…a single protea.
Canon EOS 550D, Sigma 105 f2.8 macro lens. 1x Canon 550EX speedlite firing through an umbrella as fill light positioned camera left. 1 x Canon 430EX speedlite firing through a Lumiquest soft box. Both flashes triggered by a Canon ST-E2 with E-TTL. Exposure: 1/200 s at f/8.0 ISO 100 in manual mode with -1 FEC. Lighting ratio 2:1.
On Saturday 6th April 1963 I was born in Bromley, Kent, England. Fifty years later on 6th April 2013 in York Western Australia I’m celebrating my birthday. All in all looking at the two photos here I don’t think I’ve changed that much!
I must say I don’t take “selfies” very often, but this morning I thought I would as it is not every day you turn 50 and I wanted to mark the occasion somehow.I’d left the house to take Frida (aka the puppy piranha) for her morning run and I’d put my Panasonic LX5 in my pocket. When the creative urge struck I thought this’ll be a piece of cake – birthday or otherwise – as I’ll just put the camera in self-portrait mode and snap away. On checking the LCD screen I saw that the shots were a dismal failure – the sky was over exposed and I was under exposed. Thankfully over the course of my fifty years I have learnt a photographic trick or two so I put the camera in manual and set a shutter and aperture combination to under expose the general scene by 2 stops. I then activated the pop up flash and set it to under expose by 1/2 a stop. The icing on the cake was getting Frida to sit with me while I took the shot. On getting home the image was fed through Lightroom and I played around with newly re-launched Nik Software Collection to make my visage suitably aged and distressed looking.
A photograph to illustrate one of the most mis-quoted pieces of poetry.
“Will you walk into my parlor?” said the Spider to the Fly,
“‘Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy;
The way into my parlor is up a winding stair,
And I have many curious things to show you when you are there.”
“Oh no, no,” said the Fly, “to ask me is in vain;
For who goes up your winding stair can ne’er come down again.”
“I’m sure you must be weary, dear, with soaring up so high;
Will you rest upon my little bed?” said the Spider to the Fly.
“There are pretty curtains drawn around, the sheets are fine and thin;
And if you like to rest awhile, I’ll snugly tuck you in!”
“Oh no, no,” said the little Fly, “for I’ve often heard it said
They never, never wake again, who sleep upon your bed!”
Said the cunning Spider to the Fly, “Dear friend, what can I do
To prove that warm affection I’ve always felt for you?
I have within my pantry, good store of all that’s nice;
I’m sure you’re very welcome – will you please take a slice?”
“Oh no, no,” said the little Fly, “kind sir, that cannot be,
I’ve heard what’s in your pantry, and I do not wish to see!”
“Sweet creature,” said the Spider, “you’re witty and you’re wise;
How handsome are your gauzy wings, how brilliant are your eyes!
I have a little looking-glass upon my parlor shelf;
If you step in one moment, dear, you shall behold yourself.”
“I thank you, gentle sir,” she said, “for what you’re pleased to say;
And bidding good morning now, I’ll call another day.”
The Spider turned him round about, and went into his den,
For well he knew the silly Fly would soon come back again;
So he wove a subtle web in a little corner sly,
And set his table ready to dine upon the Fly.
then he came out to his door again, and merrily did sing,
“Come hither, hither, pretty Fly, with the pearl and silver wing;
Your robes are green and purple, there’s a crest upon your head;
Your eyes are like the diamond bright, but mine are as dull as lead.”
Alas, alas! how very soon this silly little Fly,
Hearing his wily, flattering words, came slowly flitting by;
With buzzing wings she hung aloft, then near and nearer drew, –
Thinking only of her brilliant eyes, and green and purple hue;
Thinking only of her crested head – poor foolish thing! At last,
Up jumped the cunning Spider, and fiercely held her fast.
He dragged her up his winding stair, into his dismal den
Within his little parlor – but she ne’er came out again!
And now, dear little children, who may this story read,
To idle, silly, flattering words, I pray you ne’er heed;
Unto an evil counsellor close heart, and ear, and eye,
And take a lesson from this tale of the Spider and the Fly.
Mary Howitt
Canon EOS550d, Sigma 105mm f2.8 macro, Canon Speedlite 430EX with Stofen Omnibounce. Exposure: Aperture priority, 1/100 s at f/11.0 ISO 800.
I must admit that summer is my least productive time. Generally it is very hot here in York with temperatures over 40℃ (104℉) and this I feel is not really conducive to any form of artistic inclination. Endless blue skies and the intensity of the sunlight also make for boring photos. So my attentions wander to the studio and I play around with still life, this way I’m in air-conditioned comfort and I’m still able to take photos. I happen to believe that like many activities if you don’t keep practicing your skills will diminish. Still life is a very interesting genre as it forces us to make a photo rather than take a photo as you are in control of everything. Composition and lighting is everything in photography and I think the skills learnt with still life transfer to other genres.
The kitchen studio
You don’t need anything elaborate to do this. I tend to work on the kitchen table. Backdrops are made from old sheets, some of which I have painted, that are suspended by ‘A’ clamps from the exposed beams in the ceiling. Unfortunately my kitchen is not orientated to make the best of available light and the windows are very small so I rely on artificial light sources namely flash. I already had a couple of speedlites in my camera kit so it made sense to use them as the light source. I raided E-Bay for stands and light modifiers as I didn’t want to drop a bundle. For $70 AUD I got a couple of light stands, 2 shoot through umbrellas and I made my reflectors from off cuts of mounting board.
Behind the scenes shot of the set up for the shot “Potted Feathers” showing the lighting.
Subject matter is usually anything to hand. Found objects, knick knacks, fruit, vegetables, tools, books anything can be used. It’s a case of once you’ve found something thing about how you’re going to light it so as to bring out it’s character. You could explore the various traditions of still life and use your compositions as allegories to tell stories or illustrate issues that are relevant to you. I find it really engrossing and time passes really quickly as I play around with the composition and lighting. As I said previously I primarily work on the kitchen table shooting small stuff. For anything that is potentially messy I move out to the shed. But if you have the room you could create really large tableaux. For some inspiration a mate of mine, Jules, has fashioned a series of travel photos that look like late 19th Century postcards from Indochina. He drew his inspiration from David Levinthal who has established a whole fine arts practice from this. Have you got access to Lego or other toys, well Mike Stimpson has built a whole photographic practice out of it.
If you like playing with food then see what English photographer Carl Warner does in the video below.
So next time you’re stuck in the house at a loose end give still life a go. You’ll have some fun, increase your understanding of composition and how to use light and who knows maybe you might be so enamored with it that you become a still life maestro.
Back in the long distant past if you wanted to demonstrate your photo skills the photographing a white egg on a white background using flash and transparency film preferably on a large format 4×5 camerawas the way to do it. Totally manual exposure taking into account the mag factor. Understanding that a sheet of Fuji Provia 100 only had 6 stops of dynamic range. Now it is depressingly easy to shoot in these digital times with E-TTL flash metering and LCD displays with histograms. But then all this techno goodness should free us to make wonderful art.
Canon EOS5d, Sigma 105 f2.8 macro, Canon 550EX & 430 EX Speedlites fired wirelessly by a Canon ST-E2.
A few days ago I got an email newsletter from an online book retailer that I use and the thing that caught my eye was a photo competition for a new camera. Now I need a new camera like I need a hole in the head, it was the brief that captured my imagination and that was to produce a self-portrait while reading your favourite book in a favourite location. The above photo was my entry.
Now a little while ago I wrote a blog entry about becoming a retrogrouch using older film cameras again and enjoying the stripped back experience. Well this shot was all about technology.I used a Canon EOS5d, with a Canon EF28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM lens. The camera was tethered to my MacBook and I was shooting to Adobe Lightroom. The lighting was to provide the real story here and a Canon 550EX with CTO fired into the book and bouncing back to my face was the key light. I wanted it to look like a warm magic light pouring out of the Harry Potter book. A Canon 430EX with blue filter bounced off the opposite wall at – 2 stops provided the fill light. The on camera WB was set for tungsten as I wanted this to provide a cold foreboding atmosphere. The camera was triggered by a wireless controller so I did not have to keep getting up and I was able to watch the images on my screen and this enabled me to play around with my positioning and facial expressions. Once I was happy I then processed the RAW file in Lightroom and then exported to Photoshop where I used AlienSkin’s Exposure to enhance the look and then added the stars and lightning bolts. It all sounds very complicated but in a little over an hour I had shot the image, processed it and uploaded to the competition site on Flickr. I took up photography in the early 1980’s with an old Praktika SLR and would have regarded all the above as magic … pure magic.
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