Balls Of Light At Kau Point
Revisted Kau Point again yesterday afternoon and since we had been there last it looks like someone had a bit of a party there, complete with generator, smoke machine and they even put in a toilet and shower. It didn’t feel half as spooky as it did the first time we were there.
I hadn’t tried balls of light for a while so decided this was the place to have anther go… Still need to work on my technique a bit to get the balls perfectly spherical but was happy with a least one of them 🙂
Nikon D90, Sigma 12-24mm Lens, ISO 400.
Beacon Pano
The shipping beacon a Point Halswell in Wellington. Slightly over 360 degree view.
Nikon D90, Sigma 12-24mm Lens, Nodal Ninja,Photomerge on Photoshop.
Things To Do While Your Rolleiflex Is Away Being Repaired #6
Photograph My Left Foot.
I just realised the other day that in the last 30 years my foot has been like this I have never actually taken a photo of it…
I was run over when I was about 8 years old, totally my fault crossing the road without looking. The back wheel of the car ran over my entire foot but skidded over the last two toes basically ripping them off. One was stitched back on and the other was just left as a stump. The doctors had been planning to take the stump off when I was older to make my foot look more normal but I like it the way it is 🙂 . I was told I would never have very good balance on this foot but after a lifetime of skiing and skating my balance is better than most people I know.
I keep forgetting that most people either don’t know or have forgotten about it… Its not a big deal its just part of who I am 🙂
This might be one of the last posts like this since I go and get Rollei back from repair this afternoon 🙂 It had its shutter fixed and a good clean and check so it should be sweet 🙂
Nikon D90, 50mm f1.8 Lens.
Things To Do While Your Rolleiflex Is Away Being Repaired #2
Pimp Your Pepper Grinder.
The other day I wanted pepper for something, I don’t use pepper much, and the only pepper we have is in a battery powered pepper grinder that was a gift from someone (I cant remember who and if it was you possibly don’t read any further).
The thing about battery powered stuff is that when you want to use it, it is always flat. This one takes something like 8 AAA sized batteries so even if I did want to change then I probably wouldn’t have enough… This was my solution…
Pepper Grinder: Looks pretty but without batteries completely useless.
You thought I was joking when I said it takes 8 AAA batteries…
So it is now broken into its 3 component parts. Power Unit, Peppercorn Storage and Nice looking top bit…
Introducing new power unit, 14.4V Black and Decker Drill…
Attach drill chuck to central column of pepper grinder.
Pepper grinder has now been pimped 🙂
Nikon D90, 50mm f1.8, Light Tent, 3 x 250w Constant Tungsten Lights.
Things To Do While Your Rolleiflex Is Away Being Repaired #1
For those of you who follow this blog you probably know that Rollei died in the weekend and is now away being repaired (hopefully), So I thought I would start a “Things to do while your Rolleiflex is away being repaired” series until it comes back (again hopefully fixed).
Make Jewellery Out of Broken Clocks
I have been looking around Op Shops for ages trying to find props for future photo shoots and finally found an old wind up clock to pull apart and turn into jewellery for a Steampunk shoot. The leather came from another Op Shop purchase of an old belt.
Nikon D90, 50mm f1.8 Lens, Light Tent, 3 x 250W Constant Tungsten Lights.
Explorer Self Portrait
A bit of Urbex from yesterday…
Nikon D90, Tamron 12-24mm Lens, ISO 200, Torch.
Something A Bit Different
I haven’t been out shooting much lately mostly due to weather and a lack of time.
Amanda needed a photo for something so I threw this together one night after the kids went to bed. I hadn’t tried a beauty shot with a reflector underneath to bounce light up. Unfortunately one of my studio lights decided to die so I had to do it with a black background (black sheet pegged to curtain) and use my Sb80DX Speedlite as a hair light.
I would have rather done it with a white background but that’s life 🙂
Nikon D90, 50mm f1.8 Lens, 1 x Electra 500W Compact Studio Light, 1 x Sb80DX Speedlite, 1 x 40′ Silver Reflector.
Chess Battle
I haven’t been out shooting much at the moment mostly due to weather and having a cold so I thought I would re-post a picture from a few years ago.
This is one of the first shots I got after I decided to become a street photographer and always carry my camera around with me… After this I was pretty much hooked! 🙂
Nikon F5, 50mm f1.8, Ilford Delta 400 ISO Film.
Adventures In Assisting: Wind, Birds and Duct Tape
Another shoot with Bev Short, who currently has her “All Woman” exhibition at the New Zealand Portrait Gallery, if you are in Wellington you should go and see it, some of the shoots are on this blog. This one was for her new Tattoo project.
This is one of those shoots that should be pretty straight forward but end up being anything but…
Driving up to the location the weather started to look ominous and as soon as I pulled in it started to rain. I was there first so started scouting around for an indoor location just in case the rain didn’t stop but luckily by the time everyone else got there it had stopped enough to go on with the original location.
Bev and Matt Middleton (SFX make-up) had spent an afternoon constructing a set of angel wings that were going to be put on the model, Andre, using duct tape (see images 3 and 4). The initial setup went well apart from the strong wind that started blowing, luckily Andre’s cousin came along with him and ended up holding the 5 foot softbox from blowing away for a couple of hours.
With wings held on with a roll of duct tape Andre came out and stood on his mark only to have the wings pretty much destroyed by the wind which led to about an hour and another couple of rolls of tape being used to hold them in place.
Once this was sorted out the next element was a dove (we only got 3) which was to be captured just as it was taking off from Andres outstretched hands… The cool thing about the doves was that once they were released they were homing and just went back to their roost… Unfortunately they were a bit camera shy and didn’t take direction too well and 1 especially liked turning its head round nearly 360 degrees which was a bit unnerving.
So after all the doves had been released we were pretty much done… Hopefully with not too much damage to Andres back taking off the wings 🙂
You can see the final image on Bevs blog HERE
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, Nikon D90, 24 f2.8 Lens.
Digital TLR
Digital adaptor for an old TLR… Couldn’t resist… I wonder if the screen has grid lines on it? I did this once with my 4×5 camera and it was pretty cool 🙂
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Adventures In Assisting
A couple of weeks ago (it always seems to take a couple of weeks) I did another assisting job with Bev Short for her new project. I didn’t get too much of a chance to take photos on this one as we were a bit rushed due to the fact that even though it is the middle of summer it was stupid cold and then one of the lights wouldn’t communicate so I ended up hand holding a speedlite as a rim light.
Matt Middleton the SFX makeup artist did a great job of turning a mask into a head, dubbed “Bob”,as well as doing all of Steve Francis makeup
The most amusing part was when we were just about to leave, a car pulled up and three guys got out and were a bit shocked by Steves appearance since he was still fully made up and asked him if he was alright… Wish I had got some shots of that 🙂
All in all another fun shoot and I think the final image turned out pretty damn good 🙂
Final image on Bevs blog HERE
Nikon D90, 50mm f1.8
This Is My Camera There Are Many Like It…
This is a shot I took for a post on my Rolleiflex on Sweet Photos Bro… Go check out the full post at the Sweet Photos Bro blog HERE
Darkhalide Photography 
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