Found: Invisible Man photograph.

Going through a box of old photos that I found... and happened to come across this interesting one, the back has a signature something like "H.G.Wells"... I think that what other people considered to be a work of fiction, was more of a biography!

It was book week last week, so given that Zak has been doing a lot of classic science fiction lately, he decided on the invisible man.  This was the result.


Photogeeking:  4 exposures.  2 flashes.  One giving light to the room, the other lighting from the stove.  One exposure for the background, one for Zak, one for the saucepan (with the handle) and a last, unlit one for the flame of the gas burner... put together in photoshop with a Nik plugin to make it look like a wetplate camera.

Lake Tepako

There are  couple of nasty spots on my camera sensor that I will need to clean up when I work on the photos....

Laser Skirmish

A fun afternoon out in the bush playing laser Skirmish.
As you can tell from our Cammo gear - we all took it very seriously!

The Doctor

Near where we live there is (believe it or not) a Tardis!
The people who own it were kind enough to let us take a few photos with it this afternoon....

For a huge Doctor Who fan, this was a huge thing!

Photo Geeking:

Bright sunlight in the background.. still just before setting.  2 flashes, one held by my very own voice activated light stand, the other on the ground to the left of the shots.  Shutter speed high to darken the background.

The shot straight out of the camera is below... along with one showing a little more like what the scene looked like in real life... (along with the voice activated light stand!)

Shot in China

Blythe and Russell, shot while shooting in China.
The whole pool hall was stinking hot... people taking turns standing in front of the struggling airconditioner.

I did not see Fast Eddie the pool shark, anywhere!

Chinese BBQ

We set up a makeshift BBQ in the street over the weekend... all went very well... and very tasty.

One particular gentleman decided he wanted to stop and watch - which he did for a long time.  It was certainly long enough for me to walk up to him and take a photo anyway!

The setup is shown below... well.  missing me and with the camera in one hand and the flash in the other right up close to him!

Xan and the Storm

Incoming storm when I was home.  Taken between Christmas and New Year.

Windows to the soul

Filed under:  things you do when you are bored in your hotel room with 2 flashes, a camera and photoshop.

Yesterday's morning activities...

Here in Miluo,
out the back of my hotel...
after spending some time ferretting around randomly with my camera and flash...  I worked up the courage to ask the guy I wanted to photograph if I could shoot him while he was working....

He had no problems with it.... and this was the result.  He was shovelling coal from a big pile outside to a smaller pile inside and then from that pile into the boiler that was giving me hot water in my hotel - so I definitely appreciated his efforts!

...and sometimes you cannot get it right...

The boys had a sick day yesterday... and I was not sure if I was well or not... so I used it as an excuse to take a couple of photos at training instead of doing any real work.

So I wander in with three quarters of a metric tonne of gear (two flashes, a couple of flash stands - even an umbrella) and set up to take some photos of one of the black belts while he trains for his second dan grading....

Yeah...

did not work so well.

The question now is... after such and incredibly spectacular failure... will I be brave enough to ask people if I can do it again?

My hands

Couple of photos from this week.
One - playing with a couple of flashes and a punching bag (and Xander - whose timing was impeccable on these shots!) 

Some of the outtakes from the bag punching shots will never see the light of day.... lets just say that skin is not meant to be seen at highspeed under impact.


Photogeeking: punching the bag.  A flash well behind the bag as a rim light (also gets my face), another at the bottom of the back pointing up where my arm will hit....  then I dipped my hand in some flour to get the dust.

Second one - flash on the table raking across my hands to get all sorts of texture, and a much less powerful one above spotlighting down on it...

I nearly died this morning....

Driving down the highway, just like any other morning.....
I was faced with a situation that every driver fears, but few have had to face....

Somehow I managed to get through it... I lived to blog this... someone up there must care about me...

There, in my lane...
sitting pretty... like an evil, car crashing, yellow flower of death ...

was a BANANA skin.
I have a copy of a photo of an actual re-enactment of a simulation of the banana (not his real name).

Turns out some maniac tradesman had been throwing them out of his car screaming something in Italian..


(the real story - as I was driving to work today, I drove over banana skin... I thought it was funny....)

Stop

Sometime what is said is different to what is meant...
Sometimes you need to understand the sign rather than hear the word.
Of course it is possible that...
You sometimes get it wrong.

you can love your iPod (or Android...)

but it doesn't keep you warm.......

Have I mentioned how cold it is?

Down here in the real South... it is cold....
                a few days it has been very cold.

So, no photos of beach volley ball games as the sun goes down or wandering around wearing very little, ready for a swim....

In fact even pouring boiling water for a cup of tea or coffee is hard.....

Niece's Formal.

We all went up to Rocky to visit Ruth's brother's family, and to take photos for our niece's formal.
All went well I think.

Here is one of the heavily processed photos of the event....

I think many of the shots turned out well - but I had good material to work with!


Photogeeking:  D7000, 85mm 1.8 lens, flash being shot through an umbrella, from camera left.  Everything on manual.  Slightly underexposed result that was then played with in photoshop at different exposure settings (from the raw file)...  highlights accentuated by letting the over exposed version show through the under exposed version in different layers of the same shot.

More Portraits...

Ruth's brother and his "not quite finished" car restoration...

Our Niece

Photogeek stuff:

Top photo - really wide angle lens, one flash coming from camera left, nearly level with me and aiming through the back window of the car, another one above and to the right pointing straight at Paul from outside the car.

Bottom photo:  Ruth is standing at the fence with a flash on a radio trigger.  As Rhi rides past i am shooting with a fairly long lens from 20m or so away.  The camera is in manual mode on its max speed for a flash (without doing tricky stuff) to try to get the sky fairly moody, and I adjusted the aperture to get the exposure right in combination with the flash.

Portraits..

Mum, making a quilt....

Dad,
making dinner....

Healz,

not sure what he is making!

Photogeeking:
Mum, afternoon sunlight, X held a reflector for me to bring the light onto her face a little more, the quilt she was working on hanging in the background...
Dad - in the kitchen, very wide lens, one flash with a warming gel on it off to camera right, a high flash lighting the kitchen gear set off with the radio trigger things...
Healz, one flash with the warming in front of the screen, another flash with some paper over it to be able to see some of the back of the screen.  Flash is very close to him, meaning he is a good exposure, and the background is dark.

my boys... but nice looking...

these pictures look just like Xander and Zak... but these boys looks sweet.....

Geek info: 2 flashes... 1 behind the boys facing the cream wall to blow it out.. the other in a stand off to the side and front a little...  tiny tiny but of playing in photoshop and out pop the results...

others from the TPS photoshoot....