Day 6 – End of Christmas. One last reflection.

So the decorations came down today (if you’re not versed in Cat Time, by today I mean since I last slept). Everything is away for another 11months (almost exactly as we put stuff up on the 10th/11th December). The living room feels bare without the tree. What is Cinder going to climb tomorrow to make up for the tree being gone? Answers on a postcard folks!

PS – can you tell I’ve been doing my nails again?

And for some good fun here are some photographs I’ve been playing with today.

New hair – my hair is really magenta..

I’ve also been playing with old photographs again.

Snowy Gate

Bleached Wall

Llamberis

I was given the choice of two cameras, a Fuji 6×9 (which I used in first year) and a Mamiya RB67. I thought I’d play with something I’d yet to have time with so chose the Mamiya with a 120 back.

The exercise started with me shooting a film with my eyes closed.

By the end of the exercise I had my eyes open and trying to pose – you would not believe how hard I find it to pose in front of a camera!

The lighting was setup in this way so that it would not distract from the simplicity of the photographs themselves.

The aim of the session was to get me to look at simple lighting akin to David Bailey, Sally Man and Richard Avedon to try to open up the possibilities of a series of portraits I’m currently shooting. I may have more from this set (I’ve got photographs of two other people too and if they will let me post them I’ll share them with you lot!).

To quote @contactmcr

“Are you going to join in? You need your face,paper,pen&camera”

I think that everyone should get involved – Contact are a great venue and wonderful people. Its also a very simple project to get involved with.

This is my offering

The rest of the photographs are on Flickr.

So yes, there it much talk of what I’m planning for the next 8 months. I have a 5000 word essay due in January 2010 (which I need to get the first 1000 words written by the 30th September). I’m going to be writing about the value of a photograph. Not just “oh I want you to pay me £foo for this photograph”, but also discuss the value to others sentimentally or the value to a collector. Beyond that I’m not too sure what my photographic work is going to be this year – just yet at least – but I’m sure I’ll let you lot know as it happens!

I have some cute photos of my cats and those that live with my parents to show you lot later!

April 1st 2009 (if you look carefully you can see me!)

March 25th 2009 (outside the exhibition venue!)

March 28th 2009 (Cookie at my birthday party)

March 31st 2009 (Hannah is a poser atm!)

March 16th 2009

March 17th 2009

Today I have been sat in the office trying to get prints done for a print sale fund raiser for my exhibition next month. If anyone would like a card with this on the front then let me know. Also if there are any others on the site you’d like then drop me a line.

I wasn’t much in the mood for arranging my face today so I thought I’d try an idea that’s been bouncing around my head for a few days – a blurred, backlit portrait.

Take:
Canon 10D
Vivitar 285HV
Stofen
Cable release
PC Sync cable
tripod
lighting stand
and a blank piece of wall

Mix together in an appropriate way. Camera pointing at subject, flash (on 1/2 power) with stofen behind subject at shoulder height. Subject, in this case, holding the cable release. Auto-focus off and focused at the very minimum.

The only post-processing done – added a vignette, image size and saved as jpg!

The last few days I’ve been playing around with the flashgun and how to use the light on camera. Trying to get my head around how to use this strobe in portraits on the go and with little prep.

The strobe is in the hot-shoe so, about 4inches above lens, pointed straight forwards at the subject(ie, me) on 1/16th power. 75mm, 1/125th sec, f.4. Used a hand trigger – wired clone – and tripod slightly higher than the default height.

This photo is manually focused and for once looks to be spot on..

So what do you think of the colour?? It was meant to be a redy-brown, but it is over my old purple hair.

So yes, this is the first photograph of myself on this site.

I’ve been promising some people that I would show what colour my hair has changed to for months. So I finally got around to it.

For this I had the main room lights on (3 gang in the centre of the room and 2 in the alcoves) and a lighting stand with a ‘brolly and Vivitar 285HV behind the camera to the right pointed to the right side of face (when looking from behind the camera) set to 1/4 power (manual) directed straight into the ‘brolly.

I took the ones of myself with the self-timer function. While I had it set up I thought I should get the shots Kian wants for his own site done.