Rollasoc Photography

Paper Daisy

2011-11-14T12:21:00.001Z

Paper Daisy
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

This is another smoke art image. I created this specifically for my friend Claire, of Paper Daisy photography, due to her obvious love of daisies!

Baby Barbary macaques Part 2

2011-11-14T12:16:00.001Z

Baby Barbary macaques
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

More from our trip to Monkey forest earlier in the year!

Facade - Oakengates Theatre

2011-11-14T10:37:00.001Z

Facade - Ocakengates Theatre
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Shot my first gig since the summer last week.

Other news: Website redesign work about to start. Relaunching Chris Rollason Photography in the New Year.

Baby Barbary macaques

2011-07-05T12:31:00.001+01:00

Baby Barbary macaques
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Clare

2011-06-29T12:35:00.001+01:00

Clare
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Voice of the Behive

2011-06-22T12:12:00.001+01:00

Voice of the Behive
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Untitled (for now)

2011-06-17T21:39:00.001+01:00

Untitled (for now)
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Another image edited today but taken in Feb 2010

In flames

2011-06-17T12:50:00.001+01:00

In flames
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Been playing with some smoke images that I took in Feb 2010. I really need to do some more of these.

The times are a changing.

2011-04-25T16:17:00.002+01:00

Nathan
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

As you may have noticed over the past 6 months, there has been a serious lack of blog entries and not a lot of new images.

As I said in the previous blog this has mostly been due my self imposed exile, whilst I moved house.

It has also given me some time to reflect on what I want from my photography and what I want people to see.

It is also become apparent, that Chris Rollason Photography has no real focus.

The plan for the next two months is to rectify this and split the website into three distinct streams. One covering the weddings, Babies, Bumps and Portraits side, one covering the Fine Art side (landscapres and abstracts) and one covering purely music photography.

So bear with me a little while longer, whilst I re-brand, re-blog and re-launch my photography endeavours.

Roxana

2011-04-03T18:30:00.002+01:00

Roxana
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Quick update on the last few months.

I took four months off over Christmas, to move town and write a first draft of a novel.

I am now back again shooting. The break, did me good, allowed me to recharge and think about what I want to do next.

I am about to trash this blog and the website and rebuild them both again.

So here is to a belated happy 2011.

Scheduled Maintenance

2010-11-08T14:15:00.002Z

An Architect's Dream.
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Sorry for the lack of blogging this year, it has been very hectic but incredibly fun, which has left me little time for personal work and blogging.

I am currently in the process of relocating to a new town, so I am essentially shutting down the photography for the winter, whilst I start up again a new in the spring.

So expect the website to shut down (well be replaced with a single gallery) in a few weeks, to be replaced in the new year with a more focused site, possibly even several sites. We shall see.

Thank you to everyone we have photographed this year. It has been a total pleasure.

Hope everyone has a very happy Christmas and New Year, Here is to 2011.

RedBubble

2010-03-17T12:20:00.003Z

Looe
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Recently I have opened a shop on Red Bubble.

This will be a showcase for some of my more arty photography and will give people the chance to buy prints or reasonably priced greetings cards. Enjoy!

Long Exposures.

2010-02-15T18:27:00.001Z

Looe
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Managed to have a little bit of time in Cornwall at Christmas, to try some long(er) exposures. I'd done some 30 second ones in 2008, so wanted to go even longer this time

There are more on my Flickr stream. Enjoy

Happy New Year.

2010-01-10T15:50:00.002Z

Cornwall
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Well a new year is upon us. New goals, new horizons etc etc

I was planning a nice long blog, highlighting my favourite images that I took in 2009. But my laptop died. Along with it, all the stuff I was currently editing.

I had backed up everything prior to starting to edit, so I had only lost, probably, a couple of hours work, plus all my emails. I have recovered the work, but it is still a few days job to rebuild the laptop, install all my hardware on it and all my software, plugins, etc.

So hopefully, I may post the blog in a week or so, once I get that process out of the way. I will then edit the images I have taken in the last month.

2010 is probably going to be a slow year for me. I have other priorites in my life at the moment, which I should have sorted out in 2009. So now is the time to concentrate on them, for the next couple of months, before ramping the photography back up in the spring.

So here is to the power of backups and a happy 2010.

Warwick Shoot

2009-11-12T22:30:00.002Z

Kat
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

I took most of the summer off from doing photoshoots, to concentrate on a couple of festivals and a weddings.

Last month, I did my first model shoot in 5 months, just outside of Warwick.

It was an interesting venue, with almost everything, ruins, caves, trees, a courtyard and even more if we had gone inside to shoot.

It was quite a small gathering, with three models and about ten photographers, so less shooting and more chatting and helping each other than I was expecting.

I thought the venue was awesome. I aim to go back there again at some point, since I think I only scratched the surface of it's potential.

It was also nice to meet up again with some of the Midland Stobist members. Five months since my last shoot, I had missed them.

Though, bar the shots of Kat in the cave, (where I used 5 lights, 4 gelled ones on the background and an umbrella'd ungelled one at front), the rest of the shots were either on camera flash or available light.

Lost in thought 2

2009-11-04T21:33:00.002Z

Lost in thought 2
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Sorry for no updates for a couple of months. Time flies as the song says.

I decided to lay of the model shoots over the summer and do a festival or two and a couple of weddings. And generally get out and about and visit a few places. Images can be found on my Flickr stream.

The above image was taken in Gloucester Cathedral on one such trip.

I'm hoping to start redesigning the website this month, for launch in the new year.

Film

2009-08-08T14:37:00.002+01:00

Looe
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

At Christmas, I was bought a Holga film camera.

I had been after some film cameras for a while, and bought a Nikon F50 just before Christmas.

The problem then was the cost of having films developed and scanned in. So I have bought myself a film scanner.

I have seven films that need scanning. So expect some more things to appear on my Flickr stream over the coming months

Cancer Research Charity Ball - Macdonald Burlington Hotel - Birmingham

2009-07-18T14:03:00.004+01:00

I had a really great time last night at a Charity Ball in aid of Cancer rearch in Birmingham. Some great food, great music and I met some very nice and interesting people. Oh and I took some portraits.

For those that attended, the photos are currently being upload. Please me patient. They should be available later this evening or tomorrow.

The url is www.ordermyphotos.co.uk

The code to get into view the images is 1011 9310 3322 A

Thank you to everyone who posed for me and a big thank you to Richard for helping with the sales side. He was a total star.

Recent Photos

2009-07-11T09:04:00.002+01:00

Need a title
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Sorry it has been so long since my last update, but some personal things have taken precidence over the photography for the last couple of months.

Above is the first of a new batch of smoke images. These will be trickle released as and when I can fit in processing them.

I have been busy continuing to expand my model portfolio.

I have also had my first fine art shoot. Where I learnt a lot about the use of light on the female form

And tried my hand at some street photography at Gay Pride in Birmingham

Plus I've been trying to catch up on my backlog of editing from earlier in the year

I've also managed to fit in some music photography as well.

So basically, I have been stupidly busy for the last few months. Hopefully, that will continue over the summer.

Shock Horror and Update

2009-05-09T13:13:00.002+01:00

BikiniGate (Leanne & Lucy)
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

It's been a while, since the last update, partly this had been frustratingly out of my control. Lets just say I'm not happy about that, I'll endeavour to be a bit more punctual in future.

I recently met up with the Midlands Strobist group again, at Cosford Air Museum.

It was a beautiful day, but we started shooting in one of the hangers. The inside shots were using one or sometimes two umbrelled flash units. Sometimes with a rim flash behind or to the left. The top shot, had the flash dirctly behind them. Personally, I think I needed to move the camera a bit to the left to totally get the effect I was after. So slightly disappointed with the shot, though we was working fast.

All was going well, until security took exception of Leanne and Lucy in their bikinis. Fair enough I suppose..... So we decided to shoot outside for the rest of the day.

(see images of Sarah above/). This was the first time I'd shot Sarah, but she was a joy to work with and we found a couple of really good locations outside. These are essentially natural light shots, though I did use a flash unit, both on camera and on a stand to add a bit of fill to the shadow areas.

It was really nice to meet up with Emma Toddington again. She was the first model I ever shot with flashes last April, so it was good to meet up a year later, even if we mostly shot with natural light. There was some on camera fill flash from my SB800 in iTTL mode.

Emma had wanted to get some ballet shots. The problem we had, was grass isn't brilliant for ballet poses, so we had to place her on a path. Not ideal, but I do lke the tree background.

We had taken Cymone to the same spot as we had shot Sarah, but I did try and make the images feel really different. We also found a little tunnel, in which to shoot her in, since it was slightly more grungy than the clean exterior setting. So it went with her clothes rather well.

After we had shot Emma, I managed to grab Leanne for a couple of images against a tree Joe (one of the other photographers) spotted. She said she would give me two minutes before lunch, so it was rush. Image shot with on camers SB800 using iTTL. Which was nice, since it gave me a nice dynamic range in the image, without having to blow the sky to white.

Overall it was a really good day and a good shoot, even if we did almost get kicked off the premises.

Lola Hope

2009-03-02T05:55:00.000Z

Lola Hope
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Back in December. I had planned a joint shoot with Claire from Paper Daisy photography, with models Lola Hope and Fletch. Two of our (now) regular models and friends. Things didn't quite go to plan.

First Fletch had to drop out due to work commitments. Then Claire got to her studio, where we originally planned on doing the shoot, to find it flooded. So we had to improvise and use my house instead.

The above image was a test image, whilst I sorted the lighting out. But I kinda like it.

I had a couple of specific images that I really wanted, the top image is one of them. Which Lola totally nailed...

I seem to be going through a feather phase at the moment. What with the peacock feather images I did with Leanne and Stacey previously (which I should blog soon) and really wanted to do some feather stuff with Lola.

Given Claire's issues with her studio, we were running rather late, so she decided just to do the makeup and styling.

I'm really chuffed with what Claire came up with, both in terms of the makup and other styling and her ideas throughout the day. These photos are really a collaborative effort between the three of us, (plus a secret helper.....). They wouldn't have been as good, if I was left to my own devices.

This was a really fun shoot and we had such a laugh (and chips) doing it. I can't thank Lola enough. I was really chuffed with the images we got.

Lighting wise, there was two main setups. One was classic clam shell lighting, using two umbrellas and shooting between them, the other (for shots overhead, when Lola was lying on the floor) was two umbrellas, one above the face the other below her and to the right.

Lola is normally a giggle monster, but the above makes me laugh... I did enter this photo into a competition, just to see what comments it would draw. The judge kind of liked it, but it didn't do very well.

In addition to my growing feather collection, I also seem to be collecting masks at the moment. Here is our first attempt at using them. With the fake eyelashes, it was pretty hard to get the image looking right. I'm not sure it works, but I like the post processing I did to white the face out, to give it a different look.

Towards the end of the shoot, I got our secret helper, to stand on a stool and drop feathers on Lola. Well, it seemed a good idea at the time. Lighting was two umbrellas. One camera left the other camera right.

I did shoot some shots on film during the shoot. Still haven't finished the film yet, so I haven't had them developed yet.

In January, I did another group shoot over in Loughborough. Where I got to shoot Lola again.

The above photo was against a painting. Lighting wise, using two umbrellas, one high, camera right, one low camera left

We literally had about five minutes to do these shots, before she was whisked away to do some awesome shots outside with Adam Swords.

When I got to the shoot, I quickly set up a black backdrop, for a particular shoot, I had preplanned. Lola stepped in briefly to test my light setup.

As a keen dancer, I really need to get her to do more dance poses in future. Hopefully, I should get to photograph her this coming weekend.

Ok, slightly out of order, back in October, I shot Lola again, this time with the lovely Leanne Twist.

This was a weird / fun / frustrating shoot. Basically, within about two minutes of starting the shoot, there was about seven other photographers and three sets of lights set up, all vying for attention. After about 5 minutes, I just walked off and left them to it.

It was a fun shoot. It is always fun to work with Lola and we always have a laugh. It has been wonderful to watch her confidence over the last six months from her initial shoot. I'm looking forward to working with her again, hopefully, at the weekend.

Lola Hope

Paper Daisy Photography

Leanne Twist

Adam Swords

Crash Land

2009-02-27T01:53:00.000Z

Sunbathing
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Ok, it's been a while since I've blogged. I have a backlog of things to talk about going back as far as July. Finding time to blog is an issue though.

Photography wise, like the last two years, the winter months have been generally slow. I have been out and about a bit more this year. So expect some winter scenes soon, once I've caught up my backlog of editing.

The above image is from a WPS day out in July. I still have about 600 images to wade through. Fun.

I'm thinking of taking the website down for a month and relaunch it at Easter. Basically, the current one was an experiment in my learning ASP.net and Visual Basic. But I really don't like coding in VB, so have decided to rewrite the whole thing from scratch in C# and Ajax. So that is the plan for the next month.

I also want to write a better gallery section and add some videos to the site, also see if I can integrate the (external) blog into the main site and remove the news section. So I'm getting quite excited and motivated to put the hours in to rewrite it. But it will mean, I won't be taking many photos for the next month.

So more to come...... Onwards and Upwards.

Burlesque

2009-02-06T05:45:00.002Z

My other excursion out of novelling land and back into photography land in November was for a Burlesque workshop, hosted by Tip Top Photography in the Jewelry quarter of Birmingham.

It was a cold November morning and I did have a few issues with finding the place. Blooming sat nav. ha.

I think there was five or six photographers there on the day. My motivation for signing up for it, was to get more experience in a working photographic studio, as well as expand my model portfolio images.

The plan was to shoot four very different burlesque dancers in their costumes. First up was the lovely Willow Blue.

Willow Blue was our Showgirl for the day. Performing her routine, several times, once each for the different photographers.

Willow was absolutely lovely and very helpful as far as posing went. Afterwards, she came and had a brew with us all.

Second up after the brew, was Suzie Sequin.

When she first came out in her costume, I hardly recognised her from the woman that turned up. Opps sorry.

Debbie that runs the studio, was on hand throughout the shoots, giving advice to both models for poses and photographers, as Steve. So it was a very useful day and I learnt quite a bit.

The range of photographers there on the day ranged from very beginner to quite studio experienced. So it was good to watch the other photographers work, watch how they interact with the models and also see the amount and difference of advice given by the Tip top team.

Suzie was good fun. I enjoyed shooting her and she looked fabulous.

One of the plans for the day was to shoot some setups with a white background and some on Black.

I'm quite used to this by now. The basic, lighting setups for the white, was two Interfit flashes set to continuous on the background and one main light, through a softbox camera left (or whereever we wanted to place it). I did move it about a few times.

Third up was CherryFox.

Cherryfox did tell me she is also a photographer. I have since checked out her portfolio. She has some excellent photos in there.

I really enjoyed working with Cherry, she was a lot of fun.

I was having a few issues throughout the day, with being tethered to the lights. I kept tripping over the cable. Given I used fixed lenses, I physically have to move position to get the shots, not relying on the use of zoom. So lots of physically moving in and out. Having a cable attached to the camera doesn't help. Think I'll stick to wireless triggers in future.

Below is my favourite image of the day. I may enter it into some photography competitions soon. It is simply sweet but different. (a bit like Cherryfox)

In between shooting the models, the photographers get a chance to mingle and chat and show eash other stuff from our portfolios. I enjoyed the banter and saw some stunning and inspirational images.

Last up for the day was Deliah Defoe.

I was getting pretty tired at the end of the long day, so was grateful for the additonal direction thrown in by Debbie and CherryFox.

Deliah was good fun though, I enjoyed shooting her.

I'm going to see her, in her professional capacity, in the coming week, when she plays a show locally. So hopefuly, I'll get a chance to meet up and have a chat. (not taking photos of the event though, which is a shame).

With the black backdrop, the basic setup, was still with the main light, camera left through a softbox, but obviously no lights on the background. A snooted light was available, and I did use it a bit, to provide some rim light. I believe there may have been a fill light on the camera right. Quite far away though. I really should start making more notes during shoots and drawing the lighting setups.

Overall, it was an excellent day. I learnt a lot and met some really nice people. I'm really happy with the images I took, it has also been good to see what some of the other photographers came up with.

Willow Blue

Suzie Sequin

CherryFox

CherryFox Photography

Deliah Defoe

Tip Top Photography

3 Daft Monkeys & Ouja - Little Civic - Wolverhampton

2009-01-20T05:42:00.000Z

3 Daft Monkeys
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

If you have been following the blog, you should know that I retired temporarily from photography in November, to write another novel.

I did venture out a couple of times in the month though with my camera. The first being to see Cornish Folk band 3 Daft Monkeys at the Little Civic, in Wolverhampton.

Support was from the excellent Ouja.

Ouja put in a great energetic set of mutli influences folk. Mostly instrumental with a few vocal tunes. I thought they were excellent and fun!

I'd photographed 3 daft monkeys earlier in the year at Farmer Phil's festival and had asked nicely if I could come and shoot this show. I've been a fan for many years since first seeing them play at my brother Paul's wedding.

Tonight's set was in support of their new Social Vertigo album. So a lot of the material was from the album with a few choice oldies thrown in too.

When the set started, I wedged my self between the stage and the barrier, which was a good photographic vantage point for the firs few numbers, until Tim invited, any small people to sit there too. It then became a little crowded. Which was funny, so I flitted between there, the side of the stage and the audience. I did feel a bit guilty as people moved out of my way to allow me to the barriers.

Photography wise, I'm still having issues with my D300. I really should get it fixed. It still refuses to play nice with two of my lenses, though I worked out how to fool the camera now. So at least I can still work it.

Lighting wise, the left hand side of the stage is abysmally short on light, so I had trouble getting any decent shots of Jamie on bass. Elsewhere on stage, there was a good amount of light, so it was more of an issue waiting for the moment to take photo and not worry too much about the lighting, other than trying not to blow the highlights out if possible, whilst still keeping detail in the shadows of the performers.

So overall a stonking set, (only marginally marred by them not playing my favourite 3dm song "Wonderful"). 3 Daft Monkeys are a great party folk band, with the audience realy going for it at points and some good banter between the audience and Tim.

I then went back home to novel writing land....

Ouja
3 Daft Monkeys

Happy New Year

2009-01-06T03:23:00.000Z

Looe
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Quick post, just to say Happy New Year to everyone.

My December plan for playing photo blog catch up has been almost successful in processing the images, but failed totally in the blogging department. Time has just run away from me.

My Christmas plans took a turn for the better and my proposed week off became a fortnight (photos soon) away in Cornwall. So lots of photo taking but being on dialup for that period, meant I was rarely online for very long.

On returning home, I found I had no working boiler, so I have spent as little time as possible at home and hence, hardly any time online. Hopefully the situation should be resolved by the end of the week, so normal service will resume shortly.

So I hope you all had a good break. I'm looking forward to 2009 and trying to make it a vast improvement, in many areas on 2008. More soon......

Facade

2008-12-03T05:45:00.000Z

Facade
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Back to my backlog of Blogging

In early October I got to work with the wonderful Facade again.

I'd shot them live a few times and did a photo shoot at their rehearsal studio earlier in the summer (see previous blog). This was the second half of that original shoot.

The original idea was for an outside shoot. I'd scouted a couple of locations, but the weather on the day we chose was horrible. It was raining rather a lot, so we had to resort to plan B.

Plan B entailed doing some normal portrait images back at their rehearsal space. I'd like the green leaf lights backdrop behind the drum kit, at the last shoot, so wanted to use that.

I also wanted to play with the word "Facade" and do something different. Something etheral.

As part of my 52 weeks self portrait project, I did some long exposure / multiple flash images.

The above image is one of me. The one above it is the composite I came up with of the band. These are six second exposures, camera on a tripod. With me manually triggering a single flash in front of the subject, whilst telling them to "Look forward", "Look Left", "Look Right".

I was sort of happy with the outcome. In hindsight, I might have had better results if I use the multiple exposure mode on my camera and used shorter exposures I'll try that at some point in the future.

We also did some straight portraits.

These are essentially, three light setups. Since the band were seated, I had a white umbrella at head height on camera right. There was a snooted flash behind as a rim light and a flash into silver umbrella a long way away high up, camera left.

I have some great out take images as well, which only the band have seen. Sorry!!!

By now we were all hungry so drove into Wolverhampton for part two of the plan.

Back up plan B was to go to Wolves and take some images in the multi storey car park by the train station. This was a fast shoot, since we only had 45 minutes free parking and everyone was cold and hungry. So time was of the essence.

The lighting setup was basically two flashes into umbrellas, one on each side of the band, with the light feathered to expose everyone evenly. Well that was the plan.

So in the most part this was very successful. We had a few wind issues blowing the lights over. A few of the images have shadows where I didn't want shadows, due to people being in the way of the light. Oh well.

I also carried on the long exposure concept as well. This time using a three second exposure, and getting Kirsty to stay as still as possible, as the other band members wandered off and I fired my lights manually for a weird effect. Yep, no Photo Shop trickery needed. More fun doing it in camera.

With the 45 minutes up, we all went for lunch. It had now stopped raining so Joe decided for one more brief shoot at a near by park.

It was a bit scary really, doing the shoot with other people milling about, (and me with expensive equipment) so I decided to do these images with one flash into a white umbrella and not lug all the rest of my gear about.

The above image was an attempt at getting a reflection shot. Think everyone was cold and tired by this point. My light stand was in the puddle.

So to finish off, we tried some more individual shots under an arch. Same single strobe in front, so I could control the flash / ambient exposure and not white out the already near white sky.

We then all said good bye and went home. It was a pretty long shoot (about 4 hours) in total, including driving time and lunch. I'm really happy with the results though.

The top image I'm particularly proud of, which has been well received by people I've shown it to and I've managed to win a competition with it as well. So very happy.

So overall, it was a fun shoot. I think the car park images came out well, given the time constraints and maybe the car park was a better setting than my original plan, (which I'll use at some point in the future). I'd like to thank the band for their patience as I experimented with the long exposure images and also for keeping them away from lunch. ha ha.

Facade

The Stealer of Hearts

2008-11-28T01:05:00.000Z

The Stealer of Hearts
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Very Quick update.

A few moments ago, I managed to hit the 50,000 word mark on my Nanowrimo novel, titled "The Stealer of hearts".

I still need to finish the story, which I'll do over the weekend, but I have now achieved the milestone set for the amount of words to write in a month.

So, I'm very happy and looking forward to getting back to my photography editing at the weekend and next weeks shoots.

Middle(ish) of the month.

2008-11-20T04:33:00.001Z

Facade
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

As you should be aware, I'm taking November off from photography to concentrate on some of my other hobbies. Normal service resuming in December.

Of course, the best laid plans and all that. I have done a little bit of photography this month.

I shot my of my favourite Cornish bands at the Little Civic at the start of the month. Namely Three Daft Monkeys". They were supported by the excellent Ouja.

I've edited the Ouja images (as above) and will blog them and three daft monkeys next month.

Also, I have a Burlesque photo shoot coming up this weekend. So that should be fun.

As I mentioned before, I had planned in November to write another novel as part of Nanowrimo. I can report this is going ok. I've hit 31000 words, so a little behind schedule, but should be ok to finish it on time.

I had a vague inkling when I started of what the first chapter would be, but nothing after that. So I'm currently on Chapter 5 and haven't actually got to some of the stuff I was going to do in Chapter 1.

It has been interesting experiment in free writing, with the characters not exactly doing what I planned for them to do. So it has kept is fresh and exciting for me.

Anyway it is all rather silly and I'm not sure if anyone will ever get to read it. We shall see, if I do a 2nd draft next year first.

I took a week off as well. The plan was to stay at home, bash out the book and work with E on the new Hair Thieves EP.

Things went mostly to plan. We managed to write and record a complete new song for the EP and finished off some lyrics for another tune.

However, I did get kidnapped and taken to Wales for a day on the beach. Which was great, though wet and blustery though I did take a few photos.

You may be wondering about the other three images in this blog. Well, I entered these three (plus another not on Flickr) into a competition at the Wolverhampton Photo Society.

They did rather well. In the black and white category, I came second and fourth. In the colour category, I came first (with the top shot of Facade) and second. So happy bunny indeed.

So that is where I am in the month. I am now miles behind on my model shoot editing. Sorry. But the novel is taking over my life. I will get the images edit before the next shoots on the 6th and 7th of December.

Nick, Zoe & Emma

2008-11-07T05:38:00.003Z

Nick & Emma
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

This is a tale of committing myself to something and following it through. I'm a pretty organised person, so when I commit to something, it goes on one of my many contextual task lists. These then get reviewed every week as I plan the week ahead.

I have known Emma and Nick for many many years and had promised their gran over two years ago that I would take some formal photos of them for her.

When I made the commitment, to their gran, I had no idea how I would do this, given my lack of equipment at the time. But it got added to the list of things to do in the future.

Fast forward two years and I was finally in a position to take the photos. I hired Paper Daisy's studio for the shoot, since she had the type of background I wanted to use, though I used my own lights.

It was all cloak and dagger stuff, with Emma having to sneak her suit out of the house early in the morning and hushed phone calls since they didn't want her parents know what was going on.

We did a few formal shots for the gran / parents, at the start of the shoot to get them out of the way. I don't think either of them, really wanted to get dressed up for the occasion, so not entirely looking comfortable in the shots (like most other formal sots then). But they slowly relaxed into it, as we started having a it of a laugh and taking it a lot less seriously.

Afterwards, we tried some informal shots against the black background. I was keen to take some photos on black after the disaster of memory cards on the Nikki Pollock shoot in August.

Nick's fiance, Zoe, was roped in for a few shots as well. The one above, being one of my favourites including her.

Lighting wise, was mostly a simple two light / two umbrella 2 to 1 ratio system. For the last image above I added a snooted rim light though.

Overall, it was a pretty fun shoot and we ended up with lots of rather silly out take images, which I'm not showing anyone. ha ha.

It was also nice to finally cross, one of the items on my lists that had been there for far too long.

Nikki Rous - The Nedge

2008-11-05T05:35:00.001Z

Nikki Rous
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

It seems like an age since I did any gig photography.

After an August that included a battle of the bands final, Farmer Phil's festival and the 10 long Bridgnorth music festival, I was all gigged out and really fed you with photographing gigs, wanting to contentrate on portraits and band shoots for a bit

So after a couple of months away from it, it was nice to slip back into band photography mode.

I'd seen Nikki play in Ironbridge the week before. in a venue that didn;t really have enough light to warrant getting any good photography, so when she mentioned it, I jumped at the chance to photograph her at The Nedge in Telford, since it does actually have some coloured lights and a stage.

Nikki is a good friend of mine and we normally have a bit of friendly heckling / banter during her sets when I see her (god knows what the other punters think). Today, I told her off for singing with her eyes closed. She retorted with telling me stop photographing her in gaping open mouth mode (well it's those expressive moments that make good images). We both tried...

During her first set, everything was fine, I stuck to my preferred 50mm lens that I use for gigs. Eased my way back into it. It took me a bit to get my act together and I threw away probably the first ten shots, since they were not sharp enough.

It was during her second set that things went pearshaped. I changed my lens to an 85mm. Tried to take a photo. Nothing. Just got a "Fee" camera error. Checked the aperture ring (since that is what the error means), it was fine.

Tired my 28mm lens. Same error. I got a bit worried at this point. I couldn't have broken both lenses, which meant it was the camera.

Tried the 50mm. That still worked fine. Tried the 85mm, nope. Tried the 28mm, nope. Managed to get both lenses to work, if I didn't snap them in and used the aperture ring on the lens, instead of the camera, plus did manual focus. So ok I could still photograph, but it wasn't looking good for the camera (and I'd left my second body at home).

So I managed to make it to the end of her set. When I got home, I checked the lenses. No sign of damage. Tried them on my other camera and they worked fine.

Checked the camera. No obvious signs of damage and all my other lenses all worked on the camera. So why not these two lenses?

Thank god for the internet. A quick search on Flickr and I found others had had this problem. There is another ring on my D300 that gets moved when the lens is slotted in, sometimes this can be impeeded by dirt. So I wiggled it a bit, got a blower on it. Prayed to a multitude of different Dieties and tried the two lenses. Both now worked. How relieved was I? Er very.

Sorry about that, but that is my tale of the night. Though a few other highlights, like someone raving over a photo I took of them and the land lady saying, she'd heard of me. Famous.. Not quite.... but funny none the less.

If you haven't heard Nikki's music or seen her live I highly reccommend that you do, she has one of the most beautiful voices around and some excellent self penned tunes, (oh and some interesting and different covers).

For gig listings and wonderful tunes check out Nikki's Myspace page.

Rookery House - Photo shoot - Part 7

2008-11-04T05:23:00.000Z

Leanne Twist
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

My final entry on the Rookey House shoot, is of Leanne.

We spotted Leanne, getting ready, whilst we were shooting Cymone and the other photographer, I was shooting with, Claire, decided to stalk her and make her our next model.

The initial shots used the same lighting setup, that we used for Cymone. I think the pink outfit went with the general colour scheme of the room.

We loved the makeup, that Amelia had given her and nicknamed Leanne "funky" (more on that in a later blog probably, I'm rubbish at remembering names, better at nicknames).

Leanne, had (luckily for us) brought some props along with her, including a bunch of colour co-ordinated flowers. Which we used at the end of this setup and the next setup.

Leanne suggested we try some shots from above, looking down at her. A sort of dead doll type pose.

Personally, I would have loved a better backdrop for her to lie on. Preferebly a black sheet, but we had to make do with the table in the room. Not ideal at all.

This did prompt me to buy a black sheet / background for future shoots.

We used the same setup later for Lola, on the table with the flowers.

Above is a behind the scenes image I took of Claire shooting Leanne, which shows the two light setup we used.

In post processing, I decided to attempt to see what I could do with removing the table, since I really didn't like it. This is what I ended up with....

Leanne in scary corpse pose. (maybe I should have posted this on the 31st of October).

I loved working with Leanne. She is effortless to photograph. Full of ideas and suggestions and a real laugh.

One of the parts of my photography, I'm trying to work on, is my model interaction and direction. Leanne, when she wasn't being photographed, was wandering around helping the other models with poses and lending props. I thought she was a total star that day and was really helpful to us. So thank you! I wouldn't have got some of the shots I did without her input. (like the black and white Lola image in the previous blog).

I've done another couple of shoots with Leanne since this shoot . These images are still being edited, but will be up soon, so I'll blog these in the coming weeks.

Leanne on Model Mayhem

Rookery House - Photo Shoot - Part 6

2008-10-30T12:44:00.004Z

Lola Hope
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Introducing Lola Hope. I think this was either her first or second photo shoot. Not that it showed, she was very natural indeed, which made it easy to shoot her.

I really like the above image. But it was badly critisised when I showed it at my Photographic society. The judge didn't like the butterfly ring, nor the angle of her head. Her grandad likes it, which is more important to me. Judges eh, what do they know.. ha ha.

This a simple two light setup, (which is pretty much what we used for the whole shoot). Flash into a silver umbrella, camera right. Close in for the main light. Flash into white umbrella, camera left, to provide fill. I wanted a soft light to emphasise Lola's soft skin and the soft background.

Part of the setup can be seen above. The interesting thing I noticed whe editing the images, was the difference I got, using the same lights, in the same postion, with Jamie.

In Lola's case, She was close to the main light, so it was nice and large and soft. In Jamie's case, he sat closer to the fill light. So the main light, to him, was further away (and I didn't adjust for it), so the light appeared smaller to him, thus the images, to me, appears to be harsher in the skin tones.

This resulted in more work in post production for the similar images of Jamie and hardly any processing for Lola's images

The backdrop was, as can be seen above a notice board (photo courtesy of Paper Daisy Photography). We made Lola stand on a chair, to get her to sit on the small shelf above a radiator. It was a bit warm there, since the heating was on.

We did another setup with Lola, basically jumping on with setup with used with another model (Leanne).

For me, Leanne was the star of the shoot, I'll tell you why in the next blog.

Good idea I think, but I really hated the table. I wished I had a black backdrop with me at the time to put under the models. When I got home, I ordered one for future shoots. The table spoils it, we could have tried the carpet, but that was equally ropey.

I enjoyed working with Lola, I was lucky enough to photograph her again last weekend (blog to come), where she really was a lot of fun and was a total giggle monster. (I may have to blog the outtakes from the shoot as well).

Lola on Model Mayhem

Rookery House - Photo Shoot - Part 5

2008-10-29T06:01:00.001Z

Cymone Astella
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

It was nice to get to shoot Cymone again at this shoot. I liked the images we did together at the Friends Institute meeting earlier.

We started on the stairs. The top image, is one of my favourites of the day. This was basically a two light setup. The main light utilising a silver umbrella on camera left (you can just see the stand in the picture above, then a shoot through umbrella pretty straight on, which was for fill, and adjusted for height, depending on whether Cymone was sitting or standing. I have no clue what Eric is doing.

I liked the pot plant in the background, Claire deemed it horrible and hid it in the girls toilets. Thanks! ha ha

The above image, still uses two lights. One was to Cymone's right, providing a little bit of fill, (but ended up being the main light) and the other light was up next to me on quite high power to make up the distance down the stairwell.

We then moved into another room and set up against an interesting wall / door thing.

Still, keeping the two light umbrella theme going.

The last shoots I took for the day was Cymone and Jamie. Cymone had some interesting makup applied by Amelia. So I really wanted a close up image of it. This is one light into a see through umbrella.

Same lighting as per the close up image.

So, it was good to work with Cymone again, shame she had to work and miss our last group shoot, I'm working on some ideas for her for the next time I get to shoot her.

Cymone
Jamie
Amelia

Rookery House - Photo Shoot - Part 4

2008-10-29T05:57:00.000Z

Marvin
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

The Rookery house shoot was interesting for me, since it was the first time, I'd got to photograph several male models. (see previous post on Jamie)

When we first got there, my friend, current pseudo assistant, soon to be make up artist and also fellow photographer Claire, said we should do something with a comfy chair and bookshelf in one of the rooms.

Very late in the day, I remembered this and asked Marvin to model for us.

This is a simple two light setup, with umbrellas, on either side. These were quite far away, so not overly soft, since we needed to light the background with the same lights.

Time was short, so didn't want to have to light the background as well with more lights. We positioned him close to the wall as well to help light the background with our front lighting.

I did manage another setup with Marvin, (Claire had gone off to photograph another model) at the pillar in the same room. This is a one light set up I think. The light from a see through umbrella on camera left

The light being positioned at such an angle that I wouldn't pick up any reflections in his glasses.

The slight niggle with these group meets is they can be a bit frantic and as such, sometimes you don't get enough time to properly set up nor build up a rapport with the models. I need to work on my time management at the meetings.

I think I got about ten minutes with Marvin, including setting up the two setups. I would have liked a bit longer to try a few other things. I'm pretty happy with how these turned out though.

http://www.modelmayhem.com/305459

Taking a Break.

2008-10-28T05:35:00.002Z

Sorry, I've been very busy recently with several photo shoots, that I'm behind on the blogging. I think I have about four or five shoots to blog still.

The last few months have been really manic and I want to slow down, take stock of things and re-introduce myself to parts of my life I've been neglecting recently.

So I'm mostly (not regretting and looking forward to) taking all of November off from photography, to concentrate on other writing (another Nanowrimo novel) and musical projects (new Hair Thieves EP and album). Plus catch up with friends and family hopefully.

I do have a couple of studio based personal photography projects I may undertake at home, if time permits. (so not exactly resting, just rechannelling my energies elsewhere.

I will endeavour to catch up with my outstanding editing (I have unedited images going back to July) and the photo shoot blogs over the course of November.

Normal photography things will resume with my next scheduled photo shoot on December 6th, unless someone wants to offer me vast sums of money in the interim, I may be forced out of semi retirement.

All behind the scenes pictures above courtesy of Paper Daisy Photography.

Rookery House - Photo Shoot - Part 3

2008-10-17T05:32:00.000+01:00

Natalia Lorendez
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

It was really nice to photograph Natalia again. I'd shot her briefly at the Rainbow Warehouse shoot in April, where I got about 10 minutes with her whilst everyone else was packing up.

The above image is one of my favourites from the whole day (if not my favourite).

Photography wise, the setup was as follows. Flash into shoot through umbrella, camera left, very low down. Flash into silver umbrella, camera right, very high up to provide fill. So a very simple setup.

I was lucky to get some time with Natalia, she had been waiting for over twenty minutes for one photographer to finish, to shoot with him, but I stole in and pinched her instead. I believe he wasn't happy about that later. Oopps.

The upside down images on the stairs were Natalia's idea. They kind of work, but I think towards the end of the images I shot, the blood was rushing into her face a bit too much. ha ha..

But looking at the images, I noticed her coat tails were not where I'd ideally want them to be. I think I need to be a bit more observant of the details before taking pictures, in future, and not just worrying about the general composition and focus point.

I also had a few post processing issues, with stray hairs across the eyes, which I had to clone out, which I could have avoided by paying closer attention to the details at the time. So lesson mostly learnt (I had the same issue with another private shoot last month. More soon possibly).

Hopefully, I'll get to work with Natalia again, she is a joy to work with. I have some definite ideas of some things I'd like to try with her (and have even started purchasing the props).

Finally, another happy accident, (which I apologise to Natalia for sticking on the net, since it isn't very flattering).

Due to the aforementioned blood rush to her head, I decided to make the above image black and white, (yes I could have reduced the red channel instead and kept the image in colour). So I was playing with the sliders and the image just kept getting weirder and horrible, so I thought I go with the flow and see how silly I could make it. Then I tinted the whole image blue for that alien effect.

Personally, I think I've made her look like a dead alien Meryl Streep. Whether that is a good or bad thing remains to be seen. Anyway, I like the image, so that is all that really matters.

Natalia

Rookery House - Photo Shoot - Part 2

2008-10-14T05:34:00.001+01:00

Jamie Chatburn
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Still playing blog catchup at the moment. Last month, I was involved in another group photo shoot in Birmingham at the Rookery House in Erdington.

Rookery house is a little run down but has got lots of character. When we got there, I initially set up a white background, with the intention of doing a quick portrait of each of the models.

This didn't quite go to plan. I had taken another very good photographer with me (Paper Daisy Claire) and given that this time, there was some male models at the shoot, we stole Jamie first.

The basic setup for these images on white, was three strobes behind the backdrop, to totally nuke it. Then two strobes using umbrellas. One in front of the model, camera left and one slightly behind the model, camera right. (see below)

In hindsight, this second light probably wasn't needed, as the backdrop was now, essentially, one massive softbox providing the rim lighting. As such it it did cause a few issues with burning out the edges of the faces (see below)

Now, I like the image like that, but I can see how it might have been improved, if I had nuked the background from the front and blocked the light from spilling back at the camera and models.

The photo above of Jamie, with his hands behind his head, was cropped that way, due to a slight lens flare issue lower in the image.

Well it's all an experiment and learning after all. So lesson learnt.

We had a brief time to photograph Jamie with Caroline. It was a shame that I didn't get to work with her, on her own, later in the day. Maybe next time.

One of the other photographers, Eric, then set us up to photograph Jamie, against a blue cupboard door (see top image). It was suggested to shoot him in the cupboard at one point. Wish we had tried it. There was some weird masks and things in the cupboard.

This is essentially a one light setup, with an shoot through umbrella infront of Jamie (see below). There was a bit of fill from a 2nd umbrella a bit later on, but not much.

Jamie then went off to work with some other photographers and Claire and I went to find some other victims (more blogs on this later). Later we did grab Jamie again, using the same setup as we did for Lola (blog to follow). These were taken up against an empty notice board.

This is almost my standard two light setup (except reversed), Silver umbrella strobe, close in on camera right, being the main light, with a shoot through umbrella on camera left providing the fill. (I normally have the umbrellas, so the silver is the fill)

This worked well for the images of Lola, but looked a bit harsh on the images of Jamie. I had to soften the images a bit in post production to give a more consistant feel across the sets.

The other thing to note, is that Jamie was sitting on a radiator that was turned on. After a while, it became a bit uncomfortable and hot, so we retired to a cold corridor for a few more images.

Lighting wise, I set up a clam shell sysytem, with the silver umbrella up very high and the shoot through umbrella providing fill from the bottom.

This was mostly successful, though I did later add another low powered strobe, hidden behind Jamie, to provide some seperation between his dark clothing and the dark floor.

Finally, right at the end of the day, we managed to grab a few (not many) shots of Jamie with Cymone (who I'd previously shot at the Friend's Institute shoot). Cymone had some interesting makeup, so I wanted to get a few shots of her. (Thanks to Amelia for the makeup effects).

Lighting, I think was from one strobe shooting through an umbrella, camer left.

I really enjoyed working with Jamie, he was very amenable to our ideas and we had a good laugh. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to photograph him again in a few weeks time.

It was also nice to work with Claire and Eric again. Working in small groups is a good way to learn new things and see other people's takes on the situation, then run with their ideas and take things a little further to see where things go.

More images of Jamie can be found on my Flickr set.

Jamie

Amelia

Caroline

Cymone

Rookery House - Photo Shoot - Part 1.

2008-10-08T02:24:00.002+01:00

Rookery house in Erdington, Birmingham photo shoot video from September by Tanya.

4th Midlands Strobists Meet (HD) from Rob on Vimeo.

Farmer Phil's Festival - Part 6 - Hazel O' Connor

2008-10-03T05:45:00.000+01:00

Hazel O' Connor
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

The artist I most wanted to see at this year's festival was Hazel O' Connor.

I'd been a fan of hers since 1980, when my brother brought home a copy of the Breaking Glass soundtrack.

She was responsible for the first ever concert I ever went to, supported allegedly by some little known band called Duran Duran. (Whatever happened to them?)

I'd seen Hazel a few times in the last twenty something years, so was looking forward to seeing her again.

I must confess I did heckle a bit... Well, she wasn't sure what to do next, so I shouted "Hanging Around" and she said no, since she needed drums. Oh well, you can't blame me for trying.

From a photography point of view, the set was at a nice time of day, as the sun was starting to set, so it was getting darker as the set progressed, so the earlier images have a slightly different feel to the later images, as I started to try and frame with the lighting rig in more towards the end of the set.

It was a great set, of classics from her back catalogue, working surprisingly well, with just Cormac on harp. I do like it when bands rework songs to sound not a lot like the original.

Just to show, how good music can transcend time and age groups, I give you the above and below images. Sweet!!

So overall, I was pretty happy with the photos I took. Hazel, is a pretty expressive singer, which makes for good photo opportunities. Which is why I ended up taking more photos during her set than I did of any other band, by a long way.

Of course, this meant, I did start looking for interesting angles for Cormac, since he was sitting down and playing. This is probably my favourite.

Towards the end of the set, I did go and take a few shots from within the crowd.

So that is probably the end of my Farmer Phil blogs. (I may add one more of random other favourite images of bands I didn't blog). I really enjoyed the festival, until the heavens opened on the Saturday and my camera went a bit pear shaped with the card corruption issues.

I've had some good feedback about the images from some of the bands involved, (even the bigger ones), so that is always pleasing.

I'm looking forward to next years festival now.

Farmer Phil's Festival - Part 5 - Three Daft Monkeys

2008-10-02T05:45:00.000+01:00

Three Daft Monkeys
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

One of the two bands I was really looking forward to seeing at Farmer Phil's festival this year was Three Daft Monkeys.

Who claim to be influenced by world music with a hint of bizarre. (which probably explains my fascination with them).

Hailing from my home county of Cornwall, I'd previously seen them live a couple of times (including my brother's wedding) and have most of their CDs in my collection. So it was good to catch up with them again after the release of their recent "Social Vertigo" album.

They played quite a lot of new material and some oldies (though not my favourite track "Wonderful").

Photography wise, it was fairly simple, there was enough ambient light and the band are animated enough to keep things interesting, so it was fun to shoot (as I sang along with the older tracks).

I did buy the new CD during the set but failed to catch up with them to say hello afterwards.

Overall, a great, up tempo, dance along, type enjoyable set. I'm now looking forward to seeing them again in Wolverhampton during November, where they have given me permission to come and take some more photos of them. Excellent.

Farmer Phil's Festival - Part 4 - Gravy Train

2008-09-30T05:54:00.000+01:00

Gravy Train
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Friday night's headline band were the wonderful Gravy Train.

I'd started off in the crowd, taking a few shots, before being dragged up onto the stage (thanks Mike).

This gave me a lot better access to the drummer at least (see above) and allowed me to get some better close up shots.

I did have to run across the stage a couple of times to get from side to side.

It was a really good set from them. The slide player is awesome. Very impressed indeed.

I did have a couple of requests for images though, one was for some shots of Phil, the other to get some crowd shots.

Photography wise, the shoot was fairly easy, given the level of light on the stage, so I was pretty happy with the shots I came out with. The band were animated enough to make it personally interesting. Musically they were excellent.

Towards the end of the set, everyone who was in the wings was invited onstage for a sing song. Me included, before a few musicans stayed for the last couple of songs.

Overall an excellent end to an interesting days entertainment. I then went back to our tent area for chats and beers with some friends, before being kept awake until 4:30am by the party in the tent behind me. Oh well, festivals aren't the place for a decent night's sleep anyway.

Farmer Phil's Festival - Part 3 - Zaphire Oktalogue

2008-09-29T05:54:00.000+01:00

Zaphire Oktalogue
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Possibly, the band I enjoyed most this year at the festival was the young German band Zaphire Oktalogue.

Touting a heady mix of experimental and progressive blues, they were a bit of a revelation and nothing like anything else I saw at the festival.

Musically, they were tight, with long instrumental passages and not an abbundance of vocals.

From a photography point of view, they were a joy to watch. Bands that are animated on stage, make it much more enjoyable than static performers and though there was only three of them, they were very entertaining.

The guitarist Philip, in particular, was the performer of the weekend for me. Great playing and theatrics. He even ventured off the stage at one point into the area between the stage and audience.

I made a concerted effort at one point to stop taking photos ands appreciate the music, standing by the mixing desk. Where I had a bit of a conversation with someone connected to the band, who informed me of their young ages (I think the drummer is about 16) and the fact it was their first trip to the UK. Scarily talented for people so young ha ha.

I spoke to the band afterwards for a bit also. Though was disappointed they had run our of CDs. Doh!

I've recently been chatting a bit with them on Myspace, so looking forward to getting their album when it is out in the Autumn. Hopefully, they'll return again to the UK for more gigs..

Myspace Site

Farmer Phil's Festival - Part 2. Friends.

2008-09-26T05:45:00.000+01:00

HMV
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Given my backlog on blogging and in an effort to not bore people with too much bumpf, I've decided to concatentate some of the Farmer Phil's blogs together instead of doing one per band. Else I'd be here until Christmas.

So today's blog is on bands I know pretty well and have photographed before and won't contain many words, since they are friends and I've probably blogged them to bits before. So here is just a few images I liked from their sets.

First up HMV, with a set painfully too early in the day for everyone. A great party set, with an impressive amount of crowd dancing (for a mid afternoon slot). Hopefully next year they will ahve a later slot.

The following day, Mike and Marc opened up the acoustic tent.

After initial technical difficulties. The big question was "Would Marc's cheese sandwich make it to the end of the set?"

I'm not saying...

In true band whore fashion, Mike was also playing the festival with one of his other bands. Namely Guns for Girls.

They were playing in the battle of the bands competition on the main stage.

It was a good set, with their stand in drummer...

They were unlucky not to win though. Shame.

Photography wise, shooting bands during the day is so much easier than at night as far as exposure is concerned, but much harder to get an interesting dramatic image.

Hence, lots of shots, of low angles and trying to get the lights in there somewhere to give it some colour and drama.

Not to be out done. Marc also pimped himself out on the Friday night at the Acoustic tent's Open Mic playing along with Nikki Rous. (who had to teach him the songs about 30 mins before they went on)

Nikki also played the acoustic tent on the Saturday afternoon.

I really enjoyed her set. Not sure she was happy with my snapping? (see below)

I also got told off by the organiser by the noise some of the children who were standing next to me was making. Not my kids honest gov! Nice boots by the way.

Shooting in the acoustic tent was rather interesting, with the pinky purple colour cast on everything. Which I did slightly correct on some of the images in post production. Also even during the day, it was still dark and dingy in there, so it was like shooting in a slightly better lit club.

I was hoping to shoot Whalebone who played a bit later in the day, but given the amount of rain that came down during / after Nikki's set, I put my camera safely in my car. I'd already had a compact flash card issue, just after Nikki's set (I had to recover some of her images off the card) so didn't want any further incidents and accidents.

I'll probably blog 4 or 5 of the other bands explicitly and do one of any other images I deem worthy of showing people.

Haygate Battle of the Bands - Final

2008-09-25T05:55:00.001+01:00

SangFold
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Ok, slightly embarressed by the fact that I'm blogging this like more than a month after the event. A bit behind on the blogging, since I've pretty much been busy with both music and photography since July.

The summer has completely gone away from me this year. The washed out summer hasn't helped and I haven't gone out this summer at all to do any landscapes or animal pictures. Which is a shame.

Anyway, back to plot. The Haygate Battle of the Bands final.

I was running pretty late for the event (by my standards), arrrving about thirty minutes before the first band was due to start. So no real pressure.

I was then asked if I could take a photo of each band outside and (between sets) get the images printed and mounted, so they could be presented to the bands at the end.

Ok, bit of a panic, with the light outside dwindling fast and one of the bands about to soundcheck (including Garf, who was also in another of the bands), it was a mad panic to get each band together, quickly line them up and shoot them.

If I had known, before hand, I would have brought lights, stands, umbrellas, the full gubbins, but had to make do with natural light, wide aperture and longer than I would have liked shutter speeds.

Anyway, I got the images done and managed to get them printed out in the pub's kitchen. I think they turned out pretty good, all things considering.

Werm opened. They were almost their normal excellent self. A very good performance, but I think I'd seen them play better in previous rounds though an excellent Pantera cover, with guest 2nd vocalist was performed.

So a pretty good start to what turned out to be a more than excellent night's entertainment.

The excellent Facade, were up next. Given the heaviness of the other three bands on the bill and consequent audience, they were facing a uphill battle from the off, saying that, I thought they pulled it off.

A very good performance, tight and lively. Not sure about the choice of cover possibly, but I was at this point, confident that an upset might be on the cards.

Now given, that, where possible, I had tried to get the the previous rounds each week to photograph the bands, somehow, I had totally managed to miss the rounds containing Sangfold (top image) and Supervoid. So didn't know what to expect for either band (more rant about this later), other than they were meant to be rock bands.

Supervoid were simply awesome. I really was impressed. Tight, musically excellent. Funny, good tunes, a great frontman and some theatrics.

Which made for a very entertaining set. I would be gobsmacked if the final act could out rock them.

To be honest, it was a close call. Sangfold, were also very much awesome. Nothing like what I was expecting when I'd taken their image earlier in the evening.

Very tight, some good tunes and a front woman who commanded the stage. I look forward to seeing them again.

So a brief wait whilst the votes were cast, before Supervoid were declared the winners

The prizes being awarded by the wonderful Dunk from CatDogCow, last years winners.

So a brilliant night's entertainment, but god knows why, drunk people insist on having their photos taken, by anyone wielding a camera.

I have no words for that picture at all.

So the end for me, in photographing yet another battle of the bands competition. (get ready for rant).

After a couple of years now, of doing gig photography, I (mostly) going to knock on the head, doing freebie gig photos and definetly won't do entire competitions for free anymore.

There are several reasons for this. Firstly the time and cost involved personally for me. I have expensive equipment and it can take several days to get through editing the images. I can't afford the time anymore. I've seriously neglected my own musical aspirations over the last two years, so some balance needs to be made.

A lot of the time the bands don't even send me a thank you message, which I find terribly rude. (I do like it if they send me free CDs though)

I think (modestly) that my images are above average for the venues I photograph at and I'm looking at moving into bigger venues.

Also, doing competitions, has it's plus points, like getting to see and meet a lot of really good bands, but on the downside, you get to photograph, like 32 bands in round one, 16 of those bands in round 2, 8 of those in round 3 etc. By the time, you get to the final, I've seen the bands far too often (in a short space of time) and the images start to get a bit samey, with the same venue, the same lights, the same songs, the same inbetween song banter etc. (yes it was nice that I'd missed Sangfold and Supervoid until the final, which is why in future, I'm more tempted to do the first round and the final and skip the other rounds, if I do this again).

Finally, my photography interests have now grown more into portraits and abstracts, so I want to concentrate more on my other photography areas and less on the gig photography.

So in future, if bands would like to book me for gigs and / or promotional shots, for a fee, that would be fine and dandy, but don't be offended if I decline without a financial incentive. You can only give so much sometimes....

Nicola Pollock

2008-09-24T06:01:00.002+01:00

Nicola Pollock
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

This a tale of woe and a possible jinx.

All started at the Farmer Phil's festival, with me having compact flash card issues during the Jimi Hendrix tribute band. At the time, I gave it little thought, used another card and carried on shooting.

When I got home, I recovered the data off the card. Reformatted it. Tested it with 50 shots around the house, reformatted it, tested it again. Reformatted it. Forgot about it.

Unfortunetly, the previously corrupted card was the one left in my camera, when I went to photograph Nicola at the Paper Daisy Studios in Telford. This was a joint shoot with Claire from Paper Daisy.

Everything was really good for the first hour. We did a setup using a black backdrop and took a load of images, which looked great on the screen on the camera. Then we broke for coffee, before setting up the white background for some hi-key type shots.

I managed a few shots on the white background, before the card reported it needed reformatting. Disaster.

I swapped the card out and carried on the shoot, safe in the knowledge I could recover the images off the corrupted card, when I got home..

So, the rest of the shoot was good (as was the previous half), Nicola was very patient with us as we discussed shots, lighting, life in general etc. She was really lovely to work with.

So overall, a very fun and good shoot. I was pretty happy with how things had gone and was only slightly apprehensive as to whether I could recover the images off the corrupted card.

The set up on white, went from having two strobes in front of the backdrop initially, which was giving us a bit of rim light style bleeding, to putting the strobes behind the backdrop. Which is something I'd previously done at the Rainbow Warehouse shoot in April.

As such, this makes the white background turn into one huge softbox. Which is brilliant, for nuking the background, and providing a back light for the hair.

But this does mean, you now have a huge lightsource pointing directly down the lens of the camera. This does make the images slightly softer than I would normally like. That, with the fact, I decided to use a zoom lens and not a prime, means the images are not as sharp as they possibly could have been. Though I am still, more than, happy with them.

When I got home, I tried recovering the data off the card. The recovery data said there was no data on the 8Gb card.

I tried again. No data. Card now said it was 4GB. Not a good sign.

I downloaded another piece of free recovery software. It too found no data. The card now reported it was 1,86GB. Things was getting worse.

I installed a professional product which I had bought a few years ago. It reported there was data on the card, but could not recover it.

I gave up!!!.

I sent the card back to the retailer and asked for a refund. Which, they promptly refunded. Though of course, I've now lost an hours worth of images. So not overally happy. But it does mean I'll keep to professional cards in future and not the cheap own branded cards of the retailer.

But that isn't the end of it... It get's slightly worse.

A week or so later, I get around to editing the images. (I'd edited a couple in that week). I open the next image and receive a pop up on my PC stating, Windows had encountered a massive error and was shutting down.

The PC then re-boots itself and fails to load the operating system. All attempts that evening to get it to boot fail (not even to safe mode).

Luckily, I'm quite stringent with my backup policy, at least for photos, and had backed them up a couple of days previously. I did lose quite a bit of e-mail though. Oh well.

It then took me 5 days to recover other data on my corrupted hard drive and rebuild my PC from scratch. I pretty much recovered it all, bar some e-mail.

It's too early to say whether Nicola is a jinx for me or not. ha ha. I hope to work with her again, so we can re-do the black images I lost and try some other things.

It was a good and fun shoot working with both her and Claire. I enjoyed the interaction of having another photographer there to bounce ideas off.

But hopefully, future shoots, will be less time consuming afterwards.

Bridgnorth Music Festival - Part 9 - Play In the Park

2008-09-22T06:03:00.000+01:00

Rupert Dooley
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

My final entry on the Bridgnorth music festival.. Aaahhhh. Is for Play in the park. Though it was in the park, it wasn't a play, but a collection of local and not so local acoustic musicians.

As per the rest of the festival, proceeds from donations were for the Hope House charity (see above arty image).

I was running really late, due to attempting to edit and upload other images, so I got to the gig a bit later than planned, but did manage to catch some of Aaron Alvey's set. From the little I heard, it was really good.

Sh!fty Sarah was up next as a duo, (which may explain the less angry photos this time... Only joking). The addition of some harmonised backing vocals enhanced the songs. Good stuff indeed.

Linda Tilley was up next. She had organised this event and it was good to catch up with her again this weekend.

It was about two thirds of the way through Linda's set, that I noticed my schoolboy error. The last thing I had photographed was The Love Jones at the Lounge on Monday. In a dark room, so I had bumped my ISO seting on my camera up to 1600.

In my rush to get here, I hadn't bothered to check I'd reset my camera, so I'd taken all the images so far today at ISO 1600, so they are all a bit grainy and less sharp, than I would like. Doh!

Rupert Dooley was up next, with his a collection of interesting cover versions. I really enjoyed his set. (makes note to do a cover of "Up The Junction" at some point).

I only caught the start and end of Juke Joint John's set, since I wanted to nip off to catch part of SheBangg's set at the Old Castle. As I've said before, I do really rate John and though I'm not a massive fan of the blues, I really could just sit there and watch him play all day. One of the best slide players around.

Malcolm Evans, turned up in the nick of time from Coventry. He'd got lost. (Linda was getting worried). Really enjoyable set and a nice bloke to boot. He even gave me a free CD for taking the photos (Note to other bands. I like receiving free CDs for services rendered).

To finish up, Linda and Rupert did a few songs as a duo. Very good indeed and they did a cover of Hazel O' Connor's "Will You", which is one of my favourite songs, so I was a happy bunny. (I'd seen Hazel O' Connor a few weeks earlier at Farmer Phil's festival with Linda).

So that was it. The end of the festival (for me at least), and a quick pack up before they locked the gates to the park.

I did take a few non band photos during the day... Not many though....

Overall, I really enjoyed this year's festival. In a washed out British summer, it was good that the weather mostly behaved itself.

Personally, it was nice to go out and play live again, after many years of resisting it. So thank you to Kev, SheBangg and Guns for Girls for making that happen.

Photography wise, it was a really intense couple of weekends. I was pretty happy with the 600+ images I've uploaded, there are probably a couple of thousand images I didn't upload.

Of those images uploaded, I think there are a couple that I really like alot, so will use them for competitions in the future. So it was worth it.

I also met a lot of new people during the week, as well as getting to know a few acquaintences a lot better, so personally it was a good week and I learnt a lot about a great many things. Excellent.

Not sure I'll be able to put myself through as much photography at next years festival (if they ask me back). It was pretty intense going between several simultaneous events and I was photographed out a bit at the end of it.

Bridgnorth Music Festival - Part 8 - SheBangg At the Old Castle

2008-09-19T06:08:00.000+01:00

SheBangg
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

This will be a short blog. Whilst the Play in the Park concert was going on (strangely enough, in the park), the wonderful SheBangg were permorming an afternoon gig at The Old Castle, before heading off to an evening gig in another town.

I managed to briefly pop in to see them, towards the end of their three hour stint at the pub.

It was good too see them, even briefly outside in the beer garden of the Old Castle. I've seen them play a few times in the conservatory, where it is always a laugh when they trip the sound meter and shut off the power to the room. (A case of whinging neighbours complaining about the noise).

I managed to stay for about three songs (including their excellent version of Fleetwood Mac's The Chain), before heading back to the park, to catch the end of Juke Joint John.

More on the Play in the Park gig to follow, to finish up these entries on the Bridgnorth Music Festival, (then back to more blogging on Farmer Phil's festival and the plethora of models and other portraits I've recently shot)

Bridgnorth Music Festival - Part 7 - HMV and The Love Jones.

2008-09-19T05:51:00.000+01:00

HMV
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

As well as the Quayside, two of the bands that graced the High Street on the Saturday were playing in Low town on the Bank Holiday Monday.

The above image of HMV, is one of my favourites of the weekend. Mike Holloway, is always good for photographic opportunity, since he is pretty expressive and animated

Having not seen HMV for most of the year, I caught them something like four times in two weeks.

HMV were playing at the Bass Villa again this year, in the afternoon.

I managed to pop in for a few tunes, during a break at the Quayside. With it's every changing / revolving line up, it was nice to see some consistancy of personal, over the last couple of times I'd seen them (see blogs on Farmer Phils Festival and the High Street gig).

After the Quayside gig finished, The Love Jones were playing in the Lounge bar, opposite.

This was a tricky gig to photograph, given the bright evening light outside and the extreme dimness inside. So very high ISO and horribly grainy images ensued, met with overblown skies outside. This does not make good photography.

I would have given up a bit earlier, but I was chatting to one of their mums, who hadn't seen them play before (and was rightly impressed) and she said she was looking forward to seeing the images. (so no pressure then).

So I took a few images (not many) and then sat down to watch the band for half an hour, since the weekend had been a bit of a blur, of moving between gigs and photographing anything that moved. It was just nice to actually enjoy one of the bands.

The Love Jones are one of my favourite (near) local bands around at the moment, a joy to watch and some infectiously catchy tunes with some inspired and witty lyrics.

So I'd made it to the end of the bank holiday weekend. I was pretty photographed out by this point and pretty sick of taking and editing photos. Thus I gave most of the events in the week a miss, other than the Open mic night at the bell, where I wanted to play and have a beer.

I was also absolutely shattered by four days of intense photographing as well as playing two gigs. Though saying that, it was a massively good and fun weekend and I'm looking forward to next years event.

So stay tuned for another blog (or two) on the following weekend's gigs at the other end of the festival.

Bridgnorth Music Festival - Part 6 - The Quayside

2008-09-16T13:13:00.002+01:00

Shikidim
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Bank holiday Monday and the festival was still in full flow. The main event for the day being an acoustic gig on the Quayside.

The Quayside, is a lovely little area but the bridge and lends itself well as a mini ampitheatre type thing.

Shikidim open the days preceeedings, with a little bit of drumming, before...

the dancing ensued. Shikidim went down a storm at last years festival and it was nice to see them back again this year.

Can anyone notice what major change I've made to the top image... (I even impress myself sometimes).

Next up, was the wonderful (slightly biased) Hair Thieves. Up I was playing again, but this time with the addition of Michael the dancer.

There is video evidence on facebook, (and hopefully soon, the Hair Thieves website) I believe....

Sh!fty Sarah was up next, (she's an angry young girl ha ha). I enjoyed hearing Sarah again, after seeing her a few months ago at an open mic night. It was interesting the duo gig she did the following weekend (more soon).

I managed to at least catch a bit more of Andrew Murphy's set here than I did at the New Inn on Saturday. I like Andrews music alot and he has a very distinctive voice style, a bit like marmite, you either love it or hate it. Personally I like it, (unlike Marmite)

I've always enjoyed seeing the Vespas, it was a shame their regular singer was yet again unavailable, but it was a really good set, in which everyone had a go at singing.

It was also nice to see Callum play an upright bass.

Anna Rice was up next. Some beautiful tunes and singing. I hadn't seen her before and look forward to seeing her again soon.

James (not in the above image) Happenick was next, which just to out do Callum brought a proper upright bass with them.

A really good set and I've checked his music out on Myspace. Top stuff.

Jonathan Day was the penultimate act. Interesting and different, in the most part I enjoyed it, (reminded me of home in Cornwall) but some of the audience participating was a bit lacking.

Whalebone headlined. I really do like these. Having seen them three times in the last 10 days.

I was worried about the weather at this point, the clouds were getting thicker (and given it was raining when they turned up at farmer Phil's festival, I thought they might be rain gods or something)

An enjoyable set of instrumental covers and originals.

I really should pinch Sarah to come play on a Hair Thieves song sometime...

So a really good day, thanks to Kev, for organising this and letting us play. We had a really good time. Thanks to Adam and Owain for the sound, given the PA issues they had the night before, it was surprising this still happened.

There was two more events I went to during the bank holiday Monday, I'll blog these two together soon.

Bridgnorth Music Festival - Part 5 - SheBangg & Friends

2008-09-12T14:12:00.003+01:00

Running Order
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

As I said previously, the Sunday was a manic day for me, with photographing on the Main street as well as the New Inn. I was also playing at the New Inn.

Today's New Inn gig was hosted by the brilliant SheBangg. (see plethora of other blog entries on them), who opened and closed the preceedings.

SheBangg performed a collection of their own and cover material.

The notes were the only band on the bill today that I hadn't seen before, but I really enjoyed their set. Hopefully, I'll get to see them again.

Duncan Hayes was up next. I love Duncan's stuff and have previously done a couple of recording sessions with him, to put his sometimes witty, sometimes moving original meterial down. It was a bit of a shame we never got around to practicing the duet we was planning on doing. I need to kick him about that.

I only caught the tail end of Conspiracy theory's set, since I was up on the high street at that time. So didn't get as many images as I would have liked.

Tim Barratt (of SheBangg fame) did a solo slot featuring one of my favourite tunes "I'm my own granpa" (or something like that). Which went down a storm with the new Inn crowd.

From a photography point of view, I was a bit lazy today and resorted to using a zoom lens rather than my normal primes. So I'm not overly happy with the quality of the images, plus the conversion seems to have messed them up a bit. Something I need to sort out.

Juke Joint John, was up next. I'm not a massive blues fan, but I really love listening and watching John play. I really should steal him to play on the Hair Thieves album soon.

The Hair Thieves. Not much to say, but Duncan took the photo of me playing, then filled up my memory card with crowd images. Not sure I should have let him have my camera in hindsight. ha ha...

I did really enjoy playing though. As a band we hadn't played live for something like 6 years, so doing 3 gigs in a week was fun and a little bit scary. But thank you to SheBangg for asking us. And we managed to see 12 CDs as well, with all the proceeds going the the Hope House Charity. Excellent

The lovely Linda Tilley followed us up. It was nice to see her again, it was also good to see a couple of tunes with her on bass and Leyton on Bongos.

The Penultimate band was Apt. These were equally as good acoustically as they were the Friday night electrified.

So SheBangg wrapped things up and then we all packed up and went to the pub. A jolly good afternoons entertainment indeed.

Bridgnorth Music Festival - Part 4 - The High Street

2008-09-11T12:41:00.002+01:00

Dancing Man
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Sunday there was two main events during the day. The first was the gig at the high street, the second being SheBangg and friends at The New Inn. (more soon).

Luckily the weather held out today, it seemed touch and go there for a while.

The star of the weekend though was the dancing man above. I believe he is called Michael. He turned up and danced through part of the Dockers set.

He later turned up on the Monday during a set I played at the Quayside. (more to follow).

The preceedings opened with The Dockers, providing some classic rocks tunes.

Given I was playing and photographing at the other gig, I didn't get a lot of time to photograph each band, at the high street, basically staying for no more than two songs per band. So I didn't get a lot of photos.

Next up were the wonderful Love Jones. A really good party band. I supported them at the beginning of the month, so was looking forward to seeing them again. (more to follow, since I saw them the following day)

Loose Endz were next, I'd seen them play at the Bell and Talbot the previous night, where they were equally excellent. Enjoyable stuff.

I was looking forward to seeing Sterchneck, after seeing the singer play with SheBangg at last years event at the New Inn. He sings with a lot of passion and style. It's always good to have a front man worth watching.

HMV were headlining. I had time for one song to see them play, since I was due to play at the New Inn during their set. In their infinite wisdom, they opened with "Chasing Cars" a song where the band doesn't come in until 3/4 the way through. Doh!. Not good from my point of view. Oh well.

They did some some children dancing though. These kids were really funny..

Overall, I would have liked to have spent a bit more time watching the bands rather than running between events. But it was all good fun. Finally, an image of Sonic Boom audio, who managed to blow up yet another PA during the day.

Bridgnorth Music Festival - Part 3 - Booyaka and Friends

2008-09-04T13:17:00.002+01:00

Bears in Caves
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Booyaka and friends was held in the New Inn pub in Bridgnorth. I enjoyed the gig SheBangg did there at last years festival, so was looking forward to taking photos here again, since I got some good ones last year.

The gig started with Andrew Murphy. I only caught a bit of his set, since I was up at the church. I also made the mistake of not changing my ISO setting on my camera, so the images are somewhat over grainy for an outside image. (I made that mistake again a week later, see a later blog).

But I like the set up here and I did do a few images of the crowd from further back

Next up was Bears in caves. Formally known as Faces for Radio (which is a great name for a band, in my opinion).

It was at this stage, things went a bit strange. I believe one of the bands didn't turn up (I might be wrong), so various people got up as an emergency band. Callum had a list of notes to play.

It actually turned out really well.

So with some good cover tunes like Radiohead's High n dry, a very enjoyable set ensued.

Before Booyaka, I believe they chose to name themselves Funk Soul Brothers, played a mixture of funk and soul. Suppose that is a clue in the question really.

Featuring more members from the bands that had previously played today.

It was a pleasently surprising set of old classics and not one I was expecting at all. Good stuff indeed.

By the time Booyaka took to the stage for the first of their two sets, the skies had started to darken.

I'd seen (and danced to) on occasion to Booyaka in the past, they are one of the best party bands around and don't grace us with their presence as often as I'd like (ok they did play the night before but I was at the SheBangg gig).

As the set went on, the clouds got darker and darker and then the rain came....

I was surprised that as far as I could see, no one moved. Everyone just stood or sat in the rain and watched. I did put my camera away at this point.

Except to take a photo on request by some ladies on the table I was sitting at.

Not sure why as soon as people see someone with a camera, they think they want their photo taken. I'm sure there is logic in there somewhere.

I left just before the end of Booyaka's set, to get the bus home. I did have the intention of coming back in the evening to take photos of Clear Vinyl and Loose Endz, but decided against it, since I was in dire need of a drink, the weather was not good and taking my camera to pubs with people that have been drinking most of the day would probably not be the best idea in the world.

Finally a cute dog image. I'm not much of a dog person, but this one was kinda cute and very friendly.

Just don't tell anyone I said it was cute....

Bridgnorth Music Festival - Part 2 - St Leonards Church

2008-09-04T12:48:00.002+01:00

Holly Williams
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Part 2. Saturday had a plethora of events going on. I missed the one at Chelmarsh and went to two in the centre of Bridgnorth.

The first was a gig at St Leonards church, featuring the vocal talents of Holly Williams and Robbie Pickles as well the musicians from Waives and Staves.

The indoor light of the church was very poor, so the photos are rather grainy as I boosted the ISO levels to compensate for the lack of light.

Holly and Robbie sang songs from various shows like Chicago.

Waives and Staves performed more classical pieces. It was very pleasent to sit there and listen to it being perfomed in the church.

Although in such an intimate setting I was very aware of me moving around the church to get different angles to shoot at. I had a few disapproving glances from some people. Oooops Sorry.

It was a pretty good turnout and I would have wished I'd taken a bit more time there and listened a bit more, but there was another gig at a local pub. So I had to shoot off for that.

Bridgnorth Music Festival - Part 1 SheBangg, TNT, Apt

2008-09-03T12:15:00.002+01:00

SheBangg
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Bridgnorth Music festival has recently finished. A week long festival of local and not so local talent.

I photographed during both the weekends of the festival and even played in my band a few times (more on that soon). So I'll post a series of blogs over the coming week, highlighting a few of the highlights from the week with a few (but probably not many) of my favourite images from the week.

The festival started on the Friday night with SheBangg playing at the Leisure Centre, supported by TNT and APT

It was a bit of a strange night, with a disappointing turnout and other issues both for the bands and myself. As such I really enjoyed it, since I really went for it in trying to capture some good images.

The top image of Chrissii is possibly in my top five favourite images I have ever taken.

The above image, is another example of me "going for it". The house lights were on permanently, (due to council cutbacks, don't ask)) and I knew I wanted an image of the band against the lights. So I had to lie on the floor in the wings to get the angle to get the band and the lights in. It was probably good that no one could see me.

I used the evening to again experiment with the two camera body approach and I'm really liking using the two.

It was also nice to work in a larger venue after being cooped up in the Haygate for their battle of the bands for the last couple of months.

I quite enjoyed TNT. It was the first time I'd seen them live, though I have known a couple of the members for years and seen them in other bands.

TNT were pretty tight with their bunch of classic rock covers. Not overly my cup of tea, but I did enjoy them.

The opening band was APT, I'd seen them a couple of times before (and played with them once as well). They are a young and talented bunch with some catchy tunes.

Overall, I enjoyed the gig, but it was a bit of a subdued start to the festival. Hopefully, lessons will be learnt for next year.

Farmer Phil's Festival. Part 1

2008-08-20T13:01:00.002+01:00

Owl Totem
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

I'm so far behind on my blogging at the moment. Actually, I behind with everything really, as I gear up to the start of the Bridgnorth Music Festival. (More about that soon).

I need to do retrospective blogs for the Haygate battle of the bands, another small photoshoot and the Owl Sanctuary trip. This will all need to wait until September.

Back to plot. I spent the weekend at the Farmer Phil's festival in Shropshire. (thank you to LJ and Mike for sorting that out).

I had a really good weekend and it was really nice to catch up with some old friends I hadn't seen in ages as well as meeting some new people. (which is always a good thing).

The weather forcast wasn't good, so I did debate whether or not to take my camera or not. I'm glad I did though. Even if I did end up putting it in the car, once the heavens opened on the Saturday afternoon. Which is a shame, since I didn't take any photos of the last four or five bands I watched.

It was nice to see a Midas Heritage 1000 on the main stage. Brings back some fond memories for me. ha ha

So it was a weekend of beer and mud and some good music.

It was fun to watch the kids stomping through the puddles and having mud fights and sliding through the mud. Yes, I should have taken more photos of this. I'm putting this down to a missed opportunity.

From the above image, maybe not everyone was enjoying it. ha ha

Below is my favourite image from the weekend. A couple of my friends, had their children with them, who on the Friday night were playing with some glow sticks. Just the sort of silliness I like.

Given, how busy I am, I won't get the images from the festival, probably even looked at again, until the start of next month, so I have edited one random image from each band

Here is a selection of some of them. Further images will be uploaded next month, when time allows.

Flat Stanley - I only caught the end of the set, but enjoyed it. I like the silliness of this image.

Zaphire Oktalogue - Probably my favourite performance of the weekend from this young German band. They were excellent. I'll order their CD when it comes out in the Autumn.

HMV - Acoustic and not Acoustic. To great sets besides the initial power cut.

Gravy Train - Great headlining set on the Friday night. I was pulled up on stage to take photos from the stage. Excellent.

Blanco Diablo - They were ok. Funny.

Guns for Girls - I've blogged about them enough already and I'm supporting them, with my band, in Bridgnorth this week.

Three Daft Monkeys - Hailing from my home county of Cornwall, these were their usual excellent self. It also meant I could buy the new CD.

Chumbawumba - They were nothing like I was expecting. I enjoyed the early part of the set, but lost interest, soon afterwards and wandered off for some food.

Hazel O' Connor - The main reason I wanted to go this year. I'm a bit of a fan, having seen her a few times in the last 27 years. A really good set, shame they couldn't play "Hanging Around" with just the two of them. (makes note to stop Heckling the bands in future).

More band photos to follow......

Tough Guy - Perton - July 2008

2008-08-12T21:33:00.003+01:00

Tough Guy - Perton - July 2008
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

I'd seen a few images from previous Tough Guy competitions and was surprised to find out it was held only a few miles from where I live.

Note: Not the easiest website to understand, which put some people I know off going to watch.

Stolen off their website. "What is Tough Guy? It is the original survival ordeal. The worlds safest most dangerous test of physical and mental endurance, designed to take you beyond your limits on torture rack obstacles known as The Killing Fields, following a wild terrain warm up. "

To be honest, the weather was less than ideal. ha ha, it being the hottest day of the year so far, in sweltering heat, the competitors could at least cool off in water /mud / swamp. (yes the swamp stuck, I was retching).

It was an entertaining day, from the initial smoke filled start, to watching several thousand people do a cross country run, before a series of obstacles.

It was funny to watch the firemen, but the fire out with little fire extinguishers. They did later go and get the big fire engine.

There was quite a few people in fancy dress. What are the chances of two spidermen turning up eh? Sorry I was trying to get arty with the photo, what with the quaint little boat. Even more arty, showing a few of the disciplines, i.e. running, the wade with a log (lap 1) and the raft (lap 2 I think).

The chap below looks like he was enjoying it a bit too much for my liking. You are meant to suffer not enjoy it. Dagnamit.

This is more like it.

One chap modelled for me after the barb wire crawl.

Yes the next image is rather nasty. As he was running past a woman called out to him, he looked at his leg and quickly stopped. I just said "I'll go and get an ambulance then?" and went and called the paramedic. Not nice at all.

I was told off by one of the other paramedics for photographing someone in agony who had crashed out on the floor. ooops. I still took the image though. Just didn't upload it. This poor chap got cramp during the log swim obstacle. Ah Bless.

To be honest, it was a really good day, but after 3 hours I had had enough of the heat and went home, before the finish. From other people I've spoken to, they said the event held in January is normally better, if you want to see people suffering (hence better photographic opportunities), due to the sub zero temperatures, the ice on the pools / mud pools and general stupidity of running around in winter in fancy dress. So I will endeavor to make it early next year to the event again.

Iconic Britain

2008-07-31T12:52:00.002+01:00

Iconic Britain
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Microsoft have started running a competition called Iconic Britain, where people can search for images, add a reason why it is iconic and then submit it to Microsoft. The prize is a Nikon camera if you win.

It clearly states on the front page of the site "No need to take any photos, simply use Live search's powerful image search to find images!".

So I did a search on my name "Rollasoc" and it came back with some of my images from my Flickr and Deviant Art sites. (See above image). I've done this again since and more of my images are appearing in the search results, including images off my band's, The Hair Thieves, website. Thre are 19 of my images on there as I type this.

I don't approve of this. I don't like the idea that someone is allowed to use my photograph to win a competition. Ironic that you can win a camera for a photo you didn't take.

In the terms and conditions of the Iconic Britain competition. Rule 7 states "Entrants acknowledge that some images generated by Live Search may be subject to the intellectual property rights (including copyright) of a third party. Microsoft does not encourage or condone Entrants submitting images to the Competition that infringe the rights of a third party. In the event Microsoft is notified that an image infringes the intellectual property rights, or any other right, of a third party it shall promptly remove the image from the Competition."

The thing is there is no way of seeing what has already been submitted. How do I know if my copyright has been infringed?

So the onus is on the entrant not Microsoft to work out the copyright issues. They are just providing the search facility to allow people to submit images.

This is an interesting legal issue. The publisher (i.e. Microsoft) is responsible for ensuring that they don't infringe the copyright of the images they use.

Although they don't "encourage or condone" copyright infringement, all they have said they will do is remove the image. And... What else?

Surely, if I someone gave me some Microsoft software and I got caught using it, I wouldn't get away with a "Ooops sorry, I didn't know, I told the person I don't want to use pirate software, but he gave me the software anyway. I'll just remove it off my PC and we will say no more about it".

I also don't like the fact the thumbnails they are using have stripped my copyright information out of them. (according to the discussion threads on Flickr about this).

I don't like the fact, the competition rules say that if your image is chosen they will later ask for permission to use it. Dagnamit, they should have asked first.

I've sent Microsoft a message asking them to remove my images. We shall see if they come back with anything.

SheBangg - Haygate

2008-07-30T12:39:00.002+01:00

SheBangg
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

It has been a little while since I have photographed SheBangg, but as they were playing in Telford at the same time I was visiting some friends there, I decided to pop in on the way home and take some photos, since they normally have their own lights, so in addition to the Haygate's lights, you can sometimes get some decent images.

In addition, Tim had mentioned his new amp setup so I was keen to see it (see above), and photograph it.

Previously in the week, I had photographed Facade in their rehearsal space (blog coming soon), in which I had decided to use two camera bodies, to limit the amount of times I needed to change lenses. I think this worked rather well, so tried this out at the SheBangg gig. Having my normal 50mm F1.8 on my D300 and putting a 28mm F2.8 on my D70 for wider angle shots. I did swap the 50mm for an 85mm F1.8 at some points in the set.

This was useful, when I jumped on stage to photograph Leyton, since the 50mm is too close for an image when you are right next to drumkit. The 28mm was better, but I could use the 50mm on the other band members from there.

Getting to the gig late, I missed the start of the set. Which is good from the point of view that with decent lighting and the fact that the band are so animated, I generally take far too many images of SheBangg anyway. So I think I ended up with about 200 images tonight. Which was probably about 150 more than I should have taken.

SheBangg did a great set, which was punctuated by some interesting dancing by a particular member of the audience. (He did force me to take his picture.....)

Overall, I was happy with the two body approach, which I may use again at the two gigs coming up in the next 7 days.

Holiday

2008-07-24T12:58:00.003+01:00

Feather
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Ok, this is a bit late, since I've been back from my holiday for two weeks.

I spent the best part of a week, travelling around with my father to various Speedway events. I may post some of the speedway images I took soon.

We spent two days in Poole. (for the Poole v Coventry match). The above image was taken at the bottom of some steps in the harbour. The lower steps were covered in green and there was a solitary feather on it, which I thought was great.

I tried a few different compositions with the feather in the frame. The above two are the only two that I liked. The rest were not as good.

I seem to be playing a lot recently with angles. This is intentional. I'm using a lot of diagonals at the moment and deliberatly, not having verticals, well .... vertical. I think this works. The bird was an accident. Which sort of makes the image for me.

I think the tide was going out. I like this image. It might be used in my Dereliction and Rubbish set I'm doing for a competition. I haven't really had much time to devote to this project, which is running out of time now. I need to be more proactive with it really in August.

Above is another dereliction image. I liked the boat and trailer in the undergrowth. This is within spitting distance of the beach. It seems a shame that it appears to be there neglected.

Back on the steps with the feather, was this broken post. Which kind of amused me for a while. I took a bunch of images of it and the chains at various depths of field.

It was nice to go back to Bournemouth again. We did have a wander up the mostly drizzly and empty pier.

The above image was me just messing about with the wide and low angles, while my father wandered off on his own.

The pier was obviously good for some pattern shots.

Yep, I'm liking my diagonals.

I didn't notice the spider web at the time of shooting it.

We wandered around the little park, by the beach. I took a few flower images. It was nice to use my 300mm lens to get a good depth of field and mean I didn't have to get close to the flowers, which were on the other side of a fence.

This might now be my favourite flower image I've taken. I tried a few different compositions with it, but this was by far the strongest )there is another image of this in my Flickr stream).

I have cheated a bit in Photoshop elements with it though. I desaturated the image, quite a lot and then painted through some of the colour to give it more of a two tone effect.

A few people have commented to me about how vibrant some of my images are. Maybe this is me rebelling against that. I've just edited a photoshoot for the band Facade, where I have followed this technique of desaturation and painting colour back in. More on that soon.

This bird was great, it didn't look a happy chappy at all, shivering in the drizzle.

Luckily he was on a slight incline, so I got a free diagonal as well.

It started to rain heavier, so we started to head back to the car, when I spotted this feather in the stream. This was me practicing composition, with the feather near the top third line and the left third line and luckily, a nice rain drop circle in the diagonal corner.

I think this image might need re-editing to bring out more of the feather detail. I might try that at some point.

We then went off to look around Southampton. Given that I took no images in Southampton, you can tell how much I enjoyed it (in the rain).

Week 49

2008-07-19T16:26:00.003+01:00

Week 49
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

It has been a few weeks, since I posted an update to my 52 weeks project. And since I'm actually happy with this weeks image, I thought I'd better blog it

I'd woken stupidly early today and remembered I needed to take this weeks image. There isn't many left to do now, until I finish the project. So I needed something less last minute to last weeks unsuccessful image (more below).

I'd seen the following image during the week and thought I'd have a go. Please check out Miss Aniela photo stream, she really is an inspiration.

Reverie
Originally uploaded by Miss Aniela

So obviously, my house is slightly lacking in the lovely net department, plus I'm not the sort of boy to where something so slinky.. So I had to make do with front room and whatever I threw on that morning.

This image is made up of two images, one of the empty room, one of me draping myself over two stacked toolboxes. Originally, I took several images, which when I got them into Photoshop Elements, prove to be a nightmare, due to me wearing black trousers and being on a black toolbox. So I ended up draping a white sheet over the boxes to make them easier to remove in post processing.

Here is the original shot.

First thing I had to fix was the aloe vera plant growing out of my navel. So a bit of cloning was in order to get rid of it. It was then a case of merging me with an image of the empty room.

It was at this point, I thought, "Great, now I have an image of me looking like I've been stuck on an image of my room. What can I do next?".

During the week someone posted to Flickr a link to a list of Photoshop Beauty tutorials. From this link, I found glow and light effect tutorials. So I thought I'd have a go and see what I could come up with. So basically the light is made up of adding clouds and elipses and setting them to "Color Dodge" to make them glow. Very simple really.

The final step was to put a levels layer over the whole image and darken the whole thing down. I then used the eraser to lighten, just my body and the sparky flame things.

I pretty happy with this image, even though, if I was going to start it again now, I would have done lots of things differently. Like staged it outside possibly. Also, been a bit more aware of the background. Moved the plants and speakers. Generally have a better background.

Oh well, it is all a learning experience and for that I'm happy.

The unsuccessful Week 48 image. It was 10pm last Saturday night and I had no clue what to do and only two hours to do it in. Panic set in.

Last month I'd seen on the Strobist blog a link to the works of Julius von Bismark who uses an old camera, a flash and some transparent film to project words into other peoples images.

So given I had some transparent printable film, and a flash, I thought I'd have a go. I was just missing the camera body.

So I improvised with an old Rice Krispies box and some Gaffer tape. Not brilliant, I give you. But it was the best I could do in the time.

I may try and build something a bit more permanent in this department, since conceptually, I think it worked. The only issue with the image was (in hindsight), it isn't really in focus and the letters are too big, since the contraption was too far away. Oh well, I know for next time.

Week 47. Simple image. My father was up staying for a week, so whilst he read the paper, I did quick emergency image.

In one of my old camera magazines, there was instructions on how to turn a digital camera into a pinhole camera. So I got the drill out, made a hole in a spare body cap. Cut up a coke can (having consumed the contents) an made a very small hole in the can with a needle. I then sellotaped the can to the body cap. Put the cap on my D70 and set it up on a tripod in the garden.

Several images later. I looked at them on the computer, hated them all, so had another go. Walking towards the camera this time, with a long shutter speed.

In photoshop elements, I converted the image to Infrared, then inverted it and volia, a weird self portrait. Job done, went andput the kettle on.

So there is an update of the last three weeks images. I now have three more images to do, before I stop the project. I will still do occasional self portraits, just not every week. Probably one or two a month, just to teach myself something, since recently, there seems to be far too many emergency images, that I don't like and a lot less, thought out images that I do.

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to go into a bit of detail on this one. So if you made it this far. Well done!!!! Go and get yourself a cup of tea.

Oil

2008-07-17T12:38:00.002+01:00

Oil on Water
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Whilst visiting Poole, recently, I took a few images, whilst wandering around the harbour area.

Let's just say, I wouldn't want to go swimming in there.

Saying that, I do really like these four images I took. Processing wise, I've only played with the levels and over saturated them for effect.

From a distance they look rather arty. I've been using one of them as a backdrop to XP at work (the top image). Someone said it looked nice, until they came closer and asked "Errr is that a crab leg in the middle".

This is a start, I hope, of an ongoing project to photograph, oil in various places and guises and conditions. I have some ideas of what I want to take images of, it is now finding the time to do it.

Facade - A tale of two nights.

2008-07-14T12:25:00.003+01:00

Facade
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

I had the pleasure of being invited to photograph Facade, two nights on the trot recently. The first night was at the Haygate Battle of the bands, which I've previously blogged, but here are a few images from the night.

Though I do like photographing in the Haygate it is generally really hard work, the lighting there is very limited and coming from the sides, meaning very noisy images (due to the high ISO required) and slow shutter speeds, meaning the photos are never as sharp as I personally would like them to be.

The second night was at the Rock The Castle event in Himley Hall. This was a fun little festival, with 35 bands, over several stages. Each band getting about 20 minutes of stage time. Facade were playing in the big top.

From a photographer's point of view, it was a good setup, only made marginally difficult, by being in the crowd, so composition wise, I was limited as to where I could stand and get a view. So, there are a few images (particularly) of Joe, where I would have liked to have been a few steps to the right, to avoid the mic stand in front of him. e.g.

Facade put in a storming short set to an appreciative crowd. Made nicely atmospheric by the good light show and use of smoke. Personally, It was nice to get some better shots of Matt on keyboards (normally hidden away in a dark corner behind a bank of keyboards).

The only trickyness really was getting good shots of the drummer Robert. Not overly successful there. (see bottom image)

I did find it funny, that there was several other photographers there with DSLRs and big lenses, using flash. As an experiment, I popped a couple of shots of using flash, just to see how bad it looked. Let's just say, I have deleted them and they won't see the light of day.

Overall, it was a great performance, and I was pretty happy with the shots I captured. It is a lot less stressful, taking photos in larger venues, with big lighting rigs.

Expect more photos of Facade in the coming weeks, since they are back at the Haygate next week, for the Battle of the bands semi final, plus I'm shooting them at their rehearsal studio this week.

Guns for Girls, Facade, Cupid With An AK, Andrew Murphy - Haygate

2008-07-10T15:07:00.004+01:00

Guns for Girls
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Normally, I would do an individual post for each band, but given, it is a week since this heat, I'll do a quick recap instead, before I go out and photograph tonight's heat

Guns for Girls were in the tricky opening slot, but pulled off an excellent performance tonight.

After the last time I photographed them, I did make an attempt to not take images of Mike looking camp. ha ha...

So a good solid, tight performance, only let down by them not doing a PJ Harvey cover this time, instead opting for some Scissor Sisters instead. They are still a bit static and could do with jumping around more. Being a bit more rock!!! (if that makes sense).

Next up, were the excellent, Facade. I missed them in the previous round, but had seen them a couple of times last year. Tonight, they were a lot tighter and confident.

Tonight, I seemed to get some good shots of the three drummers involved. Which makes me really happy, since it is hard from front of stage to get decent images of drummers.

I'll post another blog about Facade in a couple of days, since I photographed them the following night in Himley

Next up were Cupid with an AK. I'd never heard of these before, but thought they were excellent tonight.

Technically, they were tight. It was nice to see the return of the headless bass. Last seen in the late '80s ha ha (only kidding). They seemed to be really enjoying it. It was also good, to see them mix it up with a bit of acoustic guitar mid set.

They also have the best cover version since Mezzotonic's James Brown last year. Oh yes, they did some Girl's Aloud and it rocked.

I was looking forward to seeing these again sometime, until they told me, they are all off to Uni next year. Shame really.

At this point, I'd just like to say the sound tonight was really good. The Haygate, isn't normally that good for sound, but Richard did a grand job tonight.

Last up was Andrew Murphy. The only solo artist on tonight's bill and it makes a change seeing him without his band. So being on his own was always going to be an uphill battle.

Andrew pulled it off though. A really good set. His voice has come on a lot since the last time I saw him, more confident and strong. Merging his cover into the flow of his originals was an interesting move as well.

From a photography point of view, it was interesting for me, having to concentrate on one performer for the whole set, rather than chop and change every few seconds, when I anticipate someone is going to do something interesting (or not as the case may be).

At the end of the day, only two bands could go through and that was Guns for Girls and Facade. To be honest, that was probably one of the best heats I'd seen in a battle of the bands. All four were excellent. Normally, you can tell at least one band who will be going out. Tonight, I'm glad I wasn't judging, since it would have been tough.

Luxuriaa

2008-07-09T12:04:00.002+01:00

Luxuriaa
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

The final model from the Friends Institute Midland Strobist photoshoot was Luxuriaa.

Although she was actually the first model I shot that day

Since it was early in the day, plus the fact I had brought my white background and goal posts, I wanted to start with some straight forward shots and particularly some headshots

So I started with the background white and blown out by a single flash. Luxuriaa was lit by a flash shooting through a white umbrella, camera left and a flash camera right and (sometimes behind, sometimes at 90 degrees) a flash shooting into a silver umbrella. I did move this light around a few times.

Luxuriaa was an ideal model. She effortly switched poses with each shot, without requiring much prompting, which made it especially easy for me. I did have to ask her to go back to poses, when my compositiong wasn't quite there, or I wanted to go from close up to wider shot and visa versa.

We did try gelling the background, with variable success. Originally I gelled it Orange, but after a few shots, wasn't happy with the background colour, so we switched to layering a red gel and a purple gel, to switch the background pink

I'm extremely happy with how the shots came out and how good the background turned out, given the great poses I was getting

I was quite fortunate, in that since it was early in the shoot, most of the other photographers were networking or setting up equipment, so I got Luxuriaa to myself for the first twenty or so minutes. Which was good from it being less hectic, but slightly scary from the point of view of having to direct the model on my own and not bounce ideas of the other photographers. Of course I was bouncing and taking ideas off the model.

Above is one of the, more successful, attempts at photographing a hair flick. This was rather fun, rather silly and we got some interesting images. Like the cousin It image below.

This was a very enjoyable shoot and I think I got some great images and learnt a few useful things. I enjoyed working with Luxuriaa, she made it very easy for me to photograph her.

Hopefully, we are going to do another big Midland Strobist photoshoot in August. So I'm looking forward to that.

I've had some very positive feedback concerning the sets from this shoot and I've hadd offers from other models to shoot them, So I just need to find the time and location to do it.

Simon

2008-07-07T12:28:00.002+01:00

Simon
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

The 4th model from the "Friends Institute" Midland Strobist photoshoot was Simon

Simon had come along with Leah and I collared him to allow me to take a few images of him, whilst the other four models were busy with the other photographers.

When I originally arrived at the venue, I did do a bit of a scout about to see if there was anywhere other than the small room we had booked, where I got photograph. I instantly, liked the stairwell, with its big windows and nice red walls. So I made a note to photograph there at some point during the day.

Above is a rough setup for some of the shots. Sometimes the umbrella was on the other side (blocking the stairs). Where I took this image from, there is another bare flash, basically flooding the area to bring the ambient light up a bit. I'm not sure how effective it was.

I was pretty happy with the setup and very happy with the images. Simon was a good laugh and it was all a bit trial and error as I tried to direct him and not put him in standard catalogue poses. Yes we did do a catalogue pose image. I may have deleted it though. It won't see the light of day. ha ha.

We did try a few different angles and light setups on the stairs, (whilst trying to not get in the way of the people using the stairs), from me being low down shooting up, to me photographing half way up the stairs looking down. I like the look of the elevated position, looking down. But was equally happy with the landscaped images looking up. (see above)

As Leah was being shot further down the stairs, I did manage to steal her, between setups for a few images with Simon. Some were in the previous blog entry.

Overall, I'm really happy with how these images turned out. I think it was a good call and I enjoyed working with Simon. Oh and yes, his eyes are that blue, I haven't photoshopped them that colour.

Leah

2008-07-06T14:53:00.002+01:00

Leah
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

The third model from the "Friends Institute" shoot was Leah

Basically, I jumped in on Eric's setup for Leah, after he asked if he could borrow my lights.

We didn't get a lot of time to shoot with Leah. Which is a shame, since I enjoyed this setup and was hoping to try something else, after she got changed, but she was nabbed by some of the other photographers. Oh well.

The basic setup of the shots was, light coming in from the big window behind and a single flash unit shooting through a white umbrella on camera left.

I did use the little time I had, to try photographing with the camera at angles, just to try something different. It is something I have been using in my other photography. I seem to be liking diagonals at the moment. Especially in my gig photography. Though sometimes in hindsight it doesn't work.

I quite liked this simple setup and I like these images as a set, though I think I should have been more aware of the surroundings, since in post processing, I have had to clone out a few chair legs and bits of plastic that were on the floor. Simple things, which if I'd fixed at the time, would have saved some tedious post processing.

Finally, I managed to talk Leah's friend Simon into posing for me, a bit later in the day, whilst she was working with some other photographers. Whilst the other photographers were changing their lighting setup, I managed to get Leah to pose with Simon for a few shots. I like these images, they were fun to do and a good reminder of what the day was like.

Nicole

2008-06-30T16:28:00.003+01:00

Nicole
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

The 2nd model from the "Friends Institute" shoot was Nicole.

She was the last model I shot for the day and as such we had very little time to do much, plus I felt rather bad, making her sit down on the chaise lounge again, after a lot of the other photographers had already photographed her on it. But time was short, so what can you do...

The basic setup was window light coming from Nicole's right and a shoot through umbrella on he left.

I did try and do something different with the setup and tried some a gelled strobe behind model to try and colour the wall.

As you can see from the above two images, this was mostly unsuccessful.. Oh well, my gelling experiments need a bit more work.

The above image was another mistake. I was playing with the white balance and forgot to set it back when I changed the gels. So I ended up with a blue image. Which I actually like, so kept. Yes I could have (and have done) colour corrected the image in Elements.

In Elements, I've had a bit of a play with composition. Below is the original image.

Which I like, very much. But, being in the western world, we like to see things left to right, so I have reversed the image and cropped it tighter. The result being.

I'll leave it up to you as to which you prefer.

I would have liked a bit more time with Nicole and had a bit more time to experiment with the gels on the background a bit more. Oh well, maybe next time.

Below are a few other images I took of other people's setups, involving Nicole.

Cymone and Nicole.

Home made silver reflector.

Yep that reflector is reflecting light under the chin.

Cymone

2008-06-27T08:10:00.003+01:00

Cymone
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Ok, I'm going to blog each of the models from the Friend's Institute shoot in Birmingham last weekend. These will be in no particular order, but as I finish processing the images.

So it may take a couple of weeks for me to get through them all.

First up are the photos for Cymone

The above image is one of my favourite images from the set. I was trying different prime lenses and also wanted some landscape format images.

Editing the images I did notice a marked improvement in sharpness with the prime lenses over the zoom lenses. The above image was taken with an 85mm prime. As such to get the crop in camera, I was physically leaning backwards over a table. Not vert comfortable at all.

The above image was also with the 85mm prime. We did three / four setups with Cymone. The above two images are from the second setup.

This setup, used natural light from the big window on camera left, whilst using a flash unit on camera right shooting through a white umbrella.

The first / 4th setup with Cymone, was against the window. The above and below images use the window as a backlight, with a single flash again through a white umbrella. The above image was taken with my zoom lens (18-200mm) the bottom one with a 50mm prime (I was wedged down between a cabinet and the wall to get this image).

Given the small room, we had to make do with what little space and props we could find there. Luckily, there was a couple of pianos in the room, so I dragged out the bigger one, to try some shots.

Luckily Cymone has a sort of a young Tori Amos vibe about her, which added to my concept for these images.

We tried several different lighting setups. The above image uses a main flash camera right shooting through a white umbrella (there is a theme developing here). But with an added rim light, which in hindsight might have been a little too bright. Behind the piano is a CTO gelled SB800 using a (too) small plant as a cookie, to throw some shapes on the wall.

To be honest the plant / cookie idea didn't really work as well as I would have liked. Mainly since we was stuck in the corner of the room with very little space, so I could not get enough distance between the wall and the flash. So I couldn't get the pattern across a wide enough area of the wall. Oh well, at least I tried.

I was back to using the zoom lens by now. Immediately behind me was another team of photographers, photographing Leah against a white backdrop. Whilst one was crouched down shooting her, I was leaning backwards over him, trying to get the composition right for some of the shots. Highly amusing.

Later in the day, some of the other photographers used Cymone literally on the piano to great effect. I was tempted to try this (not me on the piano obviously), but never got around to it.

I am really happy with the way these images have come out, even the ones where my cookie idea didn't pay off behind the piano. I think at future shoots, I may stick to using my prime lenses exclusively, since I preferred the sharpness I get with them. I may need to use two camera bodies though, to save changing lenses every couple of minutes,

Cymone was a joy to work with, very easy to direct and very friendly. Plus I found out later she is also a photographer.

For the other images I took of Cymone, please check out my Flickr set. I may add a few more images in the next week to the set.

Week 46

2008-06-26T19:28:00.002+01:00

Week 46
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

It's Thursday and I totally forgot about this weeks picture (I was meant to have taken one at the photoshoot on Sunday) and I'm not going to get a chance to do something before Sunday. So emergency picture time, whilst my tea cooks.

Original plan was to put a strobe in my mouth and fire it. Tried that, looked rubbish, and hurt my fillings (for some reason). Funny though.

Then I thought... Gels... So 6 speed lights later , green, blue magenta and yellow (possibly orange) gels and there you go, me looking angry.

I did try some nice poses, but the lighting obviously, made me want to shout to get that expression. Very incredible Hulk.

For a quick 5 minute job, I'm happy with it.

Strobist info: SB24 behind (magenta gel), (but I've darkened the background down in elements).
SB800 in front (dark green gel).
SB26 & SB28 camera left (blue gelled).
SB26, SB28 camera right (yellow / orange gelled).

Post processing. Saturation / black / fill light tweaks in Raw converter I darkened the background a bit.. Cropped it, then a high pass filter to sharpen it by a silly amount using Vivid light.
Some lightening of the eyes. Not a lot really.

Midland Strobist's 3rd Meet - The Friends Institute, Birmingham

2008-06-25T12:35:00.002+01:00

Midland Strobist's 3rd Meet - The Friends Institute, Birmingham
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

On Sunday I met up again with the Flickr Midland Strobist group in Birmingham, to catch up, shoot some model and generally mingle and network

The venue, this time was the Friends Institute. Not as obviously photogenic, nor as large as the previous Rainbow Warehouse shoot in April.

The room had a lot of availiable light coming in from two sides, so there was some debate about whether we really needed to use much additional lighting.

I think there was around 15-17 photographers and four models, plus a few other people. So it was a bit cramped initially, until we started to spill out into other areas of the building. (I'm missing candid photos from those areas). I particularly, wanted to use the stairwells, due to the big windows and nice red walls. (Photos of that to follow in another blog entry).

There were a few items of furniture to play with, like an old drum kit, a couple of pianos and the chaise Lounge.

I actually, found it quite fun, given the room to try and come up with ideas as opposed to the last shoot which was more (put model by nice wall paiting, put next model by next nice wall painting).

So it was good to try things out (like the piano and against the two windows and trying on the stairs), even when sometimes it failed, (the drum kit for example).

I made a concerted effort (after the previous shoot). To stop and let others take photos, without me there with eye to eyepiece, waiting for the next shot.

As such I was able to watch what others were doing and how they interacted with the models and think about what I wanted to do next. Which was good for me (and probably others). So it was a bit less hectic and stressful for me.

I enjoyed helping other photograhers out with both equipment and advice. Which was recipricated to me by other photographers. I learnt some new things, which is always a good thing.

As a group we have now started the dissection of the day, to try and improve the meet, which hopefully will be in early August.

There is talk of scheduled breaks and rotation of model and photographers, to calm things down a bit. We are also getting to be quite a big group now, so will need bigger venues.

Over the next week or so, I'll post a blog of each model and a few of the images. I also roped in one of the models friends for a quick shoot. So I'm interested to see how those images turn out (I haven't edited them yet).

Finally, the meet was once again videod. So the film will be up on You tube at some point. Luckily, this time I didn't fall over, so hopefully I won't make the funny outtakes.

Now starts the slow process of editing down the 300+ images I took to something presentable. I'll blog the first lot for Cymone, tomorrow

Dereliction or Rubbish part 1

2008-06-18T21:54:00.002+01:00

BW engine
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

The summer is the close season for the photographic society, (though we do meet up for drinks and occasional outings). Over the summer we have been tasked with finding images covering the subject of "Dereliction or Rubbish".

I'm trying to get back into cycling a bit as well, so the other Sunday, I combined the two and went for a cycle, taking my D70 with me and seeing if I stumbled up anything

On my travels, I happened up the Bridgnorth Steam Railway. I'd spotted, when taking my car to the garage), that there was some scrap around the back of the railway station, so went to investigate.

I did find a few interesting things to photograph. But I'm still unsure what angle I want to tackle this challenge.

I'm not sure if I just want to show something left to decay? Or try some old building shots in traditional sunrise / sunset pose? (probably not), or go down the rubbish route and leave the decay and dereliction alone.

When I took these images, it was early evening and the sun was causing some good shadows and had a nice warm feel to it, which brought out the rusty colours rather well.

I may go back again to the railway soon and scout about a bit more, probably without the bike though. I didn't like to leave it.

Finally, the last two images are one and the same. The rusty colour one, is the original image. The green image, was me playing with the white balance in Elements. I think I prefer the green image, personally.

There will probably be more updates to this theme over the coming weeks. I took some more this weekend at the Avoncroft Museum of Historic buildings. I'll blog that next week.

The Stealer of Hearts

2008-06-17T12:38:00.002+01:00

The Stealer of Hearts
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Given my impending expense of getting my poorly car fixed, I decided to (mostly, I failed) stay in last weekend and save some pennies.

So I thought I'd have another go at smoke photography.

The above image was my favourite of the lot this time.

When I first saw this on the back of the camera, for some reason, I thought of the computer game Thief. So I wanted a title implying that, and the face area looks a bit heart shaped.

Hence the title......

This was the first time I'd used my D300 for smoke photography

I also tried a different set up to last time, with more distance to the back wall and the use of up to four strobes to make more of the smoke be more visible. Though, I did miss the assistant I had last time.

I am extremely happy with the results, from the point of view of cleaning up the images before colouring. So the editing process was much quicker this time.

The above image is hardly processed at all other than flipping and making four copies. Simple image. Which I like. The only colour processing was in the Raw converter I used.

The above image, half works I think. I really like the left half of the image. Not sure what the right side is doing. But i really didn't want to edit that side to make it something it probably isn't. So I left it. I may play with the image again at a later date.

I still have a few more images to edit from last weekend. I may get around to playing with them in a few weeks

Now that I have discovered that this technique works pretty well with four strobes. I may have another go, using coloured gels, to colour the smoke at the time of capture. Well, it'll save time in post production.

Plasma

2008-06-13T07:27:00.003+01:00

Plasma
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Tuesdays are normally photography night for me. The night I go to my photography society meetings.

The photography society has shut down for the summer, though we do meet socially instead, but I've tried to keep Tuesdays to photograph something.

This week I had a few minutes before I went out cycling, so looked around my frontroom to see what I could photograph and spied my plasma ball. So thought I'd have a go.

Initially I started off with my Nikon D70, since it was attached to the tripod. The main issue I had, with it being still light, was the reflections in the ball of the windows (even with the curtains closed).

So I went out for my cycle, then went out to meet up with some of the society for a drink. When I got home, I had another go.

The aim was to try a few different things. Play with ISO, Shutter speeds and aperature. So some of the images are with low ISO (like 200), small aperatures (F16+) but up to 30 second expoosures. Other images are very high ISO (6400), larger aperatures (F5.6) and shorter shutter speeds (like 1/10 second).

Post processing wise. It was almost all done in the RAW converter. Playing with the colour saturation, so I over saturated some images, and desaturated others, to get different effects. Other than that a bit of cropping and some noise reduction was about it.

It was an interesting experiment and I will play with this a bit more in the next few weeks, to see if I can try some other things (actually I did some more last night).

So expect me boring you with even more in the coming month.

Infractor

2008-06-11T12:43:00.003+01:00

Infractor
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

The final band at the Haygate's BOTB last week was Birmingham's 7 piece band Infractor

To be honest, I've sort of lost a lot of faith over the last couple of years with the local rock scene, but on that night, faith was restored.

These were pretty awesome. Very tight, very energetic and musically excellent.

I can't really fault their performance at all. Slag is a very good front man, energetic and breaking down the distance between the band and the audience. Obviously, this makes him difficult to photograph, especially when he is in the dark of the audience.

The three prong guitar onslaught was effective, heavy but melodic, backed up by a solid rythmn section and the welcome addition of keyboards.

As I've stated before, you can normally tell, how much I enjoy a band by the number of images I take of them, which in this case was twice as much as the other two bands. I look forward to seeing them in the next round.

As a side note to this gig.... I recently went to see wildlife photographer Andy Rouse do a talk locally. I took a couple of things he said from the talk and tried to implement them at this (and future) gigs. The first was. Don't view the whole thing from the viewfinder. Stop occasionally and appreciate what it is you are seeing. You don't really get the experience from viewing through the view finder.

In the past, when I have been photographing and judging BOTB events, I have probably fallen foul of this and have struggled to score the bands. I wasn't judging that night.

So in all three bands, I made a conscious decision to not shoot through each song and take some time out to appreciate the music and the entertainment.

The second thing was to not look at the screen on the back to check the image after every shot. You might miss something. You can delete whatever afterewards. I did try to do this, but failed on occassion. I did have a deletion session in between each band's set.

So a very good evening's entertainment, by three very good bands. I think the next step for me might be to impose my own three song rule at gigs. Where I just shoot the first three or last three songs of each band's set. It's an idea at least.

Werm

2008-06-11T11:08:00.002+01:00

Werm
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

I'd photographed Werm a couple of times before about a year ago.

Things had changed a little since then, with the introduction of a new drummer and Garf moving back onto vocals and (now) guitar.

Apologies to the drummer for the above pic. I just thought it was funny. I had trouble all night with taking images of the drummers in all three bands. The lights were lacking a bit.

Werm were very good indeed tonight. Probably the best I have seen them. Garf, is coming on as a front man, with his slightly surreal song and irreverent introductions and obvious passion for the music. His addition on guitar, adds quite a bit to the mix.

Nev was solid as always, though I miss the dreads, (which make for ace photographing), he is starting to look like Trent Reznor now, which is no bad thing.

Damian, is still one of my favourite guitar players. I just which he would move about a bit more.. ha ha.. Plus standing with his back to lights, doesn't help the photographer. He isn't the only person that does this, it can be quite frustrating sometimes. But then, the band are there to entertain the crowd and not there to pose for me.

Overall, a really good set, well executed and they were well deserved to go through to the next round. Plus they were giving away free CDs of new Werm and Nev's solo project. Good stuff.

Raven-head

2008-06-11T07:34:00.002+01:00

Raven-head
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Last week, I photographed one of the heats of the Haygate's Battle of the bands 2008.

First band up was Raven-head.

Raven-haed are a more classic old school rock band. A good solid set, from them, which I really enjoyed.

If I had one gripe, it would be that they were a little bit static onstage, in relation to the other two bands.

Cover version wise, they made a pretty good attempt at Iron Maiden's "Phantom of the Opera". Not an easy song, Especially with one guitarist.

They made no claims that they were there to win the competition, but were there to enjoy the event. They looked liked they were enjoying it. The guitarist in particular. I don't normally like the photos I take in red lights, but in his case I think it adds to the menace.....

So overall, very enjoyable and kicked off a great evening's entertainment. I look forward to seeing them again.

You can see / hear more from Raven-Head on their Myspace page

Week 44

2008-06-09T21:13:00.003+01:00

Week 44
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

I'm trying to get back into cycling again. I used to do lots of it in my youth and when I first moved to the Midlands at the tail end of the last Century.

I went for a cycle ride on Sunday evening, taking my old D70 with me, and stopped off at the railway station in order to take some photos of some unused trains and barrels and engines and other bits of rust. (see coming blog entry)

I went to take an image inside a big drum type thing, then I noticed I was casting a shadow over it. So I took a photo of the shadow instead.

I haven't done a lot of post processing to it, I've only changed the white balance and tint settings to change it from orange to green. Just for a change.

I like the gaping hole I now appear to have in my chest.

To the chap I was chatting to earlier about it, who asked, if this was a metaphor for my recent events. Err No. If I was going to be that obvious, I would have made it red or blue, but I like the way you think...

I may post the original image, or one of the other three or four shots I took, to Flickr in the future.

I've spent ages moaning about wanting to stop this at the end of the 52 weeks, now I'm having 2nd thoughts and may continue it into year two. Or maybe to one a month, or one every 2 weeks.

It is a pain to have to do one each week (not sure how the people who take one ever day cope), I think every 2 weeks might be better.

We shall see.

Happy Accidents 1

2008-06-07T09:37:00.002+01:00

Focus
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

I was photographing the Battle of the bands at the Haygate, in Wellington a couple of days ago, taking photos of Raven-Head, Werm and Infractor, (more blog entries over the coming days), when I had a couple of happy accidents with the camera.

The image above, is of Infractor. I have rotated it 90 degrees. Sometimes, the autofocus on the camera has trouble in the low light conditions and fails to focus. Normally, it (annoyingly) refuses to take an image. In this instance, it let me take a stupidly out of focus image.

Which I kinda like, for it's abstractness, (if that is a word?).

Though the more I look at it, the more I see what it actually is.

The second image, is actually the floor of the Haygate, again during Infractor.

As I was moving from one side of the stage to the other, ducking under the view of the audience, I accidentally pressed the shutter on the camera and took the image. Again, I kinda like this.

I do enjoy this, happy accident / abstract photography malarky. It is interesting to later look through the images I've taken in an evening and go, "Eh? Where did that come from?".

Oh course, I could just throw the camera into manual focus mode and take a load of out of focus shots. (there are enough out of focus shots normally, due to low light and slow shutter speeds, but we don't normally show those, ha ha). But where would the fun be in that.

Week 42

2008-06-02T22:48:00.002+01:00

Week 42
Originally uploaded by rollasoc

Ok, below is what the background normally looks like...

After the Rainbow Warehouse shoot the other week, I had the idea of playing with Gels on my blue background to see what would happen.

After photographing Chrissii (above), I really wanted to try it. We did try a few shots of the white background coloured by gel flashes, but discarded them, since it wasn't appropriate for the colour of clothes she was wearing.

Strobist info. SB24 and SB26 behind the blue backdrop gelled, various colours (see below). Both were 1/4 power except for bottom right images, when full power. SB28 into silver umbrella, camera left 1/2 power, SB28 shooting through white umbrella, camera right and slightly behind me.

Top Left. - Yellow gel
Top Right - Magenta Gel
Bottom Left - Flame Red Gel
Bottom Right - Dark Green Gel doubled up (hence the full power).

It was an interesting experiment and I kinda like the slightly different effects I can achieve with the gels. It also might make me put off buying more backdrops for a while.

I could have done with being further away from the background, to stop the colour cast on me. Oh well. It was only an experiment.