365/12 - Day 15 - The world's a bubble

Day 15

This is a bizarre addition to the project. Circumstances directed this one as I'd done some photos of Tory for her boyfriend's Birthday. This naturally led into an idea for my daily photo for Ali. So how did I do this? Well this time its pretty simple, there are two lights here one in an umbrella (not the one I'm holding!) camera left giving fill not key light. The key light is where the fill should be, snooted and firing straight into the middle of the frame - you can see the effect of this much better in the second shot. The reason for this was that the umbrella I'm holding limited lighting options.

When you help others you can't help helping yourself

The Old Boys - 2011

I've just finished my first week at a new client which has actually been extremely good, I've been working from home today and so currently sitting in my garden with the lawn mower working hard behind me (its a robot). Initially I wanted to write this post at the beginning of the week, but I was shattered had lots to do and decided it would be better to reflect on my previous week first.

I've just returned from a week in Lourdes with HCPT - The Pilgrimage Trust and am feeling quite alone as I have not had the privilege this week of having dinner with at least twelve other people. Thanks Old Boys for another brilliant week.

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!