My Community: The Cody Flyer

As part of the Strobist Bootcamp III, I had to photograph a local object of significant importance to the area. I went down to my local air museum - Farnborough Air Sciences Trust (FAST).

Despite living in Farnborough for the last 30 years - I'd never been to FAST before. They have a wide range of memorabilia "From Cody to Concorde". Since the first flight in 1908 Farnborough grew to become a vital aviation town, its very survival owed to these historic facts.

365/12 - Day 23 - Light refreshments

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I was given this bottle of Gold Cuvee, sparkling white wine with edible gold flakes, as a leaving present from a project with Royal Mail that I had been working on. The neat thing about this wine is that the 22 carat gold flakes float in the wine and take a good minute or so to settle.... You will see why that's useful in a second. Clearly the interesting thing for me, apart from the emotional sentiment, in all these photos was the lighting. I was modelling and creating a version of reality, shaping the world around with some very simple lighting techniques.

Where as this is still not "true reality", as the flash and umbrella have been placed there, this IS possible in terms of physics, this is not an imaginary PhotoShop world. Having said that I'm also not reporting the real world, I'm creating/visualising an idea or picture in my head in the real world. I'm Telling a story.

Before you read further, see if you can work out where the lights are.

365/12 - Day 21 - When shall we three meet again?

 Trying to be creative, I wanted a single image that I appeared in several time. I set the exposure time 30 seconds and grabbed a torch!

With the camera on a tripod and the torch resting on a light stand I set the shutter release off with a remote. To get the "Triple exposure" in one take I held the same pose whilst counting 9 seconds then covered the torch with my hand, moved to my new position and uncovered it again. I repeated this once more so that in the final shot I would have three images of myself. The light stand meant that I could hold the torch in place and move around it.

There are no flash lights used.

365/12 - Day 20 - Snoopy

This is one of the simplest "lighting" set-ups and at the same time one of the hardest images to create. This is quite simply a 30 second exposure of darkness.
In that darkness I "drew" in the air with a small bulb torch. What did I draw? well at the time I had no idea but this is what the shot came out as.
I'll leave you with that simple thought and a challenge - If you have a dSLR camera... go and find a torch, think of a simple image (Snoopy is not simple!) and try this. Seriously, go, try it...

My Community: Adam

My Community: Adam

As part of Strobist Boot Camp III I have put together the following mini-portfolio of images based on a new theme for my blog "My Community".

The assignment this week was to capture a close portrait of a member of my local community in a way that conveyed a meaning and purpose.

Adam Catling is a NHS Emergency Support Care Worker and also helps with the Farnborough volunteer first responders. The team work shifts and depending on the number of calls, may not know when or where their next meal or cuppa is coming from. The volunteer responders attend 999 emergency calls in their local area to give vital first aid response including emergency resuscitation until the ambulance crew arrives.