A truly fun event…

Had a fun afternoon yesterday covering the Nokia 5k Fun Run in London and all for a good cause too. All the images are available on ovi.com, here: http://share.ovi.com/album/Nokia5k2009.UKLondon5K2009. All mine are tagged with QTPortraits.

091028 Nokia Fun Run-1133Needless to say, I jumped at the chance when asked to take part (on the condition that I didn’t actually have to run anywhere :-)) seeing this as a fantastic opportunity of gaining that all too precious commodity: experience. In hindsight it also proves that Marc Gamble‘s podcast about the Education Spectrum although this could be argued an accident rather than by design.

This was my first attempt at event photography and a real eye opener too. It was also a good excuse to practice some of the techniques that we covered on the Wedding Seminar a couple of weeks ago, both at capture time and in post. I find it quite odd, although hardly surprising, that two distinctly different genres such as Events and Weddings share so much in common.

So what did I learn from the afternoon? Continue reading A truly fun event… »

Wedding Seminar, Day 2

IMG_4046Day 2 has been even better than day 1 was yesterday. Great shoot this afternoon with two fantastic models and a bounty of amazing images too. Can’t complain.

We were shooting at Hebdon House which is a really spectacular venue. Apart from the last few that were taken outside, all the shots were taken inside in some really lovely, soft, natural daylight. One thing I have definitely learned over the last two days is simply that it is possible to work in low light without resorting to pulling the flash or studio lights out of the kit bag. That said, we were fortunate to have a sunny day with blue skies. Had it been raining outside it would have been a whole different story. Even shooting wide open at f2.8 at a high ISO may not be enough to cut it. That is definitely one to try on another day. Continue reading Wedding Seminar, Day 2 »

Miracles in no light

IMG_3929Going for bragging rights here. Sorry but I simply couldn’t resist it. Bagged this shot earlier today. It was a dark wooden door, underneath a staircase, in a dimly lit room. I’ve cropped it and rendered it down, but the original is pin sharp.

The image itself was taken on my 5DmkII with the EF 70-200 f2.8L IS lens. ISO 6400, f2.8 @ 1/15th, handheld. Yes, really. Surprised even myself with this one.

There was a bit of luminence noise in the RAW file, but Lightroom has done a reasonable job of removing it.

Have fun,
Gavin

Wedding Seminar, Day 1

IMG_3882Yesterday was an amazing and eye opening day. It really challenged my photographic knowledge, skills and pre-conceptions. The biggest thing for me was linking everything I’d learnt before together and more importantly, when to ignore that knowledge and to have the confidence and conviction to try something out, solve the puzzle and make it work. In hindsight a lot of the technique is blindingly obvious which probably makes it significantly harder to realise.

Continue reading Wedding Seminar, Day 1 »

How to fix a broken brolly

I’m sure I’m not alone in having a gust o fwind blow over a light stand and snap a brolly pole. No, I thought not. I think it’s a natural part of the learning process, the lesson being taught is that of adding ballast (aka camera bag) to the stand to prevent it.

But, what of the brolly? Is it now confined to the bin? Absolutely not.

When this happened to me the other day, I thought “bother, now what am I going to do?” I needed it for a model shoot the following day, and there was no time to go out and replace it.

Continue reading How to fix a broken brolly »