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Thursday, October 6, 2011

Shooting my good friend : Bernardus Ivan & his family

Well this was the time when I got the chance to see a friend after quite sometime. In the process, he wanted me to shoot him with his family which I thought, hehmmm what sort of picture would be good for a family portrait, how to light them, what poses should I get them to do, etc2. So in the end of the day, because I didn't bring all my gear, I had to improvise with what I had.
Father n SOn
In the first picture, he wanted me to shoot a picture of him and his son playing guitar together. I tried booming, then I realised I've come across and big problem of having a shadow behind him which I don't know how it got there until I saw the floor. It was pure white ceramic tiles which make a fine reflector. In the end, I decided to bounce of the ceiling as a fill and handhold my key light a little bit left of camera. I waited and waited and keep on snapping while talking to him and his son until I got this frame which shows the son was playing the guitar. Also because the son was a bit to short when photographed, I had asked for a pillow for him such that the balance of the picture is somewhat better.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Shooting my Mclaren diecast

So basically, I was inspired by my good photographer friend B.Ivan (a joint co-writer in this blog) in shooting die cast cars. This motivated me to shoot my diecast SLR Mercedez Mclaren car. In doing so, I had a few thoughts in my mind which were :
1. How should I shoot the car, meaning the angle etc2, -> composition wise.
2. How many lights would I need and how they are going to be placed.
3. What will be the focal length that I should use 
4. What aperture should be using

After wasting dozens and dozens of my camera's actuation, I found out that if your diecast model is small, it would be a good idea to shoot it using a wider focal length (as to make it look bigger). As for the composition, I've decided to shoot it from front on for my first shot and I have decided to use three lights. They were placed one on each side and the other one placed over head to give it a slick look to it. The lights were all being placed inside a DIY cardboard softbox and the overhead light was being handheld while the camera was put on timer. The result is picture is shown above. Regarding the aperture, I can't remember exactly but roughly around f8.


As for the second shot, I've decided to put the car model in an angle to give it a bit of dimension and depth to the image. Three lights were used in this instance, one was boomed down from camera right. Another was boomed just on the top left of the car and the last light was shot through a rattan basket with the intention of creating a pattern on the background. Also the background light was also gelled blue. All of the lights were placed inside a DIY cardboard box. The resulting image is shown above and its not too bad. I hope my experience here would somewhat be useful for you guys. Happy snapping everyone.