It started off so well

After starting off in a blaze of glory a few weeks ago my photo taking seems to have stalled somewhat and for a second embarrassing week I have nothing new to show you. I'm blaming it on the fact I've started work this week so have 35 hours less to get out there, and also the fact I've got some sort of bug at the moment that means I'm permanently light headed like I've had a couple of beers on an empty stomach - as far as sickness goes it's pretty darn good! (As a side story to support my "drunk" bug I sit next to a Chinese girl at work, this afternoon I asked her if she was singing any karaoke or eating any dim sum this weekend).

Anyway, back to the topic, it looks like I'll be making another trip to the stock collection for this week's installment. So, let's see, how about we make the theme Portraits this week, yes that'll do nicely.

This first shot is of my flatmate Dave, it's part of a series of shots taken to document the life of his beard in Beardvember (the month formerly known as November) last year. It was fun having a project, every week on a Monday night we'd get the camera out and come up with interesting ways of capturing its growth. This particular one was taken towards the end of the month, soon after I returned from NY with my big white lens so I was more than happy to put it through its paces. You can view the entire collection by clicking the first photo below

Gerhard's Beard - A Study

This next one was taken back home of my mate Cam and his bro Alistair who in recent years has come to resemble his sibling somewhat. I took it in my folk's front room with a skylight providing the lighting. I wanted to shoot it in profile as that's when they look most alike, the biggest problem was getting a shot when they weren't laughing as I needed their faces really close to get the shot I was after and looking at your brother from 5cm is enough to make any grown man release a nervous giggle. The background is a little distracting which is unfortunate, but if I ever learn to use photoshop properly I think it can be easily rectified.



This third shot was taken a few weeks ago when I went on a shoot with some houseguests. I've used this scene for a few other shots in the past, it's a wheelchair ramp make out of wood and painted a dark gray colour, I spotted it once walking home and thought it would look cool with a head or 2 popping out of the darkness, ideally with heads at different levels on the ramp. Because most of the shot is a dark colour it tricks the metering on the camera which causes it to overexpose the faces in the image, I overcame this by setting the camera to manual and metering off the model's faces. This is my favourite shot so far at the ramp.



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