Are you the paparazzi?

Has the world turned upside down? If Nadal being bundled out of the French in the 4th round to a Swede, a Swede(!), wasn't weird enough London has just reeled off her second successive sunny weekend. Insanity. I decided to head out to Hampstead Heath for a picnic with Bec and Danny, but our plans were scuppered when we learned the train we'd planned on taking wasn't running. Time for plan B, which just so happened to be Highbury Fields just over the road from the redundant train station we were standing at.

I was armed with my full photographic arsenal, including my recently acquired 5-in-1 reflector which I was very keen to practise using. Contrary to popular belief bright sunny days don't make for good photos, especially when your subject is people, the harsh light has a tendency to wash out light skinned faces, make people squint, turn people into silhouettes (if you don't know what you're doing behind the lens) or even worse, cast horrendous shadows all over faces. Long story short it's a nightmare. Unless you possess, and know how to use a reflector that is. I was half way there in that I possessed a reflector, the tricky part is figuring out what to do with it.

Fortunately the aforementioned Danny is my Old Street Photography running mate, and his wife Bec was a willing model, so between us we managed put our heads together and figure this thing out.

From Highbury Fields Forever

We soon discovered where the idea of eating a strawberry had come from, that unscrupulous photo editor from the Times magazine had pulled a sneaky Derren Brown style subconscious suggestion on us with the cover of the magazine Bec was reading...





The cutest moment of the day came when I was shooting this shot of Bec and Danny



These two little girls, maybe 8 or 10 years old, came up to me and said "Excuse me, are you the paparazzi?" I assured them I was not, and that there were my friends I was taking photos of. Kids are priceless.

Managed to catch another classic London shot today, this one will go alongside my shots of Big Ben, the Millenium Bridge, and London Eye in the snow - a man putting his shorts back on after sunbathing in his briefs.



Last but not least we have my favourite "non-reflector" shot of the day.



A good day was had by all, apart from the 2 children Danny and I both hit with frisbees in separate disc related incidents, but as they say, no blood no foul, and I'm sure those kids will grow up giving frisbees the respect they deserve.

Tip Of The Week: Buy a reflector and practice with it, find some good online tutorials to learn the basics and experiment with the results of using different coloured reflectors. Get one you can fit into your kit bag, mine goes in the laptop compartment of my bag and weighs next to nothing.

A good day

It's been a good day. I've just secured another wedding booking, 4 weddings in 5 weeks in June / July will keep me busy, I've passed my life in the UK test - the first step to British citizenship, I'm enjoying a tasty Jacob's Creek Shiraz and the Flight of the Conchords is on in 68 minutes. Life doesn't get much better than this.

Except for life in Australia, where I spent a hectic, whirlwind fortnight last month. Most of the time was in and around my home town of Adelaide, although I spent a great 2 days in Sydney. I was lucky to be staying close to the Opera House, and even luckier to get a nice sunset on the evening I went to take photos. The eternal struggle as a photographer who loves travelling - to take photos as the sun goes down, or enjoy a few sundowners with good friends and just enjoy the moment? If someone invented a time machine that only sent you back 30 minutes I would be all over that.

The lovely Yvonne

From Australia - Sydney

Bondi Barrels



Opera House Sunset 1



Opera House Sunset 2



Opera House Sunset 3



Sydney Sunset



Manly Moment



Tip of the week
Oh yeah, that's right, the tip of the week is back. Big time. The tip this week is "Take note of Simon's tips of the week". I refer to my TOTW from several months back referring to setting your camera to a narrow aperture when shooting a bright light to create a star effect, my Opera House shots were all shot at f/22 which caused that cool star effect with the sun shining through, had I shot that at f/2.8 it would have looked average instead of awesome. Okay, so it was pretty lame rehashing at old TOTW, promise I'll come up something new next time if I get even 1 comment for this post!

Friday Night Project

After devouring an entire box of savoury shapes for dinner, a rare treat in London, I was left wonder how best to spend the rest of my Friday night. I was beginning to tire of *cough* 27 Dresses, I mean, as far as predictable rom coms go this was arguably the most predictable (but such is my dedication to the cause of wedding photography I'm prepared to go extraordinary lengths to understand what makes a bride tick!).

So, what to do? I couldn't help but notice the lovely late evening light streaming in through my large lounge room windows, so I made the decision to start a photographic assignment that's been on my to do list for a little while. But I had to work fast. The assignment involved setting the camera up on a tripod and shooting myself in various different poses then putting them together in Photoshop to make it look like I was everywhere at once. The problem with starting this this at 7:30pm was that during 20 frantic minutes of shooting (with no less than 6 changes of clothes) the amount of light had changed significantly which threw things out of whack.

I was very careful about setting things up and positioning myself for the photos. The way I put it together was to use the first photo I took (me on the drums) as the background then add the other shots as layers on top using only a cut out of myself and not the whole scene. To ensure a consistent look I set the camera to manual (f/4.0, 1/30th, ISO 400) and also used manual focus. With the same light the layering wouldn't have been a problem , but as the light had changed I attempted to adjust each photo in Lightroom to have the same exposure before exporting to Photoshop and putting it altogether, although this didn't really work that well. As a result I had to spend a lot of time on each photo cutting out the precise shape for each layer, if the light was the same for all images it wouldn't have needed to be so precise as the background (wall colour for instance) would have been identical and you wouldn't have been able to tell the layer from the background.

After this was all put together I imported the file back into Lightroom and applied a Surreal Edgy preset which I think suited the style of the image. So, without further adu I present the one man rock band.




As a side note I took another photo which I didn't use with me as a groupy sitting back to camera at the front of the scene. I decided not to use it as the 10mm lens distorts perspective in such a way that I took up too much of the frame. Sometimes less more.

Engagement Shoot - Chona and Richard

I met Chona and Rich at a house party of a mutual friend Jenny. They'd recently become engaged and were on the look out for a wedding photographer, and as luck would have it they'd already seen some photos from Wimbledon I'd put on Facebook after Jenny had left a comment. I was introduced to them as the guy who took those Wimbledon photos and they soon asked whether I shot weddings too. A beer or two later I'd passed on my business card and we'd arranged to set up a more formal meeting shortly, after all, being able to take good photos from the second row of the greatest tennis match of all time isn't hard to do and doesn't necessarily mean you can shoot a wedding.

Several months later arrangements were in place and the time had come for the engagement shoot. I like to do an engagement shoot before the wedding for a couple of reasons, firstly the couple gets some great casual photos to keep for life or use on their wedding invitations, but secondly, and more importantly it gets them used to having their photo taken and is a great chance to build rapport between the photographer and the couple.

The shoot was loads of fun and we were fortunate to get great lighting conditions, overcast but bright. Big thanks go to Josh for assisting with the shoot. Here's some of my favourites plus a slideshow of the day.

Easter Well Spent

IN just 15 hours I'll be climbing aboard a giant cigar and flying to the other side of the world. Unlike most people I like nothing more than a good long haul flight, 24 hours of sitting in a comfy seat with a host of entertainment options available and someone who brings you food and drink and when you press a button - I don't see what the problem is? It's also a good time of forced relaxation, where you have no option but to sit there and take stock of life.

However, the forced relaxation this time round will have somewhat less impact than usual due to the fact that the 4 day Easter break was spent doing exactly that - relaxing. Besides a brief trip to the supermarket on Good Friday I didn't leave the flat until I left for work this Tuesday morning. I know what you're thinking, didn't you go crazy? How did you pass the time? This is how.



Oh, and here's an excerpt from my e-ticket for my return flight from London to Sydney

YOUR AIRLINE RECEIPT:
FARE: GBP 15.00
CHARGES/TAXES: GBP 364.20
TOTAL : GBP 379.20

Happy Birthday Simon

Once upon a time birthdays were filled with wonderment, sleepless nights in the lead up, cakes shaped like cats and cricket pitches (pretty sure Mum baked both of these in my younger years - is that right Mum?), fairly bread, parties and PRESENTS. Presents from parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles, brothers, friends, you name it.

When you turn 31 and have your first trip home in 14 months less than a week after your birthday it's easy to all but forget you're another year older, what with all the excitement of a 24 hour long haul flight on the horizon. And so it was that when I finally got around to organising a party on the night of my birthday at Bloomsbury Bowl I was far too late to actually book a bowling lane or a karaoke booth. Not to worry, the night turned out to be loads of fun, some good friends, some eats in the 50's style diner, some excellent drinks and some very average games of pool (miraculously I managed to have a 6-1 win loss record despite my best attempts of sabotaging my team mate.) One of the highlights of the night was receiving my first (and only) present, an awesome paint by numbers set of a knight riding a horse from Pam and Jay (thanks guys), it looks pretty hard but apparently is suitable for ages 8+ so I'll see what I can do, looking forward to nailing it over the Easter long weekend.

In order to keep this post vaguely photo related (although maybe this blog needs to transcend the photo pigeon hole it's currently in?) I thought I'd put together a birthday wishlist in case anyone out there has deep pockets and is feeling particularly generous:

Canon 5d II - I think 21mp is a bit of overkill but the full frame sensor would be real nice.

Canon EF 16-35mm f2.8 L MKII USM Lens - A perfect compliment to the 5D II, this puppy would be amazing for shooting a wedding.

Canon EF 85mm f1.2 L II USM Lens - The results I get on my cheap prime lens are lovely, I can only imagine the sort of image quality and low light capabilities this thing would bring to the table.

Pocket Wizard and a few more flashguns - After last weeks lighting course I'm keen to try a ton of new effects, the Pocket Wizard attaches to your camera and transmits a signal to a bunch of remote flash guns. Would be a plenty to learn but it would be awesome. For the record anyone interested in off camera flash lighting should head over to Strobist to get some inspiration and tips, some incredible stuff there.

I think these things would make me happy. Well, until something newer and better and faster and shinyer comes along. Truth be told though I'm pretty chuffed with all the kit I've already got, and at the end of the day the person behind the lens is a lot more important than what they're using.

Here's hoping the next 12 months are as good as the last.

Studio Session

I've been in this photography game for a while now, but up to this point all my work has been shot using available light or on camera flash (with a few brief experiments with taking my flashgun off camera with a 2 foot extension cord.) So it was with great excitement that I ran to catch a bus bright and early yesterday morning to take me to a course on studio lighting and photography.

The course was held by Studio Time and was a great introduction to the ins and outs of setting up your lighting using studio lights, using light meters properly, lighting your subject and your background, high key lighting, low key lighting, the use of gels and a bunch of other useful stuff. I went on the course with my mate Danny and there was just 1 other participant so it was the perfect number, it was very hands on and they had a model in and everything.

Within a few minutes of setting up the lighting I was getting shots like this and thinking that shooting in a studio is too easy.

From Studio Session

We learnt about how light behaves in the studio, how to reflect it with different reflectors and how to absorb it with blacks. From this next shot you'll see how the white foam was used to bounce the light back on the model from the softbox that was pointing down on her. Obviously the actual shot wouldn't reveal the manky looking foam.



The model Jane was incredibly photogenic, if anything this course confirmed my suspicions that it's easy to get stunning results once you have your technical wings and can get the model to pose. The world's top studio photogs have got it even easier, they've have their help spend a few hours setting up all the lights so by they time they arrive everything is good to go, next thing a stunning model who knows how to pose enters the scene, they snap a few shots and send the memory card off to someone else to post process. Too easy.



We learnt high key (whites background, overexposed image with high contrast to bring out the featres)



Low key (dark, moody film noir style shots with just the one directional gridded spot light to light the face against a black background)



Terror photos- Danny was adjusting the light in the background and fired a shot off to see how it would look, when he looked like a menacing silhouette I insisted that he do a threatening pose, the hilarious result can be seen below. We tried a few more time to recreate the shot but with the look of terror on the model's face, unfortunately she couldn't stop giggling and the subsequent photos weren't as good as the first.



And regular looking people photos, like Danny who was a natural in front of the camera with his clearly rehearsed Harris Scarfe catalogue poses.



We even managed to get a semi decent shot of one of the less photogenic people going round, even if it is a bit cheesy.



All round a great experience, I was like a sponge taking it all in as it was all so new. I know enough now to book a few hours in a studio and have a play around, if I ever get round to this rest assured you can see the results here at www.simonbills.com.

Off to do a baby shoot this afternoon which should be great, until next time.