Amazing News!!
- At March 04, 2012
- By Photograjph
- In Check It Out, ShutterClass
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**UPDATE** – Cancelled/Indefinitely Delayed
Due to circumstances outside our control, we’ve had to cancel this round of the Drew Gardner Workshops. Apologies from both Drew and ShutterClass, we will try again sometime in the (hopefully near) future to get Drew out to our fair shores!!
If you are interested in a future edition of this workshop, please drop us a note via the contact page to register your interest, and we’ll let you know once the opportunity arises again!
Read More»More on light painting
- At May 03, 2011
- By Photograjph
- In Check It Out, ShutterClass
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I’ve been really enjoying some recent forays into light painting – I’m no expert by any stretch of the imagination, but it is fun to get outside and actually INTERACT with my own images. Light painting is great because I get to be in my own images, without actually being IN them. Perfect for someone like me, who prefers to be behind the lens rather than in front of it!
Read More»Space shuttle time lapse gold
- At May 26, 2010
- By Photograjph
- In Check It Out
0
Check this out – an amazing time lapse video of an entire shuttle prep and launch. A stellar effort, and a great approach that would have allowed those involved to stay out of the way!!
The Underwater Project
- At May 21, 2010
- By Photograjph
- In Check It Out
0
The Underwater Project by Mark Tipple has to be some of the coolest underwater photography I’ve seen for a while – gonna have to give this a go myself, been a while since I hit the surf and this is as good an excuse as any to get back out there!!
The images are for sale on Mark’s site, and there’s a bunch of download stuff too if you Google him (seems to find an alternate older site?)
Just another day at the volcano
- At May 15, 2010
- By Photograjph
- In Check It Out
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Eyjafjallajökull – You might not be able to say it, but you definitely need to watch it!
Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull – May 1st and 2nd, 2010 from Sean Stiegemeier on Vimeo.
On a separate tech note, I really need to take a closer look at combining my DIY film dolly with my Canon DSLR, and my timer trigger – just need to rig up some sort of mechanical way to also do the tilt part (since I cannot afford a fancy astronomy star-follower like many awesome time-lapse shooters use)
A day in the life
- At January 01, 2010
- By Photograjph
- In Check It Out
0
James Worrell pulled together a great little video that beautifully summarises the glamour lifestyle of a photographer!! If you think photography is all about fashion shows, parties and limos, think again – most photographers make their living doing the same thing the rest of us do, by working long hard days for little recognition and even less glamour or riches!!
Click here to watch the video – be patient, it takes a few moments to load!
Well done James, it’s a great video – and if you are getting the parties and limos lifestyle, more kudos to you!!
Why fake it when real is possible?
- At December 25, 2009
- By Photograjph
- In Check It Out
1
Update 21 Jan 2010: So, it turns out it was faked, meaning that the wolf was proven to be trained/tame rather than wild. The photographer is still denying the claims, but has been stripped of the main prize. The image is still an actual photo, just the circumstances that went into creating it are suspect. Check this article for more detail.
This is the image that was able to win a prestigious award from the British Natural History Museum and also generate a stack of controversy with the veracity of the cries claiming “fake”!! I do not plan on analysing the image in an attempt to determine how genuine it is, there are others before me much better qualified to do so (and much more interested than I am!). If you want to read the background, there’s an article on Gizmodo and another on The Daily Mail.
I find these claims of fake interesting only because I can think of a bunch of ways I would capture this shot, and none of them involve PS!! In case you don’t know me, I’m squarely in the “PS is not a verb” camp – I will always aim to get a shot right in camera, editing is not my style and I don’t find it particularly enjoyable!! But I do REALLY enjoy nailing the perfect shot so that the only work needed is maybe a crop and an upload!!
But I digress – I looked closely at the image and thought about ways I would try to solve the problems so that I could get the image, and here’s what I came up with:
- Laser triggers – I have them, and they would be perfect for this. Set them up along the gate line, align strobes (having tested exposure on previous evenings), set meat out as the original photographer did, and then head inside for a cup of tea. Check camera in the morning…
- Long lens and patience – yes, I think it is possible to catch this image, but there’s no way I’m doing with with a short lens and risking scaring off the wolf (or making it angry!!). So I camp about 15 meters away, with a 400mm fully open and Pocket Wizards to fire strobes near the gate, and I hope I get lucky
- Wide lens on tripod up close – it’s a dark scene, I can’t be sure where the wolf is going to come from. So this time I take the Pocket Wizard and use it with the motor drive, stick a wide lens on (and have it wide open), and rapid fire when anything looks like it moves near the gate. Even with slower shutter speed, the strobe speed should give sharpness and a slightly longer exposure filles out the ambient. With strobe recycle times down to fractions of a second on low power, I could probably get 5 or so frames a second (although at that point the Pocket Wizard might be the limiting factor since they only do 1/200th or so and have quite a long lag between hits)
There are a variety of ways to get the image itself – I think the real trick is getting the wolf in the right place at the right time. I guess that’s where the controversy is, since it’s easy to claim the wolf was trained and placed in position. If I was using the laser triggers, I could camp away from the gate and when the time was opportune, effectively “herd” the wolf towards the gate (and the rush to escape would probably force the jump). Yes it’s random and requires luck, but how much wildlife photography doesn’t?
We’re in an era where the technology is smarter than the operator, and it will only get worse. We already have software like PhotoSketch that constructs an image out of random sources such as Google Images, so the days of crying “fake” are probably going to get worse before they get better.
Not sure about the rest of you photographers out there, but I sleep easy at night – I’m simply not good enough on the editing side of the equation to be able to fake anything!! And the only person I’m competing with is myself, in trying to improve my art!! Idealistic perhaps, but honest…
Halohid
- At November 07, 2009
- By Photograjph
- In Shoots
1
So Halohid, Gaz and myself decided a day up around Lal Lal might be a good way to do a bit of location hunting….
Read More»Dusk Moth Designs
- At October 24, 2009
- By Photograjph
- In Shoots
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Another great day spent with the crew from Dusk Moth Designs – great clothes, great people, always a top day for me!!
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