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.

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.

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.

Time Lapse photography

Time-lapse photography is a cinematography technique whereby the frequency at which film frames are captured (the frame rate) is much lower than that which will be used to play the sequence back. When replayed at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus lapsing. (quoted from time lapse photography wikipedia). Basically it's fast forwarding time by taking lots and lots of frames at a fixed time interval and then playing it back at a movie frame rate so the viewer sees it as a fast forwarding effect. 

In order to do this what I realise is that you need lots and lots of dynamic movements or actions in your frame (otherwise it'll become dull and boring for your viewer). Also it takes a lot of patience and time to spare as you need at least an hour or two to just create a 10 seconds worth of clip so get what I mean, :).

Ok, lets stop the chit chat here and will show the links on how I learnt these technique. 

The first video shows you on how to capture the frames

The second video shows you how to put them together into a movie frame.

 and I will show my time-lapse photography taken at my university. The dynamic movements that I tried to capture here are :
1. The sun setting
2. The movement of people
3. The lights of the building 
4. The movements of the cloud
I have four dynamic elements here which if you could have more the better, that's what I think of it. Here is my result. Enjoy2.

Try to do a MacGyver, if you don't have something then try to create one!

What if you don't have something that you need? Well then either you could buy it or you could make it yourself. A few months ago, I was about to list my lens to sell it on ebay and needed to get several snaps of it for the ads. I could simply go out and buy a $80 lightbox but then again I thought I would rather spend it on something else so it is the MIY (make it yourself) solution. One would ask why would you need a lightbox in the first place. Well as we all know that if we could make it as attractive as possible. then the item would sell at a higher price That is why you see people use decorations in shops and all sort of other elements to attract buyers. Well it's the same case here, by using a lightbox you are basically creating a nicer lighting and cleaner  background larger. The lightings are improved when the lightbox is used when compared to  using a bare bulb as the larger diffusion materials creates a larger lightsource which in turns softens the light (see strobist.blogspot.com to know more about lightings).  To put it simple, basically I am trying to imitate the how the PROS shoot their products for ads. To create the lightbox, I need to find a frame which can hold my diffusion materials, so basically searched and found an unused box which I could use as a frame to attach my diffusion materials, then I started cutting a few of the sides off. Then, I went to the kitchen to find baking paper to be used for diffusion materials. The baking paper were glued to the sides of the box. As I've got only two lights at that time, I covered one side using aluminium foil with the intention of it acting as a reflector.  Furthermore, I went and bought a $1.50 white cardboard to be used as my backdrop. My finished lightbox is shown above. I know it is not pretty, but then again it'll do the job, :).

It's All About See-ing the Light

This was from an experience that I've got while shooting for people going on vacations to Sydney. Surely, this was one of my most interesting assignments that I ever had. So basically, I had to tag along to places where these guys were visiting and try to create some decent pictures for them. There were several places that they've visited but Darling Harbour was the memorable one, at least for me. It was late in the afternoon where the sun was going down and the place was in the shade.
This in turn created several problems for taking a photograph:
Firstly, the pictures will be flat (meaning lacking in contrast and colors as well).
Secondly, it is not easy to take good photographs especially when you are at a location (tourist places)  where you are surrounded by lots of people  buzzing around (thinking of how to pose them, camera setting, compositions, trying to remove distracting elements from your picture, worrying that your gear could get stolen, etc2).

Don't go and snap Pictures Instead Create them

I'd like to share my experiences and thoughts that I have when taking a photograph. Alright let me start by discussing on what elements would make a good photograph? Well I think there are 3 important elements in creating a good photograph. The three elements are composition, lighting, and lastly capturing the moment (or setting the mood).