Polo Crosse @ Euberta

Not to be mistaken for plain old polo, polocrosse is perhaps the mongrel version of the regal game. The difference, so it was explained to me by a very knowledgeable lass (that's her in the last three photos), is that at polo you eat caviar and drink Moet while at polocrosse you eat salt 'n' vinegar chips and drink rum...

I'd watched polocrosse from a distance, sitting up in the grandstand at the Sydney Royal Easter Show, but I had never been up close, nor had I been to a fair dinkum country carnival so it was certainly an experience, arriving at the Euberta showground to be met by a scene of chopped up fields ringed by horse floats, trucks and pillars of light blue smoke from the many camp fires rising slowly into an overcast sky with the thundering of hooves and vocal, tongue-in-cheek jeers...

Under leaden skies two players battle for the ball

Players look on as their team vie for possession

The agility of the rider and horse is nothing short of impressive!

Shooting for goal

BYO toy ute and John Deere excavator...

Watching for the throw in

Charging down the field, hooves thundering on the turf

A mammoth hit dislodges the ball from an opponents racket

If you want to know more about polocrosse or are interested in finding your closest club, check out the Polocrosse Association of NSW's homepage.

As always make sure you head over and like my FB page to keep up to date with everything that's going on.

Winter's Here: Head for the Snow!

Well it has been a while since I took the virtual pen from the holster, in fact last time I posted it was waaay back in Autumn! But now that winter is here, why not head for the hills and explore the snow through your lens?

Three Mile Dam, Kiandra

Planning

Planning if critical for a successful, safe trip into the hills. It is not like a quick trip down to the local lookout or beach. It is a harsh, unforgiving environment that deserves respect. But good planning will also provide you with the best results.

For me, there's nothing more enticing than a fresh, untouched blanket of snow. For this reason, I plan on being there toward the tail end of the next snowfall or first thing the next day. Keep an eye out for the forecasts on websites like Weatherzone or the Bureau of Meteorology. For the more adventurous, you can check out the snow forecast models {here}.

The Cold

The cold is more than just taxing on your digits! In extremely cold weather you may find your batteries can loose their charge very, very quickly. In short space your battery that normally gives you 700-800 shots can pull up stumps after only a couple of hundred. The key here is to try and keep your batteries warm, by any means possible (I heard of one wedding photographer keeping her batteries in the straps of her bra!).

A great asset in battling the cold is fingerless mittens. These nifty little things have a mitten type pocket that flips over your fingers, keeping them toasty warm. When you need the dexterity back, simply flip the pocket back and there are your toasty digits ready to rock and roll.

Another common problem when going from cold to warm environments is condensation. Pretty quickly the glass elements on your lens can get a nice layer of fog and while these can make for atmospheric throwbacks to the 80's the condensation can pose a threat to your gear.

While there isn't a great deal you can do to eliminate the fogging up of lenses - other than keeping everything warm - once you're done throw a couple of those gel sachets from shoe boxes in your camera bag. These will absorb the moisture from your gear and help avoid problems down the track.

Exposure

Eucumbene River, Kiandra.

Snow is bright. Very bright. Anyone who skis or boards will now just how bright the snow can be. Unfortunately this can play havoc with your exposure meter, resulting in underexposed scenes. Just keep this in mind when you're shooting and perhaps dial in a bit of exposure compensation.

Something I recently tried was exposure bracketing scenes and then blending the exposures into an HDR. This just seemed to really bring back the scene to how I remembered it.

There's a couple of things to watch though: very quickly you can lose the snow to a muddy grey colour. Don't forget that snow is bright white (unless you come across a patch that has recently had a wombat relieve itself on)! It's supposed to be borderline blown and it just really lacks if you move too far away from that.

Alpine heath and rock,
Thredbo

Black and White?
Don't dismiss black and white. In fact I think black and white lends itself pretty well to snowy scenes as they're already largely monochramatic. Black and white also allows the viewer to focus on the textures and patterns present within the scene; deep blue skies, gnarled tree trunks or lichen covered rocks are some of the elements you'll come across up in the hills.

Reflector!

Lilly enjoying her first real experience
of snow, Mt Selwyn

Having what is essentially an endless reflector underneath you can yield some pretty ethereal results, especially when you're photographing people.

A funny thing about the brain is that it remembers what it expects to see. And when you're outside your brain expects to see shadows under your chin, nose, eyebrows etc. But with this huge reflector sitting under you, the shadows are largely filled in resulting in said ethereal look. Throw in a bit of fill flash and you can get some quite flattering even light!

So that's all I have for now. All the usual tips, tricks and rules (to be obeyed or broken) for landscapes still apply. Have you made a trip down to the snow? I'd love to see some results if you have!

As always, make sure you head over to my FB page to keep up to date with new blogs, photos and other little tidbits of fact, fiction and fun.

Cheers,
Will

First Wedding: Five Lessons Learnt

So on Saturday I had the privilege of second shooting for well known Wagga wedding photographer Belinda Fraser. This was the first wedding I'd taken a camera along to that was neither friend nor family; this was the real deal and to put it simply I was filling my dacks!

But I survived! There were no big meltdowns or gear failing on me, it didn't rain, the earth didn't open up and swallow me whole and all in all it was a fantastic experience; one that I enjoyed immensely.

But what is the point of second shooting for a more experienced photog if you don't learn anything? Well, there is no point. So here are five things that I took away from the day...

1. Breath and Remain Calm...

I don't know about you, but I've always been prone to shutting down and going all tunnel vision when I'm really under the pump. Maybe that was helpful 10,000 years ago wandering across the savannah, but trust me, when you're shooting a group of people it really isn't helpful!

Keep a level head and slow down. Even if you only take a couple of seconds, look through your shots and force yourself to just take it a bit easy.

2. Keep It Simple. Stupid.

When I decided to accept Belinda's extremely generous offer to second shoot with her, I immediately jumped on the net and poured through hundreds, if not thousands of wedding photographs from all over the world. Why? Well I don't really know. I didn't use a single 'idea' and through observing Belinda, everything seemed to develop organically, or was a child of Belinda's prior experiences (I recognised some of the poses from our own wedding!). 

At the end of the day the bride and groom want a good record of their day and some nice, stylish, fun and flattering photos that they can hang on their wall and put into an album or book to look back on throughout the years and to one day show their grandkids. To this end I quickly realised that I had to trust my instincts, work from the basics and that the rest will come (especially true with a fun and outgoing bridal party!).

3. The Hands (and Bouquet) Matter! 

Going through my photos from the day I was pretty happy with most of them. But one thing that I did notice (and which did not occur to me at the time) was that in a lot of shots that I wasn't overly happy with, a big part of the disappointment with the image stemmed from the way the bride/bridesmaids had their hands and bouquet. 

Now this is not a criticism of them! After all it (a bouquet) is not something that you carry around with you every day! And hands' primary purpose are as tools, not to look good in a photo. This was something that I failed to recognise and treat at the time. 

4. Never Drop Your Guard

I don't mean you should walk around, fists up ready to unleash a left jab or right hook on an unsuspecting flowergirl, but to always be prepared for that candid or moment of unguarded expression.

I know from my own wedding (photographed by Belinda), some of our favourite images are candids, capturing the true characters of our family and friends; the people dearest to us (except Lilly, she was but a tiny entity!). You don't want to miss these fleeting moments of subject gold as you fiddle around trying to turn on, check settings etc.

5. Have Fun!

I know this is an oft offered piece of advice, but I can't reiterate it strongly enough. The bride and groom are after a fun day, you (I'm sure) would prefer a fun day and everyone wants to see images from when fun was had.

Sure, there's some serious stuff up front (and we can't undervalue the seriousness of the commitment) but afterward it's essentially a party to celebrate a couple's love and the coming together of two families (and a whole lot of hangers-on ie friends!). 

Looking back through the images in chronological order, there is a marked change and continued improvement in the quality of the image (not necessarily the technical quality) that coincides with when I started to relax and enjoy myself. Do this from the get-go and you're sure to come away with improved shots.

So there you go, five things from the first wedding ever shot in my capacity as a pro-photographer. But don't let the advice above be limited to weddings; truth is you could probably apply them all (well maybe not the bouquet advice) right across your photography experience.

What are your thoughts? I'd love to hear them...

As always, thank you for reading and don't forget to check out (and 'like'!) my Facebook page and have a browse through my galleries found through the menus above.

And one last thing: thank you to Sarah and Luke and the best of luck in your journey together.

- Will 

For Those Doing it Tough

A collage of images of the Murrumbidgee River 6 March 2012

As many of you would know, our region of NSW was recently on the rough end of some very wet weather that led to both flash flooding and riverine flooding and the inundation of many homes, businesses and community buildings.

As a way of giving to those whose lives have been turned upside down by this flooding I'm offering up three shoots - one corporate and two portrait - for free. I know that this will not replace those memories, photos and heirlooms lost by the torrid surge, but it will at least help to create new ones.

So if you know of a family who've done it tough with this disaster, or a business that wants to announce to the world that they're back on their feet, send me an email through the contact page on my website (www.willbartonphotography.com.au/Other/Contact) before 16 April 2012 with your nominee's details and whether you're nominating them for a corporate or portrait package. Every nomination I receive will then go into a draw.

A bit of fine print: unfortunately due to time and travel constraints, I can only consider nominees who live within an 80km radius of Junee despite this disaster having a much farther reach.

Please share this among your friends and networks!

- Will

#7 - 52 Weeks Lit Up

A bit of a change this week. All my strobe gear had to be packed away to make room for the visiting in-laws so I tried to keep things to a single speedlight.

Years ago, when I first discovered off-camera lighting, I'd seen a style that is great for lighting up glass items in a product type shot.

Now back then, with the limit of a tethered flash, I couldn't really push the speedlight to where I wanted to. But that's all history now.

So the premise of the shot is to create a strongly back-lit environment. By utilising backlighting with glass objects you can just about eliminate those ugly reflections that plague front-lit images. The back lighting also does a great job of highliting the curvature of the glass structure as the light is reflected at different angles across the curved surface.

This week also saw Valentine's Day come and go and in keeping with this annual excuse for florists and jewelers to make a killing I used my wife's rose bouquet (you didn't actually think I'd be silly enough to not indulge my Valentine) as the main subject matter.

The half full beer was used for setting up and to balance the overwhelmingly soppy theme...

Unfortunately for my background I had to resort to a bit of calico (I ironed it at least!) so the first thing I had to do was completely blow it out to white.

To do this I simply moved the background so that it was 1m or so behind the bottle with the bottle on a table. The speedlight was on a stand under the table point up toward the background and out of view.

You can see how the backlighting really highlights the shape of the bottle and adds depth to the image not to mention the rich colour of the delightful amber nectar!

With the lighting sorted I moved the bottle back to my end of the table (it's important to keep well hydrated on a lazy Sunday) and brought in the flowers...

With the flower buds I moved in for some more abstract types...

And the pick of the bunch, converted to monochrome with a straw tint...

The pick... ISO100, 1/200s, f/11 @ 200mm. Speedlight at 1/8 power

One thing I'd like to see next time is more of a gradient across the background. There's a hint of it in the last image, but I'd like to see it more pronounced and I think the best way to achieve this would be to snoot the speedlight. One fore next time...

Please feel free to leave feedback or to discuss, criticise, question anything I've covered in this or any other blog, subscribe to this blog to make sure you don't miss anything and be sure to visit and 'like' my facebook page and follow me on twitter.

Thanks for reading!!!

Will

#6 - 52 Weeks Lit Up

On the back of No. 5, I wanted to continue the theme, but move it outside.

This was as simple as the week before with a single speedlite  into an umbrella on a monopod. The hardest thing for this setup was trying to keep Lilly still and occupied!

"I see the light!" ISO 100, 1/200s, f/8 speedlight on 1/2 power
into an umbrella directly above her on a monopod

Given a bit more time I would have like to make more use of the grape vines as a background, but this was taken between vacuuming and mopping of the floors, dinner and ultimately bed!

Please feel free to leave feedback or to discuss, criticise, question anything I've covered in this or any other blog, subscribe to this blog to make sure you don't miss anything and be sure to visit and 'like' my facebook page and follow me on twitter.

Thanks for reading!!!

Will

#5 - 52 Weeks Lit Up

So no doubt you would have worked out that there was no post for last week. Unfortunately the realities of fatherhood, owning a house (and having to work on said house) and full time work simply didn't give me enough time to shoot and write up #5.

However, all that means is you get two this week!

First up is an attempt to replicate the effect of soft, overhead lighting that is pretty popular in the glamour/portrait world. Unfortunately I don't yet have a stand and boom which would of course make this far easier, so instead I had to play around with what I have...

My hypothesis was pretty simple: two strobes, as high up on their stands as they can go pointing directly up into umbrella reflectors either side of the subject (me, just for something different!). This produced ok results, but for mine the lighting was a bit flat and lacked any real punch or drama.

The problem was that I had both lights slightly infront of me meaning there was plenty of overlap and spill stripping any shape from the image.

The remedy? Bring the lights more in-line with me to add more shape to the light and minimise the overlap. It didn't take much, the lights were only moved about 30cm toward me (away from the camera) and this created a better result.

Better, but still flat

Still, it wasn't where I wanted it to be and at this stage I was starting to realise that I would have a hard time of achieving what I had in my mind without a boom. Realising this, my priorities changed to now at least creating a shot with more character whilst sticking as closely as possible to the original idea.

It was pretty simple from here on, just keep moving those lights further and further back to bring more shape and direction into the shot until I eventually found a good compromise.

It was at this point that Nic happened to walk past (you'd think she would have learnt by now!) so I roped her in for a couple of shots, one of which is my pick of the bunch...

The pick of the bunch (romantic I know!) ISO 100, 1/200s, f/18 @75mm

The final details are pretty simple:

Both strobes were pointing directly up on half power and about 0.5m from us.

At the end of it all I did have some images that I was happy with, but they still didn't satisfy what I originally wanted. It'll be a while before I upgrade any of my lighting gear so I'm still going to be searching for a technique to replicate a softbox on a boom and just now one thought is to change the umbrellas to reflectors, really ramp up the output and bounce the light off the ceiling... Maybe next time?

Please feel free to leave feedback or to discuss, criticise, question anything I've covered in this or any other blog, subscribe to this blog to make sure you don't miss anything and be sure to visit and 'like' my facebook page and follow me on twitter.

Thanks for reading!!!

Will

#4 - 52 Weeks Lit Up

After a couple of days of sweating it out in the backyard I was keen to keep things nice and simple this week and you can't get much more simple than a single, soft light!

There isn't a lot to tell about this setup: softbox, nice coloured wall and a subject.

Trying to keep things simple but interesting...

Bring in the cute factor!

A face that would melt the Arctic!

"Can I let loose Dad?"

"YEEEAAAHHHHH.
Single softbox to camera left on ~ 1/2 power and about 3' from us, ISO100, 1/200s, f/22 @ 113mm. Exposure, contrast, split toning
and vignette in Lightroom 3

Please feel free to leave feedback or to discuss, criticise, question anything I've covered in this or any other blog, subscribe to this blog to make sure you don't miss anything and be sure to visit and 'like' my facebook page and follow me on twitter.

Thanks for reading!!!

Will

New Website

No doubt you have noticed a couple of changes over the last week or two. The most obvious of these changes has been the switch from a dark theme over to a white theme, along with the addition of a new header and now a new menu bar.

These changes have been in preparation for the long awaited (for me anyway) re-launch of my site (which can be found under the Home menu above or www.willbartonphotography.com.au).

So make sure you check out the new-old site and please let me know what you think!!!

Over the next week or two there may be some times when the content is a bit jumbled as I tweak and finish off, so please bare with me during this time!

Will

#3 - 52 Weeks Lit Up

This week was all about a hi-key portrait (not of me!!!) and simpicity.

I've been thinking about this all week and it came together quickly with very few adjustments which is to be expected when you're essentially only working with a single light.

To achieve the light, bright hi-key feel I wanted to try out shooting straight into my large softbox. Of course I would need a fill light on my subjects (my beautiful wife and daughter) so to keep with the soft feel I broke out my second, smaller softbox (hence the name) to act as the key fill light.

First set up was with the second box (roughly 3'x2'; the smaller of the two) vertically oreinted and in-front of Nic and Lilly (and ever so slightly to the right so I could still see them). I set the backlight to about 1 stop brighter than the fill light (back light @ 3/4 power, fill @ 1/2) just to make sure I got that white background.

This produced some ok results, but because the light had to be just right of centre it introduced an uneven look to the shot with some slightly darker shadows on the left of Nic and Lilly's faces on brighter highlights and the right (relative to the camera).

To remedy this I moved my fill light to centre over the two of them rotated it so it was now horizontally oriented and above them and upped the fill light a little to about 2/3 of a stop less than the backlight.

This produced much smoother, softer results; results I was really happy with!

 So with the lighting set-up sorted it was time to grab a few different looks (and later in post some different treatments).

As usual Lilly hammed it up for the camera and that gave me the pick of the lot:

The pick of the lot: ISO100, 1/200s, f/32 @ 70mm

And here is the sketch of the set-up. As I said, simplicity was the aim!

The set up. Backlight (1x1m softbox) @ 3/4 power and fill light
(1x0.6m softbox) @ 2/3 stop less than the backlight 

Please feel free to leave feedback or to discuss, criticise, question anything I've covered in this or any other blog, subscribe to this blog to make sure you don't miss anything and be sure to visit and 'like' my facebook page and follow me on twitter.

Thanks for reading!!!

Will

#2 - 52 Weeks Lit Up

Well I just managed to squeeze in this set up, even if the blog was written this morning! But I'll claim a bit of leeway as we didn't get home until 9pm last night from a very busy weekend following a very busy week (including Lilly's first week at daycare - cue pulled heart-strings!).

So, about the shot...

In the process of spending a very busy weekend away up in the Blue Mountains, we spent a couple of hours visiting our good friends (we had intended to head out and shoot some engagement shots, but the beautiful mid-summer Mountains weather of 14C, mist and rain put paid to that idea). Now Josh is an absolute Pearl Jam tragic and an even bigger Eddie Vedder - as a soloist - tragic (and I have to say I'm a pretty big fan too) and he took great delight in putting on an Eddie Vedder DVD so we could have our tea and chat to the dulcet tones of Society, Guarantee, etc.

So this shot was inspired by that fantastic musician. I have also been teaching myself to play the guitar since receiving one for my birthday last year so I thought I'd include that in the shot and spare all of you from another classic self-portrait of my mug!

Ok; the details:

I wanted to create a shot that mimicked a relaxed concert feel of just a muso and his (I'd say "or her", but with the amount of hair on my arms we're not fooling anyone...) guitar and the most important thing to get right was the warm key light and the overall low-key feel.

But first a note on the composition. As I said, I wanted to spare you guys from another shot of my mug, and wanted to focus on the guitar. I sat on a chair and positioned the camera so it was at about 3 o'clock, pointing at my right shoulder with the neck and head of the guitar still in frame, but leading away from the camera. At first I would try a large appeture to really try and use focus to isolate the guitar and my right hand, but as it would turn out I just couldn't knock enough light down for that...

The key light: this took the form of my speedlight with a yellowy/orange diffuser on a stand set to 1/4 power, infront of and to my left. Next thing I wanted to do was create a rim light come back light so I set up one of my strobes with the umbrella reflector behind me and to my left and set it to minimum power. The last light was another umbrella'd strobe infront of and to my right - just beside the camera - to fill the shadows cast by the speedlight, again set to minimum power.

As I mentioned, I want to use a large appeture to really draw attention to the guitar and to create some nice soft highlights on the pegs and head, but I just couldn't knock enough light down to use such a large appeture...

The two strobes are completely dominating the scene and
the key light is lost...

As you can see in the photo, there is simply no atmosphere with this shot. The lighting is too flat and there is no direction.

In attempting to bring down the light I did try one trick that I had read about a few weeks ago.

Now this does affect how your light behaves, and it's advisable that you turn off your modelling lamp to avoid melting umbrellas or smouldering umbrellas. All you do is collaps the umbrella to a degree (play around with the effect) and this reduces the size of the light source, but also the amount of light coming out. I ended up doing this to both umbrellas so I could maintain useable appeture. (The de-decorated Christmas tree was also removed!).

I also played around with turning the front strobe off, but as you can see in the next image, although better,  overall it's still a little too bright and the back light is certainly too dominating.

With limited room, the only possible way to generate the low-key image I was after was to stop down the lens and while this would increase my depth of field and reduce the focus feel I wanted, it was the better compromise.

By this stage I was getting the key light looking how I wanted
it to, but that backlight was just too strong... Front strobe is
turned off.

Another aspect of the shot which I haven't yet mentioned is the difference in temperature of the two light sources.

A very common practice in stage lighting is to use coloured gels over the back lights, I guess to add some interest and a bit of excitement to the whole experience. Because I don't yet have any gels (nor the means at 11pm to create my own) I had to rely on warming up the speedlight with an orange diffuser so that the strobes would appear to be cooler and thus have a blue cast to them.







With the lighting balance out, the warmth pretty much how I wanted it and the low key feel, the final image delivered what I had set out to create...

The final image. ISO100, 1/200s, f/16, ~100mm

And here is the sketch; I have made leaps and bounds in the advancement of my set-up sketches (although they didn't have a guitar playing subject)...

Ta-daaaaa

Lighting set up. Note that this diagram shows both umbrellas fully open when in reality I had both collapsed to the point where they resembled snoots. Front strobe (beside the camera) was on minimum power, rear strobe was on 1/3 power and the speedlight was on full power. 

Please feel free to leave feedback or to discuss, criticise, question anything I've covered in this or any other blog, subscribe to this blog to make sure you don't miss anything and be sure to visit and 'like' my facebook page and follow me on twitter.

Thanks for reading!!!

Will

#1 - 52 Weeks Lit Up

So, this is the first lighting set up of my 52 week project!

Firstly, a bit about the type of image I wanted to portray:

I thought I'd try and replicate something of a theatrical lighting feel, you know as a welcome to the project. What screams theatrical lighting to me is low source light, pointing up at the subject. The lighting has to be relatively soft, but isolated to the subject.

First thing I did was set up my softbox (1mx1m roughly) so its bottom edge was on the ground and angled up toward me. In an attempt to keep the background as dark as possible (keeping in mind it will have a coupl of lights pointing almost directly at it) I went with a small appeture (big number). I screened off the top of the softbox to really bolster that angled up light and put it on full power.

Now the old theatre lights originated as lamps on the leading edge of the stage, so to mimmick this and create more than one catchlight low down in the eyes, I placed a screen down the centre of the softbox.

Single softbox infront and below with screen down the center
and across the top.

Not bad. Not good either. The shadows are simply too pronounced for my liking and with no light coming in from above my hair has completely disappeared (well more so than at the current rate!).

The next step was to introduce a light above me to get some detail on my hair and to soften those shadows. This came in the form of a strobe into a 36" umbrella. (Oh and a change of clothing, I take my work very seriously!). Power was set to 2/3 so as to not completely light up those shadows.

Aforementioned strobe below and now an umbrella above.

Unfortunately I couldn't get the detail on my hair without spilling too much light onto the background, but it has certainly softened those shadows.

So, how to separate me from the background and provide that little bit of detail? Answer: a hairlight with a homemade snoot. I rigged up my speedlight on a tall stand and placed it behind and to my left (camera right) with a snoot (a snoot is light modifier usually in the shape of a long conical piece of plastic. This creates a directional light and minimises light spilling onto areas you don't want lit.

Keeping in mind the speedlight was going to be competing with mains power strobes I bumped it straight up to full power and let rip...

I didn't give that little speedlight enough credit! Way to bright
for the look I was after.

Hmm those speedlights certainly pack a punch! Too much light and if you look closely the hairlight was just spilling onto the end of my nose - something to keep an eye out for as it creates a rather prominant and unflattering highlight.

After powering down the speedlight it is evident that its
aim is still a little off...

After a few more tweaks of the lights (moving the heads slightly) I was finally happy with how it looked on the LCD screen.

The final shot. 

Final settings were:
1/200s @ f/22, 70mm. Softbox, full power infront and below with the top half and center masked out. Umbrella infront and above 2/3 power. Snooted (I love that word...) speedlight above, behind and too camera's left on 1/4 power.

And my paltry attempt at a sketch (I promise these will definitely get better!):

In hindsight I still don't think there's enough separation between the background and me. To overcome this I could have eased up and gone for a wider snoot that would have allowed a bit more spread to the light from the speedlight. I also would have bumped the the speedlight up a little more just to add a bit more light over the top of my head and my shoulders.

What are your thoughts? Any suggestions to improve this shot? I'd love to hear some feedback on this particular set-up, but also on the project as a whole.

Make sure to visit and 'like' my FB page at (Will Barton Photography) to keep up to date with all my work and blog and you can follow me on Twitter: @willb_photos.