Roseblade Photography Blog

One thing a photographer often needs is a third hand. Whether its a reflector, a light of a camera, guranteed you’re going to need to hold something at some point.

I rigged up this little camera mount in a kitchen to shoot the fun stop motion video below, purely for my own pleasure. It’s comprised of a mini tripod and a unidirectional ball and socket clamp. See what you’ve got lying around that can become a photography prop and don’t be afraid to get the hammer and nails out. Some of the best photos are not made by cameras but by behind the scenes ingenuity.

Also, check out this video by Chase Jarvis. He’s got some great tips on how to get good photos with simple equipment. His latest blog post is about Levis latest ad and it uses stop motion.

This is so often the case at weddings. You get one shot at the day, and one shot at the key moments. You can’t exactly ask the bride to walk down the aisle again because you missed it. At Bryony and Adam’s wedding recently, I had a moment I just had to get right. They had a plan to do a hay bail roll, that means four massive bails weighing a couple of tons each, rolled across the field by the most alpha of males, competing for glory.

They were set to do it, then they weren’t going to as things were running late and light was fading. I managed to persuade them to sneak it in before there first dance but had no time to plan lighting or anything. Within a matter of seconds it was over. I was just running between bails trying not to get crushed, snapping away.

The best you can do this situation is know your camera, know your exposure, make sure you have space on your card, close your eyes and run. Well, keeping your eyes open might help.

It was a great moment to remember from the day, lots of fun, competition, heroics and victory. I was glad to be able to capture it. The fleeting moments are often the most precious.

Following on from a previous post about painting in Photoshop CS 5 , not knowing whether it could server any useful purpose, I may have found a great little use for it.

I recently did  little painting, shot it on my phone and then ‘retouched’ it using the new mixer brush.

art at the cliffeb

IMG_1003

art at the cliffeb

I masked the people out to a new layer and blended the background together. Then repainted the people over the top and added rain, highlights and puddles. I think this has great potential for fixing up those paintings that I just do too much on, or aren’t quite detialed enough. It’s important of course not to let photoshop take over and ruin the romance of painting with real paint, I spend enough time in front of my computer as it is!

Granted this isn’t a particularly unusual or creative shot but it was made in a different sort of way. I don’t have a macro lens, I’d hardly ever use it for what I do but every now and then I need a close up shot. This technique uses a 50mm 1.8 lens reversed. If your not familiar with this, take your lens off, turn it round and hold it against your camera body. You need to shoot manually and focussing is a bit tricky but it works to a certain extent.

Here’s a really nice little Illustrator tutorial to have a play with. It’s quite useful to see at what point one should transfer artwork to Photoshop. Using each tool in conjunction for what its best at will give great results. The tutorial can be found at Smashing Magazine