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.