Skateboarding on Boxing Day

We went to a school yard nearby to test out this insane skate/snow board hybrid present, I wasn't too keen on breaking a limb but thought I'd take the camera and maybe snap some of the thrills and spills. My sister was directing the off camera flash, hard light coming from camera left, I was wanting to throw a harsh shadow on the brick wall to give it a bit of a grungy look. The second one was just as the sun was setting and the sky looked pretty cool.

When I use off camera flash I always go full manual with both the camera and the flash, this is great because when you get the flash set for a given aperture you can control the ambient just by changing the shutter speed, this is good for to get moody skies.

NB. I have been trying to post these for a few days but it seems the people over at google blogger have had an extended xmas break, all back in working order now. I went to the lake district again today so I'll hopefully have some of those shots up soon. Happy 2009 everyone!

Sports Portraits

I did some more outdoor lighting yesterday with my nephew playing football (a big man city fan). This was a 3 light setup with two speedlights behind and to the side of the subject, providing rimlighting, and another just off to camera right. This was quite tough as there was only a small area of space that was lit by all three lights, I could have probably made it easier by removing the one to the camera right behind the subject and increasing the spread of the remaining lights but then I wouldn't have got the rim lighting I was after. The light levels were also dropping quite quickly but I wanted a small amount of ambiant light to get the motion blur. This was taken in full manual 1/125, f11, ISO400 34mm.

Merry Christmas Boxing Fans

Check out the date and time, I was up super early to open some presents but more importantly to edit some photos!These were some I took yesterday as an impromptu boxing match broke out after my nephew watched Rocky III, it wasn't the fairest of contests by any stretch of the imagination, I would estimate a weight difference of around 11 stone (154 Lbs) but the little one managed to tuck his opponent up with some lightning left jabs before unleashing his hammer right cross square to the jaw. The second image showed how this electric fighter had the crowd in absolute pandemonium.
It seems in this contest of David and Goliath, David not only triumphed but Goliath ended up eating his Christmas pudding through a straw!

I would go into detail about how these shots were taken and processed but it is Christmas morning and I have a few errands to run, Merry Christmas.