Around Christmas 08

Ange and Ev

I like this pic of Ange, you can see reflected in her glasses the tungsten sky from the three pics of Aiden a couple of posts ago. The only thing is the dreaded fence - such a grim suburban backdrop, one which frequently invades photos taken at home. When Ev is smart enough, this fence is moving two terraces down, and then the background should become more workable.

These stragely coloured ones are shot with coloured gels on the flash. I particularly like the one of Ev, and of course Aiden's face-pull. The small ones on the right are from the tram cruise - tricky light and space, but nice colours in the clothes and cool skin tones.

Portrait of Jacques

December Hong Kong

December is feeling great - I've been out quite a bit with the camera, light has been great, and I've learned a few things from Jens which I'm now able to put into practice. Firstly the finishes on these photos which is done in RAW conversion rather, so in other words before the file is created, rather than via photoshopping an existing file. I think their contrasty, detailed and volume oriented feel - almost a three dimensional feel of depth - is really nice, and offers a higher dynamic range than a normal photo would. For example there is detail in the bottom of the bridge in the tram photo (we went on a christmas tram ride through Hong Kong with a group of people from Sheung Sze wan which was lovely) that would not be visible with a standard output. The photo above of Aiden on his bike I really really like. The backdrop is an old demolished restaurant which the Gov closed down, and then fenced off to prevent it being operated on the sly. I like its bright colours and the way they worked with the bike's colours and shapes and Aiden in jeans and t. The single bit of graffiti - PIMP - gives it a bit of sleeze-feel in what is really cheerfully coloured, but also about urban decay. Unrelated, but in the same style, we have my version of Dreams of a Tatooed Man - Ev after finding and experimenting at length with Freja's winnie the pooh stamp.

I think I've posted a pic of Grant's Ultima GTR already, but he was giving it a wash and fired up the engine (you have no idea, a very smooth and tight
aeroplane quality noise to it) and I couldn't resist - it is such a superlative machine. I get tricked into thinking these sorts of cars are small because they are so low, and invariably offer cramped accommodation for people, so I put the small one in here to give you an idea of scale - big big vehicle. I also learned that it was used as a test-bed for the McClaren F1, which I know you (rightly) have an appreciation for. And there are some visual parallels, like the over-roof vent, which in this case feeds a massive supercharger.

Finally, check out these - supergroovy and stylized - again something that Jens taught me - these are all taken with a yellow gel filter on a flash, with the camera metered on the sky (nice detailed sky in this case) and then the camera's white balance set to tungsten, which renders things other than yellow-flased skin blue, and gives you these sorts of results. Hope you like them.