Rallye Sunseeker 2010

Took the Canon G9 out yesterday, to go and watch the Rallye Sunseeker, out in Ringwood Forest. The weather had been appalling in the lead up to the event and driving conditions were moist to say the least! Nice to see several of the older cars like the original Minis, Mark 2 Escorts and the lonely Mark 2 Cortina. Needless to say many of them didn't make it through all the stages due to mechanical failure! Had a really good day, which is more than can be said for one of the drivers, that's going to cost! Who moved that tree?

A taste of the action video clip!

Ollie

I was up in Cardiff last week for the next session of training for the PhotoTraining4U Apprentice, out there in the cold with Mark's team and Ollie the model for the day, he was brilliant. As always, a very informative day, Mark is a great instructor and mentor to Ozzy and I. Training has changed format now, with the Apprentices becoming the assistants to Mark, whilst he makes a video for the PhotoTraining4U collection. It is amazing to watch him work and see how he looks at a location for the potential images. After he has shot his video and we have observed the process and assisted, it's our turn to get some images. Some of mine are below, but it has to be said that my wingman, "Ozzy", got the best image of the day, even Mark said that it was better than the ones he got!

My Little Angel

I was out at the weekend, refining a photo shoot I had done previously. My darling little Niece, got a set of fairy wings at Christmas along with a wand, (I wonder who bought her those?) and I thought that would be a great concept for my revised graveyard shoot at sunset. Off we went on a freezing January evening, me all wrapped up in a warm coat, Tia bless her, was only in a lightweight dress armed with her fairy wings and wand! (we did have a big coat for her as well, I’m not that cruel!, but it came off for the shoot.). The intention was to utilise off camera flash and turn day into night by overpowering the daylight with flash with my little fairy highlighted in the graveyard, surrounded by silhouettes. The results were spectacular, or so I thought anyway. Here is a shot I took and subsequently entered into the SWPP monthly image competition, I got a B (Bronze) for it, which I was pleased with as it’s much better than getting a U (unclassified)! I took several other angles but this is one of my favourites.

After the graveyard experience and once she thawed out, we did a few studio shots. This image was achieved by placing the studio flash directly over head with a honeycomb grid on it to prevent the spill of light on to the black background and metered for the face. When taking the shot, it was a case of getting her to look directly towards the light and get the wand to just fall within the light path but not create a shadow on the face. It took a few attempts to get all the pieces correct! Post production, I just extended the canvas above to give more negative black space. This image got me a Silver award, so I am really pleased.