Thursday 8 March 2012

Defying Gravity

Well as my exam question is based on water I have been non stop with the stuff recently! Me and my friend, (and previous model) Naomi were brainstorming our ideas yesterday in our art lesson with my camera, and this is a sneak peak of the outcome. We filled a small clear glass bottle with ordinary tap water and tipped it all out in front a white backdrop. We then waited to see what different shapes we go from it. Water is very unpredictable in the way it moves, especially free flowing water.

This particular photo catches my eye as its sort of sculpture-like. Everything is connected in its distorted fashion. My Speedlight flash gun has really given the water the contrast it needs to stand out from the pale white backdrop. It is safe to say that I am quite pleased with the outcome, but lets hope the examiners think the same... 



Monday 13 February 2012

Distortion

A very unexpected photo I took yesterday in the sink. Not only is the timing perfect, but the droplet is perfectly in focus too! I'm not going to lie to you, I was jumping up and down with happiness after seeing it; am I ever going to be a professional...?

Sunday 5 February 2012

Rainbow Water.

I took these earlier today, to kick start my unit 4 art project off, which is on... Yes you guessed it, water! I chose this particular exam question to base my unit on because, it is so broad. I don't think there are many things you can't do with water, and it plays a big part in an obsession of mine: REFLECTION! I want to manly focus on the reflections of water, and the movement. It is so unpredictable in what it does and what shapes it makes.
I find it very difficult to make droplet photos because of the timing of it, and also getting the focus exactly where it needs to be, the droplet.
My boyfriend has a natural talent at droplet photos, which I am very jealous of... If you would like to see any of them they are shown in his flickr stream. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sandyhombre/




Saturday 4 February 2012

Girls will be girls.

These were taken back in mid 2011; my previous model Naomi had a friend who was part of a photography group in tettenhall wood, and I thought I might be cheeky and tag along to take a few snaps of her (and myself, obviously) using their studio lighting. The group did each have to pay money to hire out the room, but you never get anything for free these days! 
Anyway, I took these photos when Naomi had gone for a outfit change, and her being a typical girl, she took a while... 
I really love the simplicity of the first photo. In black and white it picks out the tones in my hair and shirt. This is the reason I like black and white photos so much; everything has its place in the photo and nothing is more important. 
In the second photo, colour is key. My lips and shirt are very bright under the lighting, and my skin tone also looks eye catching. The structure of this photo isn't as good as the first, but its always hard getting proportion right on self portraits.

Monday 23 January 2012

Jump up, jump up, and get down!

I did a shoot of Rufaro who you have previously seen; on saturday and here are some of them! The theme was sports wear, so I had some visions of grungy backgrounds and run down places to fit in with the clothing, and I was very happy with the images! I love working with Rufaro because she is always up for trying new things, and she is also very experienced in what she does. I did feel rather mean getting her to wear shorts in this cold winter, but no pain, no gain... 









Monday 16 January 2012

Lady in Red

These are the photos of when I did a shoot of my beautiful friend Alys! I worked with John Coyle again for this using his studio gear. I used a soft box for the lighting on the first and last photo, which I found very effective because it makes the models skin tone very even and not under or over exposed. Her lovely wavy hair is what I wanted to focus on mainly, but I think the first one would look better if her hair would have picked up more light and stood out from the background... But never mind! 

I will hopefully soon be getting some new winter ones up soon as we all know, its getting kinda chilly! 




Wednesday 11 January 2012

Flying High

Here are just a few of the photos from Kemble air show, when I went with my plane geek friend Peter Reoch. He is a very inspiring photographer, and you can see his work here at http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterreoch/.

I don't do aviation photography very often, I probably do it once a year to be exact. But when I do, I really enjoy it! It is obviously so hard to get the timing right on these, because it all happens so fast, and especially when you're not used to it, but you can always be cheeky and tweak it after... I mean, doesn't every photographer?

Whenever I go to an air show, my favourite thing to photograph is the red arrows. I love their colours and formations in the sky, they never fail to fantasize me. They almost make art in the sky with the patterns they make, so I'm sure you all agree that they're visually brilliant!
                   

Thursday 5 January 2012

Golden Oldies

Back in 2010 I brought a Minolta 404si film camera off ebay for a photography GCSE I was doing. But as I was starting my a levels at the same time, I decided to quit because the work load was too much. Since I brought the camera I have never regretted it once! This first one however was believe it or not taken on a boots own disposable camera, which I'm always buying too many of... It was taken at the bottom of The Wrekin in Telford, after we had, had a long trek up in a goal to get fitter, which never proved a success. 

I think I will always be a user of film cameras, purely because I love a challenge. Getting the right exposure can be a little tricky, especially when film can be so expensive and you can't see it immediately, but you should always rise to a challenge.

I hope you're all enjoying my photos on here, I know they're not all up to date, I just wanted to show you all of the ones I have done over time. 




Wednesday 4 January 2012

Natural Beauty

Here is a portfolio shoot I did of my beautiful friend Naomi. For this shoot I worked with a semi-Professional photographer called John Coyle. He has taught me an awful lot about compositional ideas, and studio lighting. This shoot was set outside a church in penn. We chose this area because as you can see it has some beautiful back drops, especially this first photo with the detailed wooden gate. For some of these photos I borrowed Johns canon 70-300mm F/2.8 to get the composition correct, and to really look more beastly. Yep, I'm so professional... Well, I do try to be.
I have more photos from this shoot up on my facebook page - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Brodie-Star-Photography/123944077684221


                                           




Monday 2 January 2012

n e r d

Here are some photos from when I was the photographer for the 'Dweeb' gig! Sadly they have now gone their separate ways, but their music will always be great. 
For this shoot I borrowed someones Canon EOS 7D, and it was the most amazing experience of my life. (yes I'm a bit nerdy, I know). I can't remember what the lens was though. These are a christian band so it was set at my church St. Joseph's.
I couldn't use a flash for this obviously so I was relying on the stage lighting mostly, which proved very difficult. And it also doesn't help when my photoshop dislikes RAW files! But at the end of the night I think I had a nice bunch of photos to show them, and they seemed to be very pleased.











Yet another obsession of mine...

At one time I also had an obsession with droplets, and how brilliantly perfect they look. It is always so hard to get timing right on these, but the pleasant surprise when you look at the screen on your camera and its right is great!  

I took this photo just over 2 years ago in my bathroom, and I still can't get over how perfect the droplets are, they look so simple and delicate, and the distorted reflections in them are amazing. I tried to get the composition symmetrical, but as you can see its a little out.... Maybe I shall do this photo again and try! To take this I used a shutter speed of 320 and an aperture of F/3.5 to balance the light. I also used manual focus because droplets are a bugger to focus! 

I have done many other droplet photos, but I just need to find them out of the millions of photos I have that fill up my iPhoto. I will post them soon!

Sunday 1 January 2012

REFLECTION!

This photo below I think will always be on of my favourites, purely because of the delicious simplicity of it, and the fact that I adore tic tacs. My boyfriend had an awesome photoshop idea which one day we will do, so I can post it on here and show you all.

I simply isolated the colour in photoshop to edit this photo, which is sadly one of the main things I can do on photoshop. I always tell myself I'm going to be geeky-er and learn more, but I never do.

The inspiration to take this came from nowhere, just a bunch of tic tacs lying on my kitchen work top which thankfully has an awesome reflection. And when I take this blog further, it might unravel that I have a little obsession with reflections, and that I actually did a whole art module on it.


That Vintage Girl

These photos below are some from the first ever portfolio shoot I ever did! The model is called Rufaro, and she was utterly perfect and one of the best models I have ever had. I set the photo shoot at The Bantock House, in Finchfield, Wolverhampton. This was because the model had that vintage, quirky style about her, which the house had. It was very hard getting the lighting right because I had no external lighting to help, and we all know on camera flash is hideous! 





And this last one below is my favourite from all the photos I took on the day. I sat the model oposite a window which gave me the perfect lighting to work with. I had no flash or external lighting at the time because it was very early in my photography stage so I did find it hard to get lighting this good. I just think she had a lovely even skin tone all over, with the glossy chair behind glowing nicely, still keeping the detail in the shadows. I probably used a shutter speed of 80 and an aperture of F/5.6 to take this, keeping the ISO at 100 because noisy photos are the worst!