Rose Downtown

July 17, 2015 in Portrait

The weekend of our Samurai Shoot was a busy one for portraits, as Sven & I also caught up with professional Auckland model Rose on Saturday, who we have previously shot in Riverhead Forest. Rose had spent the morning modelling at a beauty show, and surprised us with new red hair!

The aim of this shoot was really just messing around and trying some new things and, as is often the case, for Sven to try out a new Fuji lens! We had thought earlier in the day to aim for something fun and try some 'street fashion' type work, although as always plans change over the course of the day as we find different locations and see what works and what doesn't.

We had a couple of props for Rose to try out, including an umbrella - although we didn't get any rain, a couple of outfits and a bright pink handbag. I feel a bit awkward still trying to make fashion, prop or pose suggestions, relying also on Rose to help decide what would look natural, and hopefully not too forced. It would be great one day to try a larger shoot with a more expert fashion stylist to help provide suggestions!

As the afternoon progressed we found a few different locations to use around downtown, not all of which worked out, but I did particularly like the dark shadows and patches of light in a tall skinny alley off Shortland St. The look definitely shifted in these photos from our original 'fun' idea into something more noire, maybe looking a bit like an 'adult' situation haha. But I do love dark shadows and chiaroscuro, so will keep this alley in mind next time too!

Robbie and Iaido - the art of the Samurai Sword

July 08, 2015 in Portrait

Last sunday was spent back down at Muriwai beach, one of my regular and favourite outdoor locations. But rather than shooting landscapes, nature or people on horses, it was Robbie and his Samurai Sword! Sven and I requested he come out for an afternoon and show us some moves - Sven to test a new Fuji lens (review and pics here) and me, well, for something new and interesting to shoot! Robbie is a keen martial artist and motorbike rider, quite the Kill Bill character.

I've been interested in swordsmanship for a long time, but never a practitioner, so it was really interesting to hear a bit about it, and the art of Iaido/Iaijutsu in particular. I don't know enough to critique Robbie's technique, but he looked very fluid and confident to me, and was a great portrait subject. These are some of my favourite and I think most interesting portrait photographs to date.

Muriwai was a good location yet again, although my favourite shots on top of the sand dunes were very exposed to the strong wind, which resulted in sand going everywhere through our camera gear, hair, clothes and eyes, hence most of Robbie's poses facing to the right and away from the wind! I think the wind made for great shots though, with his Hakama blowing around and sand clouds rolling through.

Thanks again to Robbie for his enthusiastic help on a cold, windy, and very sandy day!

Oscar and Sally's Wedding

May 04, 2015 in Wedding, Portrait

A busy month of photographic events and adventures was capped off by shooting Oscar and Sally's wedding, again with Sven (Bokeh-Monster). I had a lot of fun shooting this wedding, although it was full of challenges and learning experiences, as much of the ceremony and reception was spoken in Korean :) I've been to South Korea previously, but can't remember much beyond the words for 'hello' and 'thank you' unfortunately! Luckily we could tell well enough what was going on, got all the important shots, and also got to enjoy something different, which keeps things interesting for me! The ceremony was held outside in the bright sunshine, which provides further photographic challenges, rather than linguistic, but I think we dealt with that reasonably well. Going for a softer colour palette I think helps with harsh sunlight.

The ceremony was held on impressive grounds, with all the decorations and food provided by volunteers. I was very happy to receive my own lunch box full of interesting Korean snacks, and a can of coffee to keep me going. Of course I drank Sven's can also ;) Oscar and Sally were good sports, after the reception lunch we explored around the grounds a little before heading off to a local beach for the setting sun. Time was limited before their family dinner engagement, but I think we got some interesting shots, and I'm particularly happy with the lead image and few at the end of this post!

Jonathan and Anita's Wedding

April 15, 2015 in Wedding, Portrait

This year I've started shooting weddings with friend and now business partner Sven from www.bokeh-monster.com. We are planning on a joint photography brand and website soon, once we have built a bit more portfolio, but for now here are my pics from Jon and Anita's wedding. Jon and Anita are good friends of Sven's, and also becoming my friends as well thanks to gatherings at Sven's house, and discovering Jon's passion and knowledge of coffee surpasses my own ;)

The wedding was held in Fraser Park, in Parnell, Auckland, with a cake and (excellent) coffee gathering in the adjacent La Marzocco coffee warehouse next door. The wet-weather options were limited, but luckily the rain on the day was mostly light, and even added extra interest to some photos. Following the coffee and cake we took the bridal party down the road to the Mainline Steam rail depot for an 'urban' setting around the tracks and disused equipment. We then hurried to make a quick trip out to Long Bay for the classic beach shots, before heading back for the evening dinner reception, speeches and dancing. This is just a small selection of photos throughout the day, and you also check out Sven's shots here.

We both had good fun shooting this wedding, and hopefully there will be a lot more of these coming! And congratulations of course to Jono and Anita!

Rose in the Forest

January 07, 2015 in Portrait

Last Sunday was spent again in Riverhead Forest with Sven, friend and regular shooting buddy from Bokeh-Monster, and new acquaintance and excellent Auckland model Rose Halfpenny. I was primarily there to help Sven out with his portrait shoot and review of a new Fuji Lens (review and his pictures here), but managed to sneak in a few shots of my own towards the end once the hard work had been done - holding reflectors and water bottles, scouting around the forest for good shooting spots, and taking some 'behind the scenes' pics for Sven! We chose this location as we had fun here last year exploring around taking some landscape and forest shots, and surprisingly we found our way easily back to the same location again, through some bushes off the entry road, across a stream and up a hill!

Rose is a professional model (and midget speedway driver!) and was very obliging in trying out the different locations and poses we suggested. The theme for the shoot created by Sven was a 'lifestyle' type hiking shoot, similar perhaps to what you would see in advertising for Kathmandu or Macpac (as seen in our props!). We had good fun using the varying light in the forest, looking for interesting spots, sun patches and shadows. I've personally tried to aim for a more 'cinematic' look than the typical clean commercial advertising shots, which is more to my liking and hopefully worked out okay!

Tiffany and Spree

October 19, 2014 in Equestrian, Portrait

A few months ago I had the pleasure of photographing Tiffany and her horse Spree - short for Willow Creek Es'pris - most horses have a full registered name, and a shortened 'stable' name. Similar I suppose to how we usually call our dumb white cat 'fatty' instead of his actual name ;) Tiffany had a special request to also take some photos of Spree 'at liberty' - running around free without halter or reins - so we shot in the arena at her normal grazing location rather than traveling somewhere unfamiliar or where Spree might escape from.

The weather was mostly grey, and we were working in a plain looking location with trees on one side, and houses and paddocks on the others, so it was a good challenge to create a variety of different shots and looks. I think we did pretty well in the end, cropping in quite tight in most cases so the background wasn't a major part of the scene. I was particularly happy with the top image here - the sky was bright enough that I could blow it out to pure white for quite a different look to the others - after I photoshopped out some pesky power cables in the background!

Spree was fun to shoot at liberty, but of course I relied entirely on Tiffany to manoeuvre Spree around and encourage her to run across the arena for us. This is definitely non-trivial, and i'm sure my 'non-horse' friends don't fully understand the challenges of getting a horse to do anything in particular you want them to do! Luckily Spree was hungry and we had a large bucket of food for motivation! The liberty shots were more action-oriented, similar to event shooting where it comes down to timing the shot to get the prettiest gait - or more often shooting at high frame rate and picking the best one later! Spree seemed to quite like the sound of the rapid-firing camera too, as she would run (canter, i suppose) right at me, swerving away towards the food bucket at the last minute. Good fun!