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