I setup my garage with my multipurpose ladder draped in Christmas lights and I clamped on a black sheet to hide the lights reflection on the garage door.

I tried my 50mm f1.8 lens but found it didn’t give me enough sharp focus on my face and still blow out the back Christmas lights. So I tried my 17-85mm, but wide angle lenses don’t work well at all with the bokeh hood. It just makes a star biscuit cutter shape on all the images. So out came my 70-200mm f2.8. This lens being a telephoto allows me to easily throw out focus on background highlights.

Once I got some decent bokeh results with this lens it was time to introduce my reflective umbrella slightly closed up to light up my face. I chose the reflective umbrella so I had more control over the lights direction. I didn’t want  light spilling onto my backdrop. I used my new Cactus KF36 @ 1/16th power. triggered by Cactus V2s remotes.

My brother came over for dinner so I asked him something I never expected to ever ask him “Can you punch me in the head please?” He happily lent a hand or is that a fist. It took us a couple of timer shots but it worked out relatively well.

As far as post processing goes all edits were made in Photoshop CS4. I applied sharpening and contrast boosts. And after following a video on creating blood I added bruising marks to my eye and nose. Here is a link to that video.

Now I will be working on my mostly black brief and cardboard cutout glasses portrait shot. I will be certain to blog about all of the briefs so please stay tuned. I’d love to hear what you think of my entries.

Our friends Jayne and Simon are expecting the birth of their first child this Friday, September 11th 2009.  And before its a little too late we headed out for a maternity shoot.  Not only was it my first maternity shoot but it was also my first non family shoot and well my first ever outdoor strobist attempt.

Zack Arias has challenged us to Serve someone with our cameras, in such a way that we as photographers will break free from our self criticism of “ I’m not good enough yet.”

So after a little research online at flickr looking at maternity photos and sending links to Jayne to gauge the style she was after, I needed a location. My wife and I had spent the previous weekend scoping out general landscape photography locations at the Brisbane Botanic Gardens at Mount Cootha. Turns out its also a great free and very diverse location for such a shoot.

I decided to go with a 1 light setup. A Vivitar 285 with a 43 inch shoot through umbrella setup on my monopod. Anna my wife helped out as a voice activated light-stand and more importantly she continued to encourage me throughout the whole process. I doubt I could have pulled it all off without her support.

We had 6 distinct locations selected at the gardens and we started in the Japanese Gardens. It had great natural light that I wanted to make good use of first. To tell you the truth I was absolutely terrified and didn’t know where to start. once we reached the gardens. Where should I sit them? Should they sit? What angle will I shoot from? How do I make them feel comfortable? So I just sat them on some open grass and just began shooting. I just asked them to sit and talk and ignore me. About 30 frames latter my brain clicked, I was checking my backgrounds, composing frames with the rule of 3rds in mind, making sure they didn’t have trees or other objects jutting out their heads. The months of reading about what to look out for while shooting just became 2nd nature. Then I found myself conversing with them encouraging them and hopefully making them feel comfortable. I guess its just like Joe McNally says “The Moment it Clicks”. That book has been a great resource of mine since August. Well recommended no matter what your level of ability.

Here is a small slide-show of shots from the afternoon. I ended up presenting them with just over 100 processed image. All post processing done in Adobe Lightroom and a few minor edits in Photoshop.

Stay tuned for a blog on my voice activated light-stand monopod rig.

This is the International Award Winning Wattle Toffee Liqueur. The bottle is hand painted by the owner of the  Tamborine Mountain Distillery Alla.

Setup Details

For the shoot I wanted the bottles on a seamless white background with as much detail of the bottle as possible, and considering for my birthday in July I got a light stand and umbrella it it was time to put them to good use.

Using white foam core boards as the base and backdrop I could nuke the setup giving me a nice white environment.

As you can see the flash was setup at a 45deg angle to the bottle and slightly above. The Vivitar 285 was set @ 1/4 power and triggered with my Cactus wireless remotes. Lens used for the shots was my Canon 70-200mm f2.8. Reason I went with this was that my 17-55mm f4-5.6 wasn’t offering the DOF or sharpness I wanted.  I wanted a little more pop, and you just cant beat the sharpness the Canon 70-200mm f2.8 lens offers. Only thing was that I was shooting from the lounge room.

So what did I learn from this shoot? Firstly I have to ask myself why I hadn’t opened the packet of Jatz biscuits at the end of the table during the shoot(Man those things are addictive). And secondly  a larger white backdrop would have helpded limit post processing time, as each image required cropping and adding of white space. Think I will invest in larger foam core boards this week.

I’ll be doing more product photography based shots this weekend as I will be visiting my parents and Mum needs some of her Silk art and products shot for the launch of her new website. More info on that soon.

Here is a shot of the Lemon Myrtle Vodka that is certainly the best vodka I think I have ever had. I wouldn’t mind re-shooting this but on a black or dark gray backdrop.