Monika's family pics

Last week I was asked if I could do a shoot for my friend Monika. She wanted to send an acrylic print to her mother from her new family, while her sister and brother-in-law were still about from their visit to the new baby. The shoot was very much off the cuff as it was done in short notice. I wanted the shoot to be very casual as well because it was dealing with baby photography. Again studio cost would had proved too costly and almost unnecessary. As Monika wanted the windmill at Lytham to also feature in one of the pics. The shoot was done away from the comfort and warmth of her home. If only I had remember that its still the worse time of year to be shooting outside. It was freezing and blustery outside right on the coastline. Just made concentrating on the job in hand harder. Before the shoot it came to my mind that Monika's sister and brother-in-law did not speck english. It made it almost impossible to help them relax into the shoot. However by the end of the shoot I began to really enjoy the time I was spending with everyone, as I knew I could relax as the job in hand had been done. Bellow are my favs from the shoot. 

Yashicmat prints back from printers

My yashicamat prints have arrived back from the printers. Fabulous results? Nope. But hey at least the camera works. The shoot also doubled as a bit of a test shoot with the camera. Not to say I haven't used 120 before. The best way to test out the camera was to be on a shoot. With this camera it appears that I may have to think differently when using it. Apparently im a digital natural, but this has not been the case when I use this classic camera. Nothing to beat my self up about though. So what went wrong? Firstly it appears that the yashicamat underexposes by about 1.5 stops when I have used my 60d exposure meter. Meaning it has resulted in the images being too dark. Secondly the square format is not as forgiving compositionally. Bearing that in mind I can not wait to raise to this challenge again regardless of the cost. All together the one roll to buy, get developed and printed, plus postage cost is about £19. Thats £19 for just 12 shots! No wonder I also shot with my 60d as insurance, just incase of the worse. I used Fujifilm Digital Imaging Service to get my film developed and printed. They even gave me a digital copy of the images on cd. Looking at the prints I felt that perhaps their printers favored darker finishes when compared to the scanned reults. Or maybe scanner software (mine included) corrects images to achieve the best possible results. At least now I know what I have to do to achieve what I want. Again I feel a shoot coming on! Bellow are the actual scans from the pints that I took using the yashicamat. 

1st shoot of the year

So I had my 1st shoot this year with katie Dobson. Always a pleasure never a chore to work with her. The shoot came about after another photographer kept letting her down for one reason or another. So I decided to offer to do it for her instead. I just couldn't handle someone struggling to get photos done in front of me and not get involve. With this shoot it was a chance for me to see how the yashicamat would fair up for me to use for future vintage shoots. I didn't just want for it to gather dust as I would know in my hart that I was not pushing my craft forward to where I want. The quality of my product is where I'm heading and 120 still holds it own when it come to high quality imagery.

Planing for the shoot did have its set backs as choosing location proved tricker than intended, due to the cold weather and lack of funds to produce the shoot. All good stuff though as its a great refresher and reminder of the importance to keep shooting. It brings back the addiction to keep shooting. When in uni it was almost a forced given to shoot, shoot, shoot. But outside its my desire to produce at a higher level that makes me hold off from just shooting for the sake of it. Professionally the work comes and goes, which I am happy with. Creatively??? Am not worried? I have felt a new project coming on for ages now and it will be done when its ready.

What surprised me about the shoot was that I worked myself up. I wouldn't say it was nerves or apprehension, but it was along those line. I just didn't get it. I was in the car traveling to the shoot feeling sick, contemplating finding something to use as a sick bag. I just was not feeling myself. Really bizarre. All because I had worked myself up, over thinking the shoot I reckon. I just got to get out and shoot more. But I love the feeling regardless anyways because its all to do with photography.

The location we used for the shoot was Salisbury hall. A really fantastic location that I wouldn't hesitate to use again. We had 1 hour to work with but for me I can create a whole shoot with in that time, no problem. I was using both the 60d and yashicamat as I wanted to have at least some digital pics as insurance and for instancy. I was using the 60D as an exposure meter as I wasn't going to rely on the exposure meter for the 1950's yashicamat. It likely needed calibrating and I just don't have the time for that just yet.

 It was so delightful working with the yashicmat. Its square frame just give a different perspective to an image and thing looked great through its focusing plate. I conducted the shoot be hand holding the camera at about 1/40 sec. Had I have not been so distracted by getting myself worked up I would have the good sense to just have used the tripod regardless. I only thought this after the shoot when reflecting on my performance. I still feel that I should be ok regardless but will rectify this when using the yashicamat again.

I am currently waiting on the results from the yashicamat images as the have been sent off for processing. In the mean time bellow are the digital images that I took on the shoot.

 

Ambition

With a new year comes new ambition. My latest is the most ambitious yet. While talking over what myself and a friend wanted to achieve in life. I brought up a life time ambition of leaving my mark on the world. Creating something to be remembered by. Something that others can look back on, something that could be studied from a hardback book for years to come. I want to be one of those greats who create something memorable. Photography is going to be my key to achieving this. I wished to create an image that can be seen from outer-space! Wow, exciting or what! Why the hell not think big? If you don't then you never achieve big.

So the question is what type of image do I produce to be seen from outer-space? I came up with a message of world peace as this would be most worth while doing. I want to create a large image of a hand peace sign gesture as I felt it also was a reflection of my own personality, as its something in which I do from time to time. Thinking about the whole idea made me so happy, even chuckling to myself about it. I absolutely would love to create this image and I will.

Although I would not like to give too much away just yet on how I am going to achieve this. I did have a look at existing images that can be viewed from space. There was a number of results that came up which can be seen from the link below.

rocket launch

Here are some pics from the daily mail that caught my eye recently. The pics are from Koreas successful rocket launch in ordered by Kim Jong il 2nd. The images caught my imagination as they are as the daily mail describes them, just like something out of a bond movie. The full story in attached to the link below, which includes a video of the Koreans celebrating the successful mission. It highlights the difference between themselves and the west as the celebrate in mass unison. 

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2247971/Kim-Jong-Un-North-Korean-leader-puffs-cigarette-oversees-rocket-launch-terrified-world.html

School reunion

It had been talked about on facebook for sometime and now was actually time to do it. My own 10 year school anniversary took place on saturday. I will be honest and say that I was not intending to go as I have left school and moved one. But my mate Adrian suggested that this would be a great way to network with people who are at the age where they would be getting married and starting up families. So how could I really turn an opportunity like that down. I meet up with some of my friend s who were also going before hand and there was a definite air of anticipation about us. I was thinking how was i going to tackle meeting people I haven't seen for years and trying to rekindle the same if not better friendships that once had been. I thought that so long as I had my camera it would be a great excuse to meet everyone and capture their portraits. Its what I like to do when meeting new people, just get stuck in and start socialising.

I did contemplate bussiness cards for the event but I thought that it would be the wrong way to approach this type of shoot. I would just upload them onto my facebook page and that way people would have direct contact to me when they need me. I felt that the event was making people more aware that I was a photographer rather than flogging off my services stright way. When I did get to the reunion it was immediately apparent  that everyone was friendly and happy to see who did attend the night. I had a great time chatting to everyone and I was glad that I decided to go. Among getting shots of everyone who was at the reunion I even managed to get a big group shot, which after popular demand was the pinnacle of the night photographically. I thought that had I not had been there doing my thing, the big group shot would not had taken place and the opportunity missed.

The new camera worked a treat and reinforced my diction to purchase it. I completely forgot that it even did video as well until I got back. I can see that this is going to be an fantastic partnership with me and the camera. Bring on the shoots!

Tuesday night football

I was asked by an old friend to get some shots of him and his footie mates playing last tuesday. They have been playing 5 a side for about 2 years but they do not have any pics. I though this would be an excellent chance to try out my new canon 60d. Thats right, I finally got my hands on it. My very own and I must say im loving the camera. Anyways the shoot was for about an hour or so and took place in some indoor playing courts. I took with me a broken telephoto which some how has come back to like when i use it with this new camera. I though as well as my other lens I could really do with a tele lens to zoom in on the action, much like the photographers at sport games do. A risky strategy that i was interested to see how it would work with this non pressured photo shoot. However while shooting it was not the lens which proved problematic, with was the lighting. It was that awful orange fluorescent flood lighting which is just the about the worse light to work with. The lighting also proved too dim photographically making my task of capturing images even harder, as low light and fact moving object never equal pin sharp images. 

Thinking back on what I could have done to achieve even greater results. I could have got my hands on a lens that had a higher sensitively ratio. But seeing as I don't own one and no money was being put towards to shoot to hire one this was not an option. Also I could have used a flash. This shoot just demonstrated its importance in photography. And although the new camera can work in low light situations the images are still at high risk of distortion and grain. Luckily in for this shoot I think the flash would have become more of a distraction to the players. With that said here are some of me favorite results.