i am working at the moment on another short film, starring my lovely and beautiful friend from work, katie. here is only a *tiny* sneak peek on what's to come. i can't wait to start putting this short film together! its going to be amazing.
i was reminded of this shoot when i received an email the other day if i could send some highres images so they could possibly be printed as part of the au review's 2010 yearbook of live music photography. i had this strange feeling that i never actually blogged these photos, so i went through my blog archive and aha! i was right.
now, there was actually a reason as to why i never blogged these photos. whenever i go out to shoot a band, i never really think twice about "what if i don't get any photos" i simply put all my camera gear into my bag, head out, arrive at the venue, have a quick look at the stage i'll be shooting and just wait for the support bands to start. well, this midnight juggernauts gig was one of those shows that whacks you in face and reminds you that you need to be on your feet at all times with photography.
at the time i didn't have my 85mm f1.2 (which is amazing to shoot live gigs, and is so so great in low light). all i had was my 50mm f1.4 which at the time i though was a pretty good lens, and my 24-70mm f2.8. when i had a quick look at the stage before any bands got on i thought the 50mm wouldn't be such a great lens to shoot with since the stage was quite big, all the photos would look a little bit far away. i decided on my zoom.
the first support band got on and he was great to watch, listen to and shoot. the second support band, dappled cities (who i really really love) got on and they were also fine. at this point, the photographer's pit was also very sparse, there was only me and a couple of other shooters, and we got the usual three songs to shoot and we're out, which was fine.
as we're waiting at the side of the pit for midnight juggernauts to get on stage, more and more photographers turn up. i think there was at least about ten of us, which i thought was a little bit ridiculous, usually there's only about six. anyway, midnight juggernauts get on, the stage is pitch black for the entire first song they play. there was barely any room to move around to get a good shot and we only had two songs left to shoot. the next two songs were a little more bareable, there was a small amount of light, it didn't change much so you couldn't get a variety of photos, but hey, at least the stage wasn't pitch black anymore!
there was nothing i could do, i had to crank up my iso to be able to get a properly exposed image and just forget about the grain. you had to make the little amount of light be as interesting as possible in your photos and not care if you get in the way of any other photographers as you're all trying to get the same shot in the small amount of time we had left. and because of my lens, i could only get my aperture down to 2.8 - see how hand my 85 would have been at this point!
regardless of all this, i managed to get some good photos, which at the end of the day, you need to do no matter the conditions. i managed to meet a lovely photographer by the name of ian whom i've told you guys about before and got into the mosh pit afterwards with my cousin to enjoy the rest of the show - which was awesome!
some more live photos to come soon :)
couple in a bookshop in newtown yesterday afternoon.
my holidays are almost over and i have lots of things i need to do. i wrote a massive to-do list in my journal this morning and have slowly been crossing things off as the day goes on. if anyone knows me just a little bit, you would know that i am a massive failed attempt at cooking. well today dan helped me cook french toast over the phone (i really am a little bit pathetic when it comes to an over or stove) and managed to make myself some lunch! im was getting a little sick of just eating noodles all the time, so i thought it was time to step out of my comfort zone and try something different.
i did that a couple of weeks ago as well when i made chicken stir fry which was so so yummy. i think i need to cook more, because as i've proved a small amount of times, i can actually do it!
anyway, i think that's enough of my procrastinating for now. for the rest of today, i'll be retouching some promo band photos, some more wedding photos for a client, and hopefully i will have a wedding blog post up soon, i have some live photos to edit and post up to a bunch of places and a film to start working on! im working on a blog post on how shooting a wedding works, because its something that i'd like to share with you all. is there anything that you guys would be particularly interested in me writing about?
i did that a couple of weeks ago as well when i made chicken stir fry which was so so yummy. i think i need to cook more, because as i've proved a small amount of times, i can actually do it!
anyway, i think that's enough of my procrastinating for now. for the rest of today, i'll be retouching some promo band photos, some more wedding photos for a client, and hopefully i will have a wedding blog post up soon, i have some live photos to edit and post up to a bunch of places and a film to start working on! im working on a blog post on how shooting a wedding works, because its something that i'd like to share with you all. is there anything that you guys would be particularly interested in me writing about?
i woke up this morning and it is christmas eve and i really felt like creating something. this photo is from
the long weekend a month ago i spent at my dad's house. one afternoon at sunset, we went driving
through the windy country roads, where there were cows walking next to the car, fields that went on
forever, broken trees and lonely homes.
this is the original picture, i cropped it to a square then used a layer mask to completely get rid of the sky
and some of the mountain.
i added a picture of a more interesting sky from a completely different day, but it wasn't working so well.
i tried a few more til i ended up with this:
added more contast to the image with curves in photoshop, as well as editing the colours. i really wish
you could edit photoshop files in camera raw, but it doesn't let you.
i then decided to add a tree at the end of the road so there is a main focus to the image. before the tree i
added a little house, but it was too boring and didn't flow with the immense amount of green in the rest
of the picture, so i got rid of it.
these are the original images i used:
hope you like! i have a few more field picture that im planning ideas for. hopefully i will have a series
of square images soon. for now though, i need to stop procrastinating and get back to sending
proofsheets and retouching!
im listening to the almost famous & the boat that rocked soundtracks and they are amazing.
models: alexi le trash & joji watanbe
makeup artist: judith joan
check out the editoral i did for thirst for vision magazine: http://issuu.com/thirstforvision/docs/issue_4
they gave me the theme "wild" and this is what i created!
one night i went to watch and photograph midnight horizon at their rehearsal studio. you can find links to
their music here: www.midnighthorizonmusic.com
im hoping we'll be working on a video clip soon to one of their awesome new songs *hint hint* :) also
on their blog are more photos dan & matt took on film that i don't think i posted here.
last friday night i shot thirsty merc at the metro. it was the first time i got an actual physical photographer's
pass woot! there were two support bands, lucy hall, who sounded a lot like florence and the machine
with a pretty voice and ukulele and the white bats, who are in the first five photos of this post. he rest of
the pictures are of thirsty merc! the photographer's pit for this show was amazingly spacious, there were
only about five of us taking pictures;
two of whom sat down, so there were really only three of us running back and forth. so, five people
compared to the about ten at the last show i shot, which was midnight juggernauts, really makes me happy haha.
this is the first of about a million and one blog posts to come this week!
i got some 35mm film developed and every time i look at the pictures it makes me so so happy. i don't
know, there is just something about film that can never ever be recreated with digital.
some more posts to come soon! this is from one of the midnight horizon rehearsals in the studio, a few
months ago now i think. dan scanned them in for me :)
model: lexi
this is from a shoot we had a while ago. i feel like playing around with textures and things lately, and i
really like how this turned out. here are the steps i took:
so i grabbed the original image, and i wanted it to be a square crop but there wasn't enough wall around
for the composition i wanted. so i went ahead and stretched the wall, paintings bits in and using the
healing brush and stamp tool like crazy.
then i edited the colours using my curves actions. i made it look really washed out in colours, but punchy
in the tones. to get the final picture, i layered a few long shutter photos i took while dan was driving
around. because of the red/purple hue to those night shots and the layer style i had them on, they really
enhanced the colours of the image awesomly! overall i adjusted the curves a little more - darkened just
the blacks and made the whole image lighter to match the graffiti lights.
was thinking of making a series out of this? but if i do, i want to make them all quite different looking to
each other. the same thing again and again just like this would probably be boring..
anyway - prepare for a few more blog posts tonight! im home doing nothing.
x
i've been listening to the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind soundtrack on repeat and one of the songs
backwards and i feel very inspired. today i thought i'd layer some images like i used to do a few years
ago. i keep thinking that i can't go back to this style because it seems childish, but today it doesn't
bother me at all.
there will be a few more blog posts soon, including a post with film photos. and today i will be taking
photos of people when they don't know it. spontaneous photos are magic.
i don't know what sparked it, but today i decided to go back and create some pictures in style of my older
work. this is what i got! here are the steps i took to create it:
this is the original image, stock from sxc.hu
so first i cropped the photo. i kind of liked the little town on the right hand side of the image and clouds
on the left, so to not lose that in the cropping, i selected each side of the picture individually and
transformed it. then with layer masks i just painted the edges back so they would blend. it is subtle, but i
still think it makes a difference.
with curves i continued adjusting the colours of the image until i was happy. the sun looked pretty low in
the image, but everything still had middle of the day lighting, so i thought it would look more dramatic if
i added warmness.
last but not least i added my famous birds (my own image), and moved the birds around so it looked like
they were sweeping into the tree. i did the left had side first, then copied the layer and flipped it. with
layer masks i got rid of a few birds here and there on either side as well so it wouldn't look too identical.
model tamika
makeup olivia
when everything falls into place
water curls around your skin
the shore kisses your cold feet
model: sophie crenigan
mua: judith joan
today's shoot was so much fun! i had a wonderful team to work with, and i think the photos came out amazingly :) hope you enjoy!