Tag: 5DmkII

The Lady and the Tramp

 Gavin   Behind the scenes, Digital Darkroom, Fashion, Photoshoot, Photoshop, Techniques, Tips, Workflow
Lady and the Tramp
Lady and the Tramp

The Lady and the Tramp was a really fun project to do. I can’t claim credit for the idea though, that must go to the lovely Leanna, the model in this image. The brief was to shoot two images, one with her dressed as a Lady and the other with her as a Tramp, then merge the two together in PhotoShop.

With a little thought, preparation and patience it’s actually very easy to achieve although we weren’t without our difficulties on the day. Most of them environmental funnily enough. Continue reading The Lady and the Tramp »

Another Shot in the Dark…

 Gavin   Black and White, Fashion, Low Light, Strobist, Techniques
Night life
Night life

I don’t often quote the parameters for my images but I will in this case: ISO6400, 0.5s@f11, handheld. That’s probably about the limit of what I can reasonably achieve wiht the 5DmkII. Nevertheless the image was very noisey and won’t reproduce at much over 12″x8″

So, what was I thinking when I set this shot up? Continue reading Another Shot in the Dark… »

A Shot in the Dark…

 Gavin   Fashion, Low Light, Strobist, Techniques
A Shot in the Dark
A Shot in the Dark

I love working in low light conditions but the shoot I did a few days ago over at Greenwich really stretched me and my equipment to the limit. This wasn’t just low light, for the most part we had no light. If that wasn’t challenging enough, add the beautiful Dilsa wearing a black dress and black hat and you guessed it we have a serious issue to contend with.

Continue reading A Shot in the Dark… »

Behind the scenes – Light Trails

 Gavin   Behind the scenes, Low Light, Strobist, Techniques, Tips
Behind the Scenes: Twilight Light Trails
Behind the Scenes: Twilight Light Trails
Twilight Light-Trails

Light Trails — Creating cool effects with flash and camera movement

Now I’ve found a good lighting diagram tool on the web, http://lightingdiagrams.com, I’m planning to write a series of posts that describe how I made an image and in particular how I lit it.

This article is the first such post and I’m going to start off really, really simple with the light-trail image I made on one of my twilight fashion shoots earlier in the year.

This is just about as simple as it gets when starting to add flash to light an image and the whole this was made from a single exposure, a single flashgun mounted on a light stand and a radio trigger. I did add a little spice though in the way that I created the background effect but I’ll explain how I achieved it and also why it works below. Continue reading Behind the scenes – Light Trails »

Creative Vision…

 Gavin   Strobist, Tips
Lanyon Quoit

Last weekend I followed David duChémin’s seminar on creative vision over at Creative Live. It was a fantastic session and really got me to thinking about the way I create my images. On reflection I have been doing exactly what David was encouraging albeit unaware. Case in point would be my recent visit to Lanyon Quoit just outside Penzance.

I went there at probably the worst time of the day. There was hardly a cloud in the sky. The light was very bright and very hard. The scene was one of extreme contrast with hot, bright highlights and dark, black shadows. Even the 14 bits of colour depth of the 5D mk II were going to struggle to capture that amount of dynamic range.

The image below will give you an idea of just how bad the light was. In hindsight I could have tried making an HDR image but that thought never crossed my mind. Besides I’d neglected to bring my tripod.

Original scene

So, how did I get from the original scene to the image I’ve shoen at the top of this post? Continue reading Creative Vision… »