[Gordon @ Convergent AV]

I've not posted much in the way of pictures of late. For all sorts of boring reasons that are best not gone in to. However while on the road I've taken a couple of snaps and I made an active effort last Saturday and today to have an hour off to take some pics....and during the week Tobers asked me to help him understand his flash kit a bit better so a couple of shots were taken then.

Thought I might as well stick some up here so here you go. All clickable to flikr

Tracy Island, lifesize on M6...or perhaps it's Forton Services

On board ferry from Belfast to Stranraer....not the most interesting 3hrs of my llife....

There's a wakway down by the banks of the River Wey in Guildford. It's just beside the hotel where folk stayed at on the Guildford meet, opposite the Porsche garage. Well I went past one day and they were chainsawing down trees there...then next time I went past the tree trunks and branches had been turned in to sculptures. Seems two guys who do this for a living were commissioned by the council to make the area nicer. There a a few pieces and the next two are from there.

First off a deer head and owl...which I think in silhouette look kind of Shamen like

then a large giants hand coming out of the ground. Basically they have two hands, two feet and a face coming out of the ground so it looks like there is a giant buried in the ground. It's pretty cool.

Then a couple days ago Tobers and I did our lighting/drinking evening. He has a pile of images of me...some of which I actually like! Here's one of him though.

Lastly I've just been trying to make sure I can do tethered shooting to my 5D in preperation for some future stuff. Didn't realise you can even do timed sequence shooting as well....this was me mucking around with that and the new Lightroom2.

So there you go...not much to show for over a month...

[stevegreen]

Originally Posted by Gordon @ Convergent AV

I love the colours in this one Gordon

[gpa]

The hand one for me, love the saturated colour

[bodoman]

Agree with others on the hand Gordon, the background colour makes it, the rest are all very nice indeed

[denno75uk]

I suppose you should only judge yourself by your own standards, but Gordon, if I was knocking out photos like that, 6 a month would do me just fine.
Your flash work is superb. Balancing the capture of your subject and the sky like you have in the hand sculpture and the one of Tobers is fantastic stuff.
Personally, I love the one of your hand though. The light and the detail really make it work for me.

[bowenjones]

An excellent set Gordon, especially the giant hand

[Tobers]

That wooden hand shot is downright spooky. Very disturbing to my (very blue!) eyes.

Seeing as Gordon mentioned it, here are some of the flash pics I did before devouring copious quantities of Stella. I've been confused about my flash (580EXII) for some time and I wanted to get a logical sequence of steps sorted in order to take those cool dark backdrop/flashed subject shots. Gordon is the flash-meister and knows all this stuff in detail, so who better to teach me.

Kit for this exercise was a 1Dmk3, 580EXII and 24-105 lens, plus Gordon's 430EX flash, a Cactus trigger and receiver. Got to say that you could do all of this with much cheaper kit - you dont need a 1D and L lens at all. Normal DSLR, catcus trigger for off-camera flash, and a cheap flash head would do fine.

#1 Firstly, two flashes. 580 in master mode on a stand triggering the 430 behind Gordon to do some rim-lighting. I eventually worked out that 1/125th was the max sync speed I could use with the Cactus doo-dahs, so my working method became: manual mode - set shutter to 1/125th, set aperture to expose background in a cool way, ISO at 100, and then power the flash to achieve the correct exposure of Gordon's mush.

#2 Another rim-lit one with the main flash from the other side. We had some really cool clouds that night.

#3 Single flash and monochromed. I think a bit more power in the flash would be better, but still quite cool.

So, to my relief I now have a simple sequence to run through to get decent daylight flash shots with the background underexposed. I'm happy I can do this with just 1 flash, or use 2 if I need to.

Sorted! Thanks Gordon.

Tobers

[stevegreen]

Originally Posted by Tobers

That is a great portrait shot Andy, you have the exposure spot on!

Useful to know about what synch speed you managed Andy, I have not really used my triggers much since I have had them.......I think you need to go out specifically with using them in mind.

[Gordon @ Convergent AV]

The sync speed thing is interesting......
I've always found I can sync at 1/200th with off camera flash with my 5d. However when Andy and I were mucking around I was having real issues with massive underexposure. Somehow I managed to work out that the sync speed at 1/200th was too high. When I knocked it down to 160th I got part exposure (you could see the curtain moving over the image). Then down at 125th it seemed to work ok again. I eventually put this down to the fact I had the 5D in extended ISO range at ISO50. I think this affected the sync time as I've never had a problem at 1/200th before.

[Liquid101]

Nice shots here - I like the portraits of Gordon from Tobers, and Gordon's hands, both real and wooden. Nice to seem some shots from you Gordon.

[Radiohead]

Cracking effort gents. Tobers' eyes are superb in the portrait.

[ryart]

A very nice set of pictures from you both; they must be adding something good to the water up Guildford way.