I had some fun! Single 250 watt studio light high right and slightly behind the model with snoot and honeycomb grid.

12 Oct 2010

The Aliens have landed!!

I was bored and decided to have a little fun with an LED flash-light, my tripod and a few victims willing volunteers!

Arrested by the Aliens!

Bedazzled by the Aliens!
Please be careful of those Aliens!

28 Sept 2010

Secret Film Development Process

I have been working on a new top secret film developing process which I shall now explain for the more technically minded among you. Please keep it to yourself because if this gets out then everybody is going to be doing it and it won't be unique, or secret, any longer.

Here it is step by step:
1.) Acquire any old 35mm film camera (cheap because nobody wants them any more) I used a Trip 35, but this process should work equally well with other types/brands too.
2.) Find some heavily expired, discontinued slide, E6, film. It's even better if it has been hand rolled into a C41 negative film canister. For the purposes of this scientific, photographic research I used Kodachrome 64, hand rolled into a 200 ISO Agfa negative film canister.
3.) Load said film into purchased camera.
4.) Find a subject and shoot it.
5.) Take film out of camera.
6.) This step is very important. Take film to local film development lab and hand it in without telling them what the film really is. They should just stick it through the regular C41 machine and press "go", or whatever it is they do back there that got so expensive to do in the last ten years.
7.) When you go to pick up the film they will think the film is ruined and they might not charge you for the development. Make sure you take the film home anyway, don't be a sucker.
8.) Scan your film as negative film.
9.) Mess with the resultant images in the GIMP/Photoshop/Paintshop Pro, etc. until it looks kinda old and groovy like the samples below.
10.) Post them on-line for all to see and claim that you have discovered a new top secret process for developing film.






What are you doing here reading this blog post, get out now and go have some fun! GO!