Over the last couple of years I’ve made several photographs of this Scirocco, but this time I wanted to try something different and really push my little flashes. I wanted to shoot into the setting sun and light as much of the car as I could with 2 SB900s (on SU4 mode), an SB28 and a borrowed Metz. In order to get a useable exposure I needed to use my Singh-Ray variable ND filter and had to dial it down about 3/4 of the way. Tripod mounted, this dropped my exposure 5 stops to 1/60 sec at f8 ISO 200. But even at full power, my lil’ flashes wouldn’t come anything close to lighting the whole car. Initially I experimented with 4 strobes dotted around the car, but with the ND dialed in, all I got were patches of light on the car as you can see below. This was even with the strobes on full power.
There were probably a few ways to do this, but in the interests of time mainly (the sun was about to drop behind the hedge and I desperately wanted it in the frame) I opted to make a series of exposures, moving the lights around the car for each frame with a view to blending them in photoshop later. Actually making the photographs was the easy bit. Merging 13 different layers in post proved to be altogether more time consuming, and to be quite honest having spent the best part of an entire afternoon layering, dodging and burning and tweaking I’m still not completely happy with the result. I think that when I next get a few free hours I will take the opportunity to re-visit the layers and merge them again from scratch. That said, I’m still pleased enough with the result to share. Below are a selection of the layers straight from camera.

Would you have done it differently? I’d love to know. Feel free to share in the comments at the bottom.

These are some additional images that I made of the car a couple of weeks earlier so I thought I’d include them here to.

Volkswagen Scirocco by Neil Alexander

Volkswagen Scirocco by Neil Alexander

Volkswagen Scirocco by Neil Alexander

I’ve also included a February Desktop wallpaper for your personal use of my Struggle image made in the Lake District. Download the size that nearest suits your screen – 2560×1440   1920×1200   1440×900 Note: The simplest way to download is to right click on the appropriate size and select “open in new tab” or “open in new window”

So here they are, although not in any order in particular, other than chronological.

First up is an image I made in Spinningfields, Manchester that I submitted in the Urban View category of the Landscape Photographer of the Year 2011 competition, which was subsequently shortlisted.

The Avenue, Manchester - Shortlisted for Landscape Photographer of the Year 2011

Also in January I made the image below with Charlie in Castlefield with one of my favourite modifiers, the Lastolite Ezybox. Details here

Charlie, Castlefield

Patrick with his guitar on the roof of the Arndale car park before the security guards came along. Blog post here

Patrick with his guitar on the roof of the Arndale Car Park, Manchester

Maltese street scene – First trip to Malta this year. Blog post here.

Typical street scene in Victoria on the Island of Gozo, Malta

Kayleigh, Trafford Park with the moon. Blog post  here

Kayleigh

Second trip to Malta this year. Blog posts here and here

Doorway, Zejtun, Malta

Anna – “Waiting for a bus?” with some very carefully placed SB900s – blog post here

Waiting for a bus?

Lighthouse, Vilamoura, Portgual. Blog post here and on variable neutral density filters here

View of the breakwater at Vilamoura, Portugal with a lighthouse at the end

Manchester Central Library – post here

Manchester Central Library at sunset

Jenson Button in his McLaren Mercedes tears up Deansgate, Manchester. Post here

Jenson Button

The Lake District. Post here

View up The Struggle in the Lake District on an Autumn morning

Derwent Valley. Post here

Tree in the Derwent Valley, High Peaks

And finally a shoot I did with Sophie and Pat in mid December that I haven’t yet blogged about. Post to follow in the New Year.

Pat & Sophie

So in retrospect I’m more than happy with the quality of what I’ve produced this year, though I do feel that I need to up the quantity next year. And in upping the quantity I’m pretty certain that this will also see an improvement in the quality too. I ought to write a post on my plans for 2012 too. For one, it’ll give me something to be held to, and it’ll also help me to thrash out my thoughts and plans for the next year of my business and where I want to take it. So you can look forward to this in the coming weeks.

Finally, for 2012 I’ll be releasing desktop wallpapers for your personal use. You can download January’s here in 3 separate sizes. There’s 2560 x 1440, 1920 x 1200 & 1440 x 900. Simply click the appropriate link and right click to save to your desktop.

NeilAlexander_JanuaryDesktop - 1440x900

As this’ll be my final post for 2011, I’ll sign off by saying that it’s been a fantastic year for me photographically speaking and I hope that 2012 is even better.
Enjoy the celebrations, and I’ll see you on the other side.

Wishing you a prosperous 2012.
Neil

Learn the rules and then learn why and how to break them.

1. Rule of Thirds
   Imagine splitting your frame into 3 equal horizontal strips, and then 3 equal vertical stripes. This will give you the basic layout for the  ”rule of thirds” which basically states that in order to make your frame more appealing to the eye, you should place the focal point, or primary element of your photograph on any of the 4 inner connecting joins.
   

   Salford Quays at sunset

   For one reason or another (too complicated to go into here), this generally makes your image more aesthetically pleasing. However, this is not always true but you need to learn why it works, and when to break the rule. For the image below of the bridge in Salford Quays at sunset, I have purposefully placed the bridge in the lower third of the frame which also gives me more room to show the magical colours in the sky.

2. Balance- this is simply the arrangement of shapes, colours, or areas of light and dark that complement one another and make sure that the photograph does not have an uneven feel to it. For this image below of “Dawn in the Peak District”, I have used the rising sun in the top left to balance the munching sheep in the bottom right. Without the sun in the frame, the image appears lopsided, and bottom heavy.
   

   Dawn in the Peak District

3. Simplicity- Make sure that your frame is free from clutter, and always make sure to check the edges for intruding elements. If you could lose that telephone pole by taking two steps forward, then do it. Telephone poles, random tree branches, power lines are all examples of elements that if included in an image, often provide distraction inevitably detracting from the final quality of the image. These are also all things that can often easily be removed by moving your feet a few paces forwards or backwards. In this image of Sarah below I have gone in close to remove some distracting grafitti on the wall just to the camera left. This image also incorporates elements of point 4 below using the lines of the brickwork to lead the viewer’s eye up to the subject.
   

   Sarah

   

   Kayleigh by Neil Alexander (Click for larger)An example of a very clean and simple frame, also incorporating an element of balance using the moon to provide equilibrium with the model

4. Using lines – Lines can often be used to draw the viewer’s eye into and around the image. These don’t just have to be clear lines like roads or paths, but they can be more abstract such as the line of a subject’s gaze, or the pattern created in a cloudy sky. The more of a path you can create for the eye to follow in an image, the longer you will keep the viewer engaged, and the stronger the image will be. In the image below I have used the windy line of the road to lead the viewer’s eye from bottom right round and up to the tree.
   

   View up The Struggle in the Lake District on an Autumn morning (Click to view larger)

Windsor Castle by Neil Alexander (Click to view larger)Here I have used the path of the staircase bottom left to lead the viewer's eye into the frame

Plum and lime Chrysanthemum arrangement (Click for larger)

Inspired by this post from the Cheap Shot man, Larry Becker, I decided to try and throw my own slant on the process and see where I ended up. So I swung by B&Q, grabbed this Rust-oleum direct to plastic paint, and a large sheet of clear perspex. I think I spent around £25 in total. Spraying the perspex was straight forward enough though it did take 3 coats to come even close to making it completely opaque. And before you ask, the shoes on the right are not mine and were black before I started – they were the first “paper weights” I put my hands on once I’d finished spraying…..

Spraying clear perspex black

Once I was satisifed with the finish I brought the perspex inside and placed it on a table. I hung a black cloth up for a backdrop and, for the flower shot above, set up a couple of shoot-through umbrellas either side. Gauging an exposure that would completely kill all the ambient light (1/125 @ F5.6 ISO200), I then began adding light via a couple of SB900s. I brought the umbrellas in as close as I could to the flowers to light them with as soft a light as possible.

Chrysanthemum set up with blackened perspex

I applied a similar technique to the wine bottle shot below, but just used one umbrella and a grid on the other strobe to give me a more controlled and concentrated light in order to better pick out the lines of the bottle and the glass.

Casablanca Valley Pinot Noir red wine with wine glass (Click to view larger)

Quite an interesting experiment and I learnt quite a lot about shadow in the process and controlling the strength of the reflection in the painted perspex. Definitely a technique that I could use in the future so the perspex is now safely tucked away behind the sofa in my office.

As usual, feel free to post in the comments if you’ve got any questions.

Anna by Neil Alexander (Click to view larger)

My original plan had been to place a light stand either side of the open windows and light Anna in through the open windows with a close crop showing only the edges of the structure. Alas one of the ends has been filled in, presumably to provide a little welcome shelter to any occupants, but foiling my initial plan. Plan B involved simply placing an SB900 in either corner on the floor inside the shelter at the front directed up and back towards the ceiling, but this looked bloody awful. It made Anna look like some horrendous green vampire as it cast a horrible green glow from the ceiling and the bench everywhere. Plan C took a little more effort, but worked a treat. I rigged two SB900s with Pocket Wizard MultiMaxs and bungeed them to the middle rafter on the ceiling either side of Anna.

SB900 and Pocket Wizard bungeed to the rafters

I had to use the Pocket Wizards because with the flash units being hidden up in the rafters, I no longer had line of sight from across the road rendering Nikon’s iTTL useless. The only way to trigger the strobes was using these radio triggers. Unfortunately for my legs though, these lil’ fella’s are certainly not the new all singing all dancing TTL units that Pocket Wizard are currently flogging around. It’s all manual with these babies. Which meant lots of to-ing and fro-ing across the road to get my levels just where I wanted them. The final image was shot at 1/125 sec F2.8 at ISO200 – it was a bright day, but I found that at this point I could avoid blowing out the background around the shelter and still have enough control over the ambient inside to avoid showing the back wall too much. Angling the strobes forwards slightly, so that they were aimed directly at either side of Anna and slightly towards the camera also helped here. Had I placed them on the front most rafter I would have had too much spill onto the background and I feel the direction of the light on the model would have been much less dramatic. I then applied a little dodging and burning in Silver Efex Pro 2 in post.

Anna by Neil Alexander (Click for larger)

We met up around 11am and headed down to a spot on the edge of Ashley in Cheshire by the banks of the River Bollin. It’s an area that I’m quite familiar with having shot many landscape images there before – this one being my favourite. Knowing the area helps hugely when I’m trying to pre-visualise the final image, and this in turn aids me with composition and lighting at the time of making the image as I already have quite a clear vision in my mind’s eye of how I want the finished product to appear.

I had Anna turn sideways on to me with her back to the tree and then lay her arms along the branch behind her to provide a leading line into the frame. I then lit her with a Nikon SB900 flash inside a 76cm Lastolite Ezybox HotShoe softbox camera left and a grided SB900 camera right. It was one of those days when the sun was constantly in and out of the clouds, so the purpose of the softbox was to provide a soft controllable light on Anna, but it meant that I only shot when the sun was behind the clouds. It gave me more control over the amount and direction of light that fell on Anna, though to be honest most of the time the sun was behind the clouds it diffused the light so much and so smoothly that this light didn’t really effect the final image very much. It was only when the sun went behind really thick cloud that I noticed the light visibly decrease and then the Lastolite came into play. The other light behind Anna did generally make much more of an appearance. To this light I applied a small home-made grid which focused the beam coming from the unit and allowed me to direct it squarely at the back of Anna’s head. This gave me sufficient light to bring out her hair and to separate her head from the tree more. All shot TTL and the above was made using the 70-200 at 1/250 sec, F2.8 ISO 400. The final images was then imported into Lightroom and processed in Nik’s SilverEfex Pro2.

Here’s the set up shot:

Model shoot set up (Click for larger)

Finally as a little Brucey Bonus as it’s the end of the month, here’s a few links that have caught my eye over the last month. Worth a few mins if you’ve got the time……:

• 29 WAYS TO STAY CREATIVE
• Nicholas Alan Cope Photography
• 21 Photographs And Lighting Setups For Every Occasion | DIYPhotography.net
• JONATHAN CHRITCHLEY – FINE ART OCEAN PHOTOGRAPHY
• Photopreneur’s Big List of Stock Photography Sites (categorized)
• BRIANGRECH studio | photography & design | Award Winning Maltese fashion and advertising photographer
• 15 Misc Portrait tips

And FINALLY…….
If you’ve visited the site lately, you’ll undoubtedly have noticed a wee change…… I’ve moved over from my previous theme to a Graph Paper Press theme and will shortly be incorporating this into a new PhotoShelter site (It’s all part of my grand plan…). However in the meantime, things are liable to change, shuffle about, fall off, go back on and generally get tweaked here, there any everywhere, so apologies in advance. Obviously as many of the changes as possible will be done offline, but sometimes the only way to change bits and pieces is whilst stuff is running live.

TTFN

Jay and Vicky (Click for larger)

The morning of that fateful night at Wembley for the Champions League final I shot Jay and Vicky just round the corner from their home for their engagement. Time was very tight for all of us to say the least, but within around 30 minutes of dropping a light stand, we were wrapping up and I was heading off down to London. Jay, using his local knowledge, provided a couple of options for location and we opted for this one which was a little public footpath over a stream. Fortunately no-ones managed to invent smello-prints yet because the stream absolutely stank. Like really badly! I used just the one SB900 in a large Lastolite Ezybox and triggered this with the pop-up flash using Nikon’s iTTL system. Both images were shot at 1/125 sec at F2.8, the top image using an ISO of 800 because of the decreased ambient light under the trees and the bottom one at 200 as the couple were more out in the open.

Jay and Vicky (Click for larger)

FISHING BOATS IN BIRZEBUGGIA HARBOUR, MALTA (Click for larger)

Click here to purchase a print or license a digital copy of this image.

Having just arrived back from a short shooting jaunt to the sunny island of Malta, I thought I’d put together a short list of dos and don’ts for those wanting to better capture their vacations or break into a little travel photography themselves.
DOs:
1) Make sure to download and duplicate cards every night – I start it off the second I walk back in through the door.
2) If you want to catch first light prepare your gear whilst your cards are downloading. Get it all ready so you can throw it on when the alarm sounds and stumble out the door. Only once cards are going and gear is ready will I pop a beer and begin to wind down.
3) Make sure you’ve got a pocket full of business cards ready to hand out.
4) Plan ahead and be prepared to be flexible. The last time I was here I marked a whole series of places on a good ol’ fashioned map with a view to returning back to these areas. On my list were a few places on the island of Gozo, but as it transpired it was quite windy whilst I was there and it was doubtful whether the ferry would be running or not. A little digging on the evening of Day 1 turned up a couple of local markets and a windmill that was worth shooting which made suitable alternatives.
5) Get a really good guide – they’ll get you to places you probably wouldn’t know about or be able to get into without speaking the local lingo or knowing local customs.
6) Keep a little notebook handy for jotting down a brief journal – very handy for captioning when you get back home.

Old car in Valetta, Malta (Click for larger)

Click here to purchase a print or license a digital copy of this image.

DON’Ts
1) Forget the suncream.
2) Forget the travel adapters.
3) Put your camera where it’s not wanted – I was working a night market in Marsaxlokk and stumbled across a rather funky stall selling all kinds of bottled coloured liquor. The woman behind the stall had one of those faces I just had to capture but as soon as I’d got one frame off she got a little irate and very camera shy. Simple solution – move on. There’s no point pushing it. If I had, the fuss she would have created would have rippled down the market and increasingly I’d be met with resistance.
4) Be afraid to use a little off-camera flash if it’s needed. Shooting one of the markets was quite tricky; some of the stalls were under tarpaulin over head, but the back opened out into bright bright sunshine. So I either get an exposure for the stall and possibly the vendor, but a completely blown out background, or pop a flash in one hand and hold the camera steady in the other – it’s tricky but with practice it works.
5) Forget the importance of good comfortable footwear. Even though my Merrells have been several times round the globe, they’re still the most ideal footwear for me personally doing this kind of work; they’re comfortable, lightweight and robust.

If you’ve any tips yourself worth sharing, drop them in the comments below.
TTFN…

Kayleigh by Neil Alexander (Click for larger)

I was working on some fresh head shots with Kayleigh on location in Trafford Park, Manchester last week and shortly before we started to wrap up, I spotted the moon high up in the sky with a cloudless sky around it. I figured it would make quite a cool image if I could get enough light on Kayleigh yet still get a clear moon in the background. Using the 105mm F2.8 I stopped it down to F16, mainly in an attempt to get something vaguely resembling a moon shape rather than just a white blur, ran up my ISO to 400 and made this exposure at 1/60 second. I used one SB900 in my large trusty Lastolite Ezybox at zero compensation using TTL. The wind was whipping around, and anchoring the sail-like Ezybox whilst lying on the floor shooting up at Kayleigh wasn’t exactly a pretty site, but after a dozen frames or so I think we nailed it.

Alex by Neil Alexander (Click for larger)

These are a couple of simple portraits I did on Monday. The location was a city centre flat, which had a lot of reflected sunlight coming in through a very large floor to ceiling window. There was no direct sunlight, so the result was a lovely soft and diffused light source. A great start from which to work. We did a few poses with just ambient but I was really looking for something a little more “high key”. The natural light was great on Alex’s face (camera right), but left a bit of a grey-ish background. To counter this I set up the large Ezybox softbox camera left and feathered it, a lot. That is to say that only the very right hand edge of the light was set to fall on Alex and the rest on the wall behind her. This accomplished two things – it gave me a much cleaner background and it produced a little fill on what would have been the darker side of Alex’s face. The processing was just a little Dynamic Skin Softening with Nik’s Colour Efex Pro and a small curves contrast tweek.

Alex by Neil Alexander (Click for larger)

For the image above, we moved outside into the grounds of a church opposite which still had lots of lovely pink blossom around, though mostly on the floor. Initially I envisaged shooting full length with Alex’s feet amongst the fallen petals. But by this time, the direct sunlight was harsh and as we were in amongst a bunch of trees, harsh and speckled. Not good. In the end, I decided waist up was the way to go. This way I could keep nearly all of Alex in the shade, and use a simple reflector camera right to throw a little fill back into the shadows and give me some catch lights in her eyes. Job done in a very short space of time – I surprised myself at how quickly I got the lighting down