Fatherhood Friday 8: Birthday done but party Saturday
Survived Emily’s birthday last Friday (she even managed to sleep in til 715 which is around 45 minutes more sleep than usual). She had a great day with far too many presents then going to an indoor playground with a friend and then a dinner party with all her adult friends and more presents.
The thought of having 10 to 12 four-year olds round for a party is somewhat daunting and is becoming a logistical nightmare which will be worse if it rains on Saturday like it is supposed to. The things we do! Hopefully this isn’t setting the bar too high for all birthdays that are still to come.
Now that she is 4 her most common saying has turned into “I know that!” about most things so apparently when you turn 4 you now know everything about everything.
Emily on Car Ride at Karori Carnival
Samantha: Getting even faster with crawling and getting better at pulling herself up on furniture and walking along it. Also getting better at disappearing and turning up in places she isn’t supposed to be, such as CD shelves, power cords, book shelves, heaters etc…
She also seems to be learning words (not proper words but understandable what she means) at a very fast rate of a couple of new ones per day.
Not too much mischief this week from either 🙂
Sorry about old pic but didn’t get a chance to develop the 2 black and white films I shot last week which had some pics of the girls on them… Hopefully will sort after the party madness.
How it was Done
After good feedback from the last post about how it was done, here goes details about how the shots I put up yesterday were captured:
Hopefully this shows that you dont need lots of fancy equipment and a studio to get reasonable images.
Equipment Used: 1 x 10 metre power cable, 1 x multi plug box, 2 x light stands, 2 x 500W Studio lights with 150W modelling lamps, 1x softbox umbrella, 1 x barn doors, 1 x tripod, 1 x Nikon D70s with 18-70mm Lens, 1 x 1GB CF card and 1 x Nikon ML3 wireless camera remote. This effect would be easy to replicate using a couple of house lamps in a dark room with a bit of ingenuity.
Shot 1: Overview of the garage that was turned into a studio. Had to run 10 metre power cable from the house to run the lights.
Shot 2: Set the light with the barn doors pointing at the back wall to control the amount of light that was falling on the wall and the light with the umbrella about 2 metres away from the back wall pointing across the shot to avoid shadows falling on the back wall and creating a heavy side lighting effect. Both lights were set to full power but the strobes were turned off.
Shot 3: First test shot with camera set at f3.8 at 1/125 sec 800 ISO this was with the garage door open which let in more light than I wanted as well as the bluish colour cast at the bottom of the image. I also didn’t like the shadow in the upper right of the frame and so adjusted the barn doors to take this out.
Shot 4: After closing the garage door and setting the camera focus to about 1.5 metres as well as adjusting the camera to f5.6 at 1/60th second I took the first shot with me in it. With self portraits its always difficult to pinpoint where you are supposed to stand, most of the time it’s just trial and error… I sometimes put a light stand in the shot to get the centre and to use as a reference for focus… This time I just guessed and was off centre which I liked anyway. After looking at this shot on a computer I liked the way the light on the wall darkened at the right and the light on me darkened on the left. I knew there would be enough information to make it easy to add more drama in Lightroom and Photoshop.
Shot 5: Props and Action! Yes I did give myself a Mohawk for the day just for the heck of it (its gone now) This is shot no. 23 Unprocessed straight off the camera in Raw. I have to say its the weirdest feeling using studio lights and setting off the camera with none of the usual loud popping noise that accompanies strobes going off.
Shot 6: Final Rendition. Image has been recropped and Lighroom adjustments have been made to make it darker and more dramatic (Direct Positive, Vignette and Exposure decrease). Â I have a tendency to make stuff darker rather than lighter since that seems to be my base aesthetic.
If people keep showing a continued interest in this type of post then I will try and make it a more ongoing subject of this blog.
Let me know.
Si
Goggles?
Ok this is what happens when I get in the proper headspace for photography and then a couple of friends happen to come along.
I had been thinking of using my garage as a studio (albeit a small one) but had always had problems with doing it because my 500W studio lights only have half and full power so getting them powered down enough to use in a small space is kinda problematic.
The workaround for this was just using the modelling lights and bumping up the ISO to round 800 (which using a D70s means noise galore). I kept the white balance on the camera set to Daylight to get the golden light which fitted this shoot.
Yes its a Self Portrait
A very Angry Frog
Red Kris
Nikon D70s, 18-70mm Lens, ISO 800 f5.6 at 1/60th Second. Lighting from Modelling lights of Electra 500W Compact Lights… Last image has red gel over background light.
Stairs
Going up or going down?
Fatherhood Friday 7: Emily turns 4
Happy Birthday Emily, 4 today!
Emilys definition of a superhero is: Someone who is Very Big, Very Old and Just About to Die… These are the only time you are allowed to be super.
Emily is very excited and possibly hasnt slept for the last 2-3 days and talking non stop. She told a friend of ours that he had to get her a present for her birthday that wasnt too expensive unless he was rich cause then it would be OK to get her an expensive present.
Slightly Rumpled Fairy
Sam: This week Sam has become a bookmark thief, I have seriously reread the same page of my book 16 or 17 times. Possibly time for a new bookmark or a better place to put my book.
Word of the week “No!” also first possible sentence: “No Ta Dadda” when she didnt want to give me the toy she was playing with.
Sam with Walking Assistance
Diving Man Multi Pop
Diving Man Statue with three pops from from different angles with speedlite on the end of a monopod.
Nikon D70s, 18-70mm Lens at f16, 33 Seconds at ISO 200
WW2 Antiaircraft Enplacement
Misty afternoon looking out to where the Anti Aircraft Gun was mounted.
These are scattered all over Wellington
Nikon F5 19-35mm Lens, Ilford Delta 400ISO Film
Motorcycle Protest Rally
A couple of months ago there was a big protest about the government putting the ACC levy up for motorcyclists.
I thought this would be a good time to go snap off some shots although when I got there it was a bit intimidating to say the least.
When I asked the guy on the left said cool but the guy on right wasnt in to it so I snapped the shot and left quickly. I especially liked all the gun club badges on the jackets… Possibly not people to mess with.
Really bad lighting on this one but once again I asked and one of them said cool. After I had taken the shot they asked me which paper I was working for 🙂 . Sometimes my Nikon F5 gives me some serious street cred.
Mostly I just liked this guys helmet which looked alot more fashionable than protective, also cool bike.
All images shot on Nikon F5 with 50mm f1.8 between f8 and f11 with Ilford Delta 400 ISO film. Sunlight was directly overhead with no clouds which made for very contrasty images.
Wrights Hill Fortress Tunnels
Today (25th April) in New Zealand is ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) Day, Where we honor all the people who fought and died in the various wars.
In honor of the occasion here are some shots of the tunnels beneath Wrights Hill Fortress which was built for WW2 to protect agains a Japanese invasion.
The fortress is currently being restored by volunteers and open on public holidays (like today)
All these shots were hand held in very low light so sorry if they are a bit blurry
Nikon F5 50mm f1.8 at f1.8, Ilford Delta 400 ISO film
Ambient light is not my friend AKA More painting with Light
For those of you who have been following this blog, you will have noticed that I have been trying different things with Painting with Light. The idea of this shoot was to try using some of these techniques in an urban setting, A kinda Urban Grafitti with Light if you will.
This was the first shot at it and I ran into some big problems right from the start. This sculpture is directly behind “The Behive” (New Zealands parliament buildings) so I thought there might be some issues with security guards. In standard New Zealand fashion two burly security guards rocked up and asked what I was doing but in a kinda apolligetic “we are just doing our job” way and then wished me good luck and hoped I got some good pictures.
Because the sculpture was lit from the front I had to shoot it from the back looking towards the road which was brighter than I wanted so I had to use a ND8 filter and an ND4 Gradient to try and balance the light a bit which then made the torch light too dim.
Nikon D70s 18-70mm Lens f8 at 58 seconds
With this shot I took off the ND8 filter but left the ND4 Gradient on and moved the location of the sphere into a slightly darker area of the image then reduced the shutter time from about 1 minute to about 45 seconds.
Nikon D70s 18-70mm Lens f8 at 45 Seconds
After noticing that there was a dark patch behind the “Banana” sculpture decided to try and see if the ball would look better closer to the camera. I think this image probably worked best of the 3 and also offers the best possibility to put someone inside the sphere since the flash will be out the side of the frame.
Nikon D70s 18-70mm Lens f8 at 34 seconds
All in all there was pretty much too much ambient light and these have been rather harshly tweaked in Lightroom and then Photoshop to get them looking any good at all. I think next time I try this it will be somewhere where it is nice and dark… Possible a cemetery… Should be interesting.
Oh and I almost forgot… I shot a heap of video of all this happening… Will try and edit and put on somehow…
Darkhalide Photography 
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