2013 365-22

Some week of taking photos that was. The more I did, the more I got asked to do and I'm loving it. The slow morphing into a sports togger continues. I'm writing this on a very sunny Tuesday evening in Belfast. So sunny that I took myself off to Tesco and bought a nice little table and chairs for the back garden, and that's where I am right now.

27/05/13

I was on the road to Bangor on a mission of sorts and realised that I would pass Rihanna's tree. Everyone in Northern Ireland knows the story of how the farmer who owned this field came out and ordered Rihanna to cover herself up. The tree looks much more bleak in winter but it had decided to sprout some leaves. I juked into the field, took my t-shirt off and took a couple of photos. I didn't get shouted at by a fundamentalist farmer.

28/05/13

At the weekend I invested in a e-cigarette and began to try it out. It's not bad and (touch wood) I hadn't touched a real smoke for three days when I took this self-portrait. The glowing blue tip is a wee bit weird, but I'm going to give it a try and see how it works out.

29/05/13

I was doing the psychology thing today, and assessing a simply charming boy who had been home schooled. At the end of the assessment, he presented me with 6 free range eggs from his own chickens in the back yard of the family home. This was quite simply the best thing ever. The eggs are amazing.

30/05/13

BMX jump track at Mary Peters complex in Dunmurray. I've been asked to shoot a big BMX event (or Jam as the kids like to say) at the end of June and wanted to check it out beforehand. The new bike trails here are out of this world and the jump track is breathtaking. I ran across Shaggy who was working on the dirt jumps and John (pictured). This was taken with no lights and with the ISO ramped up. I think with my full lighting kit in place, this is going to produce some awesome shots. Roll on the 29th and 30th June and the Monster Jam.

31/05/13

I arrived home to a rather nice surprise today. I had entered this shot in the Belfast City Council photo competition many months ago and had frankly forgotten about it. Today I received a letter telling me that it had won first place in the buildings and art section and I have been invited to attend a prize ceremony in two week's time to pick up a (small) cheque. Chuffed to bits.

1/06/13

This weekend I managed to blag myself shooting privileges at T13 skate park for the Flatland Jam. Essentially, this involves riders doing tricks on the flat, or dancing on bikes as it was described to me. The organisers went out of the way to help me and allowed me to get on with what I wanted t do. I used a slightly modified version of my roller derby set-up with three lights set up, two to cross light the stage and one to provide a bit of fill light. Again, slow(ish) shutter speeds and low ISO produced some really punchy shots. My only gripe is that its hard to get a feel for the speed that these tricks were being performed at. 8 riders, all of whom were really talented and who approached the competition in very different ways.

2/06/13

This is the winner of the Flatland Jam, Aran. This guy and a spanish rider called Alex really set the place on fire, and produced a close-fought final, Aran took away a nice cheque and an all-expenses trip and entry into the world championships later this year.

2013 365-6

Week six it is then.

04/02/13

A pack of little skaters and skateboarders arrived today in the post. This was quick try at getting something with one of them, using a bit of black string and a fruit bowl. With the aperture set at 3.5  the background came out black and covered up the string from which the wee man was suspended. Lost detail in the oranges though.

05/02/13

Still cracking on with single light flash portraits. This is my daughter Ellen taken using an SB-700 flash unit fitted with a small softbox and was fired on high speed sync (auto FP on Nikon) with a shutter speed of 1/2000. Nice shot of Ellen - even she liked it and she's a hard audience to please. She was delighted that a lot of her friends saw it on Facebook and complimented her on it. Result all round.

06/02/13

I returned to Belmont Park this evening to try out one very long exposure shot of the wooden statues there. I was aiming for 20-30 minutes in order to get some star trails, but sadly there was too much cloud cover to pick these out . I did capture one star trail in the top right-hand corner but it really just looks out of place. The statues themselves came out pretty well on a 30 minute exposure although I noted some "hot pixels" when zoomed in. Probably why it's recommended to take a large number of shorter shots (i.e. 200-250 30" exposures) and combine them in the appropriate software in post production. We live and learn.

07/02/13

A long time ago, I ordered some business cards in an attempt to promote my photography. People always ask me if I have a card, website, etc. The cards were, frankly, rubbish and I never actually handed any of them out because I was a little embarrassed by them. This week I finally bit the bullet and sat down to do it properly and that meant researching print firms and thinking about the design of the cards. Moo Print seemed to come out on tops in terms of quality and service, so I went for them. I used one of their existing designs, modified it to suit me and uploaded five high quality jpegs. The cards arrived today (five day turnaround) beautifully packaged and presented. They look (and feel) really high quality, complete with a funky case than fans out to display your cards in all their glory. I love these and definitely won't be embarrassed to hand them out.

08/02/13

Half price Haribo sweets? I'll be having some of these. The fantasy mix seemed to be the most promising in photographic terms - big and colourful. This is my packet of sweets set on a sheet of perspex, suspended between two chairs in the kitchen with a flashgun placed directly underneath.  Colourful enough, almost in a stained-glass window way.

09/02/13

More single flash portrait practice this week. This time using a honeycomb grid to modify the flash and make the light more directional. No backdrop used here - the highly directional light wiped the background out (my cluttered living room) and there was very little post-processing needed with any of these shots.

10/02/13

Fresh meat session (i.e. newbies) with Belfast Roller Derby this afternoon. Always fun to see new people on skates and there was a big crowd turned up today. I was shuttling between the fresh meat session and the intermediates/advanced training. I think I'm now about 95% sorted in terms of using lights with roller derby. This rear view belongs to the fantastic Rosa "Sigourney Cleaver" Hughes.

2013 365-4

Winter still here. Flag protests still here. Thought one might cancel the other out but I was wrong.

21/01/13

Snow fails to affect the flag protests. Protesters and snow managed to bring Belfast to near total gridlock this evening. Glad I got home a wee bit earlier today and was sitting with feet up and a cuppa in my hands while chaos ensued outside.

22/01/13

I'd been thinking about doing something in Belmont Park with the three carved wooden statues, one of which is now on it's side. Thought I'd give the wire wool a bash and since there was still snow on the ground, I knew I wasn't going to set anything on fire. It was an eventful evening. As I was setting up, four people arrived in the dark with torches and started sprinting up and down the hill just to the right of where this shot was taken. After a brief chat which went along the lines of "are we going to be in your way mate?" - "No, but I'm about to set fire to stuff" I started shooting. Four burns into my evening's fun, I found myself surrounded by a bright light. Turned out it wasn't the rapture, but a police helicopter with a very bright searchlight. Seems burning wire wool in east Belfast while flag protests are happening about a mile away isn't that good an idea. I waved and shone my torch on the camera and tripod. God knows what they made of that.

23/01/13

My favourite little model again. Went to walk the dog and grabbed the camera bag on the way out the door. I ended up armed with my camera, a 10-24mm lens and a flashgun. Not the best lens for portrait stuff but it gave me an excuse to try using some fill-in flash while also trying to use the lovely winter afternoon sky as a backdrop.

24/01/13

Finally, after a few aborted efforts, I made it to the Queens Films Theatre to see McCullin, the documentary about Don McCullin (no surprise there then). McCullin's photos made a real impact on he in my early-mid teens and were one of the biggest reasons why I picked up a camera, film in those days, and started trying to learn photography. My admiration for Don McCullin's photography has never waned although after reading his autobiography I was left with the impression of a very cold, unemotional and damaged man. This film changed my mind about this and left me quite awestruck at the man's humanity and compassion. He was the most reckless, impulsive and irresponsible of photographers; I've still not figured this out completely but guess a lot of it came from his upbringing in a fairly tough part of London and the gangs he ran with as a teenager. Even his first shots of these gangs were masterful in their composition. I realise this could turn into an essay - that's a shot of my cinema ticket, a postcard courtesy of the QFT and the two photos featured in the film that left the biggest impact on me - both taken in Biafra and on adjoining pages of one of my books of McCullin's photographs.

25/01/13

"They were madly in love but friends knew that it would end in tears"

Those are shallots, not onions, in case you were getting worked up.

26/01/13

Mentioned on Facebook that I was having a dearth of ideas for the wee men. A suggestion flooded in. Get them doing a photoshoot. How I made the leap from "photoshoot" to "photoshoot involving woman removing her knickers" is anyone's guess. Suppose I'll have to bring that up with my therapist.

27/01/13

All day photoshoot at Asylum Gym in Newtownards today for a deadlift party organised by Dave (see last week's post). Great bunch of guys and a very competitive but supportive atmosphere with guys lifting personal bests. Picked this shot because of the effort in the face and the amount of bend on the bar - I couldn't do too many reps with just the bar, never mind with a bunch of weights on it. I'm slowly morphing into a photographer of obscure sports. And I'm enjoying it.