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

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 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.