I’ve just fallen in love with David Wiseman’s branch chandelier… so pretty.  Just one of many beautiful pieces on his site – check it out.

Hope every one had a great Thanks Giving! I’ve been working on getting my new web site launched over the break. On tuesday I had a shoot for yearbook. We needed some photos for the winter track part of the sports section. Heres a set up shot and the final result of the shoot. Let me know what kind of stuff you guys would want to see on my blog ( more behind the scenes, what I’m shooting, etc.)

Allie Johnson

Here is a shot of the lighting set up

Good evening one and all it’s Motoko Blogging tonight. As my blogs title says the weather is indeed starting to change and it’s about time too. The flooded lane at the bottom of our drive way has started to drop and the distance that the lane as flooded has decreased dramatically. Me and Jenny geared up and put our canoe on the flooded lane to check how far the flood was now, and that’s when we found that the water level had dropped. So we paddled back slightly happier knowing that things are changing for the better at last. It’s still raining here but that doesn’t matter, its Cumbria after all isn’t it! Below is the new forecast for our area of Cumbria.

We are still unable to leave the stables and so on so we are still working the mornings that we normally have off, but it’s not as bad as I could have been. I made a good call saying that our staff should wear our 66N waterproofs we use for hacking out and leading treks, rather than our Ocean Crewman waterproofs while the flooding is on. As it’s been so mistily with fog and hard rain and its very slippery on the yards and the fields are potted. Anna sipped up and twisted her ankle, it was hard and raining hard, but we found her as she showed up well. Once the harsh weather has stopped we will use our Ocean Crewman for working in and our 66N for riding and stuff in. Still I and Jenny took our doggy out for a stroll around the yard and we chose to wear our Musto gear for a change, some of our Musto gear is pictured below.

If you want to know what 66N looks like this is a photograph of our stuff. As for our Ocean crewman is Orange and Blue bib pants and smock, and they are sort of hi-viz but you will have to look Ocean Crewman up s our gear has our yard name on it and I am too lazy to edit the name out off them hehe.

Tonight I am going to make homemade spicy potato edges, with fresh carrots and broccoli. This will all go with my homemade stake and ale pie, which is currently in our Ray Burn and it’s making an awesome smell as I type this. Jenny is curled up on Sofa next too me reading one of her favourite books “The Wind In The Willows” she hasn’t head it for years. I my self have been playing Uncharted: 2 online, below is a score walkthrough from one of my co-op matched I played this evening.

Cumbria has updated its Flood Bulletin made by Cumbria’s public sector organisations, click on the picture below for the 27/11/09 update.

Click the banner to learn about our wonder paradise in England, which Is Cumbria.

I am still going to show my support for the RNLI, as they have done so much good work in Cumbria.

Right I must be off to finish off dinner, and then relax before our mornings work tomorrow morning.

Jenny and Motoko Carter

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(Coppershade image from dedece.com)

My sister has been looking for some light fittings to go over the large island bench in her kitchen. She mentioned over the weekend that she was thinking about some big mirrored pendants. I think these ones – the Tom Dixon Coppershade pendants – are totally stunning and the copper would suit the warm timbers, Tretford carpet and burnt orange leather sofa in her adjacent lounge area. They are available from Dedece Lighting in Sydney http://www.dedece.com/ Tom Dixon have an amazing range of light fittings, especially their striking feature pendants.

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I’m left few Hershey Kisses and a pot of hot chocolate, but the Family Christmas Photos I talked about in this previous post are done – or at least the shooting is done, and now I’m left with about 15 shots to edit and submit to the printers by Friday, to try and ensure that the prints arrive to the clients before Christmas.

The reality of this shoot turned out to be much like the theory; it was a three-light setup, with the main and fill lights set to a 2:1 ratio. For the BG light (light C), I added a +1/3 FEC. This washed out the color a bit more than I would have liked, but it made the BG pop. I kept light C zoomed to 14mm with the diffuser panel down for as much spread as possible.

The overall turnout was about what the school and I had hoped for, and the folks who did come seemed excited, and I had good time myself. In retrospect, having more room between myself and the BG would have been better; my A & B lights spilled onto the BG more than I would have liked. A greater distance between the two lighting areas (A+B and C) would keep them from intermingling, which is something I’ll keep in mind for next time.

I’m also fascinated by the portable, popup backgrounds I’m seeing other photogs use. I’ll have to investigate them, as they appear to be just the right size for a single person, or small group, to fit on, and they are apparently very portable. That could end up working better for the next time around, since it would let me pull C light away from the BG and use it instead as a hair light.

At the end of the day we didn’t get rich, but we made enough so that after the split, there’s a good chunk ready to be donated in the school’s name to a family Christmas charity. And that’s the part that really counts – the school’s families got to make a memory, and in the process help other area families during the holidays.

Dig Out That Normal Lens

By Robert Hanashiro

When I started out in photography, the “kit lens” when you bought a single-lens-reflex camera was a 50mm lens, often called a “normal” lens. Now days, most of us use zooms.

Zooms are versatile, a lot sharper than they used to be and gives us a wide range of focal lengths when shooting a portrait. But they’ve also made us a little bit lazy. Instead of moving our feet, we just rotate the zoom ring.

Actress Robin Wright portrait made at the Luxe Hotel in Bel Air, CA. Photograph by Robert Hanashiro/COPYRIGHT USA TODAY

In the past few months I’ve begun to bring an “old friend” with me on assignment … a “normal” lens: The 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor.

I’ve found that it’s lighter,  brighter and yes, maybe just a bit sharper —especially at wider apertures — than my usual portrait fav lens, the 24mm-70mm f/2.8 Nikkor.

For a recent portrait shoot for a story on actress Robin Wright it was the only lens I used and gave me incredibly sharp images at f/3.5 but also the shallow depth of field that I have been utilizing as my current style du jour for my portrait shoots. One thing to be very careful of when working with such limited depth of field, especially at close distances, is focus. Focus on your subjects eye and concentrate on keeping the focus there. A shift of a inch of two can drastically change what’s sharp and what’s not…and you want your subjects eye (or eyes) sharp!

Wright portrays the title character in upcoming film "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee." Photograph By Robert Hanashiro/COPYRIGHT USA TODAY

So if you have an old 50mm or even better an 85 or 105mm sitting around in an old bag in your closet … take it out for a shoot or two and give it a try. You’ll maybe miss your zoom  ring, but you’ll get a bit more exercise by moving around more.

TECH NOTES:

Camera: Nikon D3

Lens: 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor

Lighting: 4 SB-800 Nikon Speedlights in a LightwareDirect FourSquare softbox; triggered by a SU-800 Commander to the subject’s right; a Lastolight Trigrip at left for a bit of fill

Exposure: ISO 200; 1/125 @ f/3.5

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Display Supply & Lighting, Inc.
Norwood Avenue 1247
IL 60143 Itasca (United States)
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Anoop performed two solo songs, and sang in the final closing song with everyone on stage. Two awesome street teamers Alice and Steph were there to record Anoop’s performances. They will be linked up here at the Street Team as soon as they become available. Meanwhile, you can check out the recorded cellcast at the Ustream Anoopcast channel. Much props to Sarah and Alice for running and cellcast, and Anne Marie for working on the backup plans:

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2659068

Also, check out some of the photos from today.

Casey Carlson tweets “My sister is reading @anoopdoggdesai’s palms. Hahaha”

During rehearsal wearing the UNC hoodie (pic by Alice).

Also during reherasal wearing a black coat (pic by Realdetective)

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DSA/Phototech
Central Avenue 16961
CA 90746 Carson (United States)
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bon Heath is one of the most promising artists of the moment and his take on typography is pure visual poetry. Words never looked more astonishing, they form their own structures in a short of a rebellion, they dance and move and yet they stand still. In Heath’s universe, words go out of their suffocating homes, they become alive and they tell us their amazing stories. Having Brooklyn as the quarters of his inspiration, Heath is contaminating his students with his enthusiasm and passion. With his work he is trying to visualize the invisible, to put a form to the surrounding sounds of the every day life and to inject fantasy into reality. Inspired traveller and rhythm lover, Heath is revealing us all the details hidden behind his outstanding work in an exclusive interview for Yatzer. His sculptures gives the impression of being crystalized words turned into frozen flowers.  We connect this with your quote about perceiving words as a living, corporal being. ” I want our type to jump, scream, whisper and dance, versus lay flat, dead and dormant, to be used and discarded with no concern for its intricate beauty of form, function, and meaning. We use type daily yet rarely appreciate the form of a letter. By liberating type from the confines of the page we not only free the words to express the content in a new dimension of scale, volume, and movement, but also force the reader to become a viewer. This process reveals the form of our letters while creating a new relationship to our language in our ability to feel versus only read the content” say Heath.”I love the visual of crystalized words as frozen flowers. This is clear on a visual level, yet also the form of the flower has evolved to fulfill a specific function. All the subservient smaller bio chemical reactions that make up its structure on a molecular level, all co-operating to create a living organism. The form of my type structures are also made to fulfill a specific goal to express the content of words, while made up of smaller ingredients of letters that collectively form our language. The prints do have a frozen quality, since the original works are mobiles that move and can be seen from multiple perspectives in a space. It also is ironic that when these structures are documented they are flattened into 2-dimensional planes, the very antithesis of my initial goal.  

 
The structures are a physical representation of our language as object. This “visual noise” permeates all aspects of modern culture, especially urban living. From the signs, billboards, stores, and t-shirts that yell with type for attention as you walk down any high street. All the audio and verbal noise, from music we plug our ears with to the din of countless conversations, screams and whispers. With new media of texting, online, and transmitted technology there is even invisible noise silent to the eye surrounding us all. It is this cozy womb of information, data, or chorus of cacophony that my mobiles hope to represent as well as reveal. Making the invisible visible. The lyrical qualities of hip hop highlight this connection of the liberated language. When a MC rides a beat the words become a fusion of song, noise, rhythm, melody and meaning all at once. This synthesis between words and sounds was the first investigation i had undertook to help me understand this conceptual process. This wrestling with language is also reflected in the visual poetry of more formal graffiti that transforms each letter into interlocking shapes that are unique in its form and identity of the author. As in all good poetry, the skilled MC uses rhythm more then rhyme to express the message, my mobiles attempts to create a visual sense of rhythm and flow that is alive, not contained, or able to be seen/ read/ understood from one angle.

The stereo.type project, expressing the interaction between the traditional language of typography and the physical language of the body, consists of three parts. The first part was a process of research and development. Creating countless drawings, computer renderings, and three dimensional models to find the desired structural frame work for this new physical typographic language. The visual inspiration for these structures has varied from fishing nets to animal vertebrae, puppets to kites, feathers to scales, domes to parachutes, classical lace to high end couture fashion, traveling from Brooklyn to Andalusia, Berlin to Marrakech, to Carnival in London and Trinidad.  The final product of this phase is a process journal that documents all the steps leading to the establishment of the final four grid structures. The current second phase is exercising the established grids, to learn how many different kinds of content can be expressed in these structures. This phase is also about creating mobiles and site specific installation for exhibit to share with the public, and learn from their reactions. This also extends to more couture mobiles that are created for a specific person based off their relationship to the content of the mobile. A seasonal collection of mobiles, prints, lights, and jewelry are being developed for release in the summer of 09. Each season will focus on a different theme and execution method. The third stage is incorporating the body into a performance piece of type dancing a duet with its author. The goal is to create a ballet of people dancing with their liberated language, as if the body was shedding its accumulated stories physically, as well as amplifying the content of our inner soul for the world to see in its dynamic dance. This event will combine aspects of carnival, circus, choreography, kinetic body sculpture, music, and the Greek chorus.  

 
I have developed four 3-d grid systems that, like traditional type design, provide an underlying foundation for type to be anchored to. These grids are malleable and do not limit the form as much as create a support skeleton. These 4 grids are based off the basic shapes of the cone, stripe, line, and circle. To establish these systems there has been countless drawings and models created to establish structural integrity and functionality. The quantity of letters, typeface, and scale all determine the final form. Unlike traditional type design there is the third dimension, an additional perspective outside of the page which allows the movement of the structures and your eyes positions to them. The tools and components I use come from a wide range of crafts, including: fishing tackle, jelwery elements, kite pieces, laser cut acrylic and tyvek. My working process has a specific set of steps that collectively create these expressive typographic mobiles as if solving an equation, rather then from some cosmic inspiration.

 
I teach at a City University in the Bronx (New York, USA), which gives me access to students that are fully engaged in life and do not take their education for granted. This role allows me to inspire young people to see type and design as a career choice and/ or a way to express themselves visually. By highlighting the analytical nature of design and importance of paying attention to details, I am also able to give the students a new way of seeing their surroundings. With design software and computers being mainstream, new media literacy is expected of all students. Yet knowing how to operate a computer does not make you a designer. I feel all professionals have a responsibility to share their knowledge, while also staying open to learn more.  The students keep me informed on the latest ideas of youth culture that my growing age makes harder to recognize. I am also writing course curriculum which enables me to map out my method of teaching and how it stays relevant to students lives or current trends.

 
Calder has been one of the most influential artists in my life, at a very young age i saw his circus and was mesmerized. That same day i began drawing and have not stopped. Only recently did i notice the parallel of my typographic ballet and the performance element of his circus. I am also inspired by his ability to play with simple forms and materials to create a new visual vocabulary that blurs the lines between art, design, function and expression (from his mobiles, and stables to his jewelry and wire portraits). He was also one of the first American artists to be an international globe trotter, hanging out in Europe and the states crossing the Atlantic regularly by boat. (Warhol for making the common into art, Basquiat for burning so fast and so bright, and Stuart Davis for American abstraction in the modern flat world of color.) I was introduced to the rich culture of Carnival from the Caribbean island of Trinidad, by another admired living artist and mentor, Peter Minshal. Minshal is the founder of Callaloo Company, which has been producing the avant-garde carnival bands of kinetic body sculpture for the last 30 years. He shared his knowledge of the intricate craft of constructing physical sculpture that amplifies the human gesture into a grand scale with an individual or collective of people. Next thing you know i am watching 20 foot skeletons he has made grinding with the Rockets on stage at Radio City Music Hall (in NYC).

 
Purge is quite similar conceptually yet utilizing images rather than purely type. It is an answer to the question: How can we reveal the abundance of visual information we mentally accumulate? The aim is to purge all the influence we receive from media stimulation and liberate our mind to a less polluted place. It’s about reclaiming our mental environment, killing the television, cellphone suicide, unplugging our addiction for constant entertainment. I felt engorged by all the information my eyes have eaten and needed to purge, a visual vomit. This process began with classifying logos, languages, images of mass culture from my travels, all as recipe ingredients for collage. Then I draw the found media, like a painter would draw a still life, or a musician might sample a beat. All these “sample drawings” become the raw materials for a lengthy process of digital deconstruction and analog reconstruction, resulting in paintings, mobiles, and drawings. These visual mash ups allows the viewer to navigate ones own narrative in the channel surfing barrage of exploding familiar faces, logos, and contrasting color and form. I am currently completing a series of large scale paintings that are cutting and masking paint into sharp graphic compositions. Although Purge and stereotype are made of and result in very different outcomes, there is many similarities in conceptual goals and values. Technology gives me the ability to be more efficient and more precise in my craft, yet not necessarily more freedom to create. Cutting by hand is very time intensive compared to the speed and accuracy of lasers. Laser also gives me the ability to cut multiples at once out of materials I am unable to be cut by hand. It also creates an easier manageability of scale. However, cutting is only one step, the hand assembly is still quiet labour intensive and is not made simpler or more dynamic by technology. In fact much of this work makes a statement that supports the traditional craft of analog construction versus containing all living things into pixels, trying to duplicate reality instead of truly living in it. Since much of my professional graphic design work is dictated by technology, it is refreshing to use my fingers to actually build instead of a virtual illustration.  

We invite lighting inustries for example to contact this guy immediately! Of course the best to do is to visit his website and discover more about him and his work at:

www.listeningwithmyeyes.com

‘Tis the season and demand is high, so I’ll be back at it again following my engagement with a local school. This time the stakes are closer to home, which makes the stress level both better and worse. The gig? Shooting family portraits for my girlfriend’s very large extended family. Oh yeah. Oh my.

The setup is going to be in the living room of an aunt & uncle’s house, where the couch is in front of some large picture windows that look out into the back yard. It’s a nice setting, with good natural light, and the room is long enough (it stretches into the kitchen area) that I can get sufficient distance from the subjects to shoot without having to worry about using my widest angle, and then battling distortions.

The original plan called for a portrait of all the youngin’s, but that quickly grew (as these things tend to do) to include addition portraits of each family group. And I fully expect that once we’re there on-site, it will evolve to include some of those wacky family portraits that happen when everyone gets a bit goofy. Frankly, it ought to be a lot of fun, which equates to the lower stress level. On the other hand, this is a group that I simply have to impress – even more than the regular clients, due to the personal stakes. The stress meter goes back up!

Kidding aside, this should be a straight-forward shoot. I’ll be using essentially the same lighting setup from the first batch of Christmas portraits at the school; A & B lights in a 2:1 ratio, setup up stands with shoot-through umbrellas. C light is a bit trickier, since the BG this time is the wall/windows of the room. I can either stick it in a corner behind them, angled in for some hair light, or perhaps even stick it outside the window, shooting through the glass.

It’s the glass that will provide the most challenge – controlling reflections will be the primary struggle. In a large studio space this might not be so difficult, but in a living room, placement of lights is limited by the physical layout. Still, I’m sure that everything will fall into place.

I plan on using the 7D (to control the lights) and the 28-135mm. The length of the room should let me zoom a bit, compressing the scene somewhat.

Day one of the great holiday shopping extravaganza.  In honor of Black Friday, today’s gift ideas are white, just kidding, but that would have been really funny…

Under $50

OK, can’t believe how hard it is to find cool design gifts under $50.  This is going to be a blast…nothing like a good challenge.  As my buddies from Smith College used to say, bargain shopping.

Single Cup Coffee Filter from Design Within Reach

At $34 this is oh so cool for the coffee lover on your list.  It makes just one cup, is eco-friendly and you can take it camping.  I can picture this single coffee cup on my husband’s desk at work (can’t say I picture him camping).  Shhh…don’t tell him.

Under $100

Black Patent Luggage from Pottery Barn

At $99.99 each, just squeaking under, the Black Patent Rolling Duffle and Garment Bag are so sleek for the ultra-mod girl on the go.  One hitch–when Pottery Barn marks down with 99 cents, it’s final sale and you need to be quick to purchase!

Sky’s the Limit

Black Spun Floor Lamp from Hive Modern

Who doesn’t dream of a lamp from Hive Modern?  I know I do.  This Floor Lamp for Flos can be yours for $1,740.  I envision it grounding a Family Room with bright accent colors.

Catch you tomorrow with more great design shopping!

Ladies and Gentlemen I have to be the bearer of bad news.

The playground on Tommy rec (Tomkinson Road Recreation Ground for any non Stockingfordians reading this) may be removed by Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council.

The maintenance costs of the playground this year to date have been in excess of £19,000.  The vast majority of this is entirely due to vandalism.

This patch of grass which seems to be out of keeping with the grass around it is where the ever popular trampoline used to be.

Replaced once already after being previously burnt out the second time was too much and the pit was filled in.  Believe it or not a trampoline such as this costs thousands to replace.  The specification for a trampoline for a public children’s playground is far higher than anything that you would find on the home market.

The charred remains of the See Saw stand as forlorn evidence of this formerly popular play feature.

Many of the smaller children came to the rec purely because of this piece of equipment.

Their shrieks of joy as they went back and forth ever faster will not be repeated by either themselves or future generations if the playground is removed.

Will you push or shall I?  the question is moot now that the roundabout too has been burnt out for the second time in twelve months.

It is a sad fact that there are people who destroy and something needs to be done about them.

Last year a row of trees was planted alongside the footpath to enhance the area.  I saw them and they looked lovely.  Do not be surprised if you did not see them though because they were ripped up the very same night.

Removing the children’s play equipment
is not the answer!

The location of the playground is ideal for malcontents because it is not overlooked from either homes or roads.  Warwickshire Police have done all that they can with the PCSO’s and patrols looking in as often as they can to reduce anti-social behaviour but they cannot post someone there all of the time.

I believe that the answer is to fit lighting to the top end of the playground facing away from the homes so that there is no light overspill onto housing.  With the playground properly lit a camera can be installed.  This combination of lighting and cameras has worked wonders on otherwise unmanageable parks in the past.

I shall be doing all that I can to persuade the relevant portfolio holder not to close the playground.  I shall also be contacting local newspapers to try to raise the profile of this issue within the community.

I have stacks of pictures gathering virtual dust on my hard drive. I hope to get round to sorting them someday. In the meantime, here is a shortlist of my favourite portraits so far.

All of these were taken in Sydney, mostly at the Annandale Hotel, on Parramatta Rd. I used to  live just a few bus stops away and would scoot up for my gig fix whenever I could.

Enjoy, and head straight to my flickr account if you’re keen on seeing more shots.

Bridgemary Kiss, Oxford Arts Factory, 2008.

End of Fashion, Annandale Hotel, 2009.

The Panics, UTS, 2008.

Alice in Chains, Soundwave Festival, 2009.

Lions at your door, Annandale Hotel, 2008.

Tennis, Annandale Hotel, 2009.

Yves Klein Blue, Annandale Hotel, 2008.

The Mischief, Annandale Hotel, 2009.

In Flames, Soundwave Festival, 2009.

The Dolly Rocker Movement, Annandale Hotel, 2009.

Ranger Spacey, Annandale Hotel, 2009.

Papa Vs Pretty, Annandale Hotel, 2009.

The Scare, Annandale Hotel, 2009.

Art Vs Science, Annandale Hotel, 2009.

Regular John, Annandale Hotel, 2009.

The Model School, Annandale Hotel, 2009.

Gideon Bensen, Annandale Hotel, 2008

Sherlock’s daughter, Annandale Hotel, 2008.

The Holidays, Annandale Hotel, 2008.

Delta Spirit, Annandale Hotel, 2008.

Hungry Kids of Hungary, Annandale Hotel, 2009.

Office productivity is all about creating the optimum environment, applying the right procedures, the right culture and the best opportunities for people to work harmoniously, efficiently. It’s certainly not about cracking the whip, enforcing policy dogmatically and slave driving people to the grindstone. The truth of the matter is that if you want to see your figures soar, to get the very best out of your staff, the ultimate in service, the more responsive and positive approaches, the best performance, that ‘yes I will stay late and get the project completed tonight’ attitude, then you need to treat people with respect and with dignity. You need to treat them right. Do unto others, as they say.

There’s no great mystery behind the concept but you would be surprised how often politics, ego and empire building can get in the way of common sense. When staff feel like they are taken lightly they end up taking their responsibilities lightly too. Staff who can easily sense the value that’s placed in them rise to the challenge – profitably.

People need to feel safe, feel comfortable and feel like the company they are committing their time to actually care about them. One of the most obvious ways to show you value your staff is to provide them with a pleasant and comfortable environment. Committing to an improved office environment is one of the easiest and most cost effective ways to boost morale, esteem and productivity.

What about the office furniture? Is it right for the job? Adjustable so that everyone can work comfortably without the risk of RSS or damage caused by bad positioning or bad posture? Are your desks, your storage, displays, the lighting and the cabling fit for purpose? Will it inspire and satisfy or will it depress and deflate? Does your staff have the tools for the job and are they properly equipped to get the job completed on time and to the standards you are demanding of them?

Of course, we all have a responsibility to do our jobs to the utmost of our ability. By the same token employers are tasked with the responsibility to make sure that each of their staff members have the environment and the resources to enable them to do that properly; to be happy in their work and to be productive.

Change in the tide is upon us I will reluctantly say in case the water rises again. But for now the flooding has not got any worse where we are and in fact it has started to withdraw from the drive and back into the lane, which doesn’t look as bad as it did a few days ago. A few days ago it resembled a white water river, but now it’s like a bubbling stream. Because the lane is still flooded that means that we still can’t get out of the stables grounds and that also means that we are still getting no customers, or the part time girls arriving to work fri sat and sun. Which is why me and Motoko have been on the yard this morning mucking out and doing odd jobs, we are still going to work the mornings on the three days we have off until all this flooding is over, and the rest of the girls are doing afternoon and evening work.

Our home now has ten sand bags in front of our front door and ten sand bags behind the front door, this works really very well and hardly any water is steaming into our home now, so this is a really good thing! Also currently have some nice big logs on our fire and the warmth is really very welcoming and slightly romantic. As you can see from the picture below our floor is water free.

I put on my waders and strolled out to the sign I painted and put on the yard gate the other day, as I had to re-tie it back onto the gate as some of the cable ties snapped in all theses high winds that has been battering us. Motoko watched from the edge of the drive-way waiting for me to slip up and fall in the flood water, but sadly for her I didn’t hehe. Some of the paint has run off the sign but it looks ok, which is the main thing.

Below is a picture of our predicted weather for the rest of the week, and so far it is fairly on target. Though at the moment it’s raining pretty hard, but nothing like the rain we have been getting of late.

This made me smile found this on YouTube from the BBC© TV show Top Gear. They find out that Cumbria is indeed the wettest place in England.

Also we are continuing to show our support for the RNLI. So below is another video.

Well that’s it for now, we are going to do some much needed house work and washing. Pile of work uniform to wash and other things like that. Then we are going to bake some muffins, since we ran out of our last batch.

Jenny and Motoko Carter

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This Tuesday as part of class, I had the oppertunity to have a play with proper studio lighting for the first time. It was strange getting use to the setup as I’ve never had total control over a lighting setup before!

(image © Gary Danton)

We had the oppertunity to use both constant lighting and flash. I got my best results with the constant lighting, mainly due to the fact that even using a lightmeter (another first) my shots were way overexposed and totally unusable. I think this had more to do with my inability to setup the camera correctly than anything else. Those shots using the studio flash also lacked depth compared to the constant lighting, which provided very atmospheric images.

Over all, I did enjoy the experience, and given time and practice i think the results would greatly improve, i think this will be one genre of photography that i’ll definatly revisit in the future.

thanks

Gary

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Entertainment Lighting Services, Inc.
Sheldon Street 11440
cA 91352 Sun Valley (United States)
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• Rental: lighting installations

We’re kind of obsessed…

With our new downlights. Can’t wait to get the entrance light in too.