Archive for February, 2008
Give me more POWER! Or less sun.
Thu Feb 28th - 5:44pm
While the Strobist movement goes from strength to strength, I'm afraid I've gone back to using big strobes for nearly everything nowadays. That can sometimes present a problem when you're working outside but thanks to my willingness to knock on doors, and the generosity of everyone whose door I've knocked on so far, I've always been able to find a power socket to plug an extension cable into.
I've been wanting to shoot skateboarding for ages. If you're into lighting then it's the must-shoot sport. After a few false starts over the last couple of weeks, today we finally had the right weather. The guinea pigs were some of the pupils from Invergordon Academy who are doing skateboarding as part of the P.E. syllabus. (Why did we never have lessons like that when I was at school?!)
To cut a long story short, the day was both a success and a failure. It was a failure in that I only got one shot that was anywhere close to what I wanted. But it was a success in that I've learned how to do the lighting so next time I can concentrate on nailing the action shots.
Here's the one shot that I sort of like a little bit:
And here's the lighting set-up:
Even with both of the 1Kw strobes on full power and the sunlight behind the subject, I still had to shoot at f/22 to make a dent in the ambient. If you look at the full-size version of the action shot then you'll see that there's some ghosting around the subject as the sync speed for the strobes is 1/125s and I wasn't able to stop the aperture down enough to kill the ambient. Now I do have three 500w strobes that I could set-up next time to give me a total of 3.5Kw but I think the better solution, if at all possible, is to do the shoot when it isn't so sunny. Today's shoot was around midday, next week's it's 2-3pm so the light should be less intense by then.
By the way, the reason why one of the strobes is positioned slightly closer to the ramp is simply so its slave cell could see the flash from the other one, which was triggered by Pocket Wizards.
No sunshine? No problem!
Thu Feb 28th - 12:40am
Photoshop is much maligned by some and much loved by others. I'm firmly in the latter category. Granted it doesn't (and shouldn't) have much use in editorial, but for commercial work it can make the difference between getting the job done on budget and not getting it done at all.
One extreme example that I've mentioned before was the high dynamic range portrait of a truck when a little bit of computer trickery enabled a stunning, colourful image to be created on a horrible, rainy and overcast day.
The photos that I'm posting today aren't quite that extreme, but they do illustrate one way in which you can use Photoshop to your advantage. I have a list of about a dozen photos that I need to do for an electrical contractor's web site, and of course we want the exterior photos to be bright and sunny. In February. In Scotland. The chances of this mythical day ever arriving are slim, and even if it does happen, the chances of getting all the photos done in one day are non-existent. But maybe Photoshop can help?
Take a moment to think about what a "bright sunny day photo" looks like. The key elements are: Blue sky, a fairly strong contrast between light and dark, and a subtle yellow hue.
When you break it down like that, you realise that Photoshop can do a lot for us here: If there's any blue at all in the sky then we can make it look as blue as we want it to. (But don't try to make an overcast sky look blue, it doesn't work!) If the sky isn't too overcast and the sun is low then we'll have contrast, and we can enhance it as much as we want. And that yellow hue? Obviously that's a 2-second job.
So with that in mind, rather than waiting for a bright sunny day that will probably never arrive, all we need is a day that isn't totally overcast, with a low sun. Those days come along much more often.
Photoshop might be commonly used to fix images that weren't done right in the first place, either by accident or lack of skill. But here we have an example of a situation in which you can deliberately take the 'wrong' photos, with the plan all along being to knock them into shape later on.
Without waffling on any further, here are four example photos. Note that none of them are bad photos as such, they just look a bit gloomy and wet, which is exactly what the weather was like.
And here are the finished versions. Notice how each of them sells the idea of it being a bright and sunny day, but in different ways. In this first one the deal makers are the little bit of blue sky and the enhanced yellow hue in the plants to frame left.
In this picture it's the yellow hue added to the grass, and those long shadows. The overcast sky was pushed as far as possible but the picture still works with it being a bit washed out, rather than the rich, vibrant blue that would be ideal.
Here it's the enhanced blue of the sky and the increased saturation of the brickwork. As I'm typing this I can see that more work needs to be done to bring out the red of the chimney, but as it is the photo still works.
This one was more heavily edited which is why the red of the chimney is better. Again it's the blue sky and saturated brickwork that sell the idea of the photo being taken on a much nicer day than it really was.
The point I'm making here isn't that Photoshop is good or bad, because that's an old argument and you've already made up your mind one way or the other.
No, the point is that IF you accept Photoshop as a part of your workflow, then learn to include it in the planning stage too. If you know what you can do to your photos on the computer then you know what you don't need to do in the camera. That's going to help you with scheduling, quotes and budgeting. You'll be able to take on jobs that you might have otherwise had to decline. You'll be able to complete existing jobs that have become unexpectedly difficult. And you'll have a nicer number at the bottom of your bank statement.
You may find that there are other advantages too. For example, look at those heavy gas cylinders in this house photo…
While preparing for the photo we moved a few bits and pieces and uprooted a large pole that obscured part of the house. But why waste time disconnecting the gas cylinders and moving them out of the way when Mr Photoshop can do it for you in a couple of minutes or less?
Seaboard over-90s making headlines
Sun Feb 24th - 5:30pm
It has been a busy week for some of the more senior ladies in the Seaboard Villages of Hilton, Balintore and Shandwick.
The three villages boast 17 women in their 90th year and older, with their longevity attributed to a life of hard work, fresh air, no smoking and only the occasional alcoholic drink. Nine of the women got together on Wednesday in the Memorial Hall in Balintore, where they were interviewed and photographed for a feature in Thursday's Press & Journal.
The story was then picked up by the Daily Mail, and on Friday afternoon the BBC came to speak to three of the women, one from each village.
This photo shows Barbara Skinner (90) of Balintore, Isabella Vass (91) of Shandwick and Katie Ross (90) of Hilton, in the living room of Barbara's home with BBC Scotland reporter Craig Anderson and cameraman Norman Strachan. No doubt many video recorders were whirring in the villages that evening when the three ladies were featured on the Scottish national news.
Golspie win SWL Cup 2008
Sun Feb 17th - 5:31pm
Congratulations to Golspie Sutherland Football Club for a spectacular comeback in Saturday's SWL Cup Final at Seaboard Park in Balintore. Muir of Ord dominated the first half and the scoreline was 1-0 to Muir at half time. But then came the turnaround and Golspie's Andrew Keveren scored four goals in the second half to secure a 4-1 victory and the silverware went north.
As an aside, Golspie's victory highlights (again) the problem with some of our local papers relying on spec shooters to get their sports photos. Muir of Ord is a Ross-shire team, so the Ross-shire Journal commissioned photos from this match in case Muir won. Golspie is a Sutherland team, so the Northern Times should have commissioned photos, but didn't. As it turns out, Muir didn't win so the RSJ probably won't use a pic from the match, but they still pay, and that's how it should be. Meanwhile, when any Golspie players or supporters look in their local paper, they won't see any photos of their team's victory because nobody shot the match on spec and the NT hadn't commissioned anyone. This is bad for the team, it's bad for the supporters, it's bad for the sponsor, and it's bad for the newspaper, but that's the way it works round here and I'm not seeing any signs of it changing.
