Daylight Flash Beach portraits

I took a remotely fired flash to the beach this morning (this means one that is not attached to the camera, but is still fired by a radio signal from the camera when you take the picture) to try my hand at taking some daylight flash photos that Jens had shown me, and thought I'd post them for you because I thought they came out really beautifully, especially this one of Aiden:

The idea is to fire a flash that's so bright that it makes the daylight seem dusk-ish, but at the same time gives you lovely colour and depth of focus because you've got to stop right down to f20 or f22 on the camera to prevent the whole image from being whited out. So you end up with a situation where you are using the the sun as if it's one flash and the remote fired flash as another. Having two light sources gives you options for bringing out detail (like you see above in Aiden's hair) that are not at your disposal with a single light source. It's also good for environments like Hong Kong where the haze washes out colour and detail - it's as if the air has a whitish, brightish feel to it. The picture below is shot whithout the flash and I've included it here because it shows what a high glare environment the beach was this morning- the sun is above and to the right behind Ange, so if you want detail in Aiden and her faces then it will be at the expense of detail in more exposed areas like the beach and the water. I think the photo is structurally very nice, but is whited out to the extent that I converted it into a black and white because I thought it looked better that way:


Below are the other flash photos I took. Ange had some bubbles and was blowing them for Ev, who is just out of the frame - you can see a tuft of his hair in the right foreground. I thought the bubbles looked pretty groovy, and I like the detail in the water on the right of her. Ev was harder to do (as always), because he was either speeding around doing his own thing (which can include rushing into the sea, so you've got to keep on your collective toes) or involved to the extent that he would the flash unit. get too close, or push it over; that sort of thing. The photo of him here is a crop and clone-out job of the one at the very bottom - where you can see the flash, and how close he's got to it. Hope you like these, and hope you've having a lovely time during your holiday.

Christmas boys

Here is a quick-pic update on your little brothers; the Hong Kong mid-winter weather has been at it's absolute best - clear, sunny, warm - the beach has been great. The pics of the boys on their bikes are taken in the parking lot out the back of our apartments. Both of them have eaten their body-weights in chocolate and ice-cream and have enjoyed Christmas thoroughly. Aiden has also really started enjoying playing with Evan, which is great for both of them.

Nissan GT-R 2009

Here's an unexpected trip back to your much loved world of autos and design. We took the kids to the beach yesterday - it was a lovely day - and in the parking lot when we were leaving was this car, being filmed by a film crew working for a local motoring - TV programme.

It's the 2009 (yes, bizarre, because it's not even 2008 yet) Nissan GT-R, which I understand was launched in Tokyo in October this year, and so probably has not reached South Africa yet. I understand that it's a very serious vehicle, and thought that you might be interested in seeing it, in the event that you havn't already. Here is the address for the launch website - I recommend visiting it if auto design is your thing:

http://www.gtrnissan.com/?Site=nissanusa&Area=GT-R_Home

What I think is particularly cool, is that there is a pictorial time-line which opens on the screen which rolls if you put your mouse over it, and takes you on a visual design history tour so to speak, charting this car's evolution, from 1964 to this model. I think it's really nicely done - simple, effective, visual. Check it out.

If you are interested in the technology of the car, I know what made it's predecessors reknown in the world of production racing was an "un-burstable" V6 motor with extravagant dual turbo-charging, and a completely programmable engine management chip that allowed a stock motor to be remapped to put out in excess of 1000hp. This coupled with permanent four-wheel drive made for a profound racing tool. Here is the site for the Jeremy Clarkson test of one of its pre - predecessors, after a lot of engine tinkering - I think it gives an indication via lineage of what this model might be about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyZUQKwxhHg

This is what he had to say about this model - "most exciting car of 2008".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDWMOnQzd0w

Christmas bike

Shanghai lime green and black; flame patterns, funky mudguards, extra fat knobblies, back-pedal brake; whoohoooooo, one spicy machine - Aiden's little surprise, coming next week.

Cool portrait of Chris D

This is my friend and colleague Chris D. He's tackling a particularly nasty dose of cancer at the moment, and asked me to take some pics of him and his family before his hair fell out from the chemotherapy. I had a great evening with them, a super lovely family. I also took this photo of him, which I think is uber-cool, and thought I'd post it here for you. He's a person of super-illuminating thinking and kindness, a real gem of a human being.

Decorating the Christmas Tree

Our Christmas tree arrived yesterday and the four of us tackled its decoration in various ways. It helped that Aiden's racing car track was out - very useful distraction for Evan, who is much more into taking Christmas trees down than he is putting them up.

Danish Christmas Party

Last night Jens and Camilla organised a Danish Christmas party at our house for all our collective friends and (in our case) family in the village. Danish Christmas food is different to what I'm accustomed to eating - but very yummy - and then there was stuff called Aquavit to drink which is also a Christmas addition for me. I loved the white and red on black, and thought Tracy's jacket, which is a black lambswool and leather thing with jade topped rivets - very very visually groovy. Aiden and Ev got into the cleaning up action the next morning with a paper jet for added interest.

Multi Poster and the Boys

Here is a multi-poster we created for the family whose job is described in the previous post, and a test shot of the Aiden, Jordan and Evan we did when doing the light metering for the set up of our booth at the charity event we did last weekend. Super-hard work it turned out to be. When we go to people's houses we take a couple of hours to do their shots. At the fair we took portrait sets of 19 families in four hours - lots of man-handling of kids etc. I hope your holiday has got off to a good start. I've got quieter weeks ahead until I go on holiday for Christmas on the 21st of December, which is great. Let me know what your plans are, and whether you've got your connection sorted out. Love Dad