365/12 - Day 14

I've had some very positive feedback about this photo, one person even thought it should be an advert for lady's shoes, its also a good contender for my favourite in this series. For those of you wondering, those are Tory's legs - not mine!

For the record this was one of those photos where I had a pretty good idea what I wanted to shoot and what it should look like, I'm very pleased it came out like this.

"This is photography, nobody has to die"

This weekend I was lucky enough to hop over to Boston to catch The Flash Bus. Boston is a beautiful city so I spent a few days looking around there too.

David "The Strobist" Hobby

David Hobby and Joe McNally were both excellent, keeping a room full of a few hundred photogs happy can't be an easy thing. Their deep understanding of their trade and ability to translate their experiences provided a wealth of information and practical application tips to a wide audience from high school age to full time professional photographers.

Joe "TTL" McNally

Although David and Joe approach lighting from different angles (no pun intended) you can see a consistency between them too, they both use different techniques but with the same ethos. What I mean is although Joe uses the TTL approach whilst David prefers manual, they both work in a relative space, less bothered about the exact values of light they are using and more focused(npi) on the balance of that light.

I can't begin to tell you how much I have learnt on just this one day but it was immense. I have lots of things to go and try now and put into practice. Both Joe and David are clearly superb photogs but are both very down to earth and humble. They both have an experimental view of their work and are willing to push the boundaries and try new things, as David said "This is photography, nobody has to die".

365/12 - Day 13

A new challenge for me for Day 13, not just taking a photo of a lit candle but balancing it with other items in the shot. If you don't think that sounds very hard try it! you soon realise that those candles only look so good because the light is coming out of them, a bit of light on the outside and all you get is what looks like a white lump of wax. I really wanted to keep the feeling of this only being lit by candles, i.e. when you look at it I don't want you to notice the flash.

365/12 - Day 12 - I have to say I love you in a song

"When I first met you I forgot to breath, 

I recognised your eyes, 

you're the girl from my dreams"

- Girl from my dreams by David O'Sullivan

I was singing one of my songs when I had an inspiration for that days photo. A shot of me playing the song.

365/12 - Day 11 - Growing up is optional

When trying to come up with a different photo every day, you can come up with some crazy crazy ideas. I liked the idea of a jumping/airborne shot, just think about that for a minute, actually try and make a picture in your mind of what you might look like flying through the air in some way, then try and work out how you'd get yourself there, suddenly the worry of how to light the photo isn't such a problem!

365/12 - Day 10 - Music will save the world

Another out-of-the-ordinary photo, sometimes you just have to go with what you've got! This is from a live gig, so the lighting is also "live". I had the 580exII onboard, but on this shot its off. So this really is available light, albeit stage lighting.

Straying away from my normal self obsessed photos, this is from the last ever gig of "Vent" with their Guitarist Richard Ashworth taking the lime light here. Sometimes you need to put the flashes down and just enjoy yourself, it was a brilliant evening with good music and good friends.