Play everyday!

I have been accused by Ferg that every wedding i shot isn't really a wedding its just one big experiment! To start with i was a little offended until Ferg told me that it is a good thing! 

The fact is that statement is true. Of course i always make sure i get my safe shots done but i want every couple that i meet through my photography to go away with something different! I have this nightmare that i will get two sets of friends one day and they will be like "oh we had that guy, lets have a look at your album... oh... its the same as ours!" I also think if you don't experiment you don't improve and i really want to improve! 

Its been a little quite Barbados way this past week, all the kids have gone back to school and no one is getting married which makes the place feel like a ghost town. Its very strange. 

To keep us all busy we have been given odd jobs todo, mine was to go and take photos of Almonds new show suite. I have not really done much of this stuff before so i thought it might be a good idea to have a play. So i got to the room, which was very nice,  with my mountain of stuff namely my camera bag, tripod for the camera and a light stand and started shooting.

Used my 10 - 20mm to get as much of the room in as i could

I set my camera up on the tripod and started shooting some long exposure shots, the room has nice big patio doors that let allot of ambient light in. This was a good start but half of the room (camera left) was still dark and the dark wooden TV stand was just sucking up light! So i dropped a light stand with my flash and a bare bulb adaptor on it (its the studios so it did not quite fit so i had to tape it on but its all good!). This is a light modifier that basically takes the very directional light from the strobe and spreads it all over the place in all directions. (David Hobby calls them bits of tupperwear and gets very cross if people buy the real thing rather then make your own!) I had this pointing up which meant the light would bounce off of every wall in the room lighting up that half. I tried to get the stand as close to the TV stand as i could with out it getting in shot. The shots where looking better but the flash light was allot whiter then the ambient light and i wanted the room to look warm and cosy, a place you would want to sit so i put a warming gel on the flash to. (Mr Hobby would be proud!)

Now see if you can guess where i have put the flashes in these! Look for the tell tell shadows  that should give you a hint (as much as i tired to get rid of them!)

10 points if you can tell me why i had to open the patio door in this shot ;)

Very jealous as it had the nicest mattress 

This one is my favorite, mixing ambient light with flash

Sorry had to be done ;p

Thanks for reading, there might be some big changes soon so keep checking in!

Loving where you are!

Taken on my iPhone with a slightly wonky horizon and everything, Sian will be mad :)

This is where i live right now! I am not posting this blog to show off (or be a bit preachy) but to make you think. Living somewhere means working, deadlines, food shopping, cooking, driving through traffic, putting up with people that you don't want to and so on. With all of this going on on a day to day basis it can be easy to forget where you are. The beautiful places that people may come from miles around to see and you see everyday, the reasons why you moved there. I had to laugh i had been stuck in a traffic jam because a yellow bus (also known as reggae busses who's drivers are insane!) had crashed into another car. I was sat in my car huffing and puffing and getting really quite mad and i turned to my left and sore this and i was a bit like "oh yeah thats right this is awesome!"

It used to happen to me when i lived in London to, rushing around from meeting to meeting and i know some of my old colluges must forget where they are from time to time. 

It also makes me think of my sister, she is out in Australia at the moment. She has just moved into a flat and she is working in a pub and i am stupidly proud of her! It makes me wonder if  she ever has the same problem??

So i am putting a challenge out there to my readers (this is me assuming i have some of course ;) this week if your feeling a bit down just stop and have a think about where you are. Take your phone out. Take a photograph. Upload it to somewhere like Facebook or Flickr or something and then post the link onto this blog with a little description of where you are! I would be very interested to see if other people have the same problem and see if we can rectify it.

Thanks for reading and i am looking forward to seeing your photographs :)