Category Archives: Comment

Joe McNally Workshop

By Daniel | Published May 19, 2012

Last Friday I finally had the opportunity to attend a Joe McNally workshop.

I say finally, because back in March 2011 I flew to Hawaii to do a week long DLWS workshop with Moose Peterson and Joe. Just prior to the flying over, a little thing called the Flashbus Tour was announced, with Joe doing a US tour with David Hobby. So although I had a fantastic time with Moose and RC Concepcion in Hawaii, I missed the opportunity to learn from Joe.

Then early last month, the Through the Lens tour was announced, with Joe doing a Lesson in Flash afternoon session, 30/60 Evening Keynote and a Capture the Light full day workshop in a number of cities.

The afternoon Lesson in Flash was a great opportunity to see Joe work from scratch, lighting 2 subjects starting with 1 light through to multiple light sources. It was great seeing the thought process Joe goes through, along with the mistakes made along the way, and importantly, how to fix those mistakes. Despite Drew Gurian’s attempt to take out the talent with softboxes and stands, the day went off without a hitch, and was worth the long wait.

The evening Keynote was an opportunity for Joe to talk about some of his images and the stories that go along with them. If you’ve read his books, his presentation style is exactly the same.

Thanks to Joe, Drew and the team for a great day!

Ella lighting setup

By Daniel | Published June 14, 2011

I’ve had a few people contact me about the photo on my Facebook page, asking questions about the lighting. So rather than reply to people individually, I thought I’d post a quick diagram here to show the lighting setup.

As you can see, the single light source was hidden behind a black gobo to prevent any of the light spilling into the lens. The light was simply a Nikon SB800 through an Ezybox attachment fired using the Nikon CLS. The angle of the softbox was feathered away from Ella in order to control how much of the light hit her face closest to the camera. The background was the old 5 in 1 reflector with the black side facing the camera. The shot was done at Hope and Ella’s house and took about 20 minutes to set up and shoot. Very simple. The exif data for the shot is as follows: 200ISO, 56mm (Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 lens), f3.3 at 1/1500 seconds.

Underwater Video

By Daniel | Published April 10, 2011

Prior to leaving for Hawaii just over 3 weeks ago now, I purchased the new Olympus TG-610 underwater camera, knowing the trip would include quite a large amount of time in and under the water.

I’m very glad I managed to find a store stocking this camera, as the Panasonic FT-1 underwater camera (which I also took with me as a backup) died in less than 1 metre of water on the morning of the first snorkel. It is now an attractive looking paper weight on my desk.

Now this site is not a technical or a review site, but I can’t resist making a quick comment about this camera. It rocks. Comment over.

A few things to mention before you click play. Firstly, the underwater shots of the dolphins and whales were achieved by blindly sticking my arm over the side of the boat into the water and hoping I’d not only get some sort of image, but also that a 3 metre tiger shark wouldn’t take an interest in my arm (though that would be some awesome footage!); secondly, at the very end of the video when the music fades out, I’ve left the underwater audio playing. If you listen closely you can hear some whale sounds. Finally, the last image in the video is a photograph taken with the TG-610 which you can see in more detail here.

The start of something new…

By Daniel | Published October 3, 2009

Welcome to the new format of my site.

I’ve decided to move away from the normal gallery style page and try a photo-blog format. I felt the gallery was a little too restrictive in terms of sharing new work, so hopefully this new format should see regular updates of my work.

Naturally, I will need to re-populate this site with some images form the past couple of years, so be prepared to be bombarded with quite a few posts over the next few days.