Favourite model

My favourite model, again. She's not quite taking direction yet, but if I follow her around long enough something good transpires ...

From Christmas day, all natural light.

Ben Heine

I came across Ben Heine's work through a Facebook post and a visit to his 500px page. His "Pencil vs Camera" series are really interesting:
 
But Ben works in quite a few different styles each of which he seems to have mastered in a amazing way. These are a couple of his "Digital Circlism" portraits:

and here is a video of the making of "Elvis":

New granddaughter!

Last month our fourth grandchild was born. This is young Rhylee at four weeks old - wide eyed and ready to take on the world.

Nikon D80, ISO 100, 1/60 sec @ f2 with single bounced speedlight. Developed in Lightroom and PSE10.

A busy week ...

It's been a busy week with a new grandchild arriving (Rhylee) and two other grandchildren coming to stay. Still they are both a couple of posers and like nothing more than having a camera pointed in their direction.

 Nikon D80, ISO 100, 1/125 sec @ f2.8 (2 strobes off-camera)

Nikon D80, ISO 100, 1/125 sec @ f2 (single bounced strobe)

Fish on the book

I figure that I'll keep the fisheye on the camera for a while yet. Normally I would use a 50mm prime at about f2 for a shot like this (indoor, available light, portrait) keeping the fisheye on the camera is forcing me to see things fresh. In this shot, I like the way that the fisheye has made the book completely fill the foreground and provide some interesting 'leading lines' to the main subject. Can't do that with a 50mm.

Fish on the floor!

Getting the fish down on the floor just got a lot easier thanks to a right-angled viewfinder attachment - an excellent aid for older bones! I like the way the fisheye enables you to get right close into the action and the distortion is a great compliment to highlighting the 'fun' aspect of grandchildren:

Nikon D80, 8mm fisheye, f5.6 @ 1/30 sec, ISO 200.

Black & white forever

Fifty years ago everything I took was black and white. Then came colour ... then came digital and everything was colour by default. And yet ... some pictures still work better in black and white than in colour. This candid portrait of our Granddaughter; taken on Christmas day with available light was one of those pictures.

Lightly toned for warmth, in my opinion the colour version just doesn't carry the 'presence' that comes through in B&W. Nikon D80, 50mm, ISO 400, 1/45 sec @ f2.8.