Last weekend of February, 2010: Gasukan 25, private flash photography practice session, and Isho Con.
Expect some interesting pictures in the coming week! Articles too if you read that.
This is my second attempt at writing long posts documenting photoshoot sessions, so if you like this, let me know!
So early February I scheduled a shoot with Mina to get some pictures of her Sakura con masquerade outfit, because she thought the chances are she won’t get any at the convention. To make the shoot even more appealing, Mina decided to use a cemetery as the location for the shoot. Luckily, the shoot too place during the day, and I don’t believe in “spirits” anyway. I was however half expecting ghosts to showing up in the pictures I took though.
Since it’s my first shoot at a cemetery, and judging from her slightly gloomy outfit (mostly maroon and black color), I decided to shoot and post process from a darker,gloomier perspective.
It’s quite interesting to shoot gloomy pictures in broad daylight, believe it or not. The conflicting elements (dark, gloomy cemetery showered by bright, happy sunlight) really created a whole difference feeling to the images that otherwise would not be as powerful a statement.
Shooting with Mina has always been fun. It is always that confidence and wealthy knowledge of posing that help make it possible to produce stunning images. I used to believe that in order to create an epic image, 100% is about the photographer’s skill. But now, I think it’s more about 50-50: 50% models’ skills to pose / act, and 50% photographers’ ability to capture the moment.
Back to the shoot.
Our roughly 2-hour shoot was composed of mostly shots on the walkway. We tried to avoid the gravestone area for apparent reasons. If I have the chance to shoot at a cemetery again, I would probably do the same. But if I can change anything location wise, it would be to shoot at a cemetery that is not right by a heavily used street. It was quite difficult to compose shots when you see cars driving by in the background…doesn’t add to the picture at all, at least not the kind of effect we were looking for.
In addition to our little adventure to the cemetery (rest in peace, spirits), I also processed this set a little heavier, mainly to explore and experiment with different effects and stuff like that. There are merits of sticking to the original as much as possible, but adding some effect to images can sometimes enhance the “experience”. In the end, we (photographers) are artists, and when it comes to creating art, there is no right or wrong.
A new poll is out!
I am curious as to whether anyone has ever wanted to print any of my photograph poster size, so vote away!
This photoshoot with Katie (pictured left) and Simone (pictured right) was my third attempt toward glamour photography. I used to call it fashion, but then realized that the difference between glamour and fashion: the later is about clothes, whilst the former is about the person wearing the clothes. As my focus is on the models, I find “glamour” to be a more fitting word.
Terminology aside, the shoot took place one sunny afternoon, and the first location we found was in the alley by some sort of a warehouse made out of brick: perfect for the 1930/1950 theme. In our shoot, Simone was portraying a worker at a scone mine (more on this later), with Katie being the wife, so quite a few pictures are portraying them as a couple loving, arguing, punching, kissing…well, fake kissing. It was quite fun to see things from the camera end, and occasionally noticing bystanders looking our way with weird looks. Not all the look were weird though, as there were several guys coming in and out of buildings just to check out the girls.
As Simone had to move her car, we migrated to the front yard of Katie’s apartment and I quickly setup my remote flash, ready to try out some remote flash goodness on my guinea pigs of the day.
This is when I started to like shadowed area on sunny days. Without the strong contrast between the sun and shadowed area, it’s easier to control the exposure, yet there is enough light going around to provide fast shutter at relatively small aperture and ISO.
After my quick test, we then moved to a cafe nearby to do the rest of our shoot at a relatively quiet and relaxing environment. This was when I whipped out my ghetto yet very well-performing homemade softbox (this is what I bought the fabric for) to start my journey becoming a strobist. As I am doing my photographer thing, Katie and Simone were enjoying their baked goods (scone!) and coffee. As a result, I got quite a few funny pictures, and no, I am not showing them to the world. Heh.
Joking aside, it turned out the softbox worked really well.
Some technical description of the softbox: 16″ x 12.5″ cardboard box lid, with a hole cut on the short end to fit the external flash. Internal covered with aluminum foil, and slightly see-through cloth taped on the open-end for diffusion. Judging from Simone (above) and Katie’s picture (below), I’d say it diffused the shadow pretty well for a single softbox setup, and the lighting is pleasant (and you can see how much Katie’s loving her coffee).
Setup.
So somewhere along the shoot Simone and Katie started talking in Russian accent. I have no idea how that happened, but I remember me laughing so hard I almost fell from the bench at some point. To make matters worse, Simone starting making scone jokes (she was eating one), saying how she works so hard everyday at scone mines only to bring back scones that are consumed by Katie in its entirety. The scone joke and the Russian accent lasted till the end of the day, but this is also one of the reasons I think it’s great to bring friends along to a shoot because it help models relax and stay comfortable, and relaxed models are the best models. After all, this was my first shoot with Simone and only the second with Katie. I’d be nervous too if it’s just me shooting a new model for the first time.
To add a bit more variety to the shoot, I moved the girls to the bench and did some shoot there with the softbox, but most importantly, I tried out Nick Tupin’s snoot technique and was surprised with how effective and dramatic an effect it creates. Thanks to Andrea who showed up later to the shoot (I did a shoot with her a couple weeks beforehand), I had her hold the flash with a snoot attached and raised it high and above, left of camera, pointing toward the upper portion of the models.
The stronger shadow is what made pieces taken with this technique so dramatic looking. I was so engrossed in focusing the flash that I forgot to take a setup shot, but the idea is still fairly simple.
After a long day, the married immigrant couple was finally coming together, ready for another day of scone mining…and eating.
Before we ended out shoot for the day, we quickly took several pictures at the lobby of the “hotel”. Very quick setup, just to show that the couple really did stop fighting.
And of course, the pictures show how we enjoyed the 3-hour photoshoot. It was a fun day.
tl;dr: left-click the image in the image gallery to download the full resolution uploaded.
I have only noticed one instance of this happening, but just to make it clear for all visitors, you can actually left-click each image in the gallery to download the full resolution uploaded, which is generally around 1024 pixels on the long end and of higher quality, rather than the 800 pixel , lower quality image as cached by the app I am using.
Why so much trouble?
Well, I didn’t write the app is of course the first reason. But more importantly, I think it’s about server efficiency and page flow. The cached images are resized to fit the “image view” web page so when viewing, the page it self looks well contained and doesn’t look like the image is overflowing the page layout. Secondly, cached images generate less load on the server because those images are already processed and ready to go. This translates to faster page load when viewing my gallery.
As a matter of fact, I believe there are ways I can make it so you see the full resolution, high quality image right when you click the image, but that would require me to increase the frame by modding the CSS files and tweak the app even more to serve that purpose. More convenient? Definitely. But more work on my part, so unless the demand arises, I am sure you can live with 1 more click to get the better quality picture.
Yeah…I am lazy.
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