Berk McGowan Photography » Family

New addition

Berk — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 10:07:51 +0000

Just under a week ago (12.12.2008) I was blessed with another addition to my growing family (although this is the last of them trust me!). Lana Eve McGowan decided it was time to brave this big bad world and came out in a quiet dignified manner… let’s hope it stays that way. I hope to have some more shots up soon.

Now i’ve been somewhat slack in my postings as of late… hopefully that will change over the coming month(s).

More ramblings soon…

Flashing It

Berk — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 06:07:31 +0000

One of my endeavours for quite some time now has been to get a deeper understanding of off camera flash through wonderful sites such as Strobist.com as well as through workshops held by Shelton Muller.

I had the fortune during the week to get my hands on a copy of David Hobby’s (from Strobist.com) much acclaimed Strobist DVD series. Pouring through it just got me all excited to get out and try some off camera flashing! Well Sunday being such a nice day I decided to rope in my daughter to pose for some outdoor type shots.

Well, I was given all of about 2 minutes “face time” with my model. In messing around setting up the shot she had grown bored and I only managed to get a couple of keepers out of it all before Abby decided there was much more interesting things to do in the back yard. Prima donnas… I dunno…

For the photo geeks here’s the setup: Shot in my backyard during the afternoon with Abby standing in the shade. Camera left has a Nikon SB800 mounted on a stand with a shoot through umbrella plus a black backing on it sort of turning it into a softbox. It’s a bit more cumbersome than a standard shoot through but decided to try it out. Camera set to manual and metered for the sky – should have dropped the ambient by a couple of stops at this point but was trying to get everything else set up as well so missed that. SB800 is set to 1/4 power and fired by PocketWizard II’s.

I really like this type of lighting and the results show in this image when viewed in full at hi-res. It’s just a nice even light that gives the image a different feel. If I can plant the kids down long enough I’ll try some more otherwise i’ll try and rope in some willing models!

(ps there was a delay posting this due to computer issues… more on that soon!)

More ramblings soon…

Father’s Day

Berk — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 05:44:42 +0000

Well another Father’s Day has come and gone and it seems a tradition forming in our house is that of me getting pancakes on this day of days for Dad’s everywhere.

No socks or jocks for this dad!

Hopefully all dad’s had a great day.

Snow Country

Berk — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:30:20 +0000

Managed to get out of town this weekend just gone with the family and we headed for Marysville in country Victoria. The aim was to take our two kids up to the snow for the first time. Lake Mountain Alpine resort is only about a 20 minute drive from Marysville so snow fun it was!

My other aim was to get the camera out for the weekend too and have a much needed shoot with hopefully some wonderful settings. I was having too much fun on the toboggan with the kids to drag the camera out so only got the happy snaps as far as that was concerned but did manage to duck away on the Friday night to Stephenson’s Falls, which was very close to where we were staying, and is also one of the highest falls in Victoria.

It was getting on to dusk and stupid me had forgotten to pack the tripod for the weekend so hoped for the best with my shaky hands. Found some solid ledges to lean on and the light was really nice so pulled out the slow shutter speeds to enhance the effect of the falls.

There was also plenty of friendly locals (of the feathered variety) who would come and greet us each morning. The kids had a blast feeding them fruit, biscuits, seed, chips – whatever was around these birds tended to eat it!

Not too far from where we were staying was a somewhat famous sculptor by the name of Bruno Torfs who has an amazing property filled with over 200 of his sculptures in the densely packed grounds out the back of his workshop. One of those places that you could go back to time and again and find something new on each visit. I managed to get quite a few good images of his people sculptures – some look almost lifelike.

After driving up and down the mountain for the two days beforehand and seeing some wonderful photo ops (tired kids don’t get the need for a photo op!), I decided to venture back up the mountain early Sunday morning to a lookout point that boasted a fantastic view back towards Marysville and Melbourne. I think it was about 4 degrees celcius when I got the point but the scenery didn’t disappoint. I snapped off a couple of quick frames and realised that my trusty D200 was disappointing me. A nasty black smudge was appearing on each frame I had taken – change of lens showed the smudge in the same spot; not good! I realised that something had gotten onto the sensor and I was not prepared to do major surgery in the back of the station-wagon half way up a mountain side. I did manage to salvage a shot that I quite like.

Apart from one of the kids being sick in the car on the way home (gotta love that smell), a good trip was had by all. I think I missed a few opportunities as a result of not bringing my tripod (something I realised about 45 minutes into the drive). Will just have to make the effort to head back again soon.

More ramblings soon…

Berk