These days the chemicals are gone and trying to replicate that awesome black and white print in pixels is sometimes a never ending challenge. Since the dawn of the digital darkroom I’ve constantly been on the look out for a way to do what I used to in the darkroom. Not a Photoshop wiz by a long stretch I tend to keep a lookout for the best ways to acheive certain results. I’ve never been overly happy with some of the tutorials and examples of some Photoshop people out there until now. I happened across a tutorial by fellow photo friend Erin on her blog which looked to be the goods as far as my taste in B&W imagery was concerned. I worked through her instructions and ended up with the above image of my daughter Lana.

This little technique is definitely going in the bag of tricks. Thanks Erin!

Last Sunday saw us head to Montsalvat in Eltham, Victoria. Montsalvat, founded by Justus Jörgensen, is Australia’s oldest artists’ colony and is home to practising artists. Set on 12 acres the historic buildings include charming mud brick cottages and the impressive Great Hall and the photographer’s best friend, the Loft.

I’d been wanting to take some portraits of a friend of mine, Ed, for some time now and thought this would be a great location as well as provide a subject for the rest of the group attending to photograph. Ed did a stellar job considering he’s not a model and has never done this sort of thing before.

It was also great to catch up with the 5MP guys as well. It’s never a dull moment when we’re all together.

Hope to have some more updates soon.

I asked my friend in the team John if he would be willing to pose for me. Once I explained the idea he was really willing to help out.

I now needed to get use of the stadium as they are a busy centre that always has something on. A phone call, email and another phone call later and the deal was done mind you a nice early 7.30am start!

I give John top cred – he came into this with as much enthusiasm as I did which was good, gave the whole shoot a great vibe from the word go. He had about 10 changes of clothes which was great as I had only had one in mind but ended up using a few.

Set up for images was a mixture of varying Nikon SB units. The beauty of the speedlights is that it gives you the ability to change up the scene quickly without having to move a ton of gear around. The above shot was an SB800 fired through a shoot through umbrella camera left with an SB600 camera right firing at the back of John’s head through another shoot through. I also had an SB28 bare on a stand down the back pointing at the backboard to light it up. All units fired by Pocket Wizards.

Was great to shoot John. Here’s hoping I can come up with another shoot to use him in. Maybe even an outdoor setting this time!

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…

I managed to get one and did a few low light shots one night of it. But was struggling getting a chance to drag it out of the bag for a proper shoot.

Anyway, as I was cleaning up my gear and organising my camera bags I noticed the gorgeous afternoon light coming through our front window and thought this is a good time to get the 85mm out and give it a whirl. I managed to convince Kylie to pose for a few frames and came up with this:

You have to be dead on with the focusing (when using it at f1.8) and it is something I am going to have to work on with regards to portraits as the eyes are the most important and if you move off the focus spot the whole feeling of the image is gone. Not the greatest portrait of Kylie (hello stare-y eyes!) but the light was gorgeous and gave me a chance to get the camera out.

I tried to get my daughter Abby to pose for a couple after her mum had enough and walked away but she just wouldn’t sit still so most missed the focus mark.

Will post some more when i’ve had a play with this lens some more.