Halloween Serial Part 4 & 5 ( the Final 2)

Pictures from shoot at HTFotography studio in Westville
Model/s: Cat and Shannon
Make-Up: Ebony
Photographer: Henrik
























Cat
Equipment : Canon 40D
Lens : Canon 24 - 70 F 2.8 L
Aperture : F14
ISO : 100
Shutter speed : 1/125 sec


Shannon
Equipment : Canon 40D
Lens : Canon 24 - 70 F 2.8 L
Aperture : F16
ISO : 100
Shutter speed : 1/125 sec










The final two of my halloween project. The halloween project is now complete only took a good six or so months but all good things in time. I Wanted one high key "pretty" photo for my Head lineing The Halloween Serial.


There it is, the setup. Nothing too wild here just 2 lights on the background ,no light modifiers, and 2 lights on the subject. The 2 lights on the subject are soft boxed lights. Thanks Eve for the setup shot something I always forget to do.






I am of the opinion that the light you use to light your subject needs to be how you want it to feel. So so high impact requires hard light. I have seen some photos in magazines of babies in little outfits photographed in hard light and I wonder why? High fashion ramp model Babies? Hardcore Babies? Models etc. yes I get but babies? Well I wanted to have a pleasing happy and comfy light in these photos so soft light it is.
Shannon got the many watt seconds and cat got not so many. I wanted to photograph Cat (The Serial Witch - she really is a lovely person though) with the dramatic look one light close up. Shannon (Razor blade Suicide Serial) I wanted it to stand apart from to rest of the project to be the introduction if you will but I had to do it last go figure.

I have been told that I waffle too much so I'm keeping it short and sweet.

The abandoned art gallery

Firstly I did say in my last post something about rapid posting but hey Im posting now sorry About no listings for the picture f-stops and all that just thought I would share the photos.

One day myself and my beloved partner Eve were taking a drive and along the way we would see this abandoned house with some cool graffiti on it. I stored the info in my brain and thought ‘Hey I can use that someday for something.’ When our dear friend Dave and Felicity announced that were getting married last year some time as a wedding gift to our dear friends myself and Eve decided to photograph their wedding. They were excited by our gift as they were on a very tight budget. They both work in the retail industry which as we all know is taking a serous pounding.

A good wedding photographer photographing a moderately sized wedding should cost about 10% of the total cost of the wedding. Add onto that figure if you want special not-on-the-way-between-church-and-reception-area location shoots extra albums etc. So it can get quite costly fast. But in the defence of the cost of the photographer, the photographs will be the only part of the wedding that will remain. In years to come you will still have the rings and the marriage certificate but short of that there will be nothing left of your day. The wedding dress probably wont fit the hall is gone the decorations are no longer the food was eaten the drinks were drunk so the photos are the only part that records the whole thing. 10% now does not seem too bad seeming as it will be with you for quite a number of years. And since the day is special and the photos will last to skimp on the photographer will only mean you will probably get unsatisfactory results and you will have to live with those for the many years to come.

The current trend in wedding photography these days seems to be, photos taken on the wedding day, and then either a week before or after the wedding day a creative shoot. The creative shoot normally is done in a location where the couple feel the surrounds compliment their characters or somewhere that is special to them.

This shoot was a bit hectic for me as I had just driven back from another shoot. I picked up our lovely couple and had to driving back out to the location to shoot them. But never a dull day I suppose.

I treat the creative shoots a little like fashion shoots. To me its to show off the beauty of the people the clothes and the location. To get the wow factor of the couple. The wedding day shoot is the capturing of the moments of the day of the couple. The creative shoot is all about the couple, to capture the couple together, separately, and they are the superstars.

First the wedding day shoot This was an interesting one as the venue was very small and intimate. This was really nice for the guests because there was enough space for the guests but one was not screaming to say hello to everyone. For the guests this was cool but for me no space=battle for light placement and wide angle lens has to be used. Using a wide angle lens in close quarters has to be used carefully because you can get it so easily wrong. Just because the way the lens sees things on the edges. It does tend make the people towards the edges look a bit stretched. So you got to be careful or auntie so and so will look like she had some experimental gum at Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and had to be stretched to attend the wedding.



The lighting was going to be a real pain and not really ideal because of the lack of space but this is what we photographers thrive on. Well not really but it is normally what we have to deal with. I went around to check the venue and setup the lights the problem is that the lights had no where to go and to add to that the bride and groom were going to be standing in a spot that really was not going to help getting light to them. So I spent some time scrutinizing the venue and found something that was going to work. That was to get some g-clamps and clamp them to the frame of the marquee. Then attach the flashes to the g-clamps and there you have it. The light was going to be hard but Dave and Felicity are good looking people and they can handle the hard light. The light was come from both left and right and I felt it was going to give that movie star walking down the red carpet to the Oscars feel to it. The marquee was also white and that I felt could also give me a bit of extra reflection and soften the light. Looking back I think had I had step ladders and more time I may have moved the flashes further back and used the roof more as a reflector. Having said that there would have been other complications to go with it and throwing some extra diffusion in would have been nice. That would have been a bit complex and were do I put a panel and keep it there, hang it with skyhooks?

The layout of the flashes were a 580EX II attached to a 7.5m ETTL cable and the cable was carefully concealed so no one would trip over it. This gave me limited mobility because after hiding the cable, it does not take the shortest path. The cable was long enough though and considering the limited space there really was not too much mobility needed. The other was a 430EX set to slave mode and basically facing each other.

The camera was on manual and the flashes were set to full TTL. Basically I dialed in the settings and let the flashes decide how much light to fire out. I have 4 speedlites I only used 2 to light the ‘I do’ target area and after doing this wedding with not really accessible flashes the idea of having more flashes suddenly sounds quite good. As you have more flashes the amount of light each one throws out is less. You will also be able to light from more area and maybe even get softer light. The 2 flashes that were up there did OK but toward the end they were battling a bit and the recycle times were getting a bit too long.

I also setup a mini studio in the venue and this was a simple 2 monoblock light setup with umbrellas and a white background.

That was the big day shoot and now onto the creative shoot. Remember that house I mentioned well I was really wanting to a shoot there. This was the perfect opportunity to use this interesting venue. The venue is interesting and a bit alternative with all the graffiti on the walls inside and out. This I feel compliments Dave and Felicity’s personalities. Felicity’s wedding dress attests to that. It is not your average white dress and vale. By the way that dress was made be Ebony. Ebony is probably one of the most talented people I know. She can make really awesome dresses, do amazing make-up, sing in a metal band, and and and. Ebony is really talented. Myself and Eve started by posing Felicity on the stairs leading up to the house with Dave in the background.

Again with the flashes I wanted to try and get light from the flashes onto them and drop the background by a stop or two. But you think I can get that right with the flashy flashy rubbish communication of the lights. Next plan, go with a bit if fill from the off camera flash and hope for the best with Dave in the background and go natural light seemed to work quite well. I was using my Sigma 10-20 lens here and it was just right I got some nice wide shots of the house. Then inside, the wind was only picking up so the inside was not really that protected but a bit better than outside. The shot I liked best was the one of them in the hallway. There was a doorway on the right as you down the passage. I wanted to get the two of them in the hall. I set an umbrella in the doorway I also put a flash on the floor to get a bit of the environment. Again manual on the camera and a ETTL cable linking flash and camera. I let the flashes decide how much power to give with some minor adjustments here

and there.

The 3 Second Question !

Pictures from shoot at Durban Beach front for Kushido
Model/s: The Karate Crew
Make-Up: maybe not - Or maybe ask Mauro I dare you - Just kidding
Photographer: Henrik

Equipment : Canon 40D
Lens: Sigma 10-20 F4.0-5.6 EX
Focal Length : 11mm
Aperture : F11
ISO : 400
Shutter speed :1/30

Oh it has been a long time since I have posted I do apologize.

I blame life in general – bad life now go and let me have more time for blogging. I wish it could work like that. But between photo shoots, placing ads and doing the fatherly thing and business side of HTFotography I have not updated the blog in a while. Well here goes Im going to do a few different posts in rapid succession I hope this being the first.

A friend of mine does karate. He seems to enjoy it quite a bit and it keeps him and fit and focused. He is quite involved in his karate. Very involved in his karate actually, he and his wife spend 4 evenings a week at training. The Dojo (classroom in Japanese) that they train at teaches self defence, self discipline and weapons skills (not the guns and ammo type weapons skills) and other thing is when they spa it is full contact sparing. Ok so no blood gets spilled, hey this is not fight club but it would be cool if it were and would make for great photography although it may require lots of equipment cleaning hmm.Let us consider this for a moment, cleaning blood off the equipment, bad, fight scenes, good, possible ambulance scenes and paramedics, good, hmm so much to consider. I won’t worry about the participants hey Im taking their photo after all. I will have to think about a different avenue of photography – Does anyone have an unused basement or alley? Anyway moving on to something that does not require too much camera equipment cleaning and a blood commitment.

The idea of this shoot started off very simply - As in not at all. My friend suggested to me that I photograph the kids at his Dojo during and after their grading. He put me in contact with is Sensea – Pronounced Sen – Say which means teacher in Japanese. For the uninitiated the grading is when they learn a routine and carry out their routine in front of the instructors. All the parts of the routine are made up of a series of moves. Each move will either block a punch or a kick etc. or throw a punch or kick etc. The instructors assess the skill and proficiency at how the kata (literal meaning is form -but I read routine) was carried out and if the student carried it out with sufficient skill they will progress to the next level where they will learn more routines and moves. Oh and just in case you are wondering the kids don’t get to play full contact with weapons only the adults get to do the silly things like that.

So I decided the one evening to go around to his Dojo to get a feel for how many kids what kind things they do and all that. Well I saw the kids and it was cool I believe the skills they learn will help later in life. I don’t just mean the moves but the learning the discipline and the eye for detail. I also stuck around to see the adults. That was a bit different. It was something like watching fluid moving art and things in the brain started to grind and it muttered those profound words of ‘I want to capture that’. Which was quite impressive since I had a serous headache that evening. And well that’s how it started. Karate people at the beach with a sunrise in the background.

The next part is not the highlight of my photographic endeavours. Yes we all make mistakes but I blame the camera. Ok maybe not I wish I could but the reality is this - my photographic brain was faulty that morning. Yea I will go with that one. Hmm sounds plausible enough. I had to do this shoot twice. The first time I shot this I made a basic mistake, Yes I did not use a tripod. And yes you can all kick me now. Ok you can stop now it hurts. It’s a good lesson to one and all, just because you have all the flashes and the panels and rubbish that goes with it, it is the basics that will ensure you don’t screw up a shot. The basics – The basics I tell you!!! So this is where I show you where things went wrong.

Here is a photo of the Sensei - Mauro a nice guy. He is cool and by the way he went to Japan to study with the old masters to learn the correct karate technique oh and did I mention he’s been doing karate since he could walk or just about. So he really knows his stuff. So that black halo around him is not the black halo of karate coolness it is the in fact the black halo of slap-that-photographer-up-side-the-head-hand-held-preventable-camera-shake uncoolness they can be easily mistaken but it really depends on whether or not the client gives you a second chance or not. So some people may want this black halo look but not me. It really is not that hard to achieve take the picture let the flashes pop and let the shutter stay open a while and shake the camera slightly hey there you go – the black halo of coolness or uncoolness appears.

I pretty sure Mauro could take out a guy in about 3 seconds flat or there abouts. With that in mind imagine the happy and not so happy emotions that were going through my head as I was looking at the photos on my computer screen murmuring something like ‘I’m going to get hurt.’ I remember when I was shooting, the pictures on the camera back looked good no black halos. But to be honest I should have engaged the brain a bit harder to help the already failing photographic brain. Black halos all round maybe was caused by the CF card being in the camera too long because while shooting everything is good and as soon as the images stay on the card for some time they conspire to turn blurry or ugly or some suddenly want to overexpose or underexpose. Or not! Hey Im trying to think of good excuses for a re-shoot with the client. Well considering I had to haul Mauro and his band of merry men out of bed and have them meet me at Durban beach front at 5:30 in full kit to pull poses and mock fight slowly so I can capture the moves. I did not believe he would be very happy. So I worked feverishly trying to salvage those pictures to no avail. There does not seem to be a ‘remove black halos and blend really nicely and look natural button’ on any of the post processing programs. Tried retouching one picture and about 45mins in it was plain to see this was not working. Next best option was to work on a few of the salvageable pictures and ditch the rest and then ‘The Call’ had to be made. Fortunately I had spent a little bit of time with adults class one of the things Mauro said to his class and it was making reference to the kata the students learn, was when you are being graded you may look good and doing the moves correctly but only you in yourself know weather or not that was your best performance. An interesting little gem of wisdom. It is very similar in my photography. I, in some way feel every time I photograph something for someone it’s little like I’m being graded. I am also the only one the really knows if I can do better or if that was my best. So with the 3 second kill move and that little gem in mind ‘The Call’ was made It went something like ‘Hi Mauro how you doing?‘ ‘Hi good thanks and how are you doing?‘ ‘Well and, well not so good I would like to redo the shoot…. ‘ there was a pause – I wondered if he was thinking of his 3 second kill move. And then the ‘OK but why?‘ answer. Phew no 3 second kill move I hope. So I explained about the black halos of karate coolness and all that and I also added ‘I can do A LOT better!’. So I took along the rescued pictures to Mauro and found he liked them. Now all I had to do was nail the 2^nd shoot or Im sure I would have experienced the 3 second kill move.

Fortunately for me I did, at least I think so. So another wake up at 4:00am and get to the beach with all the equipment at 5:30am all ready to shoot. Joy.

The real life dependent shoot was done with 3 flashes a diffuser panel and an umbrella. Again I wish I had full set of radio poppers or pocket wizards etc. The flashy flashy TTL thing is pretty crappy and very unreliable not that anyone else’s flashy flashy system is any better but that’s my rant on the matter. Im starting to get to grips with the TTL metering system more and more but I do find it is still a bit cumbersome. All the photos were done using the ETTL system with +1 or -1 dialled in. All the flashes were on channel 1 and group A. A 1m x 1m panel diffuser panel was used and that was camera left and an umbrella was used for a bit of fill and that was camera right. I used a Canon 580EX II as the master on a TTL cable. This is great and until I can get the fancy pocket wizards to keep the ttl functionality this 7.5m cable is the best thing to trigger the flashes off camera and maintain hi speed sync, zoom etc. The 580EX II was on a light stand and was clamped right next to one of the 430 EX’s so they shared the load of lighting the 1m x 1m panel. The other 430EX was behind the umbrella which is where the flashy flashy rubbish falls down. I had to position the flash in a way that the flash sensor could see the 580’s trigger signal. And since the

trigger has to go through a diffuser panel its not the most reliable. But luckily for me it started working after a little bit of moving around, positioning of the umbrella, an incantation

followed by a blood ritual and the throwing of holy water. Well maybe not the blood ritual or the holy water but definitely the incantation. I had to use all sorts of things to try weight down the diffuser panel’s stand as the wind picked up a bit. The setup pretty much stayed as is due to having to hold everything weighted down. From there on it did not go too badly the TTL seemed to work nicely a few times the flashes would get upset but generally the system worked well as we went a +1 flash compensation -1 and so on depending on where the karate guys positioned themselves. I shot on manual to control the ambient and let the system decide how much flash it needed to expose correctly. I was also using the Sigma 10-20 F4.0–5.6 EX wide angle lens. I like this lens quite a bit actually more and more as I use it. I would like to get a 17-40 or a 16-35 when I get a full frame camera but for now on my cropped frame sensor 40D this lens rocks. I normally use canon L series lenses for all my work but I thought I would buy the highly rated Sigma to see how the wide angle suits my photography. For the cost of the lens, the quality and images it delivers you get a lot for your money. My L lenses are still better but I got to say the Sigma is not too bad. I thought I will try to get some interesting perspective shots. I wanted to do a few shots that felt like you were about to get smacked by the various weapons. The bow (or long stick) I thought was quite nice.

Most of these were shot at between F11 and F13 and ISO 400. The F11 and up was to get sharp results and the depth of field The noise does not seem to be bad at all the only real place it seems to be noticeable is in the very dark shadow areas in the background. A light application of Canons DPP software noise reduction seems to sort it out nicely. The only post processing is really white balance and a bit of a touchup on the bottom left where the light spilled the problem is they needed to be close enough to be lit properly and I could not really move much around. If I had a black cloth I would have killed the spill but I did not have anything that would work so fixing in post, it would have to be. The posing side was easy and went something like this ‘OK guys what poses would you like to do?’ and that was that really. ‘I’ll do this’ and then after a few frames ‘I’ll do that’ and pose after pose it was dynamite stuff after all this is the real thing that soo many B grade movies have been based on. Not to say these guys are in anyway B grade. I just recall in the movies the characters pulling moves and stopping for a second before attacking. That is seemingly what a lot of the 80’s B grade martial arts movies were about. Enter, Pull a Move, Attack unconvincingly get knock about get up have a second go and knock out the ‘baddie’. Repeat scene 4 – 5 times during movie.

A few things I would like to have done better is on the diffuser panel there was some light spilling from the flashes on the ground that needed to be sorted out in post. I think I will need to mod it a bit to include a black cloth to stop the spill. Another thing is the white and black suits are cool but that black suit pants that Mauro was using has to be one of the most light sucking things I’ve come across in a long time. Maybe a snooted flash on just his clothes would have helped. The other thing I’ve come to realize is the need of a dedicated assistant. That would save me a lot of time and grey hairs. Another shoot I did the pictures came out Ok but I feel if I had spent less time worrying about moving the lighting, hand holding a flash, balancing with my camera dangling about etc. and more time on posing the couple moving to a different locations and concentrating more on the things that make a good photo it could have been even better. But that at least will be remedied soon I hope.

Photographer: Henrik
Equipment : Canon 40D

Lens : Sigma 10-20 F4.0 - 5.6 EX

Focal Length : 16mm
Aperture : F13
ISO : 400
Shutter speed : 1/250th

Photographer: Henrik
Equipment : Canon 40D

Lens : Sigma 10-20 F4.0 - 5.6 EX

Focal Length : 12mm
Aperture : F11
ISO : 400
Shutter speed : 1/250th

Photographer: Henrik
Equipment : Canon 40D

Lens : Sigma 10-20 F4.0 - 5.6 EX

Focal Length : 14mm
Aperture : F13
ISO : 400
Shutter speed : 1/250th

The Halloween Serial , The Goul and the Ghost (Part 2 & 3)

Pictures from shoot at HT Fotography Studio
Model/s: Alan and Eve you can guess who is who.
Make-Up: Ebony
Photographer: Henrik

Equipment : Canon 40D & 24-70 f2.8
Focal Length : 45mm
Aperture : F7.1
ISO : 100
Shutter speed : 160
























Equipment : Canon 40D & 24-70 f2.8
Focal Length : 42mm
Aperture : F11
ISO : 100
Shutter speed : 160























These Photos are my next installment to my Halloween series. Part 2 and 3
So I have been in the UK for a while and boy did it seem to go very fast. I can tell you that as fast as it seemed to arrive getting the bags ready and all that, the faster the time seemed to go. And now I'm back in sunny South Africa. The blog was not updated due to not having a monitor I was sure of and the various tools that are needed to post process these little monsters. And when I was siting in front of a monitor that was good I was just backing up the photos I had taken that day. There are soooooo many photos - Damn that 6.5 frames per second. In my cameras defense there is a moron who keeps holding the shutter release button down so anyway. The reason I do this is I live in the hope I will get a sharp frame or two in the batch. I can tell you it works for me. I learnt a lot from my little travel experience like what equipment to take and what not to. Before I left SA for my world tour (I wish unless world is UK and Denmark) I phoned up my friend Alan and the call was something like this. H-"Hi Alan how you?" A-"Good" H-"Alan would you like to look like a Ghoul next Saturday?" A-"hmm Cool" H-" 9am good for you?" A- "Yea see you then"
I got to say that it was about the most easy bunch of convincing I ever had to do. I sort of thought he was not going to be there because perhaps he thought it was a joke. Sure enough though he was there.
Ebony was also there to do make-up That was a bit more of a task to get her there. Ebony is on board with me 110% on this project and with out her there would be no Halloween serial. Here is the challenge. Ebony has many talents and uses just about all of them. I mean to just give you an idea she designs dresses and makes them, she does tattoo designs and the tattoo artists put them on skin, she is the lead singer on a metal band called Theater Runs Red that is doing well at the moment and travels South Africa playing gigs, she also does theatrical make-up and fashion make-up and does body painting and wedding make-up. There are so many other things she does I cant even remember half of them. Needless to says she is very very busy. So for my schedule and hers to align I can tell you its difficult so if I can get a gap in her schedule I move mine.

On to the shoot. The setup was very similar to the last one (jack-o-lantern) and with the exception of a few strobe height adjustments Ghoul and Ghost were the same. The reason for this is that the look Im going for is controlled by the light. Im trying to create a similarity between the characters so the dramatic look needs to stay constant. Basically I think it has.

The shoot is simple the background is a black cloth simple as that. The light (as in one) is a single strobe on the left shot through a large softbox. It is in close and reasonably low power. I was after a dramatic look. I also want the feel of the characters to look sort of like coming out of the darkness about to murder. So no distracting nothings in the background and a bit of emphasis on the murder weapon. The part of the photoshoot feel gives that dramatic look is to get the background black and the light dramatic that's all there is to it. The rest is taken care of by Ebony and Post Processing. Since I feel Post Processing is a cheat I like that Ebony get me about 90% there. The rest is Create layers blur the top layer and used blending to get the desired effect. As you change the blending modes the program views the picture in different ways like screen is as though a light is being shone behind the picture you are viewing. They all have there uses and reasons to be used. The only real thing I did is a bit of blend and brought out those weapons with a layer mask. I feel that if the picture is taken correctly Post processing should take no longer than a few minutes. Some people love spending time time and more time burning dodging layer after layer. Me I battle to use all that. I love getting it right on camera and thinking how little Post Processing i will have to do. While I was shooting the neighbours were interested I what I was doing The look on their faces I would have loved to capture. They looked as though they were the would be victims with jaws dropped and a scared look on there faces. Who ever said photographers were fraidy cats? Just look what we have to work with menacing look people that look like they want to kill you and they got weapons at the ready. All in all a successful day was had by all so much so that Alan even left his make-up on the scare his nephews and nieces.

A Grave Affair - Creative Couples Location Shoot

Pictures from shoot at Stellawood Cemetery, Durban
Model/s : Ebony and Aiden
Make-up: Ebony
Photographer: Eve
Equipment : Canon EOS 400D
Focal Length : 105mm
Aperture : F8
ISO : 200
Shutter speed : 1/100 sec
Equipment : Canon EOS 400D
Focal Length : 60mm
Aperture : F4.5
ISO : 200
Shutter speed : 1/200 sec
Equipment : Canon EOS 400D
Focal Length : 40mm
Aperture : F16
ISO : 200
Shutter speed : 1/30 sec
Equipment : Canon EOS 400D
Focal Length : 105mm
Aperture : F8
ISO : 200
Shutter speed :1/100 sec
Equipment : Canon EOS 400D
Focal Length : 35mm
Aperture : F16
ISO : 200
Shutter speed : 1/160 sec

I've been wanting to get Ebs and Aiden into Stellawood Cemetery for a creative shoot for some time now. Eventually we got a chance to meet up amid their hectic schedules.
They are in two of the hottest up-and-coming bands in Durban. Aiden is guitarist for Theatre Runs Red and ANKST! while Ebs is Theatre Runs Red's vocalist. All the work on band related things as well as other more mundane things like work and stuff keeps then rather busy.
They had also recently been rather unavailable because their pet cat needed constant supervision after a nasty accident (the kitty, Thomas, is fine now so cut out your blubbering OK!)
So one very hot and sunny day - the worst possible conditions for a location shoot because of the light not to mention the stinking heat and humidity - we headed off for the cemetery.
Passers by stopped and stared as I got them to pose near a particularly interesting gravestone. One could almost imagine the thoughts that were going through their minds watching us traipse around the overgrowth and set up camera-type-stuff.
I feel very strongly that a choice of location for a creative shoot is very important. For a couple like the Aevil Kids, an off beat location like a cemetery was perfect.
I did a little work in post processing the shots to make the most of the harsh light, making what could have been a shoot killer work well. I find their looks lends itself to the high contrast edgy look that the photos ended up with. I also added a few warming and noise filters and mask effects to "age" the pictures, giving them an almost country western feel, just without the yeehas and silly hats.

The Halloween Serial - Shoot 1 of 5 (for now)

Pictures from shoot at Studio
Model/s: Aiden
Make-Up: Ebony
Photographer: Henrik

Equipment : Canon 40D
Lens : 28-105 F3.5-4.5
Aperture : F8
ISO : 100
Shutter speed : 1/166 - hey thats what the properties say???? was set to 1/160


Welcome to the start of my little pet project: The Halloween Serial.
Yes I'm not kidding and just in case you are wondering, yes, it is getting close to Easter.
No, I'm not anti this or that, I just figure that the sooner I start the project the sooner I can finish it. Maybe I can even sell a pic or two before the insane rush for posters, I wish. (This pic may just already be ready for print on one).

Well I was a just minding own business a while back and one of those thoughts, you know those ones that that are guaranteed to require lots of effort to fulfill, popped into my head.
Well the thought is a bit cheesy but I like a bit cheesy, Halloween is cheesy, so cheese it is.
The theme will be the 4 main characters of Halloween and one extra as the intro. Each of these characters will be serial killers that like to prey on their victims using their weapon of choice. Jack likes his knife, hey that's how you make a jack-o-lantern.
Who knows? I may add an extra one or two later.

The day was a bit odd. It started out by photographing two female models, well groomed and looking lovely on camera.
Ebony, IMO one of the Durban's best theatrical make up artists, can do wonders with that set of brushes and pallet of colours. She first did the lovely make up on the models and then set down to the task of making Aiden look like the Jack-o-Lantern serial killer.
These shoots can be really enjoyable. I will explain.
The model type shoots are cool and I do enjoy them. You get to know the models and most of the time it is really nice.
The themed stuff with someone like Aiden can be really fun. Like when the make up is being applied to Aidens ear he cringes and shouts out "its like a dog licking my ear" well that set the tone of the shoot for me.
When you are doing a theatrical type shoot I feel the sillier and funnier type things can give you better results from facial expressions than a whole series of, "lets try this or that".
Models don't have to look pretty because that's not the point.
"Aiden growl" Aiden goes,"GGGRRRRRR" that sort of thing is fine and everyone seems to enjoy the relief of it.

The other thing that feel is important when you are not working with professional models is that you choose them carefully. I'm not shooting stock or for an agency yet so my models are generally not professionals and while I do understand that for certain shoots a professional model is required, for my projects enthusiastic people are just great. I try to find people that are interested in what I want to shoot and match the theme. Like Goths for a Goth shoot - metal heads for a serial killer, shoot you get the picture. A Pro can do just about anything you ask of them. An amateur won't really know what you are after, but if they are say a metal bassist, and you ask them to do the classic wide-stance-while-they-are-playing-the-bass-pose they will know exactly what you want, and hey presto not too much "move your legs apart - some more - some more - just a bit more" directing.

Enough waffle, on to the shoot. This one's simple: one light and big soft box. I wanted some dramatic lighting so I moved Aiden close to the softbox and checked to see how the light fell on the far side of his face. The more the light fall off the more dramatic the subject will look. Well that's the classic photographic thinking anyway. So close to softbox Aiden. I then draped him with a black cloth. All I really wanted is his face and the knife. The back ground was also a black sheet and nicely out of focus so it was pretty much pure black. The 500WS strobe was at about 50% power, not that it means much, but the histogram for Aidens face looked good so I went with that. The softbox was about 45 degrees to his face and and about 50cm away from him.

This one's a bit of a long one on the post processing side and I'm no 'shopping expert. I don't have a big studio, so guess what, you can see all my paraphernalia in the background to the one side of the backdrop. Away with a few easy brush strokes, that done, onto the next step.
I wanted the yellow orange in the face and hand so hue saturation adjustments were done. Also I had to colour Aidens hand as It was not painted. A selection and a few clicks and hey he has a yellow hand. I don't think you could do anything like that to the face as it would look to shopped but the hand lacks the detail so I think it looks OK. Everything you do needs to be in layers - my partner has drummed that into me (I'm a SP - Shop-a-phobe you see). Next I make a copy of the background and blurred it with Gaussian blur and then went to blending properties and selected linear burn.
It darkened it and gave just the right effect that dark rich edgy feel that I wanted.

Well that's how I did this one. Please feel free to leave comments. Jack will get back to you

Pinetown Rally Streets

Pictures from shoot at Pinetown Rally
Model/s: VW and Toyotas
Make-Up: Drivers and navigators may have been but hard to ask as driving by at high speed
Cars makeup consisted of lots or racing parts and stickers
Photographer: Henrik

Equipment : Canon 40D
Lens : Canon 70-200 F2.8 l
Aperture : F2.8
ISO : 1600
Shutter speed : 1/100
Other Equipment : 580 EXII 430EX Manfrotto monopod

I love motorsport. I really enjoy it. LOTS. Part of the reason I enjoy it soo much is its a team sport and I don't mean just driver and navigator. What I'm talking about here is the behind the scenes stuff. Ive had the privilege of being able to hang around and see these guys at work. The cars can come in and about a quarter of the car is missing or damaged I'm not kidding about that either. These guys from the team manager to the coffee maker will slave through the night to make sure the car is prepared and ready to run the next morning.It goes something like this Team manager " We need an engine changed the gearbox changed the front suspension needs changing and brakes need new pads. " teams chief mechanic goes " Is that all ? " Team manager goes "Thats it !! how long?" Chief mechanic goes " MMM 15 for motor 15 for the box 25 for front suspension and 5 for coffee. Thats 60mins chief." OK so maybe Im exaggerating a bit but really the team repairing the car work at a pace I wish that all mechanics could work at and they do it right and in sometimes very unfavourable conditions. These guys are what will make a team win or loose and are as important as the driver and navigator. Im glad to see motorsport is being supported by the fuel guys and quite a few new sponsor names are starting to appear on the cars. This is good. The motorsport community has been hurt by a lot of sponsors moving to other sports as they feel their companies will receive more exposure at these other sporting events. Having said this one needs to realise that many of the guys that are now competing, are doing so from their own pockets, and the big factory teams are only awarding the top drivers spots. Yes the manufactures try to help the privateers by offering parts at discounted rates but still it takes lots of money to prepare a half decent rally car. All of the cars really were nicely turned out and I'm sure it was a bit of extra spit and polish for the crowds and sponsors benefit. Thanks teams all the cars looked super. This rally stage was held on the streets of Pinetown and even though the stage does not really make that much of a difference to standings of the Rally drivers, Its still a whole lot of fun to watch and needless to say the drivers and navigators do their utmost to impress the crowd. I say it wont make much difference to the standings as the stage is only about 2.5km long and all tar most of the other rally stages are 15kms plus and on these stages you really need to be on your toes and serious driving skill to just stay on the dirt not even to mention to do good times and of course you cant achieve the speeds that you can with a tar surface. It may not be the important part of the race but it does bring the rallying to the people and up the awareness of the sport and better exposure to the sponsors oh and its real fun to watch - did I mention that?

From a photographic point of view my choice of taking pictures of at this stage was the about the worst you could possibly think of, we are talking high iso and flashes and crowds that can be rather uncooperative at times. But hey if you set yourself easy challenges you generally don't learn too much. I started out with using my 580EXII flash on my camera and then placed a slave on the ground with a bare bulb Tupperware light modifier on top of it. Hey that light modifier was a real steal (literally from the mother in law's kitchen cupboard) and works really well.
In these situations I really will have to invest in a set of pocket wizards Canons we trigger by the light thing did not work very well and the flashes had to be close. Crap system on Canon's part but at least it goes off if you at just the right angle etc. That ruled out lighting from a distance so 580 on top and just in front of the safety fences was a 430 on slave a nice marshal placed it there for me. I would have liked to do more with the lighting but due to limitations the pictures I don't think came out so bad. I learned a few things but those I will tell in a later post. I picked this corner because its a corner after a long straight and heavy breaking will let those brake discs glow. As it turns out I got a few pictures of just that. Please if you are one of the competitors please let me know. If you are wondering I have many other photos at least one for every competitor that participated.
That panning with the subject skill came in very handy. I used a monopod for supporting the lens and I feel that after a tripod a monopod is the most important piece of equipment in ones equipment line up. Even if you have a IS lens it helps to support the camera and your arms dont have to keep on working as hard. The flash helps freeze the action but to frame the shot you need to pan with the car as it wizzs by.
I dont really talk much about post production but to be honest here the iso 1600 requires noise reduction. I find that Canon's own DPP software does a really good job of the noise reduction. Also I found myself increasing the exposure by about 1 stop or so. Most of my post production stuff is a levels watermark and size reduction.
Well next time I get to photograph the event maybe I will have some pocket wizards.

Flashing the Fairy

Pictures from shoot at Durban Botanical Gardens
Model: Tanja
Make-Up: own
Photographer: Henrik

Equipment : Canon 40D
Lens : 50mm f1.8
Aperture : f 10
ISO : 200
Shutter speed : 160
Flashes : Canon 580exII and 2x Canon 430 ex

Other : Manfrotto Tripods, sync cable, shoot through
umbrella and mount thingy

















Ah! Durban. Well, what can be said about it? We could say it's Africa's playground, we could say it has the world's best beaches, we could also say it is the worlds greatest HIV city and we could even say the worst politicians all hail from this city.
But today, the 31st day of this January month, in the 9th year of the 21st century, on approximately the 1st second in the 49th minute of the 10th hour, or thereabouts, I will say only Durban was @#$%^*& hot and humid.

The Botanical Gardens is one of Durban's highlights in my opinion. Many wedding photographers use the gardens as their creative shoot one-stop-shop. I can understand why. There are many great locations and different looks you can get just by moving 30 metres or so. Too bad most of the wedding photographers use about only 6 of the 100 plus spots that I can think of in the gardens to set up their shots.

Well enough moaning about the originality and creativeness of the wedding photographer and his 6 spots, I enjoy the gardens and love just going for a walk leaving the odd sync cable there and making a mad dash across town to retrieve it. etc. Seriously though, I like the surrounds and the plants are all labeled if you want to really know what they are called, and if you want they even have a guided tour. I mostly like to go and chill and sometimes take a camera along.

And now enough of the waffle, onto the pictures.

I have included a setup shot. These setup shots are a rarity. This one was taken in error. I normally plan to take a setup shot but due to (what ever factor you would like to enter into this space) I normally forget. I took this in error while I checking a setting. As mentioned the gardens have many great spots and if you go and look for it you will find this one. The tree has a hollowed out section that was just begging to have a flash placed there and used as a backdrop. With this in mind, our dear model and friend, Tanja, has been pestering us to do a fairy type themed shoot for a while. We are comfortable with her and her with us so when we go to do something like a fairy shoot with her all dressed up and me stuffing around trying to get everything just right she does not complain or get flustered she just takes it in her stride or hop depending on which bug wanted a bite.

Did I mention the bugs just loved eating Tanja, myself, my partner and my little one.

Back to pic. I wanted to kill the ambient light, and bugs, a bit (lots). So onto a tripod goes my 580 and into master it is put. A little note here : I can really understand why the pro guys use pocket wizards / sky ports because when I put a grid on the flash it did not trigger the other flashes. The reason is to do with a preflash the 580 puts out to the 430's. If the 430's don't see the actual flash from the head part, they don't go off. They don't talk with the red sensors at the bottom as some people think. So bang went the idea of just lighting very selectively.

Well, fill light the 580 will be, power was at 1/8th and zoom set to 105mm and was a far far way away. The one 430 was put facing upwards behind Tanja to light the tree at 1/4 power and at 14mm (diffuser panel out). The final one was put on a tripod on the umbrella mount thingy behind an umbrella at 1/2 power to give a nice soft light.
And then happy snapping away I went.

I am happy with what I got, but there are a few things I would have liked to do different. A bare bulb behind Tanja would have been nice (ps I forgot it at home - the tupperware thing) and the fill light perhaps a bit softer. Like behind an umbrella soft. I would like to know if the 580 would have been able set off the other flashes but I did not find out due to time, bugs, heat etc. But otherwise I'm happy. (not - I neeeeeed pocket wizards more flashes a new camera l glass ..and.....and............)

Pictures from live shoot at Burn Night Club
Model: Lead singer of Ankst. Y es we asked him to pose while in a live peformance (not)
Make-Up: You can ask him if he was wearing any
Photographer: Henrik

Equipment : Canon 40D
Lens : 50mm f1.8 - Fantastic Plastic
Aperture : f2.2
ISO : 1600 - grain o vision
Shutter speed : 1/30
Flash: Canon 580 EX II
Canon 430 EX


This picture was taken at live venue Burn nightclub in particular in Durban South Africa. I enjoy taking pictures at live venues despite the zombie drunk people and the potential liquid damage to equipment (beer) the constant fight to try to take a picture (zombie drunk people again) etc. So when you do get a few pictures and you have not had to spend a small fortune replacing equipment and even had a drink or three, one will feel pretty good about pictures one has taken. This particular night one of my favorite bands were playing Ankst. I generally have found the music they play to be to my liking, a lot to my liking. They play music of the Goth variety and thats just good with me. One of the things that I enjoy about the Durban live music sceen right now is the theoratical bands seem to be active. This makes for good pics to take home. These guys try hard to dress up and make an effort. Good on you guys. Anyway back to the pictures.

OK the picture Focus Focus Focus. Well being at a live venue im sure for anyone is fun and maybe not so much for someone trying to take a picture with a little more than a P&S. For this picture I decided to use my fantastic plastic or some may know it as the nifty fifty - 50mm f1.8 fixed focal length, the reason it is called this is the following. There is a camera out there called a Holga and it is made by Lomo, anyway someone at canon said one day "lets make a lens from plastic just like the holga and we can get the fuzz and out of focus and light fall off just like that." and so it was made. NOT although dont joke some guys are doing just that but I will save the explination for another day. But on a little more non BS note. The reason that its called the fantastic plastic, the nifty fifty is that the whole lens except the optics are all made from plastic and its a 50mm as well as it is canons cheapest lens in their offering (it feels that way too). Personally I feel each and every DSLR should come with one of these lenses I love this lens and I will upgrade one day but still one of my most loved lenses. If you dont own one go get one now. Go now. This lens is good on my camera, fast accurate focusing light lens with a decent aperture I could go on and on and on...... In front of the lens is a cokin holder with a cokin star filter and thats about it from the optics. My Beloved Partner was making herself very useful as a 430ex flash holder at the time the photo was taken. I wish all flash support systems could fight back crowds and look good too. I had a 580exII on my camera acting as master and not actually firing but setting off the 430ex in slave mode. The flash was set to ETTL mode I think and was facing Ankst singer face. It was toward the end of the evening so I was getting Creative (tired and tipsy) about The Iso and shutter and the second flash. Seeing as I had only got the 580 exII a few days before and I was still at that stage where I was trying to work out how everything worked on the flash.

Pictures from shoot at home
Model/s: Flower - Not very Talkative but very good at posing and standing still

Make-Up: We tried putting on mascara but decided to go natural

Photographer: Henrik

Equipment : Canon 40D
580EX II flash
2 x 430EX flash
blue card board
snoot
grid
Shutter speed : 1/80
Appeture : F10
ISO : 100
Lens: EFS 18-55 (kit) @ 55mm

So I go to a friend on the weekend to say hi borrow a car/truck etc and he shows me these flowers on a strange looking plant. Well they do look sort of cool and different to the usual sunflower / rose sorta stuff. My friend tells me they only bloom once per year and only during the evening and by the morning they are dead. So I said oh that's nice. I don't really like taking pictures of plants because there does not seem to be much of a challenge. As well as the plants freek me out they seem too co-operative and very quite. I mean you pose them and they just stay there and don't complain. It just spells out serial killer in my mind. But anyway so he tells me he wants some pictures of the flower. I return the car and then he grabs a flower off the tree and hands it to me and says 'when you come tomorrow bring me some photos of the plant.' Oh OK I said, hey he's loaned me his car and did not even ask for fuel so serial killer plant photos it is.
Hey I need his car / Truck occasionally for a bit time to time and its always good to go say hi and it means a lot to him when I bring a few pics of things Ive taken. So ive been learning how to light the strobist way, still a way to go but its good learning, which I like. The guy who runs strobist is cool and very happy to share his knowledge via blogger.
Back to the killer plant so how to do light the evil thing.

To me I wanted to give the plant a glow so to do that I light from the back of the plant with a 430ex on 1/8 power. I wanted to get the side top light to catch the petals but I also did not want the light to go all over the show. Enter the home made snoot, it was made to go onto my 580ex it seems to do a good enough job. the Flash and snoot attach with hose shoe adapter was mounted to the tripod and the flash set at 1/8 power. Last but not least I want the centre thingy, cant remember what its called, to be lit so a another home made item , a grid made from card board, to help only light the to fall in the centre bit. That flash was set at 1/4 power as the card board seems to soak up the light quite effectivly. So there you have it. A picture of the serial killer plant. Please if someone can tell me what the plant is I would like that. I will look as well if I find out I will post the name. Thanks.