Author: travel67

Photography 101 Workshop – January 14th and 15th

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Photography 101 Workshop – January 14th and 15th Who is the course for? The beginner or novice photographer who has a digital SLR  and wishes to progress beyond the green fully auto mode. People who want to take better photographs of their friends and family rather than point, shoot, and hope for the best. What do I need to bring? Your digital  SLR camera, lens, your camera manual, memory card, battery and charger. You don’t need a particular brand of camera or lens. If you don’t have a digital SLR at the moment I can lend you one for the duration of the course. What does the course cover? Equipment – The anatomy of cameras, lenses, memory cards, filters and tripods. Exposure – Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO, Camera Modes, Metering Composition – Angles, Repetition, Rules, Lines, Simplicity Data Management – Sorting, storing and protecting your images. This is a fun workshop rather than a lecture. As we cover new topics we will be taking photographs, reviewing the images, and discussing the results.  You’ll be learning …

Beach Yoga

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The first shot from a beach shoot with yoga instructor Adriesa. This is a good example of using off camera flash (in this case a 300W moonlight plugged into a portable battery pack) to fill in the harsh shadows created by midday sun. For more information on off camera flash there are still three places on the workshop with Pete Leong and me in January.

Lastolite TriGrip Diffuser

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A diffuser is a useful piece of equipment which can help you control harsh light. You place the opaque material between your subject and the light source (usually the sun) and it cuts down the light . It is similar to moving a person from outside into the open shade in a doorway or beneath a tree, except you’re moving the shade to them. As with reflectors, most portable diffusers for photographers are circular and collapse in on themselves for storage. Lastolite make a range of triangular trigrip reflectors and diffusers which have an integrated grip and are easier to maneuver. The medium size trigrip is a good size for putting a person or couple into shade when shooting in the harsh Okinawan sun. It is also a useful way to reduce the strength of the light when shooting into the sun backlighting the hair. In the shot below I used it to control the light on the model and her white dress. It also stopped her from squinting. The size of the diffuser will …

Skymark Airlines

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Skymark is Japan’s budget airline. Domestic flights in Japan are expensive and if you live in Okinawa they’re the only realistic option for getting up to mainland Japan. I’m visiting Tokyo for a few days in February so I thought I’d give Skymark a try. Hopefully I’ll save a bit of money, and at the least it will allow me to advise people better when giving travel advice. I wanted to fly Naha – Haneda return, so I visited the Skymark website which has an English section. A flight from Naha to Haneda ranges in price from 9,800 yen to 24,800 yen depending on how early you book. The key thing to know is that you can book a maximum of two months in advance. Bookings start from 9.30AM and due to demand you have to book at exactly 9.30AM two months previously to get the 9,800 or 10,800 yen tickets.  I know this as this morning I entered my information at 9.32, selected the available web bargain flight and by the time I’d filled …

Bounce Flash Bear

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This was just a quick test shot as an example of bounce flash. Put it up on Flickr and it turned out to be one of my most popular shots of the year. I recently bought a Pentax AF-360FGZ flash so that I could use it’s high speed sync functionality in certain situations. Will post more images taken with the flash and my thought on it in a later post.

Off Camera Flash Workshop – January 28th and 29th 2012

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Pete Leong and I will be holding an Off Camera Flash Weekend Workshop on January 28th and 29th, 2PM to 6PM The lesson fee is US$150 and class size is restricted to a maximum of 10 students. The course will take place at my home in Ishikawa, Okinawa and in the surrounding area. Students should have their own SLR digital camera that they are reasonably comfortable using in manual mode. This is an intermediate level workshop. If you are not sure about things like aperture & shutter speed and how to control them then I’d recommend taking the Photography 101 class first. (The next one will be held January 14th and 15th) If you already have your own flash, sync cords, or triggers please bring them along, but Pete and I will have plenty for people to share and experiment with. The course will start with an introduction to the types of flashes we will be using, the different methods to sync them to your camera, and ways to both mount the flash and modify …

In the Studio – Karima

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A fun shoot with Karima last week. Makeup artist Summer Johnson did a natural look for the first image then flexed her artistic muscles for the second. For the natural shot I used a large octabox as the main light, for the makeup shot I used the beauty dish. You can see the different catchlights in the model’s eyes, and also the different way the light wraps around the face.