This shoot was a lot of fun, though the timing was pretty tight. We got to kick everyone out of the gym, but it was only for about an hour and we did seven shots in that space of time. It would have been fun to try a few different lighting setups on this shot alone, maybe with some bare strobes, but playing it safe doesn’t seem to have worked too badly.

This was shot with two umbrellad flashes, either side of the subject. And while I don’t want you to look too hard for touch up errors, the wall behind the subject was actually one big mirror, which meant that me, my lighting and the entire gym, including onlookers (talent from the other shots), were reflected in the shot. So the floor, blue skirting, ceiling, equipment and subject remain, the rest had to be replaced and the new wall blended in to match the lighting and shadows in the rest of the shot.

Still shooting students, which is fine with me.

Cristina graduated from a fashion course last year and she’s in this shot with some of her designs.

The room is actually full of sewing machines, you can just make out one on the desk behind her, but I cropped pretty tightly on this one, so you do lose that. The other feature of the room though, is the floral pattern behind her, which breaks up the mostly red brick decor.

As for lighting, I had stopped down far enough to remove most of the ambient but there were fluros everywhere, and in some of the long, portrait shots I was getting some of them in frame, which was unsightly, so the lights had to go off. The only problem was that the lights were controlled by motion sensor, so when we turned them off, as soon as anyone moved, they’d come on again. So we had an assistant doing full-time duty at the light switch.

I originally had the key light, a shoot-through brolly, to camera left with a second flash (diffused and snooted) at far camera right as a kicker to pick up the dress on the right and fill in some shadow on that side of her face. I had the key flash (580EXII) at about 1/8. The other flash is an old thyristor (I picked it up for $20 when I got my Holga) that doesn’t really have a manual setting, hence it was diffused with some translucent white material. I then control the amount of light by moving it closer, or further away, depending on what I want. Often though, it means that I’m balancing the key to come up to this one, as I can’t realistically get it below what would probably be 1/4 power on a “proper” flash.

But then, with the lights off, I noticed that there was a really subtle, yet quite attractive rim light occuring naturally from the window, which is exposed to outdoors but through tinted glass, so I rearranged things so the key was to camera right, I opened up to f2.8 at 400ISO and set the flash to 1/32. I then had the second flash behind a screen (so it didn’t hit the subject directly) but pointing straight up to the white ceiling, for a bit of bounced fill.

No one likes to post images they’re not 100% happy with. This is a case of me being happy enough with how this turned out under the circumstances.

I was lighting this one with two off-camera flashes. I had a main flash on a lead, camera right and a secondary flash to the left and behind the subject.

I had a few minutes to figure out exposure levels but really had only ten minutes to get in and out. This was a bakery classroom and there were students coming and going, retrieving their baked goods from the ovens here. So I was under some pressure. And it was hot in there.

I took a test shot, sans flash, to figure out where I wanted my ambient, and planned to go full ETTL with both flashes.

Things didn’t go to plan though, and what I thought was a technical malfunction turned out to be a missed setting that I didn’t know existed, which made the slave fire but not the master.

And I’m usually the guy yelling “READ THE MANUAL” the loudest.

I upped my ambient a bit but was was cautious of some very reflective surfaces and the very yellow walls, which, combined with the flouro lights that could cause some very serious colour problems.

He wasn’t the smiliest chap either, so under the circs, I’m satisfied with the result.

You’re always your own worst critic though, so here, just look at the photo while I revise my flash manual.

I’m fairly happy with the result. I used two flashes but was only able to get one of them off the camera. The light from left of shot is good and I was just trying to fill the other side of his face with the camera-mounted flash. I think I should have pumped up the power another stop though as I had to do a bit of work to bring up the skin tones and get the eyes right.

He’s actually perched on a low cabinet. He naturally assumed this stance and it seemed immediately obvious that this was better than having him sit: he’s a dancer so this displayed some of his flexibility.

I am now back in the education sector and, while my job is web focused, I have been able to sneak the camera into work and do the odd shot for publication.

These will be inside-front and -back cover shots in an upcoming guide.

He was recently on a publicity tour for his latest film Easy Virtue and I had the chance to interview him and review the film.

Film review: Easy Virtue

The article was a little rushed in writing. Also, during the actual interview the battery on my minidisc player ran out, so I missed our last few minutes together. So this article might have been better if I’d had more time and more battery power.

Feature: The fearless Stephan Elliott

I took the photo that goes with the article, also.

Watching the same acts week after week gave me a few insights into how it works; how it’s not all about writing a joke on a piece of paper, then telling that joke to an audience. There is so much tied up with how a comedian engages with the audience, the character they play and how they train the audience to tune into the rhythm of their delivery; some comedians train their audiences so well they’ll laugh no matter what the punchline is.

I think comedy should be funny. It should all boil down to an idea that is funny on paper. How a comedian uses his/her other tools: delivery, character, tone, interaction help shape how succesful an act will be (some comedians even get by with these parts of the act, while not having the funny-on-paper ingredients).

A comedy review shouldn’t be about repeating the funny gags. Because most of the time they won’t be funny in print without the live ingredients to embellish them.

That said, here’s a couple I wrote:

Lehmo: Taxing Lyrical. Adelaide Fringe 2009

Mark Trenwith: Express. Adelaide Fringe 2009

These aren’t really work-related shots but I’ve been having fun taking photos with my Holga (a very lo-fi toy camera: the body is plastic, the lens is plastic, you have tape it up to hold the back on, it leaks light all over the place and the shots are dreamy and delicious).

This small collection is from a few films taken over the last six months.

Obviously, I didn’t shoot all the video, particularly the bits I’m in. These were a team effort, with much credit due to Shane McCarthy from the Uni. However, I did have a big hand in the writing, production and editing of these four little gems. You can see (hopefully) how they improved over the years.