The Photo Journey » 365 Project

Confetti Cleanup – BTS Video

Scott — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 02:37:42 +0000

Here is the 3rd in a series of videos on how I took my photos for this years Canon Photo5 Competition. Check out the other photo5 blog posts here. For more information on the competition check out the website.

Brief 3 was to incorporate confetti in motion. This was going to be 1 messy shoot

I wanted to capture the cleanup after the party. I put together a short video of the setup explaining the lights used and the way I rigged up the vacuum cleaner. Over a month after the shoot I have still managed to find confetti all around the house.

Once again it was recorded and edited all on my iPhone 4. Interesting exercise. Love to hear your comments.

I’m Published x 2

Scott — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 03:05:10 +0000

Back in August I received an e-mail from the Senior Editor of the Popular Photography Magazine asking if I would be interested in being features in their “You Can Do It” section of the magazine. The magazine was founded in 1937 and is the worlds largest imaging magazine with a projected audience of 2,085,000.

After a few months of approval and editing the November issues has a BTS of my Golf Self Sportrait from back on Day 40 of the 365 Project.

It was an amazing feeling to see one of my proudest images featured like this. Then amazingly a few weeks later I was approached by a British Graphic Designer(Warm & Fuzzy) who wanted to use one of my images captured on our European trip earlier this year in a tourist brochure. The shot was a subtle HDR landscape I had taken in Wexford Town, Ireland. The colours of the buildings with the contrast of the sky was amazing. As soon as I composed the shot I knew it would be a winner.

It has been a chaotic 2 months but if your a regular here you will notice I have given the site a major overhaul, and hopefully the site displays my images and articles clearer. There are also a few other changes and announcements in the next month so stay tuned.

Happy Easter!

Scott — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 04:04:17 +0000

Easter has arrived once again and I have seen some great shots over on flickr marking the occasion. I have been trying to think of the perfect Easter themed strobist shot when I noticed the Easter Raffle being held at my work. It was a massive basket full of chocolate. I had an idea for a shot but I had to win the basket first. So I bought my 3 tickets and on the day of the draw told everyone to come along to morning tea and see me win. I was rather cocky about it all. Sure enough the winning ticket was mine. I double fisted the sky like an F1 driver who had just won the championship. Just goes to show that as long as you believe in something enough you can make it happen.

So I went about drawing up my idea that had developing in my head over the previous week. I wanted to do a not so pleasant family shot. More of a chocolate lover treating the basket like Gollum and his precious ring. It would need some harsh lighting on my face and a deep red gel behind on a wall giving some separation and mood. As you can see in the setup shot below it deviated a little from my initial sketch.

I used my reflective umbrella with a Cactus KF36 @ 1/16 but pointed up so that just feathered light fromthe edges of the umbrella would fall in the basket. Then I positioned a Cactus KF36 with a red gel @ 1/4 on a seat behind the basket. I would straddle this seat for the final shot. After a few test shots things were looking good. I was time to introduce another KF36 @ 1/2 power with my short snooted grid positioned directly above the camera and pointed towards my face. It was secured with a Nasty Clamp which took a few attempts to get positioned correctly as the gridded snoot gives a very narrow light beam. Any wider and it would have ruined my red gel from behind.

So other than the lighting I melted 2 small eggs in a cup and went about pouring it on my face and napkin. Then drank the rest and quickly went about bursting off 30 or so shots before the chocolate had set on my face. I had hidden my remote shutter release behind the basket and set a 2 sec timer. Camera was set at f20 for a dark environment and shutter speed on 200th of a sec for syncing with my remotes. ISO was at 400.

Post Processing was rather light on. I boosted the contrast with a basic curves adjustment and added a little more darkening to the edges of the frame. Little bit of dodging and burning to the chocolates.

Anna wasn’t so keen on the final image, actually she had seen all 30 shots and was disturbed by my eyes in each of them She said I looked like Gollum or a Zombie which was exactly the look I was going for so I guess its a winner.

365 Photo Journey February Update

Scott — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:10:50 +0000

Its been a crazy month of strobist shots for February as part of my 365 Photo Journey. I had set myself the task of primarily shooting off camera flash photos. I covered a fair few areas and also managed to fit in a on location fashion shoot. Blog on that whole thing in the coming weeks. I also managed to crank out a week of Star Wars shots and have a new video tutorial post on how to create a Jedi Lightsaber.

Hope you enjoy the slide-show of images below. Bring on March.

Slide show.

Jedi Lightsaber Video Tutorial

Scott — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 01:55:02 +0000

I have been getting lots of comments on my recent Star Wars Strobist Themed week about how I do my lightsabers. So today I want to share with you my technique.

Its been a great week. I recommend setting a weekly theme every now and then as it really makes the weeks shots so much more enjoyable and you can sort of plan ahead.

I hope to do more tutorial like this in the future to supplement my Project 365. Please leave me a comment about the video and drop me a line with any links to images you make using this tutorial. I’d love to see the results.

365 January Review

Scott — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:37:38 +0000

Yes I was going to post weekly my results of my 365 photo journey, but I have been so busy (and slack) in updating the blog. So this post is in review of month 1. I will try and keep a weekly or at least fortnightly review post.

This shot is one of my person favourites of the month. Its actually my first photo of the year to make Flickr Explore (#71).

Its been a great start to the year. I have made so many new Flickr buddies and if you have time you should check out these 2 guys-

Avina
Omi

So here are the first months images. They start at day 31 and work down to 1. Hope you enjoy.

Week 1 of 365 Photo Journey

Scott — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 09:59:10 +0000

Well we are 1 week into my 365 Photo Journey Project. Here is my first of 52 blog posts on the progress on the project.

Click on any of the images for more information on the shots. I hope you enjoy them.

Whilst camping at the Gibraltar Range National Park in NSW, we manager to grab this shot 30 minutes into the new year with some glow sticks.

Sunset at Look At Me Now Headland, Emerald Beach NSW. HDR composed of 3 exposures.

I was running low on time and energy day 3 so a quick snap of Anna’s frog statue was in order.

Self Portrait shot with an umbrella at camera right set just behind me a little.

Ahh yes the day before winning the Test Match against Pakistan that I so expected us to lose. I plan on going a Sportrait at least once a month. next up is Tennis is recognition of the Australia Open in Melbourne starting latter this month.

My brother and I went off to see some o the action at the Brisbane International Tennis Tournament. Justine Henin (In black) put on a great show. Its an amazing tennis arena.

I wanted to mark the end of week 1 from the 365 photo project. My 50mm with an aperture of 1.8 gave me some nice DOF.

Goals for 2010

Scott — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 01:37:09 +0000

It’s that time of the year again to revise my 2009 goals and come up with some for 2010.

In 2009 I completed 4.5 of my 7 goals. This year I have 8 goals to complete.

Complete 365 Photo Project
I have put off starting a 365 photo project for some time now. I don’t know what came over me in early December but I decided come January 1st 2010 I would begin on a journey that should teach me plenty and drive me crazy all year long. Its not going to be a shot of some random thing , happy snap style. I want it to be creative or clever image that I would be proud to display. Some days that wont be so easy. Check back here on the blog for my weekly 365 updates.

Blog More
Last year I set a target of blogging twice a week and I failed in that. So this year I will set it at once a week and see how we go. I heave learnt a lot in the last year of blogging and have worked a few things out as far as the style of my blogs post.

Start Foto Fundamentals
I have so many friends that want to know how to take better photos and make the most of their cameras. Some think you need a great camera to take the shots I do. All it takes is knowing a little about the fundamentals of photography like the Rule of Thirds, what AV and TV mode should be used for and what the hell ISO is all about. So once every 2 week or so there will be a post dealing with one of these fundamentals. I hope it helps the average person take better looking photos and help them understand how to use thier camera to its full extent.

Take More Landscapes
For Christmas I got a Canon 10-20mm f3.5 wide angle lens. I have already begun to take some landscapes and HDR’s with it and its such a great lens. This year Anna and I plan to do more general bush walks and coastal weekends away. We are also heading to Europe latter this year so I really want to hone my landscape skills.

Learn Adobe Lightroom
I have learnt so much about Photoshop over the past year and this year whilst still learning photoshop I also want to see how good I can get at Adobe Lightroom. It could improve my work-flow hugely.

Understand Gelling Strobes

I currently have zero knowledge about gelling a strobe. I soon will have in my hot little hand the book Light: Science and Magic by Fil Hunter, Steven Biver & Paul Fuqua. Its a lighting bible from what I hear.

Explore Top 20
I got to #27 on explore last year with my Water bomb explosion shot. This year I want to crack the top 20. Yes explore is still a dodgy system but lets see what happens.

Have Fun!
This is probably the most important of all the goals. Photography shouldn’t be a chore or a inconvenient, it should be a joy and passion. Anyone can take a photo but only someone that lives and loves a photo opportunity can correctly capture the moment.

365 Day Photo Project & Christmas

Scott — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 11:34:37 +0000

I hope that everyone has had a great Christmas and that they have been enjoying some time off with their families.

Well the year is nearly over and its time to announce that in 2010 I will be doing a 365 day photo project. Whats a 365 project I hear you say. Well basically the idea is to take at least 1 photo every day of 2010. Some people limit themselves to Self Portraits, black and whites or strobist style shots. I won’t be limiting myself like this however. I want to in the next year take more landscapes, portraits and strobist shots.

I will uploaded the photos as close as possible to daily to my flickr stream and once a week blog about my weeks photos here. There are are numerous groups on flickr that are dedicated to these projects.

The success rates with these projects isn’t particularly high. Hopefully this blog can keep me honest and motivated.

All the best to everyone for the year ahead.