The newest member

I've always sworn I wouldn't do it... that is to subject people to photographs of my own child, but temptation is too great this time round. Now I've just got to hope that the photographer God-parents don't try to turn her into a Canonite :)

E

Tech: 1 drooling daughter and an old Nikon FE2

First Try

Hi there all

Emil - Thanks for the invite to join the F11 group and herewith after many photos with my first DSLR, something that I find "worthy". I just loved the colours and the unusual symmetry displayed by one of my favourite subjects found at Bots.

I still worry about the cropping any ideas

Please comment

Tech: D60 85 - 200 (95mm) 1/500sec @ F8 ISO100

Cheers

Brian

Tutorials page up

Hi everyone

I have just finished turning my old layers tutorial into a webpage. This can be accessed through my site by going to the tutorials page (www.limephoto.co.za/tutorials.html). I will endeavour to add more tutorial pages when I have the time to do write ups. Hopefully I'll be adding a tutorial on depth of field and understanding the 'circles of confusion', as well as a three parter on HDR imaging (three different manual techniques from the simple to the complex).

Please feel free if you want to post images for comment, or spread the word to other photographers about Group f11.

Cheers
E

Something very different for me - Fashion

Here's something completely different for me...and I guess for the blog as well. Please feel to crit as I'd like some guidance on these shots.

To set the scene, Pippa, a friend who has recently quit her job to follow a career as a fashion stylist, and I decided to try our hands at a full on fashion shoot last Saturday. Here are three of the results.

The silk wedding dress, with Jeanne, was shot by metering off the sky and then underexposing while an assistant held a flashgun camera right on a boom (translated as a monopod serving as a boom) while the second model, Christine, held a polystyrene sheet to angle more light back into the face.

The second shot of Jeanne with a ice-cream was shot with a telephoto on the camera and the same technique of underexposing the ambient. this time a second strobe was held by Pippa behind Jeanne to add a rim light to the hair and to accentuate her cheekbones. The primary light was just off camera right so that it was almost in line with her nose bone so as to almost get paramount lighting.

The last shot is a simple portrait of Bevan (Pippa's partner and a friend from Gtown) against the door in our garden. A large polystyrene sheet was laid on the ground to gently put light under the face in the half shade where I had him crouch for the photo.

Any comments will be greatly appreciated. This was something completely new for me and a little daunting. The final results are probably going to be entered into Finch online magazine in an attempt to get some exposure for Pippa and myself, not that I see myself becoming a fashion photographer :) Lawks!

E

Last month's theme - this was fun!

As I mentioned last month my aim for the freeze frame theme was to capture droplets of water in motion. I finally got round to it and was surprise at how easy it was. Essentially all it really requires is patience. Now that I've given it a go I'm certainly going to try a few more similar shots.

the 'coronet' was a result of dropping the water directly onto a sheet of glass. This was lit from below with the aid of a home-made softbox.

The second image was towards the end of the series and is probably a little more artistic. The faint tracing lines are a result of the softbox material...something that I'll try to improve on in future.

Then finally, in the opposite extreme...slowing things down somewhat is an HDR image from the Drakensberg taken at the beginning of this month.

Cheers
E