Author: travel67

A Close Call

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Had an eventful day today. As I was leaving the Okinawa expressway at the Ishikawa exit, in my rearview mirror I glanced a white car hurtling up behind me. I guess it was doing about 120 KPH exiting the expressway and not slowing at all. The car swerved around me hit the railing, careened across the road hitting the road markers and grass, but didn’t stop. It seemed the driver kept his foot to the floor as he veered back across the road hit the railing again then ricocheted back across again up the grass and drove along the banking. I thought he was going to flip, but he dropped back to the road, and kept on going. He went through the little tunnel under the expressway and then amazingly through the automatic barrier of the toll gate. I continued following him, as he bounced off more sidings. He reached the major junction bounced over the kern, hit the median, and the car came to a halt. I stopped my car at the lights, took …

Let there be underwater light (Part 2)

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Here are some shots from the first dive with the strobes. The lens used was a 50mm macro (which due to the crop factor on the K5 means it’s the equivalent of a 75mm lens on a 35mm camera). The strobes mean macro shots will be a lot sharper. This is partly because the flash sync shutter speed of 1/180 maybe quicker than the shutter speed used without strobes, but mostly it is because  it is the much faster flash duration that actually freezes the action. The result is that you can make out the teeth of the grumpy anemone fish, which otherwise would have been just a blur. The bright modeling light of the DS-161 strobe is a great help allowing the camera to autofocus more easily. The operative word  here is more, as getting it to lock onto a fish as it whooshes by is always going to be tricky. That’s why you’re going to be seeing a lot of photos of fish that either don’t move much (see below) or tend to …

Let there be underwater light (Part 1)

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A you descend beneath the ocean’s surface things become darker and bluer. Light is absorbed by the water and it does this to a greater extent at the red end of the color spectrum. When shooting in the shallows you can capture the vibrant colors of the reef, but sink a little further and your images will look a little green and possibly blurry from slow shutter speeds (or noisy from high ISOs). The solution is to shed a little light on your subject. Send in the strobes. I bought two used Ikelite strobes on Ebay (thank you Vadim in Australia). One is a powerful DS-161 strobe that has a 3W modeling light, and the other is a far less powerful (and much cheaper) DS-51 strobe that I use as fill. The above image is a pre-dive test in the bath, which showed that both strobes worked, and that the light from the modeling light allows the camera to autofocus on the subject. The strobes are positioned in this image for macro shooting. The lens …

Pixels 2 Pigment – Martin Bailey Okinawa Workshop

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If you listen to photography podcasts or are interested in Japanese wildlife photography you’ve probably already come across Martin Bailey. Check out his website to learn more about him, but in summary he’s a talented guy from the UK who works as a photographer in Tokyo and shares his knowledge with others through his podcast, an e-book, photography tours, and workshops. A couple of the areas Martin is particularly knowledgable in are color management and printing. These are key parts of a professional photographer’s workflow, and without a firm understanding of them, you’re just hoping for the best rather than taking control. After the successful Photography 101, Off Camera Flash, Retro Portraits, and Light Painting workshops I contacted Martin to ask if he’d like to come to Okinawa to teach a weekend workshop on color management and printing. We discussed the idea and as Martin is already planning on teaching  Pixels 2 Pigment workshops in the UK, America and Australia later in the year, he said if there was enough interest he’d come down to Okinawa …

Wonderful Workshops

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A great time was had by all at the two workshops held last week by Trevor Williams. Things were decidedly silly at the retro portraits evening, and smoking hot at the light painting weekend. Here are a few shots from the students. A huge thanks to Trevor for coming down to Okinawa again, you’re always welcome back to our little island.

Uechiryu Karate 9th dan Takehiro Gaja

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Gaja-sensei, a lovely Okinawan man in his late 60’s, who after years of conditioning, has become both the unstoppable force and the immovable object. Uechiryu Karate is in my opinion the toughest of the karate styles. It is based around brutal conditioning of the body so that, if required, the person can endure heavy blows and then deal out a devastating response. Conditioning fists, forearms and shins is done through striking punch bags, wooden boards and even concrete pillars. Gaja-sensei demonstrated his technique for conditioning fingertips. Fill a bucket with stones (or sand if you’re taking it easy) and then punch with an open hand deep into the bucket of stones. So why condition the fingers to such an extent? The answer is simple and brutal. Poking someone in the ribs is more effective if you can literally reach in through the rib cage and remove some of them.

Juggling

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Another brief note to say that I’ll be back to posting soon. The Trevor Williams workshops went great, have done several portfolio shoots with local models, another couple of karate master portraits and slowly getting to grips with underwater photography. Along with that there’s been the usual drama with a computer that occasionally misplaces hard drives (hooray for Time Machine) and a labrador that is continually shedding hair.

Busy Busy Busy

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It’s been a little hectic the last week with various shoots, and getting ready for the coming workshops. Blog posts will follow soon. Also a quick reminder that there are a few places left on the retro portrait workshop and the light painting workshops. As a bonus it looks like the rain will have finally stopped. Here’s one of my favorites from last year’s course.