Birnam Wood Is Come To Dunsinane (Twilight Silhouette Firs), Logarska Dolina

Birnam Wood Is Come To Dunsinane (Twilight Silhouette Firs), Logarska Dolina, a photo by flatworldsedge on Flickr.

This is my first posting in a little while thanks to two weeks holiday in Slovenia.

It makes first post on account of its needing practically no processing! Tempting as it would have been to swing the WB and supercharge the saturation, I preferred the slightly understated SOOC look. Just a little cleaning of CA, etc.

It's a view looking north towards Matkov Kot from the entrance to Slovenia's Logarska Dolina valley. If anything it was an afterthought - I was shooting mostly to the left of this frame, for a few minutes at a time and got to thinking these silhouetted fir trees were worth a simple 2D take themselves.

Hope you like it!

I've got heaps to post - 1,797 shots from the Slovenia trip, 4 model shoots to finish processing and then still shots from Venice, NYC and Utah earlier in the year. Look forward to getting them up over the next few weeks.

And also to catching up with what everyone else has been shooting!

Beacon (Koochie Koo With Backlit Smoke), Shrub Hill Common

Beacon (Koochie Koo With Backlit Smoke), Shrub Hill Common, a photo by flatworldsedge on Flickr.

More from the witch/smoke shoot with Koochie Koo.

Maybe there's a little too much smoke in this one - that slight haze across her face, for instance. However, as it's my first experiment gelling flash I thought I'd share it anyway. I love the combination of the CTO on the key light and the blue in the smoke.

There's not a tonne of processing on it, as I find the 5D mkiii has issues with intense blues. I see it most often with twilight shots, where there's banding in the bright blues - in the RAW file itself. Any tweaks just reinforce it, hence the cautious approach. If other 5D mkiii users see this, or know of a firmware update for it, please do shout me!

Info for Strobist:

2x Canon 600EX-RT - master on camera in Lasolite "Ezybox" at ~1/16, slave fired by built in RT in umbrella 45 degrees camera left, 2 feet above model, 3m back, gelled CTO, at 1/2 power. Backlight is from an LED strip (ungelled) just behind the model camera left, and a 220 lumen Lenser MT7 military flashlight gelled blue about 4m behind the model on the ground. There's a 1.2m silver reflector on a makeshift stand camera right, just off axis.

Lost & Found (Koochie Koo Witch Shoot), Shrub Hill Common

Lost & Found (Koochie Koo Witch Shoot), Shrub Hill Common, a photo by flatworldsedge on Flickr.

More from the witch/smoke shoot with Koochie Koo.

This one comes from before we started experimenting with hard, gelled backlight. It's a little less crazy as a result, but makes up for that (I think) with a slightly classier overall finish. There's no CTO on the flash in this image, for instance, which I think gives her skin tone an edge over the other, coloured shots.

Info for Strobist:

2x Canon 600EX-RT - master on camera in Lasolite "Ezybox" at ~1/16, slave fired by built in RT in umbrella 45 degrees camera left, 2 feet above model, 3m back, at 1/2 power. Backlight is from an LED strip (ungelled) just behind the model camera left. There's a 1.2m silver reflector on a makeshift stand camera right, just off axis.

Infernal (Koochie Koo With Backlit Smoke), Shrub Hill Common

Infernal (Koochie Koo With Backlit Smoke), Shrub Hill Common, a photo by flatworldsedge on Flickr.

This is my first upload from my second shoot with the dictionary definition amazing Koochie Koo.

Our first shoot was interrupted by a near literally cataclysmic rain storm. Having been drenched the first time around, we figured we'd go ahead with the second shoot despite stalking rain threatening to turn to thunder. I'm so glad we gave it shot. Certainly there was plenty of rain about, yet setting up in a wooded area for shelter we ended up with great cover from the wind for a series of backlit smoke shots.

The smoke comes from some little pellets from a company called "Pea Soup" that I'd recommend. I think they're sold as paint-balling supplies. Focusing through it is a nightmare; I dread to think what this would have cost shooting on film.

The superb Darryl J Dennis is providing invaluable assistance wafting the wayward smoke around with a spare reflector.

There's a danger my photostream is going to be completely overrun with shots from this series... Please shout at me if that becomes the case. There's a B&W version in the comments; this one has to be colour to my mind, but I've really enjoyed people's thoughts on the colour/B&W versions when I post alternatives. The feedback is especially appreciated when people disagree, so if you have a second I'd love to know what you think.

Hopefully everyone is having an amazing week.

Info for Strobist:

2x Canon 600EX-RT - master on camera in Lasolite "Ezybox" at ~1/16, slave fired by built in RT in umbrella 45 degrees camera left, 2 feet above model, 3m back, gelled CTO, at 1/2 power. Backlight is from an LED strip (ungelled) just behind the model camera left, and a 220 lumen Lenser MT7 military flashlight gelled red about 4m behind the model on the ground. There's a 1.2m silver reflector on a makeshift stand camera right, just off axis.

Rainfall - Alternate Take (Koochie Koo & Rain Bokeh), Shrub Hill Common

Rainfall - Alternate Take (Koochie Koo & Rain Bokeh), Shrub Hill Common, a photo by flatworldsedge on Flickr.

Rainfall (Koochie Koo & Rain Bokeh), Shrub Hill Common

Rainfall (Koochie Koo & Rain Bokeh), Shrub Hill Common, a photo by flatworldsedge on Flickr.

These are another two from last week's rain interrupted "witch" shoot with Koochie Koo. We're picking up the shoot this evening, hoping that this time the weather let's us finish the series with some long exposure stuff of sparklers and spell books.

Choosing between mono and colour was really hard on this pair; the B&W seems much more focused on the bumblebee and rain, whilst the colour version wants to tell a story about the gloomy wood.

Hope everyone is having a super start to the week.

Info for Strobist:

2x Canon 600EX-RT - master on camera in Lastolite "Ezybox", at 1/32, slave at full power in shoot through umbrella, just above model, 3m back, ~60 degrees to camera left "aiming" between model and background, fired by built in RT.

Little Black Book (Raven Lily), St James Park

Little Black Book (Raven Lily), St James Park, a photo by flatworldsedge on Flickr.

Another shot from my second shoot with bomvu and the awesome Raven-Lily.

Extra shot from the session in the comments, just to show the richness of colour in the backdrop. Much prefer the B&N here though; just amps up that slightly smiling eye contact.

Hope everyone is looking forward to a fantastic weekend.

Nonlinear (Emma J Black reading "Nonlinear Dynamics And Chaos" by Steven H. Strogatz), Southbank Skatepark London

Nonlinear (Emma J Black reading "Nonlinear Dynamics And Chaos" by Steven H. Strogatz), Southbank Skatepark London, a photo by flatworldsedge on Flickr.

This is the second posting from an "alt maths" shoot at the Southbank's skatepark. Emma J Black reading "Nonlinear Dynamics And Chaos" by Steven H. Strogatz.

By way of brief, imprecise answer to interested questions as to the "why" behind the project, it was nominally inspired by "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo", and Lisbeth Salander's obsession with Fermat. I thought I'd pick the theme up as a project whilst I learn lighting for some wilder future ideas for which I will need to up my strobe game considerably.

There are also some learnings around DOF/focus. I'm a fan of shallow DOF, yet getting clean focus on the book's details is an interesting challenge. Certainly a good project for moving one's understanding up a level.

This book's quite a read actually. There's a neat section describing Romeo and Juliet's relationship in terms of mathematics. One of those reads where it all starts so sensibly, so clearly, so understandably, and then, on a point, explodes into blinding complexity like a firework in a microwave.

There's a second shot in the comments. With the new design of Flickr, I'm posting the back up images separately, as they quickly get buried in the comments and then hidden.

Hope everyone is well and enjoying an exciting/productive week.