International Awards

It's been a while since I updated this blog, last September in fact.  This has been a quiet year for me photographically, but nonetheless, I have entered a couple of International Photographic Salons, three in fact and have had a little success on the acceptances front as well as having won a couple of medals in Spain.
Celbridge Camera Club runs an international salon each year, and this year I entered 8 pictures in two categories and had 7 of those pictures accepted into the exhibition.

Photoclub 202 in Serbia also run an annual salon and I had 11 of twelve entries accepted into their exhibiton.  Finally last year I entered the Salon Internacional de Onto Saragosa in Spain, where I was successful in both the Open and Experimental sections.  In the Open section I was awarded a Gold Salon Medal for a still life entry, Boot Polish (above) and a silver medal in the Experimental section was for an entry titled Shaving (below).

 
This brings my acceptance total to in excess of 150.  After gaining an AFIAP distinction in 2009, I think it's about time I began to concentrate on more salons and go for the EFIAP distinction.  I'm a little short on some of the requirements for this but it shouldn't be too difficult to brush up on the requirements and concentrate on sending pictures to a few more countries with a view to hopefully getting awards.

Ringflash - First Pictures

 

This is my 4 year old son Dan.  He just ambled into the studio the other day as I was messing about tidying up and he zeroed in on some of the props from the Harry Lee shoot, the headphones and microphone and kicked off the performance of his lifetime with the theme from Scooby Doo.  I grabbed the camera, flash and Orbis Ringflash adapter and quickly set the flash to ETTL, the camera at 400 ISO and Av priority at F/4.  I kept my finger on the trigger and loosed off about 30 rounds frames, in the hope that the noise from the shutter would kill overpower the "unbelievable" vocal that was being emitted.  The three frames above made a nice present for Granny and Grandad printed in tryptich.  While the website and blogs promise "shadowless" pictures, as you can see there is a slight shadow cast, but it is soft and really unobtrusive. The light is a little flat but that may be just down to my inexperience, I'll experiment a bit more and post more pictures as they come along ...

Orbis Ringflash

I got delivery last week of an Orbis Ringflash adapter.  I've read the blogs and the website promo and even had a look at some YouTube movies.  While not cheap, it's certainly a damn sight cheaper than going the Full Monty and spending a few grand on a Bowens or Elinchrom studio equivalent.  I guess the main motivation is portability, provided it lives up to its billing.  While I was buying I decided to get the Orbis Arm mounting bracket.  Some of the blogs I read mentioned that the bracket would be an invaluable addition to the set-up.  It's not.  It's a pain in the ass to attach to the camera body and the flash.  When finally you do get it mounted, the weight of the flash plus ring means it wobbles about quite a bit.  I'd be dubious about breaking the foot on the flash itself.  Really it needs a supporting block to be bungeed between the flash and the bracket, just to give you the confidence you need to move the whole rig around in a normal fashion.  This is out of the question though, it would just add to the effort needed to properly attach everything.  As well as that when you're using a short lens there's not enough room between bracket and the flash control panel to punch buttons and turn dials to adjust EV or power.  Look out on eBay for an Orbis Arm going cheap.  I've found that attaching the lanyard that comes with the flash adaptor and letting it hang off your neck and simply holding it up with flash attached is a quicker more intuitive way of using it.

At around €200.00 for what is essentially a sexy piece of plastic, I suppose I'll get use out of it but if not I'll sell it on eBay and not lose too much and chalk the loss down to a stupid considered impulse purchase.  I'll post some pictures as soon as I get something worthwhile.

Shooting Harry Lee

"Harry Lee"

A few weeks back, I had the pleasure of photographing Harry Lee, a local and well known personality, who until last February was the host of a daily morning radio show on a local radio station.  Harry is an immensely popular character in Dundalk and a very jovial man.  This is the first of many (I hope) photo opportunities for me to photograph local "A Listers".

This was a pretty simply shot to set up.  A Black seamless for the background and three flash units.  The main light (canon 580ex ii) was positioned in a shoot thru' umbrella, whose left side was half masked (think Phantom of the Opera), using its own black removeable cover. Positioning of this was easy enough, but a little care was needed to avoid spill onto the background, while allowing the right side light Harry's face.  Another flash unit (Nikon SB-24's) was positioned, right and behind, to create some separation and to create rim lighting on the back edge of the chair, the hair and shirt.  This unit was gelled with a CTB and snooted with a 4" snoot and grid to help control the spill and direction.  I added a third flash, ungelled, but snooted to camera right, specifically to highlight the microphone and headphone props.  Each flash was set to manual and triggered with Seculine Twinlink radio receivers, from a hotshoe mounted Transmitter.

Getting the light ratios and balance was fairly easy too.  I maxed out the Sync Speed to 1/250th sec, helping kill the Ambient light.  Using the SB-24's set to 1/16th, I stopped down the Aperture to f/5.6 'till I was satisfied with those and then introduced the main strobe dialling its power to 1/8th power until the mix looked right on the LCD.  All that was left then was to get Harry to stop smiling ...

A Little Background ...

"3 Little Boys" - Vietnam

I have had a keen interest in photography for many years.  This interest has became an obsession since joining Dundalk Photographic Society in 2002.  Since then I have become a devoted student of photogaphy and much of my personal time is spent in pursuit of my hobby.  I have recently become Photographer Of The Year for the third successive year, a feat never achieved in the DPS 30 year history.  I am proud to have been awarded distinctions from the Irish Photographic Federation and the Royal Photographic Society. My Associateships (AIPF and ARPS) were gained in 2007 and 2008 for submission of a panel of photographs taken in Vietnam.
I also compete in photographic competitions (salons) worldwide and my works have been accepted into these exhibitions in places as far flung as Hong Kong, Spain, Luxembourg, Austria, Qatar and the USA among others, as well as the UK and Ireland.   The Federation Internationale de l'Art Photographic (FIAP) have also awarded me an AFIAP distinction in 2009 for these efforts.
I have won many international awards in photographic salons and had been the IPF projected image national winner for the past two years.

First Blog

"HMV"

Hello and welcome to the Picture It Blog. My name is Ciaran De Bhal and it's my intention to share my enthusiasm for photography with you and hopefully pass on a few tips and tricks that I've learned over the years as a photographer.  With a little luck and some time I'll post as much information and news as I can manage.  This image on the left is my most successful photograph to date, having being accepted into many International Photographic Salons. I hope to post more pictures in the future and give a running commentary on them as I go along.  

Thanks.  Ciaran.