Spy Journal 3.0 Filtering the web for you

It all started as an idea. Then again, most good things do. I was talking to Kerry, the owner of Sensational Slushees when we were building his website for him and suggested we organise a photoshoot for his slushee machines as a promotional thing, from which he could get some good photos to use for his website.

As I started thinking more about it I decided to research some ideas. Then a mate of mine Dave Reid arranged the photoshoot I did with Nelson Lai. Dave showed me this YouTube video of the Chase Bar photoshoot, from which I took some inspiration for my shoot yesterday.

So yesterday was just over a month in actual planning. I was very keen to do the entire shoot for no cost to anyone, other than their time and fuel etc. I was able to secure back to back shoots with the local tavern for the bar and the local fitness studio who are also clients of ours.

This is what I ended up arranging:

Miranda got given a camera for her birthday and has been learning some things from me. After reading this post about photographing with your child we went and did a photo shoot with Laurel Pearce. Today I decided to do water drop splash photography after reading this instruction article.

I set my room up as in the photo below. The two light stands supported a dowel (though these could be anything) from which I hung a bottle with string. I pierced a small hole in it and then twisted the cap to allow water to flow in short drops. I placed a low bucket on the table (on a towel) and an ice-cream container upside down in the bucket. On top of that I placed a black dessert bowl filled with water. The red bucket under the table is supporting a flash aimed at the whiteboard balanced on the chair. For the white background shots i ran this flash at half power. For the coloured shots i draped material, towels, blankets and a green shopping bag over the whiteboard and used full power. For the lighter colours I moved the chair away from the camera as more light was being reflected. The second off camera flash is on the green box to the right of the bowls. I also tried this on the left for the last few shots I took. This flash was on a low power setting with the diffuser over the flash. The camera was attached to the lens mounted on the tripod. IT is a Canon EOS 50D and the lens i was using is a Canon 70-200 IS USM 2.8 L Lens. I had ISO 125, Shutter 1/250 and the aperture varied from 3.5 for a couple of shots through to 16 to 20. Most shots were on 16 or 20. The different colours reflected light differently and I need better exposure on those shots – hence the experimentation with the aperture settings. I was zoomed right in at 200mm and the camera was as close to the subject as possible for focus. I turned off AF focus and using the manual focus focused on a piece of wood placed over the bowl right under the drips. I experimented with the height of the camera on the tripod also to get more or less of the water surface.

For the last few coloured shots I put some milk in the bowl (changed to a white bowl with a blue inside surface) and some milk in the bottle. Not pure – just mixed it in with the water. I was particularly please with the reflection of the background coloured light on the  milk along with the blue from the bowl interior.

All the good shots are up at Flickr in the Studio Shoots – Stills Set.

A selection are below.

We had an awesome day yesterday. Shannon Plummer who is a wildlife photographer of some repute came to our place to shoot our reptiles. She was kind enough to let me mimic her setup and get plenty of good shots. I didn’t get a picture of the whole setup unfortunately so I have added a drawing below.

The background is a white sheet lit from below the table with my flash on full power. She used two more flashes on stands over the table to left and right through umbrellas. I used a single flash higher up and pointing down from slightly behind and to the right of the camera.

The table top itself was covered in a white cloth and then a white sheet of perspex (acrylic) with a glossy surface placed on top.

We have had a number of deaths in our house lately.

First the assisted death of our pet dog Raz Soondari. She was 10 years old, suffering complications from a dislocated hip and also a thyroid problem with an associated skin condition. Her hip had re dislocated and we were looking at expensive surgery and the need for her to be confined afterward. She went away with our vet friend Audrey last week and went to sleep peacefully.

The same day we had to euthanise one of the longest living pet mice – suspected tumours and growths were making her very fat and she wasn’t eating. Gold was Erin’s mouse.

Today one of Miranda’s snakes King died. We are not sure why, but he was a very fussy eater and that may have contributed to his demise.

And finally today also our last central netted dragon Sleepy died. He was a dragon that had some birth defects, and couldn’t keep sand out of his eyes properly. He actually lived a very long life for a CND, lasting around 4 years. they live for 2-3 in the wild.

The kids have been upset by the deaths as can be expected, but we also hope that this will assist them to learn and understand the cycle of life, the grieving process and how to deal with loss.