"1806" Bar Shoot

Hey,

I'm being quite post happy this week, but I thought I hadn't put up any clients photos yet and have just finished a couple of shots from 1806 Bar on Exhibition St for the "Laneways and Rooftops" book... it was easy shooting such a classy venue... go down and say hello to Merlin for a good cocktail and laugh.


Cheers,
Brad.

 

www.bradhillimaging.com.au

www.facebook.com/bradhillimaging

More Melb@500

Hey!

Here is installment 3 of Melb@500mm... enjoy!

www.bradhillimaging.com.au
www.facebook.com/bradhillimaging

Fruit Exploding From Water

Hey,

My project de-jour this time is trying to copy a image I saw online...where it looks like a piece of fruit is punching or exploding out of water. I've seen it in ads for flavoured water etc. As an exercise it ended up being learning about flash sync speed and ninja like timing.

Anyway this is one of the better results...

Here is how I did it...

The set up is fairly straight forward... macro lens, white back-drop, back-drop light, big vase, front light, water and fruit. I moved the front light all over the place trying to avoid shadows on the fruit and reflections on the glass. In this photo it is up high but better results came from putting it almost directly under the lens. In a perfect world another speed light in front would have been good to play with.
 

Because I have only just started playing with proper studio lights the first thing I learnt is that they have limited functionality if you're shooting fast moving things unless you have special power packs. This is what happens if your lights aren't quick enough... the fruit is blurry because it is moving.

So I switched to my speed lights and this froze the action but clearly I had a bit of work to do to get the exposure right.

Also I needed to fine tune the focus.

This got it about right so it was time to cut up the fruit.

Lesson two was ninja like timing... since sadly I am not a ninja I had to settle on taking about 100 photos to get one or two with the fruit in the right place and an attractive splash. There were a lot that ended up looking like this.

Finally, I got enough that looked ok and here is the un-photoshopped result of the above final image.

As you have guessed rotating the image 180 degrees makes it look like the fruit is coming out of the water not going in and after removing the background and tweeking contrast and saturation I had a result.

Here are some others that turned out ok too.

 

 This one is probably my favorite mainly due to the closer crop and twist in the water splash.


That is it for this post... it is of some coincidence that one of my clients is 'Fruit Property'... is there an ad campaign in this Jon?

Cheers,
Brad.

After all this wine I need a beer.

Hey,

I've been practising shooting wine bottles today... probably the most exacting product you can do. Most of the day... only 8 photos and two styles! But it is all about perfecting and replicating the different styles in the future.

Style 1. Bottle Side lit and label front lit with the front light highlights on the glass removed in photoshop and minimal perspective distortion.

Style 2. Front and back lit at 45 degrees with a reflector filling the label and a bit of perspective distortion for 'animation'.

This is the setup for Style 2... (I occasionally convert my studio into a loungeroom).

I know... boring post... but I'm gaging for a beer.

Cheers,
Brad.

More Melb@500

Hey!

I am always sceptical of abstract photos by people who have not spent years studying... it is too easy to take a really crap photo and call it abstract. That said here I go... in two groups of two images a here is my attempt.


Not totally abstracted but these two (in my mind anyway) are using hard lines, negative space and simple composition tricks to suck the eye around the image.

Gotta love reflections in windows... these are two of about 40 I took in QV where the low sun was bouncing funky light around a narrow glassy laneway. I started by getting at least one of the figures sharp but then thought that part of the photo dominated the frame too much. From then it became an exercise in composition and color, I also thought the highlights around silhouettes started to add interesting shapes in their own right when short focused like this.

As mentioned in the last post, I would love to have company of others with their cameras (point and shoot, SLR or large format) while randomly hunting light in the city, just let me know.

Feel free to comment... all feedback is good.

I have also almost finished my Facebook business page on which you might be reading this... make sure you "like" it...!

Thanks!
Brad.