fixing the light bulb

Alwyn Peterson is a Maun based architect in demand, time is always short for this man, he's also camera shy and has never seen a picture of himself that he likes! Now thats a challenge if ever I've had one.

 The man at his desk was the fastest choice, and to speed up the process even more I decided to use my new LED lights. Working with the desk light that had a horrible energy saving bulb, this could be dealt with in post with a little light painting as can be seen above. The 1^st LED light placed on a stand over and behind Alwyn ,the other held by Gaone my voice activated light stand (VOLS) a quick exposure adjustment and it was all over in 4 frames! Alwyn was happy with his new found self on the camera's screen, no longer resembling Gollum as he most feared.. happy client – happy photographer.

Stuart James Arnold

in a tight spot and Maun 360

Last week, Christiane Stolhofer requested a portrait with a brief, “I want to be in amongst the woodpile” well known and excellent sculptor Christiane says the the wood talks to her, in the same way light talks to me, if that makes any sense to you ?!

So what started out as a simple request became quite complex once the scene of the crime was decided, our space was only a meter wide and 3 or so meters in length, the concrete table obstructing us being part of the floor! Our main light, my biggest soft-box, balanced over the camera, all straight forward so far, but now that woodpile background. The old tree pieces were lined up behind and then along the wall giving a 3D effect and a large aperture put the background out of focus whilst keeping the woodpile feel and Christiane sat cross legged on the floor.

In many cases the background is critical to the image working, here I used a defused light from the side of the immoveable concrete table,. A 3^rd light was hand held by my assistant Gaone just to help with bringing Christiane out from the woodpile a little bit...

Read more about our extraordinary 'Maun people' on my new blog Maun 360

Giottos Tripods and excellent service

A couple of years back, I was looking for a new light weight tripod to use while walking on the beaches in North Devon. After some online reading and comparison decided on the Giottos Pro carbon fiber 8361B, it is light and a good height. the legs can be spread for lower level work and the top can be angled over which comes in useful.
Having decided to make a few photographs on this 2014 trip to the UK so asked my brother to bring the tripod when he collects me from the airport, t was all wrapped up in a towel and just like new except I noticed the 1 of the leg locking leavers was cracked, it sill worked but was hanging by a thread, so to speak.
I looked up the distribution agents Daymen in the UK and fired off an email (with I must admit a certain amount of sarcasm) about my disappointment in the tripod etc etc...  I was surprised and very happy to get a reply from Joanne the very next day enquiring as to which leg locking leaver was giving the problem, to which I replied. The very next day I received a new part completely free of charge and because the tripod comes with a small tool kit the replacement part was installed in about 5 min and is now working very well again.
Thank you Joanne and Daymen for your excellent, prompt and polite service and a great tripod ;-)

Moving on from Moving Pictures

Moving on from moving pictures, I put cinema graphs to the test with some still images in this sort promo for a local hotel.. spot the actual video clip !

I think its an interesting way to see images