Not only is this my weekly landscape 52 shot it is also my entry for the Strobist boot camp III, Assignment 3 competition. HMQS Gayundah was a flat-iron gunboat operated by the Queensland Maritime Defence Force and later the Royal Australian Navy (as HMAS Gayundah). She entered service in 1884 and was decommissioned and sold in 1921 where it was used as a sand and gravel barge and was later run aground at Woody Point, Redcliffe to serve as a break-wall in 1958.

I had arrived at 4:45am so I had plenty of time to setup the gear and try a few compositions. I ended up using 2 Cactus KF36 stobes set at full power and positioned down the side on the ship.  These were fired with Cactus V2 remotes. It took a little time to position the lights so that there was an even distribution of light.  I started with capturing the correct flash exposure for the wreck and I then dialed in a longer shutter speed to bring in the ambient sunrise.

To really appreciate the size of the wreck and get an understanding of the light setup I have put together a small video. I would love to hear your comments and critique on both the shot and the video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It has been a personal project inspired by two of my most idolised photographers, Chase Jarvis and Zack Arias. Chase and Zack have always been advocates for setting yourself personal projects to help develop your creative skills and to extend your portfolio. Chase is also a great believer in sharing your knowledge. This prompted me to create my BTS video which after just over 1 year has been viewed over  21,000 times and I really have to thank one of my favorite bloggers Udi Tirosh who featured the video on his blog diyphotography.net. His website is a great inspiration to make the most of your gear and budget.

Seamless White Background @ Home Tutorial from Scott Bourke on Vimeo.

I have had loads of emails asking for more BTS from the series. So I have decided to put together a timelapse video from my rugby shot. I’m really getting into the timelapse stuff of late.

So thanks to everyone that lent me gear or gave my words of encouragement. Whilst it is my first ever body of work I still plan on adding to it over time so stay tuned for plenty more shots, who knows ping-pong may be on its way.

To finish off here are a few of my recent setup shots you guys seem to crave.

After putting my skateboard shot off for long enough due to the fact I had no idea how to execute my idea, I finally gave it a crack and it came out better than expected. I think this could be one of my best ever Self Sportraits.

After the success of my Tennis Sportrait int he stairwell I decided to give it another go with a few modifications for my AFL shot. These setups take much longer to position the camera angle and lights and even more time to get an image I’m happy with. The shadow has been dropped-in in post.

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.

]]> http://www.thephotojourney.com/2010/12/09/confetti-cleanup-bts-video/feed/ 1 http://www.thephotojourney.com/2010/10/22/incense-brief/ http://www.thephotojourney.com/2010/10/22/incense-brief/#comments Fri, 22 Oct 2010 03:37:52 +0000 Scott http://www.thephotojourney.com/?p=1037 Here is the 2nd in a series of videos on how I took my photos for this years Canon Photo5 Competition. Check on the other photo5 blog posts here. For more information on the competition check out the website.

Brief 3 was to be a black and white shot capturing smoke from the supplied incense stick. I had shot smoke before but this time I wanted to engage the viewer with a message not just have them think, “Hey kewl smoke shots”. I wanted to get a message out about the effects of smoking to a persons health. I had been searching for an empty packet for the shoot for about a week when Anna managed to come across a drenched packet in the middle of the street near her work. It has been raining 2 weeks solid here so the packet had certainly copped a beating. It was perfect for the look I was going for.

Check out the BTS video on how I setup for shooting the smoke and a few tips of taking your own smoke shots. You may want to check out a older blog post I did on this with post processing video also. Check it out here – Smokin…Tutorial

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

]]> http://www.thephotojourney.com/2010/10/22/incense-brief/feed/ 1 http://www.thephotojourney.com/2010/10/18/bubble-gum-brief-video-tutorial/ http://www.thephotojourney.com/2010/10/18/bubble-gum-brief-video-tutorial/#comments Mon, 18 Oct 2010 05:27:23 +0000 Scott http://www.thephotojourney.com/?p=1022 So this is the first in a series of videos on how I took my photos for this years Canon Photo5 Competition. The way the free competition works is Canon send out a couple of thousand brown boxes with 5 random briefs for the entrant to complete. This year Canon announced a portfolio category that got me really excited to complete all 5 briefs. For more information on the competition check out the website.

Brief 2 was a portrait that had to include some bubble gum that they had supplied. I hated the stuff as a kid and I still do. I was very depressed to see it in the box at first. I wanted to capture something that showed the bubble gum inflated and then popped. My initial idea had been done by numerous other competitors so I wanted something totally different and eye catching. Then it hit me a double exposure would capture both states of the balloon, but first I had to work out how the heck to do it on a digital camera. I did some research and came across an article about an international fashion photographer called Joe Oppedisano. He took some amazing double exposures on film back in the 80/90′s in a series titles “Inner Self”. They were amazing and instantly I pictured my shot. Now I just had to work out how to do it in camera. There was to be no Photoshop here.

I was wrapped with how the final image turned out. I couldn’t have pulled it off without my wife Anna who put up with my directions of moving an inch this way and an inch that way. She managed to blow some great bubbles. Especially considering we were up till midnight shooting.

Check out the BTS video on how I did it. It was recorded and edited all on my iPhone 4. Interesting exercise. Love to hear your comments.

For these shots I decided I needed to come up with a way of blowing the ground white as well at the wall. Something I had not previously done. I have adapted my technique from that of Zack Arias who has been shooting portraits on seamless white for years. He has used a technique of positioning the subject on tile board that is sort of glossy to give some grounding to his subject by providing a reflection. It is a great medium for blowing white and it is also very cheap. I picked up 2 sheets of white melamine mdf (1200 x 900) for $14.50AUD each at my local hardware shop. I think you can get it in larger sizes also.

Here is the setup I used for the latest Bike shots. I have 2 Cactus KF36 strobes pointed at the back wall both set as 1/4 power. They are also both an equal distance from the back wall to give an even coverage of light. The wall will now become the 4th light source as it reflects light back at the camera and onto the floor.

The bike must be positioned further from the wall than the 2 cactus stobes so that no light from the strobes directly hits the bikes frame. You may need to flag your strobes like I have on the right hand strobe.

Another Cactus KF36 is used to expose the bike with the use of a shoot through umbrella. This will give a nice wrapping light to the bikes components. This would probably be best positioned directly behind the camera. The lower to the ground your camera is the better the reflection you will get from the mdf boards.

For the close up component shots, like gears and derailleurs, keep your camera settings the same and zoom in or move yourself closer to the components. The lights will work the same as long as you don’t directly stand in the path of the umbrella.

When it comes to the post processing it is much the same as I explain in my video blog post about white seamless shots. Simply up your exposure so that more areas are blown out white and then bring back some of the detail in the bike by increasing the blacks. Then run a curves adjustment layer and do a sharpen to the image. In the end I decided to delete the reflection the mdf boards gave me on the entire bike shots as they didn’t fit in with the eventual advertisements my brother will use the shots for.

If you have any further questions or want me to do a post processing video on the bikes let me know. I’m more than happy to do tutorials on anything you guys want. Just drop me a line on the contact page.

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.

]]> http://www.thephotojourney.com/2010/04/01/happy-easter/feed/ 0 http://www.thephotojourney.com/2010/03/05/seamless-white-video-tutorial/ http://www.thephotojourney.com/2010/03/05/seamless-white-video-tutorial/#comments Fri, 05 Mar 2010 03:30:39 +0000 Scott http://www.thephotojourney.com/?p=862 My Self Sportraits on white backgrounds have really generated some interest in the first 60 days of my 365 Photo Journey,. A few people have asked how I do them. So for day 63 I setup my very dodgy Fujifilm D5000 and recorded my setup and then did a quick post processing tutorial. Sorry for the lack of video and sound quality. Its my first go at something this in-depth.

I’d love to hear your comments and see your result from following the tutorial.

]]> http://www.thephotojourney.com/2010/03/05/seamless-white-video-tutorial/feed/ 9 http://www.thephotojourney.com/2010/02/04/thephotojourney-com-turns-one/ http://www.thephotojourney.com/2010/02/04/thephotojourney-com-turns-one/#comments Thu, 04 Feb 2010 07:17:02 +0000 Scott http://www.thephotojourney.com/?p=822 Yesterday was the sites 1st Birthday. Its been a great year and I wanted to share with you a few stat from the year.

1. Most popular post is my tutorial on Smoke Photography, with 1126 unique visitors.
2. We have had visitors from every continent except Antarctica. America being the largest visitor.
3. Over 100 Unique Visitors a week so far.
4. 50% of you guys use Mozilla Firefox. (Mozilla Rulz)
5. We’ve had 1 visitor from Kenya. Must have been my Qld Athletics post.

The next year will be massive with a  trip to Europe and the 365 Photo Journey. The above image was Day 34′s efforts and below is a quick setup shot to explain how it was taken.

Thanks for all the support over the year and I would love to hear any ideas you have for the site and its content.

The setup for this was very easy.  Obviously for the actual shoot I will use a table and not my super comfy lounge.

I made use of all 3 of my lights. 2 bare bulb @1/4 power and the other shot through my umbrella @ 1/4 power.

Using my large white foam core boards I setup one as the base and the other about 2 feet behind the hat as my background. This board will provide fill-light that will bounce back at  the hat.

I shot from underneath the right corner of the umbrella. This gave me a nice angle on the hat with its leading logo on the peak of the hat.

I achieved a black shadow inside the hat by rolling up my black reflective umbrella material into a ball and sticking it inside the hat. Not sure I will go with this in the actual shoot as the hats will be the truckie style.

I then headed off to Photoshop to cleanup the image and make sure my white backdrop was pure white.

1. Added a Levels Adjustment Layer, and made sure my surrounding white areas are pure white
2. Added a Curves Adjustment Layer with a slight S Curve
3. Added a Colour Adjustment Layer to improve the yellows and greens
4. Added a Vibrancy Adjustment Layer and boosted the colours a little
5. Cropped the image to a tighter fit

The Client is very happy with the results of the test shoot and has set me up with 9 different hat designs to shoot and a heap of Mens shirts. I will blog about the actual shoot soon and let you know who the Clothing company is.  Oh and BTW the designs of their gear are very funky.

]]> http://www.thephotojourney.com/2009/12/03/capping-off-a-big-weekend-product-shoot/feed/ 1 http://www.thephotojourney.com/2009/10/01/bokeh-canon-photo-5/ http://www.thephotojourney.com/2009/10/01/bokeh-canon-photo-5/#comments Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:19:33 +0000 Scott http://www.thephotojourney.com/?p=663 Well its that time of the year again. Canon’s Photo 5 competition. So this years competition is a little different. Not only have we got new items but we also have briefs. The first item I decided to attack was the Bokeh star hoods they supplied.

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.

I’m also a massive fan of Zack Arias. Zack is very much all about pushing yourself and making sure you enjoy doing what we do. What better may to make homage to his ideals then to make the photo project a white background shoot. Zack has some amazing seamless white shots on his site and has even got a tutorial on how to setup yourself with one. Something I will do one day.

So I had the inspiration and hell I love football or soccer as some people call it and the European season kicked off this weekend and the Australian league kicked off last week. I asked myself what will this season hold? There it was, my project theme.

I own a fair collection of football jerseys so it was time to play football superstar dress ups. The above shot was my way of pondering what this season will hold? As you can see in the setup image I shot everything with just 1 Canon 430ex flash at full power positioned behind me aimed at my white wall in the garage. As I have a white roof and opposite wall the light bounces all around the garage like a massive light tent. There is my fill light and everything.

Its a similar setup in my garage like the Mountain Bike shoot last month that actually won me an international photo comp over at DIYPhotography.net.

So I wanted to capture the types of emotions and moments the season will hold. I needed to show winners, losers, and flair or style. I may do another shoot capturing things like religation/promotion battles at the end of the season.

Many of you may disagree with my teams but hey that’s why its a question, What will the season hold?

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