Author: Richard

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A Modelling Photographic ‘Night Before Christmas’

Twas the night before Christmas when all through the site

Not a creature was stirring and noone to fight.

The pictures were posted on profiles with care,

In hopes that the bookings soon would be there.

The togs were nestled all snug in their beds

While visions of TF danced in their heads.

And models in their underwear, some even nude,

Were posting new pictures, some rather rude.

When out on the forum there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.

Away to my computer I flew like a flash,

Opened the browser and refreshed the cache.

The posting was new and fresh on the thread,

And what I was reading filled me with dread.

With fear that cut to the depths of my soul,

I saw a new message from the internet troll.

“Now chaperone, now no-show, now GWC!

On part paid, full paid and TFCD!

Canon and Nikon and some other kind

Are you a perv or are you just blind?”

As replies filled the site with meaningless junk,

The mods came online and got in a funk.

The threads were locked, the defences were manned,

And before I could post, the troll he was banned.

He sprang to his keyboard and went to reply,

and they drove him away before he could try.

But I heard him exclaim, as he logged off the site,

“Bah Humbug to all, and to all a bad night”

Thanks to Sean for posting this.

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Biker’s Night Before Christmas

The Biker’s Night Before Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the pad,

There was nada happenin’, now that’s pretty bad.

The woodstove was hung up in that stocking routine,

In hopes that the Fat Boy would soon make the scene.

With our stomachs packed with tacos and beer,

My girl and I crashed on the couch for some cheer.

When out in the yard there arose such a racket,

I ran for the door and pulled on my jacket.

I saw a large bro’ on a ’56 Pan

Wearin’ black leathers, a cap, and boots (cool biker, man).

He hauled up the bars on that bikeful of sacks,

And that Pan hit the roof like it was running on tracks.

I couldn’t help gawking, the old guy had class.

But I had to go in — I was freezing my ass.

Down through the stovepipe he fell with a crash,

And out of the stove he came dragging his stash.

With a smile and some glee he passed out the loot,

A new jacket for her and some parts for my scoot.

He patted her fanny and shook my right hand,

Spun on his heel and up the stovepipe he ran.

From up on the roof came a great deal of thunder,

As that massive V-twin ripped the silence asunder.

With beard in the wind, he roared off in the night,

Shouting, “Have a cool Yule, and to all a good ride!”

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Christmas Party

Well tonight was the works Christmas Party.  An evening of fine food, a couple of comedians, disco and live band.

A chance to let your hair down and relax.

Hope you all have a good Christmas and your Christmas parties go well.

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Lunar Eclipse

This morning was a luna eclipse, this one being a little more special then most as it was the first in 400 years to occur on the winter solstice.

Heres the luna eclipse I photographed back in 2007.

This provides a good photographic challenge, all thats needed is a long lens, a typical consumer 70-300mm telephoto zoom will do the job.

Metering for exposure can be difficult, the moon is brighter then you might expect, that together with the black sky will trick you meter into the wrong exposure.  Use manual and your histogram to judge, shoot in RAW if you can not jpeg, and use a good tripod.

You will find you need to adjust the composition regularly as the moon moves quite quickly across the frame.

See bbc.co.uk for more details about the eclipse.

Update:

Chris Bennet managed to get some photos of this mornings elipse, you can see them here.

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Hoar Frost

Another bitterly cold day, the ride to work was -8°C, I don’t even want to think what the wind chill factor was.

It was a foggy ride in, but as the fog cleared it revealed a beautiful view of hoar frost encrusted trees illuminated in golden sunlight from the low winter sun.

With days like this I wish I had more time for photography.  I always seem to book indoor studio shoots during great photography weather and if I am on location the weather is awful.  Thats fate I suppose!

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Birthday Post

Another Birthday passes by, unfortunately I had to work and it was quite a busy and hellish day all told.

Tonight was a nice meal out, good food, good drink, finished off at home with a rather nice bottle of red wine I had for the occasion.

Thank you everyone for the presents and thanks to my dear wife for the wonderful weekend photography course last week.  It made a lovely birthday present.

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The Cold Returns

The weather in Lincolnshire has improved massively in the last couple of days, allowing the normal motorcycle commute to recommence.  Yesterday still had icy roads leading to the village leading to an interesting and challenging start to the commute.  Caroline decide to walk down the first road while I slowly road along the ice covered road with my feet down on the ground sliding along.

Once into the village it was an easy commute into town.

This afternoon the cold snap returned and it started to snow, luckily it was not too bad and we got home safe on the motorcycle.

Its been good to get back on the bike, you really miss it, and this has been one of my longest breaks off the bike.

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Final farewell of Harrier Jump Jets

Lincolnshire is very proud of its RAF heritage, its known as bomber county.  Since the end of the second world war bases have gradually closed but we still have many airfields and RAF bases.

Today was the final flight from RAF Cottesmore in Rutland for the Harrier jump jets based there, but to say good bye the squadron took a final flight over Lincoln and the Lincolnshire airbases and towns.

Unfortunately I missed the fly pass but did manage to catch there practice flight yesterday.  It was an impressive flight, and an impressive demonstration of formation flying.  As a part time pilot myself (wish I had more time to fly!), I certainly appreciated the fly past.

The Harrier jump jet was a truly great demonstration of British technical achievement, but was retired early due to the financial crisis and the need for defence cuts to save money.  The Navy is also losing its Harriers and its aircraft carriers.

Lets hope we have no war, or major humanitarian disaster that needs a British aircraft carrier.  I know we need to save money but sometimes the choices made, do seem potentially fraught with danger.

Good bye Harrier, you proved your worth, in the Falklands, Iraq and the Balkans to name just a few.  I salute you, the designers, engineers and aircrew that worked with you.  Its the end of an era.

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Hands on with the Sony NEX-5

Well today I finally got my hands on the Sony NEX-5.  This is not going to be a review, I am sure you have read many already, just a few first impressions.

The big advantage of the Sony is the size of its sensor, as its APS-C, its the largest sensor yet fitted to an EVIL camera.  Yet its the smallest interchangeable large sensor compact yet released.

I have to admit, it does look odd with the oversized 18-55mm lens it comes with, but it does feel surprisingly good in the hand.  The ergonomics are surprisingly good, and I was certainly expecting worse.  While not as pocketable as a ‘normal’ small sensor compact, it would certainly fit in a large jacket pocket.

With the size of the sensor, I would hope a few nice wide angles soon appear.  This is an area where Sony potentially have an advantage over micro four thirds, but currently the lens selection is limited compared to the micro four thirds system.

The controls were reasonable and certainly much better then I expected from reading other reviews.

Sony NX-5
©Andrew Jordan

The biggest issue I find is the lack of a true viewfinder.  I want a camera with a proper viewfinder, so once again the camera that still leads the pack for me is the Panasonic GF-1, as at least it has an optional EVF.

Chris Bennett has recently purchased the two lens NEX-5 kit, and I am sure a a true review will be appearing soon on his photography blog.

As you can see the quality is easily as good as any of the current DSLR’s.

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Large Format Course

Saturday was my introduction to large format photography.

The one day Intensive Large Format Landscape Workshops are a great way to get a taste of what Large Format Photography is all about.  Dav and Tim are great tutors.

Taken with my iPhone.

The course gives you the chance to get your hands on a large format camera and have a go for real.  Tim and Dav do their best to explain the somewhat complex ideas around Tilts & Shifts, but its the demonstrations and being able to try it for yourself that brings the theory to life.

The downsides of large format photography are generally the sheer size of the camera’s and the amount of time and effort it takes to set up a shot.  This slow and deliberate nature of photography is something that I like, and have got used to when using my medium format Hasselblad camera. Others may also consider the fact that most large format photography is still done with film a major downside, but the cost of digital large format is out of the question for the majority of people, and large format film is hard to beat.

The big advantage of large format photography is the range of movements available.  If you are from a small format (35mm) background this is possibly a big mystery unless you have used a tilt and shift lens.

I certainly know, that for my landscape photography, large format is tempting.  For the price of a modern Nikor Tilt and Shift lens I can buy a complete large format outfit.

A full explanation of camera movements would fill a book, and some university photography courses take an entire term (semester) to explain them.

Basically the advantages of movements are as follows:

  • Apparently infinite depth of field without resorting to closing down the aperture.
  • Correct perspective when photographing buildings, ie no converging verticals.
  • Removing the camera from the image when photographing a mirror.

Tilt is one of the key effects that landscape photographers utilise to produce apparently huge amounts of depth of field.  The effect is known as the Scheimflug Effect.  It was discovered in 19th Century by Theodor Scheimflug.

While it can be hard to explain, once you have seen it demonstrated and have tried it for yourself  you start to understand it.

Tim and Dav first explained the basic workings of the camera, and then with the aid of sketches, how movements work.  It was then a practical demonstration, so you could see the effect yourself.  Then it was time to have a go.  At first just focusing the camera was a challenge, and the temptation was to use too much tilt, but after a while I got the hang of it, and it all began to come together.

With the basics understood, we then had a walk round Robin Hoods Bay taking a few shots, trying to use the movements available to our advantage.

The other part I found a struggle at first, was using the spot meter.  Taking readings round the scene to determine the dynamic range, from that selecting an appropriate film to try and match the dynamic range or using filters to control the scene and bring it back to the dynamic range of the film.

All in all, a very worthwhile day and I look forward to putting some of my new skills into practice with my small format and medium format photography.

Thanks Tim, Thanks Dav, a great day and i’ll try to put some of the things I have learnt into practice.