Hopefully you aren’t getting sick of this model yet. I know I’m not. Anyway this was once again a fairly short spur of the moment shoot one night after a long night out. This time we started out with a half hour or so shoot in just a single outfit in the makeshift “studio” before it was almost sunrise. So from there we changed outfit and moved to the rooftop of the guesthouse to play in the rising sun. Read More ››
Ok, her name is really something more like Nyung, but us western barbarians aren’t expected to be able to make such sounds (I guess they think we all come from America) so she tends to get called Young. In any case this time around I thought we’d do something different and do some shots in the room. Lighting was a couple 500w halogen floodlights, the type you buy from your local hardware or department store for working on cars. One was bounced off a reflector held in place by a chair and a camera bag, the other was hung from a curtain rod and shone directly on Nyung. The backdrop was a white sheet looped over the curtain rod.... Read More ››
I wasn’t confidant that Young’s promise (it’s a name, not an age – though come to think of it I guess it’s both really) that she’d get up and model at 5:30am this morning would hold. That is, once her alcohol fueled enthusiasm waned and her eyes closed into the welcoming sleep of the halfway drunk. Indeed it did take some effort to rouse her at the appointed hour but I’m glad I did. After a couple minutes on a moto we were at the beach, I wish my beach shoots in Aus were so easy to get to! We actually could have walked down to Victory beach in less than 5mins from my room but I wanted to... Read More ››
Ok, before I get stuck into the tutorial I’ve got a quick challenge for those of you photographically minded: have a look at the shot, look at the shadows and have a guess yourself at what lighting setup I used, then read on to see if you are right! The reason I thought I’d do a quick lighting tutorial on this particular image here as it’s probably the number one image I get asked about in terms of technique used in the lighting setup. These questions often come with explanations of attempts made or theories as to what the setup was. I’ve had every theory under the sun thrown at me, some with up to 6 lights coming from... Read More ››
A couple weeks ago through an unfortunate set of occurrences I ended up meeting a couple pretty cool people. One is the model in this shoot, who ended up being a substitute called in at the last second when things went awry with the first model. The other being Ian Barclay, the excitable Scottish bloke who is himself a decent snapper, model Psychologist, impassioned shirt connoisseur (trust me, you don’t want to wear a Hawaiian shirt in front of this guy) and finally the owner of the resort these images were shot at. The beautiful Serene Sands Health Resort. He even came to pick us up in the morning when the taxi driver didn’t know the way and we ended up reversing back... Read More ››
I often get notes, emails and messages from people asking to use my work in one form or another. I figured I’d put together a blog post to lcover this topic and at the same time have a review of my pricing structure when I licence images directly and bring it down more on par with what my images are selling for in the agencies. Before we get to that if all you want to do is use one of my images for inspiration for a drawing or painting etc: go right ahead, the only thing I’d ask is that you provide a link back to me from anywhere you publish the finished work. As for using my work directly in graphic designs, digital... Read More ››
Well it’s been MIA for a couple years now but now the blog is back, along with a whole new folio site wrapped around it. As it is with most of the work I end up doing it was necessity more than anything else which bred creation. It was an arsehole hacker’s immature actions which ended up having an unbeknown positive side effect: they surgically removed my thumb from an unspeakable place. Ok, the (more) complete story goes like this: Hacker hacks the server my site is on and does such a number on the server that not only are all sites screwed with on the server but all online backups are wiped as well. Server manager has since migrated to a... Read More ››
Well I’m going to fast forward in time from my last post and bypass some experiences best forgotten: Bangkok with it’s theft and expense, Siem Reap almost bedridden with sickness for a week, going to Phnom Phen only to find the government is filling in the lake, it’s already substantially smaller than it was the year before. But anyways, onward to good things: Sihanoukville I arrived Monday afternoon after only a few hrs in a relatively comfortable bus from Phnom Penh. I’d only been about 4 hrs including the rest & ‘get made to feel guilty by kids selling fruit’ stop of a half hr and I was feeling pretty good. A moto driver immediately came up to me offering his... Read More ››
Well I’m back over in Asia again for more touring around and exploration. Flew into KL, Malaysia Tuesday and immediately got out of the big (and dirty) smoke to head north to Penang. Not too much to report so far so I’ll just throw up a couple shots from sunset & early evening yesterday. Both are shot from the top of the Komtar shopping complex, which lies at the base of the Komtar tower. Read More ››
This is the first in what will hopefully be a long series of tutorials I’ll be posting on how I’ve achieved the effects I have in some of my creative photography shoots. The subject for today is one of the more creative setups I’ve come up with. It’s the kind of setup that you run over in your mind and are never sure if it’ll work until you give it a go. First up here are a couple of the shots I took with the setup: Now there’s not as much photoshop done to these images as you might first think. Just some local contrast adjustment and colour tweaking, that’s it. The effect was achieved by the... Read More ››
When Beck contacted me a few weeks back to tell me she was going to be in NZ for a week and was keen to shoot I was dubious to say the least. Thing is I’ve had a couple bad experiences with Beck pulling out on shoots we had organised previously, however she seemed very sincere in her desire to shoot & it’s always good to give people 2nd chances when you can. Well she exceeded all expectations, it was a cold morning with temps hovering around -5 to -10c and I can hardly recall a single complaint out of her. The last shot of this set was just shot as a pisstake and I think it’s good for... Read More ››
Was a booootiful day for shooting this one, no lighting equipment used. Boarders – Mike & Eddy Camera – 5D Lens – Sigma 12-24 Location – The Remarkables, New Zealand Post was limited to some slight s-bend curves for added pop plus logo removal & noise reduction for stock (microstock photography image reviews can be harsh on noise sometimes). Trying to talk Mike into doing a back flip on this next session. Read More ››
Well it had only been 2 days since I’d hurt myself boarding at Coronet so when we went up to Cardrona I didn’t even take the board off the car. Just spent the day hiking around taking photos. I did manage to get a free day pass out of them by flashing a few shots though so that made it easier to get up to the kickers and rails to shoot the boys. There was also a big air comp on that day which I managed to get a few shot of some riders warming up on. Unfortunately I managed to loose my spare battery that day so by the time the actual competition started I’d run out of... Read More ››
Well the 16th saw me on a snowboard for the first time in over 8 years. It took so long to get up the mountain as I’ve been trying to negotiate a season pass out of NZski in exchange for some advertising photos. We ended up compromising on a complimentary week pass on a trial basis, if they like what they see from there then it’ll be extended into a full multi-resort season pass, so fingers are crossed. Only ended up getting the one day up at Coronet and none at The Remarkables due to a combination of bad weather, injury and a day spent at another resort. RE the injury, it was my own silly fault for not... Read More ››
Flew in to Christchurch on the last night of the financial year and because I’m a cheap bastard I decided to spend the night in the airport rather than a hotel as I had a camper van booked the next morning 8am. Well I didn’t end up getting any sleep in the airport but the night passed quickly enough and before I knew it it was time to start my wander south. The first thing that hit me on exiting the terminal was the COLD, and yes it does need to be capitalised, my appetite immediately turned into a fat Italian mumma, saying things to me such as “you need to eat”, “you have to get fat” insulation is... Read More ››
