All posts filed under: Photography

Mihara Horse Club of Okinawa

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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. 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. 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 …

Underwater Leak Detector

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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. 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 …

Karate Masters Portrait Project – Behind the Scenes

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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. 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). 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 …

A Swift Adventure – Iheya Island, Okinawa

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Last weekend, I went over to Iheya Island with fellow photographers David and Jose. It’s a 90 minute ferry ride from Unten Port on the Motobu peninsular. Rather than rent a car when we got there, we all bundled into my little Swift. One of the advantages of a small car is that it makes the ferry ride cheaper. The weather wasn’t great while we there, thick clouds at dawn and dusk meant there were no spectacular sunrises or sunsets. It was, however, a decent opportunity to explore one of the islands I’d never been to before. And because I didn’t get all the shots I wanted I have a good reason to go back again. One of the island’s attractions is Kumaya-gama a large cave beside the ocean that holds a small shinto shrine. I think the plastic buckets you can see on the floor to the right of the shrine are to collect droplets of water dripping from the rock. At other religious sites in Okinawa such as Sefa Utaki, this water is …

In the Studio – Yuki

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A few studio images of Yuki that she can use to update her portfolio. We shot three looks; natural, casual and formal. I kept the style of image simple with a grey background, but used 5 lights: a beauty dish as the main light, a softbox providing fill, two strip boxes for rim light and a hotshoe flash pointed at the background. A far more complicated setup than the single light karate portraits, but for beauty shots it’s great to have both the option to use more lights and the time to work with them. Makeup by Summer Johnson and jewelry provided by Ledeen Diamond Co. Boutique.

White Mouse or Black Tablet

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A friend asked if I wanted to buy a black tablet. He told me I’d be able to interact with the world in ways I couldn’t even dream about. I’d become faster, more agile, in more control. He’d been a user for a few months, but decided to quit. He offered me a deal. “You take the white mouse – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the black tablet – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.” I paid him the cash, he mailed me the tablet. The mouse is caged, but will this be a bitter pill to swallow. To paraphrase, Pietro a photographer friend asked if I’d like to buy his Wacom Intuos4 graphics tablet. He wasn’t using it much and thought I’d find it valuable when editing in Photoshop or Lightroom. He offered me a great deal so I took it. I’ve never used a tablet before and heard they take some getting used …

Karate Masters Portrait Project – Hanshi 10th dan Yoshitaka Taira

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These are the first images in the Karate Masters Portrait Project. The idea is to document the hanshi (grand masters) of karate. I wish I had started this project several years earlier before some of the hanshi passed away. Hanshi 10th dan Yoshitaka Taira Images are shot with the 645D which means I have fantastic detail, important for an archival project. I used a portable black velvet screen to have clean background and then used a single studio light with a beauty dish for illumination. I plan to shoot all portraits with the same setup.