Archive for April, 2010

More More Painting with Light

This was an experiment I tried in my front yard last night.

Maglite without hood on a piece of string with a wireless speedlight off to the side on the left of the image.

I liked the way that the speedlite made it look like the light came from the sphere but I feel that there are too many strands to the sphere so might have to try using a solid bar instead of the string… Will post when I get a chance to try it out.

This is all experimentation for an upcoming project of Urban Light Graffiti which I hope will happen in the next few weeks.

Nikon D70s, 18-70mm lens at 18mm. f3.5 at 57 seconds. Speedlite on 1/8 power


More Painting with Light

Up above the Terrace in Wellington.

Experimenting with alternate portrait techniques

Nikon D70s, 18-70mm Lens, ISO 200. f22 at  25 seconds with 10W bike light… Subject moved after 10 seconds


Fatherhood Friday 5. Emily Lion and the week we broke Samantha

Another tough week although not as bad as it could have been.

Sam has been waking up 7 or 8 times a night to be fed or settled and this week we decided that we had had enough and it was time for a bit of “tough love” to recover our sanity which had been slipping a bit over the last couple of weeks.

The plan was to start on Sunday and not feed her between 11pm and 5am, this involved me getting up from 11 to just settle and put Sam back to sleep.

Night 1: Fed 3 times before 11pm… Woke at 1am and screamed for 30 minutes then went to sleep… Woke at 3am and screamed for 45 minutes…Woke 5am, Fed went back to sleep till 630am

Night 2: Fed 2 times before 11pm… Woke at 130am and screamed for 10 minutes… Woke at 3am cried for 10 minutes… Woke 5am, Fed and went back to sleep till 6am

Night 3: Fed 1 time before 11pm…Woke 130am…Cried 30 seconds went back to sleep… Woke 5am, Fed and went back to sleep till 645

Last Night: 1st feed 1120pm… Woke 130am for 5 minutes… Bit restless but slept til 615am

Hopefully this improvement continues!

Emily Lion

Come into the Light

This is a really quick mock up of an idea for a shot… It needs another speedlight to come from behind the girls to ballance things up a bit an reduce the all encompasing red a bit.

I like how Sam is going “Here I come!”


Water Bike Jump

Shot at an X-Air in Wellington a couple of years back

Nikon F5  80-200mm, f2.8 Lens, Ilford HP5 400 ISO film


Random Shop windows

A couple of random shop window shots from London

The trick with shooting through windows is to place the front of the lens directly against the window so you dont get any reflections and it also means you can use slow shutter speeds.

Nikon F5 19-35mm lens Fuji Velvia 50 ISO film


Giant Gum Moth

A really big Gum Moth. It was about 20cm from wingtip to wingtip

Luckily it stuck around while I went and got Camera and Flash

Nikon D70s, 50mm f1.8@f5.6  1/60 Second SB80DX


Lit up Flowers

Flowers in my back yard lit with 2 speedlites… One from directly below at full power (Nikon SB16) and one in from the left at 1/4 power (Nikon SB80DX)

Nikon D70s, 18-70mm @70mm, f22 at 2.5 seconds


More Painting with Light

Island Bay Skatepark on a cloudy but moonlit night.

In order to get the desired effect I had to do alot of running around. It took nearly exactly 30 seconds to run a curcuit of the skate park at full speed.

I was glad there was no one around to see me running round in the middle of the night at a skate park with a torch.

The gold coloured light came from the sodium street lamps running beside the road next to the park.

Nikon F5 Tokina 19-35mm lens, Fuji Velvia 50 Film, f5.6 for 30 seconds, 10W bike light used for painting.


Beacon

This is from last weeks 4WD mission out past Redrocks.

I am assuming that this around about the SS Penguin sank in 1909

I like the fact that its a bit crooked. Not sure if it was built like this on purpose to break the waves that come from predominately one direction or if the person who put it there was permanently drunk.

Nikon F5 with 80-200 f2.8 set to f22, ND8 and ND6 Graduated filters, 2 second exposure


Fatherhood Friday 4 Sam only eats things that are small and round

Crap forgot that it was Friday today… Bout sums up my week…Better late than never.

This week Emily is starting to get excited because her birthday is not too far away.

She has been feeling a bit attention starved since Samantha has had a bit of a grumpy week.

Samantha has started refusing all food that she cant feed to her self and current favourites are peas and blueberrys.

Has been constantly grumpy and a little unsettled this week which included a half hour screaming session when she woke early one night and Amanda was out swimming… Probably due to more teeth and Daylight Savings.

Lets hope for a better week next week.

All things going well I will finally have a couple of days to concentrate on photography next week and scoping of rentable darkroom may be on the cards.


Your Not in this Alone

“Your Not In This Alone”

Found in an alley off Leftbank in Wellington just before Easter


More Driving

More driving Pics from last Friday with various cameras superclamped to the front grab handle of a Land Rover Discovery

Nikon D70s with 18-70mm lens an ND8 filter and an ND6 graduated filter.

The ND8 was to get a longer shutter speed since it was in the middle of the day and the ND6 Grad was so the sky didnt burn out


With the first 2 images I liked the way that the car infront is still kinda sharp but you get the feeling of movement from the sides being blurry.

Tripod set up in the backseat with the front 2 legs in the passenger footwells and the back leg flat and jammed into the space between the backrest and the seat.

Nikon F5 with 19-35mm lens, Ilford Pan F+ 50 ISO film, ND8 filter and an ND6 graduated filter.

Saw an awsome article at work today from Phase One that was basically showing how they did a whole lot of car images and it gave me an idea for a shoot along the same sort of lines.

Hopefully I can convince some people to help me to hang out the back of 1 vehicle while taking images of another vehicle… Will have to wait and see what happens.