Sigh…another year without my daffodil shot

So I have this problem. every spring the daffodils come out and I have to try and get one of my daughters to stand still in some daffodils at exactly 6:30 in the evening when it isn’t raining (for the best light). once again, i got my oldest to the daffodils to find 1) they were dying and 2) a huge raincloud was over them and I had twenty seconds before it started raining. Pants. I got one picture, good enough for a family snapshot.

The hat was 60p at sainsbury’s. I thought it would make a useful prop in the future.

Daylight at last!

i know, it has been a long time but I got bored of posting white screen shots. also I have done a wedding and i can’t post any of those until the happy couple have seen them!

I’m visiting my parents for Easter, so I have some time to photograph the girls. unfortunately they both have colds, so bags under the eyes and plenty of snot flowing continuously. 

my oldest stood still for about 30 seconds today, so here is what I got.

I shall have to try the same shots tomorrow and get a really good one without snot and maybe a natural smile. also i have to get daffodil shots before they all die!

more from december…

same shoot, but more colour. and some fun facial expressions from Eliza.

these just don’t look as cool when they are full-body shots, i don’t know why. maybe because it instantly reminds me of uncreative mass-produced studio shots. close crop is much better. and means you don’t have to tote a bigger backdrop around with you, and worry about lighting the floor AND the background.

in hindsight a more fitted jumper would have been preferable…but she’s so cute she gets away with it.

and the last one, with some nice bright orange. notice in the middle of her chest the phantom blue flare appears once again.

and just so you know what the setup looks like, here is a wider original shot. there are two flash heads aimed at the background, one either side, one high one low. then there is the light on the subject at my right shoulder. I like my background clamp, it serves me well.

More from the last month

Yep, the ubiquitous studio shot…can’t wait for some natural light photography in the spring. Still, I like the results I’m getting with the studio equipment. these were taken in the client’s living room with my portable equipment. the first confirms that smiling at the camera doesn’t always give the best result. a natural response to the camera is preferable to a contrived one.

In hindsight the flesh tones on this next one are a bit cold, particularly on him.

Different family, same equipment. I am, of course, only blogging a small selection. first a subject with glasses.

first off, a nice one. i had him turn his chin to his right until the reflection from the modelling lights disappeared from his glasses. 

lots of the pictures of him have annoying reflections in his glasses. really hard (well, impossible) to get rid of in photoshop. got the chin angle right in the next one though. note how bright his extended hand is. it got too close to the flash and I had to do some recovery on it. the chunk knit jumper has great contrast for photography i think.

and now the really bad glasses issues:

alas, his deeply contemplative look is wasted. not just by the reflection in the glasses, but my old nemesis the blue patch is back. you can see it on the middle of his chest. still don’t know how this is happening, but it only happens when i use my 50mm lens. I managed to burn it out on the next one though.

jojo. note to self, dark blue dress doesn’t work so well (although do-able).

 

more later, its getting late! lesson for this blog? I bought a polarizing filter to get rid of reflections in glasses, and a lens hood for the 50mm lens to try and get rid of evil blue patch. Oh, and dark colours in these studio shots are only good if there is an interesting pattern on the clothes to add contrast.

the last month of pictures…

It has been a whole month…I’ve not been slacking, just been busy been taking pictures, submitting academic papers to further my goal of becoming ‘dr mark’ and securing a contract with a large multinational as a business efficiency expert, responsible for saving £10,000,000 in four years. Who’d have thought that one day I would summarise a month of my life in such a way?

anyway, I have had several opportunities to further develop the white screen look in the last month which is just as well because in Scotland in winter there isn’t much daylight for natural light photography.

I know, Rob Alice & Sophie are regular victims of my itchy shutter finger. In developing a studio style that is better than the usual rather flat, mass produced kind you get on the cheap anywhere in Scotland I’ve found that having only one relatively narrow lightsource (softbox) on the subject(s) gives a much cooler look to the portrait, lending added contrast to the subject. look at their trousers and you can tell where I have positioned the flash by the contrast/low lit areas.

I think it adds more depth to the shot, and makes it look more like a catalogue image or an advertising poster than the usual local studio product. Fyi, I burned the nike symbol on the ball a bit as it was a bit faded. this makes it look sharper, and newer.

the flash with softbox attached is just at my right shoulder as i take the picture. That means it is not quite pointed straight at the subject, but coming across at a slight angle so that I’m not just hitting the front of the subject with a frontal blanket of light, but creating just the right amount of shadow on the unlit side to create the necessary contrast. in this shot it is most obvious on the front of his jeans. if the flash were to far to the side there would be greater shadow on the unlit side, and both his eyes wouldn’t be lit.

Same setup with young Eli here, but his dad sat him on a white table which, it turned out, had a reflective surface. I liked this effect but the table was too small to give a full reflection so I had to add some more and get rid of the edges of the table. I also added shadow where boy meets table which, in hindsight was too much and should have been more subtle. it’s the first time i’ve tried adding reflection and shadow at the same time so i won’t beat myself up too badly..

and then there’s the fun shot where someone gets to really say something about themself in the shot. I may have enhanced his frown a little bit here to make him look 10% more fierce…

 

More later, I took a lot this month but it’s getting late.

And this one’s mine…

messing about with a new piece of flash equipment in the spare bedroom. Hannah made her thoughts clear…

I got a remote trigger for my SB600 flash so I can now mount it on a stand and attach any number of softboxes or umbrellas to it and use it as a remote flash. This picture has the the SB600 on the right hand side of the face (MY right) with a diffuser. Then I have one of my studio flashes (more powerful) in slave mode (it flashes when it sees another flash) with a softbox attachment on the left hand side of the face. This is the flash providing the major catchlights in her eyes.

Hannah is sat on Miranda’s shoulders so that she sits upright (miranda’s head stops her slumping forward), bringing her chin up so that she doesn’t present a double chin to the camera. The eyes really are that blue, I didn’t do ANYTHING to them!

Newborn: Amber

Between 1 and 2 weeks old – the best time for newborn pictures, the bruises and squidges of birth are healed but they’re no bigger yet!

Willow…

Here is a picture of Willow taken today in Kirkaldy. Nice Autumnal colours.

 

white screen shoot…

I did a fun white screen shoot for some friends on saturday. Here are some of the results!

 

http://markkellyphotography.com/5th_november/publish_to_web/index.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

BACK ON THE PHOTOBLOG AT LAST!

It has been over a month, busy decorating baby’s room, fixing things on the long list of things that need fixing, and preparing for winter!

wanted to do a white screen shoot with Hope this evening, but she was too tired to really co-operate, so I can only post the test-shots (the ones I took while getting my flash equipment set up correctly). I still had fun anyway, and I’ve left the equipment set up in her room ready to try again tomorrow (and maybe entrap some friends into posing too in exchange for free Facebook profile pictures)

First picture then, no significant alterations, just the two that always need doing with a Nikon SLR – a slight curve to give a smidge of contrast, and a sharpen. (note the white screen is white on the right, but not on the left!)

Yep, the screen was better on this one. i had about 30 seconds before she felt the need to hug bears and suck her thumb again…

So I decided to just play with making the colours richer on these, although her hat is a bit TOO Red-rich.

and…bored of the hat now!

How i’d love to switch that watering can for a chainsaw…that’d be cool, with the facial expression and the pose… I tried a different colour curve on this to mess with the feel of it.