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Trevor Williams Light Painting / Retro Portraits Workshops – 3 weeks to go.

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Light Painting Workshop Okinawa

Trevor Williams Light Painting

It’s three weeks to go before the Trevor Williams Light Painting / Retro Portraits Workshops. If you’re interested in coming to either of these workshops please contact me to book your place. It’s going to be a fantastic few days, and as the next Trevor Williams courses will be in 2013 or 2014 please make the most of this opportunity while it’s available. Trevor will also be showing off his light painting skills at the Apple Store in Ginza, Tokyo on April 17th. It will be a high tech interactive fusion of light and music, possibly the first of its kind in the world. If you can’t make the workshop, please check out what should be a fantastic event.

Trevor Williams Light Painting / Retro Portraits Workshops

Trevor Williams Light Painting

You can check out some of the great images by last year’s light painting workshop participants here. Hope to see many of you in three weeks time 🙂

Trash the Dress – Okinawa

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Trash the Dress - Okinawa

Alexis and Michael on Sky

Alexis, one of the riding instructors, recently got married to Michael. They have plenty of great wedding photos, but thought that they’d like to make the most of the Okinawan beaches and her passion for horses. After shooting the two of them cantering through the surf I took some quick “trash the dress” style images.

Trash the Dress - Okinawa

Alexis and Sky go for a paddle.

I really like the look of this final shot, but from a story telling perspective you probably shouldn’t end the series with a shot of the bride gliding off into the distance without her husband! (Trash the dress – okay, trash the military dress uniform – not okay.)

A final thanks to the clients Alexis, Michael, Eve and Madie. Also to Summer Johnson for getting up way way before dawn to start makeup, and to Shawn Miller as my faithful assistant.

Mihara Horse Club of Okinawa

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Mihara Horse Club of Okinawa

Eve & Makoto

A fun shoot last Sunday with Alexis, Eve and Madie, three instructors from the Mihara Horse Club of Okinawa. I’ve hired horses from the club for model shoots in the past, so it was great to get the instructors in front of the camera. One of the advantages of photographing riding instructors, is that they will happily gallop along the beach without looking terrified or ending up bruised, battered and litigious.

Mihara Horse Club of Okinawa

Madie and Sky

Mihara Horse Club of Okinawa

Alexis & Sky

After getting some shots of the three ladies riding I took some portraits of them with the horses. Although it had only just turned 8AM, the Okinawan sun was already strong enough to make people squint and leave strong shadows. I brought along a large Ezylite diffuser which creates a patch of open shade in which I can shoot. Alexis’s husband Michael and my assistant Shawn were press-ganged into holding the diffuser up above their heads while I shot.

Mihara Horse Club of Okinawa

Makoto and Eve

Mihara Horse Club of Okinawa

Sky and Madie

Mihara Horse Club of Okinawa

Alexis and Sky

A great morning with lovely people and horses.

On a technical note. If you’re photographing galloping horses you’re going to need to take a lot of shots to make sure both horse and rider are in focus and that neither horse nor rider is pulling a funny face. If you’re also shooting RAW with a big camera you’re going to have a lot of data to sort through. It’s also probably time for me to get a larger internal hard drive for my computer. The 1TB, 500GB and 250GB I have for image data are almost full.

Good job I was using 64 GB cards or I'd have had to switch mid shoot.

Studio Shoot – Airi

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Airi (1)

Airi (1)

Four images from a studio shoot with Airi.

Airi (2)

Airi (2)

Makeup artist Summer Johnson started off with a natural look then moved to something more glamorous. Then with the addition of a (fake) fur hat and another makeup change Airi rocked a modern take on Davy Crockett.

Airi (3)

Airi (3)

And finally a shot without the hat.

Airi (4)

Airi (4)

Underwater Leak Detector

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Underwater Leak detector

Underwater Leak Detector in Ikelite Housing

One of the major issues with underwater photography is the possibility of flooding the housing with water and damaging the camera. I believe the majority of cases of flooding don’t occur due to some catastrophic failure of the housing (crumpling under the pressure) but rather an imperfect o ring seal due to a spec of dirt or a hair. In these cases water may trickle rather than surge inside the housing. If you’re busy checking your gauges, or you’re diving at night you may not notice the water until it’s too late. Some housings come with a built in leak detector, but for those that don’t, a quick visit to UWleakdetectors.com is a good idea. For 36 dollars you get a little bit of circuitry, velcro and some blue tack that may just save your equipment from a dunking.

Moray Eel at Cape Zanpa

Moray Eel at Cape Zanpa

With regards to my housing I checked with Ikelite and it turns out that there is a control on the housing that allows you to press the lens release button. Now this has been pointed out to them I expect this unusual feature will disappear from any future housings made for the K5.

Karate Masters Portrait Project – Behind the Scenes

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Karate Masters Portrait Project 2

Karate Masters Portrait Project - Photographing Masaji Taira

A few behind the scenes photos that James took on the last shoot. You can see the black velvet background I set up behind them and the strobe with beauty dish on a light stand. The strobe is connected to a flash generator which plugs into the wall. This is a much more cumbersome setup than simply using an hotshoe flash but I like the power, recycling time and flash duration I get with the studio gear.

Karate Masters Portrait Project

Karate Masters Portrait Project - Checking the shot.

I’ve mentioned it before, but when traveling or in the studio it’s great to be able to show the subject you’ve just photographed or the client the image. The large screen on the back of the camera is pretty good for this, but tethering the camera to a laptop (now possible with the 645D) would make this even better (but far more cumbersome).

Karate Masters Portrait Project

Karate Masters Portrait Project

With a clean black background and without the need to do beauty retouching, pretty much what you see on the back of the camera is going to be the final image. Back home I sort through the images make a couple of large prints as gifts for each master and then it’s on to the next dojo.

Dusk at Cape Zanpa

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Dusk at Cape Zampa / Zanpa

Dusk at Cape Zampa / Zanpa

Cape Zanpa (also spelt, or arguably misspelt, Cape Zampa) at dusk.

This was the first time out shooting with a new shift setup for the 645D. I used a Pentax 67 45mm lens with a Zörk ProSA-P67 adapter. This adapter not only allows you to use 67 lenses on the 645 camera but also allows you to raise or lower the lens to correct converging verticals when shooting landscapes or architecture. More details and images should follow over the next few weeks.