Been Slow I Know

So you may be forgiven for thinking that this bloke has stopped "blogging" (stupid word), but truth be known, I've been a bit busy lately on two projects both non-photo related, one will keep me busy until the end of October, the other is likely to keep me busy for the the next 20 Years.
I'm proud to say my lovely wife gave birth to a beautiful little girl not so long ago, and so needless to say, I have been else where with my time and thoughts.

I hope to catch up with this blogging lark again soonish, but 'til then watch this space, and keep shooting.

My love of Film

It's true, I'm coming out of the closet (fridge). Well not really, but I am proclaiming my love for Film, digital is great and easy(ier) than film that's for sure, but the mistakes you can make with film are just great.
I recently grabbed my motorbike and went off on a little tour with my Mamiya 645 and a few rolls of outdated Fuji RVP, the images just look great IMO. OK they're nothing to write home about perhaps, but the way the light reacts to this funny stuff is just unsurpassed.
Anyway here's an image (not a file) which after weeks of computer woes I finally managed to scan it last night.
Hope you like it!

- freedom furniture -

Children in Pakistan

Someone posted this at work today, and I got to say these are some awesome images, that throw up a fair few questions, but that's another blog.

I found some of the comments on this blog as interesting as the images though, I think humanity is in for a steep climb. Anyhow enjoy the images.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/06/children_in_pakistan.html

Follow Up

Following on from the iPhone Polaroid post here's a quick link to an interesting little App:

http://www.fxguide.com/qt/1229

That's all for now.... I'm busy earning a crust.

Is Apples iPhone the New Polaroid

Is the iPhone the new Polaroid, well if Chase Jarvis's images created using the iPhone are to beleived then I reckon it could be.
A few months back I was all over Chase's blog and website, watching his videos and listening to his comments, and then Vincent Laforet started chatting about Canon's latest baby, and I kind of lost interest in Chase (sorry mate).
Chase was riding his own wave, he was helping people with his videos and thus people were talking about him and thus his name was everywhere, and everyone wanted a piece of Chase.... I got worn out after a month and decided to give it all a rest until the other day when for want of something better to do I typed in his address to see what he'd been up to, apart from the bio the whole web site seemed a bit (k)arma.
His images of Paris were like honey on a sore throat, especially the last one in the series, an image of some Autumn trees or at least trees with their Autumn regalia still on. Then I spied iPhone images, here we go I thought, but then WOW! This is my kind of thing, and if Chase is to beleived these images are straight out of the phone, and looking sweet.
So while Chase is still "all that" he has once again become a source of inspiration to me, so thanks Chase (not that you'll ever read this).

Strobist stuff

There's a huge trend now for the "strobist" style of photography, David (the owner of this site) has literally openend the flood gates and eyes of many people, including me.

I try to use my Bowens strobes in the studio because I have them, but in a small studio they truly are a bit overpowering, there are times when I would like to dial it all back and use the smaller flash units, I can't bring myself to part with the cash for a set of Pocket Wizards right now, so I continue to use the Bowens which seem happy enough with a synch cord!
Over Christmas I had some time off work and I shot the folllowing image using David's, Shoot Automatic, check the exposure and drop the exposure by minus 2 then dial the flash to taste.

I thought this worked quite well, kind of looks like a model especially with the surreal fluffly clouds behind.
I'd love to try something like this for a Fashion shoot, could be interesting.

Anyway... here's a Photo

Went for a weekend trip up to Tongariro this past weekend, the weather played ball for the most part. I finally took the camera out of it's bag after a long break.

It's been a long time that I haven't shot, I think I was becoming saturated by all the stuff out there. And also getting dragged down by the constant fight of trying to get things moving (see my previous post (rant!)).

But time is a healer and I love photography so I hope I have re-found my mojo and will be posting more in the not too distant future.

Who could have known that Art would be so difficult

OK, bit of a presumptuous title calling anything I create "art" always makes me laugh, but taking a photo isn't that difficult, but it would seem that in the "funky" "arty" cafe culture that is Wellington the Capital of New Zealand (although Auckland would argue that) things are difficult, it is in my opinion no wonder that so many young people bugger off over seas, after all if you try to do something here which is not the "norm" then good luck to you.

"Oh what's he ranting on about now?"

I've been trying to gain access to a property here in Wellington for well over a Year now, the people who I deal with at WCC (Wellington City Council) seem dumbfounded and overwhelmed by this idea, they bounce me back and forth between people and act as if they need to talk to higher authorities, but not once... again and again, calls are not returned and so on and so forth.
You would think I was trying to gain access to some sacred burial ground, when in fact it's a dis-used building that's sitting vacant.
Of course I don't expect doors to be flung open for me, but if they can't grant access, "Just say no!" to coin a phrase.... but this deliberation is truly annoying and pointless.

God help the artist that decided to put a giant swinging needle on Cobham drive, the execution of the final piece was probably easy compared to the Bullshit he had to wade through to actually get there!

Beauty and the beast

I was hoping to post some images from a Beauty shoot this weekend, but sadly I got let down by the talent, thus no talent... no photos!
Still I went out and shot some film which of course is not as instant as digital so therefore you'll have to wait for the results... exciting huh!

Anyway, not to be put off by the lack of a model, I turned to my trusty companion, who not only showed up.. but also did his own makeup! What more could an aspiring fashion photog want?

Bon voyage into February y'all.

Pola views

Helmut Newtown produced a book called Pola Woman a beautiful book of many of his "test" images, he mentioned that he let his wife get away with using his Polaroids as place mats under coffee cups and such like when ever they had a party, and somehow this symbolizes the demise of Polaroid IMO.

There are groups on flickr (<- you have to log into flickr for that one!) dedicated to Polaroids fantastic 55 P/N film which is sadly no longer made. People purchased this stuff in great quantities determined to either horde it or sell it on at unreasonable prices.

And today I came across Polanoid, a place on the web dedicated purely to photos taken with Polaroid, but it looks like it's mostly the Land Camera types of films which while nice, don't really float my boat quite the same as the larger formats.

But recently it looks like there are a couple of places determined not to let Polaroid films disappear, something I for one am very pleased about, but there's always a catch, and in this case they seem determined to keep all but the 55 P/N alive! I do hope they are able to somehow revive this beautiful product, because despite various attempts I have yet to see anything that comes close to the sumptuous tones and velvet softness that this film and others from Polaroids 5x4 inch films are capable of creating.


I remember seeing images created by Malcolm Venville using Polaroids monster 20x24" Camera, the images took my breath away, in fact some of those images are the first ones on the above link, the web doesn't do them justice.


So this got me wondering, is it because I came to photography late that I wish to be able to use these films but I can't because they're no longer produced, something akin to the unreachable dream girlfriend or sports car you'll never likely to have, is that the reason I go all gooey when I see images created with this stuff or what is it? You ask the average jo(ette) blogs what they think about the images created by these films, and they'll probably say "they look soft" or "the colours are all whacky", maybe I'm just getting old, but I dream of being able to shoot a fashion session with some of this film, and until someone comes up with a convincing digital alternative I'm sticking to my guns!

Disclaimer: I cannot vouch for any of the links or content of the links posted here, and I am in no way affiliated with any of these sites. Just thought I'd put that out there!

Been a bit quite

Sorry folks (I know your out there... I can hear you breathing) just started back to work, so not much going on here right now, we've also had some great friends from Switzerland staying with us which has been excellent fun, and has got me thinking about doing some more sport photos, I don't mean the standard type thing but more extreme sports but we'll see how that pans out.

At the moment I'm planning a Beauty shoot this weekend, so hopefully I'll have some images worth putting up here.
In the meantime here's one which has nothing to do with Fashion but does contain a mirror.

Cheerio!

The New Site

Well the new site is up and running, and it even has PicLens enabled, and e-commerce but I have yet to switch that on.
Thanks to David Knoble over at Lightroom Galleries for making an awesome contribution to the Lightroom users by making all of these great tools for web hosting etc. At first look the LRG3 seems a bit daunting, but once you have some time to read through it things become clear pretty quickly, the only frustrating thing I found was that every time I exited out of the Web module and then came back in, I had to retype the path for the given page/gallery etc. bit annoying, but hey... it's a free download and that makes this a brilliant piece of www.

Adobe on the other hand still hasn't got it... while making the gallery I ran into the age old problem... Copyright. Adobe is brilliant at hammering the crap out of people who copy their ideas, but when it comes to actually supporting the Photogrpahers and people who use their Software they just don't seem to listen, I've browsed the Lightroom forums, and I admit there are some stupid, if not crazy requests on there, but please... how hard can it really be to implement a tool for people to be able to write © Copyright Joe Blogs 2009 over their images, where they like and as large as they like etc. etc.
I've been using this great piece of software for over two years now, and I have dutifully paid the upgrade costs, and am impressed with the various tools that they have now implemented, such as the Gradient tool... it's great no doubt about it, but I would seriously give it all up in order to have better copyright overlays. Grrr!

I came across these the other day on the "A Photo editor" website they are great and very inspirational. So thanks to Rob Haggart for posting those.