I took my X100 with me on holiday..

Earlier in the year we booked a week in a cottage in West Wales for the third week in August, because the weather is usually warm and sunny. Usually, but it would seem not always, so the forecast looked a bit dodgy but we packed everything we needed, including buckets and spades for the boys. I packed my Fuji X100, with the lens hood, two batteries, charger and two 8GB SD cards, into a little over the shoulder case, nice and light, far better than struggling with the Canon 5D MkIII with the weight of the 24-70 hanging on the front of it. Plus the Canons needed a rest too after working hard all year.

Bryncaled - The Cottage...

The cottage was lovely, a stone barn conversion at the end of a long track, off a quiet road, of a secluded village. The walls were three feet thick, the rooms spacious and very well appointed, with very comfortable beds. We booked the cottage through  dioni.co.uk , they have a lot of property in the area, I think we may well consider booking a different cottage next year from their excellent selection.

There was loads of space for the kids to run around in the back garden, the views across the farm fields were lovely, the mooing of cows and the chattering of swifts as they flew overhead were the only noises to disturb the tranquillity. 

I found a wheelbarrow, at no point was I tempted to put it to good use, I just left it where I found it and took a few photos, as you do.

Black Rock Sands...

As you can see from the wind blown (destroyed) sandcastle the beach holiday we planned didn't work out as expected. This is Black Rock Sands, the sun was out, but the wind was blowing up a sand storm, as soon as you filled your bucket and turned out a castle the wind started to erode it, or bury it under a rapidly built up sand dune, or both!

Still the boys and I didn't let a bit of wind and sand bother us, castles were built, and eventually destroyed, the boys took great delight in trampling the castles before the wind could bury or blow them away.

The Ffestiniog Railway...

We took the boys on the Ffestiniog Railway, the journey on the train was lovely, the views stunning, I'd thoroughly recommend the trip. Above is the locomotive of the Ffestiniog Railway that took us to Blaenau, I took a few pictures, the driver let the boys stand in the cab, they even got to wear his coal covered, oil soaked hat, the boys loved that. Though they didn't get to blow the train whistle, a little disappointing.

This is a newspaper shop (former pet shop) in Blaenau Ffestiniog, below is a TV shop, this is what greeted us on our walk around Blaenau after our lunch, and before the next train back to Porthmadog was due. My personal suggestion, never get stuck in Blaenau Ffestiniog, there isn't much to do with two young children, they get bored and fractious very quickly, only by buying them an ice cream at the station and promising the train would arrive as they finished them, which thankfully it did, did we avert a major moaning and grumbling from the boys. Getting on that train and watching Blaenau disappear as we pulled out of the station and entered a small tunnel filled us with elation.

Portmeirion...

Portmeirion, designed and built by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, well we had to go and see it, it wasn't far from where we were staying. When we got there it was hammering down with rain, so the X100 stayed in the case. We were lucky though, within a few minutes of buying our entry tickets the clouds broke apart, and out came the sun, and so out came the X100.

The tide was out and we got to walk down on the sand, where Patrick McGoohan would be chased by strange white balloons in the TV show "The Prisoner" back in the late 1960s.

It was good to see that Atlas was still there holding up the world and saving us from a fate worse than... well worse than someone dropping the earth.

Beach and groynes...

You can't go to the seaside and not take some pictures of groynes, so of course that's exactly what I did...

Lots of them!

Balancing rocks, always wanted to give it a go, so here is the fruits of my labour. Having scoured the beach for the appropriate stones I started building, it didn't take that long, so it wasn't long before I was stood looking at my work of art. It appears that the wind doesn't have much time for art, the first major gust had the stones spread back all over the beach again, luckily only a couple of sand flies fell victim to the collapse.

Criccieth Beach...

Even when the weather threatened rain we ventured to the beach, the boys collecting stones, or rock pooling, they even went paddling in the sea, though never for very long.

Castles, clouds, and cobbles.

One image of the rain clouds exiting stage left, and a shot over the rocks as the sun started to break through the clouds enter stage right.

A bucket full of stones, and shells. Coat, and long trousers when it should be shorts and t-shirts weather.

Abersoch...

I know it looks all dark and gloomy, but we did have sunshine during the week, and on our last day we spent a very nice time on the beach at Abersoch. Sand wasn't up to much as far as castle construction material went, so the boys collected shells, played with the frisbee, and generally enjoyed themselves. The camera pretty much stayed in the case, though I did take a few pictures.

The beach patrol kept an eye out for trouble, always very reassuring when you have kids running all over the beach.

This is the last photo I took on holiday, an hour later we were all packed up and heading home in the car. All in all, a lovely holiday, weather was hit and miss, but we made the best of it, and the X100 was a joy to have with me, light enough to carry all day, it hardly got a second glance from passers by, though a few guys lugging big DSLRs around with them gave it a longing look.

All images @2014 Alistair Kerr

Rip them off with copy and paste, and I'll let loose my rottweiler copyright lawyer, he only bites your wallet.

Portrait lighting set ups...

You have to experiment with your lighting for portraits, to have an arsenal of different set ups so that your portraits don't all end up looking exactly the same. Here are a couple of examples that I've played with this week.

These are more of an effect shot, I wanted that wraparound look, so with three stripboxes I surrounded the boys heads with light, I dropped the power of the stripbox on the left by about half a stop.

You can tell when they are getting bored of sitting for the camera... Of course I just had to use this image and create a homage to Boris Karloff, so below we have young Frankenstein.

All images ©2014 Alistair Kerr Photography, 

use them and you will feel the wrath of my copyright lawyer.

New website plans...

I've been planning to create a new website for at least a year, despite updating images on the old site I really wanted something new, different design, logo, feel. 

So having gotten my new business cards designed and printed last month, I thought I'd better start looking at bringing the site into line with the new logo design.

Here is the initial design, this has just been quickly put together in Photoshop, now the hard bit, making it in Dreamweaver, then making it work!

I really hope Amazon aren't keeping tabs on me... White Backgrounds

I really hope Amazon aren't keeping tabs on me, because this week and last week all I've done is shoot on white backgrounds...

So I set an Instagram account up again... Yeah I know, I know.

Just set up an Instagram account again, yeah I know I said I wouldn't but there you go...

So summer has arrived... Maybe.

So how we can tell that summer has finally arrived, because ice cream is being consumed outside rather than in the warmth of the house. We are also getting treated to more summery skies. Though not today, or this week, rain forecast till the weekend. This kind of mucks up my plans, I have a load of exterior lighting to photograph, has to be wall mounted, has to be done in the dry. So I have my fingers crossed that next week does bring a ray of sunshine, and my kids will probably want more ice cream too.

So take one child, a toy tin aeroplane, a flying hat, and some goggles...

So take one child, a toy tin aeroplane, a flying hat, and some goggles, then make him stand on top of two apple boxes, surround the child with lighting from various modifiers, lay down on the floor and take a picture. Ideas always sound so simple. 

I know I've already posted information about this shoot, but now I've added a lighting layout, so you'll just have to put up with it again. Two Bowens 500w Pro heads were placed either side of the model, pointing slightly up at about 15°, these were both fitted with 30cm x 140cm stripboxes with fabric grids, set to 1/2 power. A Bowens 750w Pro head was set level with the model to camera left, this was fitted with a 90cm Octa-softbox, it was set to 1/4 power. The background was provided by mother nature, she seemed particularly generous the evening of the shoot, the sky was blue and streaked with wispy high cloud, most of the week leading up to the shoot was dull, grey, and usually accompanied with lashings of rain, well it is summer here in the UK.

For most of the shoot my model performed brilliantly, though had to be reminded to "NOT LOOK AT THE CAMERA!" a few times

All images ©2014 Alistair Kerr, no images to be published or printed without written permission. So keep those paws off the copy and paste buttons folks.

70,025

Okay I missed the blog's page views clicking over to 70,000, it happened at some point this morning, it could have been whilst I was sat in the dentist's chair, or as I negotiated my trolley around Tesco, probably by the frozen food section, or maybe by the fridge packed full of sausages. I digress, so 70,025, it's not a lot really, I must do better.

Project: The Pilot... Takes off!

This project has been on my mind for a while, it's been nagging away in my sub conscience, every time I look up and see an aircraft cutting its way across the blue sky I think of how I will approach the project. Well today it started, the sky looked good, not just a sea of blue, but plenty of wispy cloud to keep it interesting... And we were off.

Perched on top of two full size apple boxes, with several of his friends cheering him on, my son took my direction fairly well, though as with any kid they don't always listen. I was laid on the floor shooting upwards, so the sky looked big and uninterrupted by any buildings, or trees in the background. Using a 90cm Octa-softbox to camera left and two 30cm x 140cm strip-softboxes either side of my model I got the lighting pretty much how I'd envisioned it. I'd originally thought the project would be in colour, maybe muted tones, but experimenting with Black & White I was sold on this instead. There will be more images to come, my other younger son has started making noises that he wants his photo taken with his plane... What have I started?

All images ©2014 Alistair Kerr no publishing without full written permission. 

Copy it and we'll see you in court