That Olympic spirit...

That Olympic spirit that gripped the nation also gripped my boys, we had a day of hurdles, running, cycling. Followed by a night of sleeping very well, always a plus when you have kids. Here's a few pictures of the event.

Right that's the silliness over, now I'm back to my nose to the grind stone, it's marketing time... Again.

So what's going on...

I've been invoicing this week, for May and June, got a bit busy and something had to give, invoicing had to wait. Still all done and dusted now. 

I've had time this week because I had surgery on Monday, I've been deaf in my right ear since I was two years old, a nasty virus ate away most of my inner ear. In November I decided to get my good working left ear tested, a trip to the Doctors and the request was dispatched to the local hospital. January, on my birthday ironically I went to hospital to get it tested, just thought I'd be having a test, nothing more. After sitting with a pair of cans on my ears for ten minutes I was ushered back into the waiting room and told to wait to see the consultant, a short wait and I was in his office and he was looking in my ears. Then he uttered 'So what would you like us to do about your right ear?' I laughed, for a good thirty years I've been told numerous times that there was nothing that could be done to bring back my hearing. He smiled and then told me the options, one of those options has been available for over twenty years, it's never been offer to me because most general practitioners have no idea it exists. He said it involves some surgery, I was fine with that, he said it wouldn't give me 100% hearing in my right ear, I was fine with that. So after some tests and an MRI scan it was all systems go, surgery went well, under local anaesthetic, having someone drilling into your skull whilst you're wide awake is a little surreal, then an abutment/bolt was screwed into my skull behind my ear. In about four to six weeks time, once I'm all healed up, I get a Cochlear Baha, a very small device that will clip onto the abutment and I will hear again in my right ear. You have no idea how wonderful that is going to feel, or how strange, I can't wait.

Sometimes you just need one bit of luck to come your way, I could have forgotten about getting myself tested, I'd have no idea that my hearing could have been given back to me, I could be walking around for another 30 years with no idea. Sometimes you have to set the ball rolling.

I met a guy a few weeks ago, he's in his seventies, he has some amazing vintage motorbikes, we chatted for awhile and I asked if I could photograph the bikes, he was very enthusiastic about the idea, so another project is on the cards. Another ball is set rolling, now if only this appalling wet weather would make way for some decent dry weather I can get a start on photographing these bike...


Oh yeah, tomorrow I'm shooting shoes, and doing a heap of photoshop work of radiators. Hole in the head and I'm still working!

A trip to Calumet Manchester...

I took an early morning jaunt out in the car to Manchester, drove through some appalling weather at times, then beautiful sunshine, don't you just love June weather. The reason for the trip was dust, dust all over my camera sensor, it needed cleaning real bad and Calumet in Manchester could do it on a Saturday morning. I got there a few minutes before 10 a.m. so the place was still all locked up, though the ram-raid bar was open. There were a couple of people waiting for the place to open, John Willis turned up and the store was opened.

I got my camera booked in and it was whisked away for cleaning, I had a chat with John and a look around the store, picked up some LCD screen cleaning solution and a new Calumet Micro Fibre Chamois cloth, as my old one has seen better days. Had a quick play with the Canon 5D MkIII, it's very nice, some lovely tricks on the rear screen for viewing and reviewing a couple of images at once, tempted, very tempted.

The next moment my camera was back, cleaned and ready for some more work next week. I took my leave and headed homeward, through yet more downpours. Summertime?

What's that Apple, a new MacPro?

So finally two years down the line we get a new MacPro, but wait a moment, the spec sheet just really indicates a speed bump, and where's the Thunderbolt? I'd imaging every creative looking to upgrade will be holding fire, no Thunderbolt, that's a bit of a deal breaker, that's like Ferrari putting a 1.6 diesel engine in a 458 Spider. Surely you put the best of the best in your top computer product, or maybe it is true that Apple are really just concentrating on the mobile market. Looks like my MacPro will be taking the processing strain for a while longer... Update: Just been trawling the Apple rumour sites and it seems there should be a 'major' update of both the MacPro and iMac early next year. I do hope so.

Skateboarding... BMX... Scooters!

Last night at Deeside Evolution Extreme Skatepark there was a film and photography evening session going down, skateboarders, BMX riders and oh dear, scooters! So I shot some images, but next time I'll be going on a skaters only night, no offence to BMX riders but it's skate shots I'm really after (HATE scooters).

Okay so I took some shots of the scooter kids, so shoot me!

Another evening at the skatepark...

Tomorrow evening will be spent shooting skateboarders, BMX riders and at a push inline skaters at the local indoor skatepark. I'm going to travel a little lighter than last time I went, maybe just two Bowens Pro heads, but we'll see. So now I'm heading into the lighting store room to assemble the kit, what better thing to do on a rainy Friday evening in May? 

The images on this post bear no relation to the skatepark or riders I'll be photographing tomorrow, I just felt the post needed some pictures.

Skate shots I took yesterday, or this morning...

A couple of shots from last nights/this mornings skateboarding photo-shoot. The local skatepark was open from 10 pm till 6 am, an all night session, with the proceeds all going to charity in aid of Leukaemia and Lymphoma research, which is poignant for me as my Uncle died of leukaemia on Boxing day. You can find more images on my other blog page Fujichromagnon Man.

Ian Ruhter's Silver and Light... Stunning...

SILVER & LIGHT from Ian Ruhter on Vimeo.

I watched this video in awe, having worked in darkrooms for half my working life, something I really wouldn't ever have considered going back too, I watched and started to dream about mixing chemicals again and producing such silver wonders as Ian Ruhter is doing. 

Octabox Light Test...

Today I spent an hour or so playing with my new toy, a 48" Octabox. I had some product shots to do so I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone. As it's a Sunday I set up at home in the living room. I just wanted to test the Octabox on it's own, the only other thing I had set up was a Calumet panel reflector on a stand for fill.

I actually purchased the Octabox off of e-bay, it was really very cheap, chinese made, to be honest I wasn't sure I really needed an Octabox, splashing out £300-£400 or more on a named brand really wasn't on the cards. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the Octabox, it fitted together well and it matched the quality of some of my 'named brand' softboxes.

No problem attaching it to my Bowens 750 Pro head, all I needed was someone to sit in the line of fire for a few head-shots. My eldest boy drew the short straw and had to put up with constant calls to 'sit up straight' 'sit still' 'head up a bit' 'down a bit' 'look at the camera' 'can you stop yawning', you know the usual.

After a couple of dozen shots I fitted the egg crate grid that came with the Octabox, it fitted with Velcro and again it's very well made.

So took a few shots with this on, though the catch-light in the eyes isn't great I just wanted to see how much difference it made. It certainly stopped any light spilling onto the backdrop.

You can see the egg crate grid reflected in the highlights in the eyes, funky but not desirable.

I didn't run any tests with the outer baffle off and just the inner baffle fitted, as by this time my boy was showing signs of disinterest.

The inner baffle is held in place by small clips, which are okay, but I've lost one already, so one bad mark there.

I have to say I'm really very pleased with the softboxes performance, especially considering what I paid for it, apart from the Octabox, there was of course an inner and outer baffle, the egg crate grid, there was also an extra set of panels that could be fitted inside the Octabox, alternate silver and gold panels, though I didn't try them today, and it all came in a soft case. I paid the princely sum of... £58! I know, I'm not expecting it to last as long as my other softboxes have, but you never know.

So the shoot came to an end as someone was getting bored, I knew it was time to cut him loose when all I was getting was shots like this! Time to set up for the product photography.

Playing with the kids toys... AGAIN!

Thursday I was playing with the Lego Hero Factory toys, finally getting around to taking some images of them. I wanted to do some shots just of the toys without anything in the background to detract from them. So something simple, so standing them on white perspex, and a grey vinyl background. Lighting was simple to, a pair of 500w Bowens heads with 7 inch reflectors with 20º grids set up behind the toy either side at about 45º to the toy, a 500w head to camera left, with a maxi-light reflector and black cine-foil to flag a good deal of the light, it was almost above the figure.

Working with small models shows up all the muck and dust, so as well as cleaning the figures I used white cotton gloves, so as not to leave fingerprints, and a can of dust off to keep the dust at bay.

The image at the top of the blog post is a combination of the single figure image and fight scene I created with two of the toys and a couple of pieces of slate that I had in the garden. The toys and the slate were shot agains a Chroma-blue backdrop and thunderstorm clouds were dropped in behind them. I like the effect but I'm going to try something a bit more dynamic and dramatic, a bigger fight scene with more of the Hero toys and their enemy.

 This was shot late on, that classic hunter standing with prey shot, my eldest son has already asked for a print of this for his room. So I'm happy.

This last shot was an experiment with a different background, in the end it was just to fussy for what I wanted.

Tripod Story...

I had to buy a new tripod head last week, I opted for the Manfrotto 804RC, my previous head, the Manfrotto 490 ball head gave up the ghost after just 3 years and one repair. I'm actually quite pleased with the 804, it's a classic 3-way pan and tilt head and it's had a bit of work to do and so far has coped nicely. The 490 was a replacement for my trusty old 029 3-way pan and tilt head, that served we very well for 15 heavy years of use, it used to have a 5x4 camera almost permanently attached to it until my digital camera came along. The 490 head has been a bit of a thorn in my side to be honest, at first it was brilliant, but after just over a year it started playing up and would sometimes be very difficult to use, very stiff. The one day, solid! So off it went for repair, apparently it was all down to a rubber grommet, so £45 later back it came, fixed, with a warning from the repair technician that it WOULD happen again, great!

And so it did, not completely solid, but enough to warrant a change. I admit I trawled the net and found a company on Amazon selling the 804 for £46, which is very cheap, I hit that 'BUY NOW' button pretty smartish. So now my 'very old' 075 tripod legs have another new head, I'm hoping it lasts for a good few years... 15 years is my record, lets see how long this one holds up.

Focus on Imaging 2012...

It was almost hit and miss with Focus this year, I got an urgent job in on Tuesday which had to be turned around by Wednesday, the day I wanted to go down to the NEC, so I worked like a loon to ensure not only was the job shot on Tuesday but processed and off to the client before the end of play.

When Wednesday morning rolled around I was off. So with my ticket safely packed in my laptop bag and the Focus on imaging app installed on my iPhone, it was down to Birmingham to spend the day at the NEC to look at all things photographic.

On the way down in the car I studied the app (I wasn't driving) so that I had a general idea who was going to be there and where they would be, there's a map in the app (see below).

First stop was to the nearest coffee emporium to top up on caffeine, then it was off to meet up with Nathan from FujiFilm, he had a X-1 Pro and an X100 for us to play with, that lead to coffee number two as we sat discussing these two cameras and had a play with them. Without seeing results from the X-1 Pro it's difficult for me to comment on it's performance, but the build quality and attention to detail on the camera are superb. I've seen prints produced from the X100 and would be quite happy to buy one of these little beauties, especially now the price has taken a tumbled from £999 down to £754.

I next made a B-line for Bob Rigby Photographic, just wanted to thank Simon for getting my camera cleaned and sent back to me so quickly. That courtesy sorted I was off on my travels again around the halls. There is a great deal that I bypass at focus, wedding albums, framing (I have a local guy Dennis who does all my framing, he's very good) and the inkjet paper companies.

I did have a good look around the lighting equipment exhibitors and spent some time tyre kicking various lighting gear, there wasn't to much there that I hadn't seen or heard about, Bowens had some new Lumiair Softboxes in all the usual shapes and sizes, but with the front baffle set deeper into the front of the softbox. This left room for Egg Crate type grids to be mounted to them, all I can say is, finally! The rest of the stand contained their usual fair of flash heads, kits and reflectors. 

Other kit that caught my eye was the 'Safari' portable lighting kit on the Lencarta stand, interesting and very reasonably priced. The new Lithium Ion Battery Box for Elinchrom's Ranger Quadra RX, but be warned though it meets airline standards some airlines might still reject it, so best keep some of the old batteries if you're travelling by air.

I spent some time at the Phase One stand, played with a Phase One camera and IQ160 Back, very nice, the V-Grip Air is brilliant, it makes the camera feel like a big DSLR and definitely improves handheld shooting. I did stare longingly at the screen as the images taken with this back and the IQ180 were scrolled through, I'd better keep buying the lottery tickets I think.


Canon, of course, had announced the 5D MkIII just days before Focus kicked off and they had  4 or 5 examples of the camera on their stand. After standing around for what seemed like forever I finally got my hands on one and had a bit of time to get acquainted. It feels good, all the dials and buttons are where I'd expect them to be on a top flight Canon camera, the proof, as always is in the output. I think I'll be playing with one of these pretty soon to see how it works in my normal working environment, then who knows...


Well that's about it for my Focus visit, I did have a wander around the camera stores to see what offers were on, but I came away empty handed this year. I did bring home a load of catalogues and a very nice free cotton bag from Manfrotto, but that's all folks!  

14,000 page views...

This weekend my page view tally has hit 14,000, not bad for a couple of years of blogging, I should really try a bit harder, that is the plan, more new stuff is coming, I've actually been thinking about blogging ideas rather than just going over what I've been doing recently. So watch this space.