They joys of manipulation.

When I got back into photography seriously I took one look at Photoshop and started doing mad stuff with it.

Ooooh look we can replace the darkroom. Well not quite, but not far off.

Over time I moved away from the computer stuff and worked hard on getting it right in the camera. Obviously there are times when you just can't do that.

I took a photo of a subway, in the late night, just for something to do. Then I had the idea of using a catwalk image and coming up with some urban catwalk theme.

Photoshop shines! I forgot how much fun it was.

SB-800 R&D with Creative Lighting System

Saturday morning was a bit of an R&D morning. As I still have Ali's SB-800 and a fresh set of AA's I thought I'd rig up a portrait session to work on some light positions.

The background is my 1.5m x 2m foldy-upy thing (it's more like wrestling a wireframe but once you get the technique it's okay), a piece of white card to the "model's" left (camera right) and an SB-800 as a remote flash on 1/64th power (controlled from the camera) camera left pointing 45 degrees. Fire test shots weren't too bad. The S5 was on 80th second @ f4.

Not a bad start but it's a bit dark.

Better. I kept with the flash at 1/32nd power and put a muslin square in front to act as a diffuser. You'll notice the the hair is reflecting back a little, I want to reduce that... so bring on the muslin squares (once used on infant duties a few years ago but duely washed since, it now stays in my case of bits: snoots, clamps, Fong Lightsphere, Lee Filters, notebook and puke cloth).

Quality wise a much better result, if I were truely not bothered I'd take the CF card and bring the image up in Photoshop/Lightroom and dial another stop of light in there. Personally I like o get things right in camera to reduce post production.

As I was expecting the muslin ate about a stop of light, no problems, just dial in some more flash power from the camera. To compensate I dialled the flash to 1/16th power and put the diffuser up again (via a knitting needle and two plastic A clamps).

To get a starting point this took all of five minutes to sort out. Now I can concentrate on the session of while the model didn't utter a word all day.....

Opportunities come and go, don't miss them!

I don't carry my camera around with me enough at the moment. And when driving I'm usually saying to myself, "I could have got that one", "Oh that looks cool" or "Look at the colours!.....".

These times very rarely repeat themselves, be prepared and these images will come to you, have a camera with you and you'll be able to record them for all to see.

Once in a moment shots never come back. I was in a press conference with His Holiness the Dalai Lama last year, he was a keynote speaker at the Children In Crossfire conference in Londonderry. All us press photogs were crammed at the front, the odd flash would go off and it never once phased him or his flow where the answers were concerned. At the end His Holiness stood up, posed for the press. Everyone wanted to touch him, shake his hand.

Then there was this little lad. He had a present, the photogs were all piling out of the building to get to the front door where an amassed throng had gathered. The young chap presented it to His Holiness, who duely opened it to see the contents, gave the lad a huge hug and then span him around to find the first photographer.... Which happened to be me, His Holiness didn't say a word just raised his eyebrows at me directly, which is the international call sign for, "can you take this photograph please". I rattled off a couple of frames and then they left.

The moment that presented itself, a split second that was giving to me, they don't happen often. You need to know your camera well (Nikon D50 at the time, AP, at f5.6 and let the flash and the Fong Lightsphere do the work).

The sign of the times

It looks like freelance photographers are finding it tough. My bookings for local press basically fell through the floor during October. The reason was quite simple, advertising revenue is well down on this time last year and in order to cut back the papers are literally culling any lose expenditure.

The staff photogs are now basically expected to reschedule any events that come up on their days off. If you have a cheque presentation and it's on the photographer's day off then you'll be expected to rearrange it. Not so easy when you have the Mayor/dignatory/celebrity turning up, but some things can't be avioded.

Talking to other freelance professionals (and not just in photography) the same thing is happening all over the place. Freelancers are being squeezed out. It's time to find those niche markets where staffers can't tread.

Handy portrait background when you don't really have one...

...especially if you are doing a portrait shoot in an office.

Had the camera, flashes, bounce cards and the rest but I didn't have my sheet to hand. No matter. I found the perfect background, pure white and untouched. A flipchart holder, perfect it was and as the client didn't use the white dry marker board it was unmarked.

The portrait didn't need anything doing to it just a touch of curves to take the ever-so-slight-but-I'm-a-pedant-pink cast on the skin.

Job done.

The Writers Group

During the NWLLA shoot last week I popped in to photograph the writing group. Time wasn't on my side so I kept it short. The group shot didn't take long to put together but I had another idea in my head as well.

A couple of more flashes and I could have done things differently. As my portable backdrop system (or a large sheet as it's more commonly known) was already in use there was little I could do to the background. Lightroom toned the whole thing down so it's not so noticable.

Jude Nabney and the Magic Party

Should be the name of a band...

For those of you who have seen my website the model from the fashion section is Jude Nabney, she's been called Northern Ireland's version of Agyness and very good on the catwalk. I photographed her at Belfast Fashion Week in March this year and turned out some of the best pictures in my portfolio.

On BBC2 last night, in Northern Ireland, was a programme call "The Magic Party" where someone is given a party with a DJ and magician. First in the series and the recipient of the party was Jude. Intermingled with shots of the same catwalk I was photographing.

I ended up on "NI Wags" a few months back through no fault of my own, just a snapshot of me photographing the catwalk at the 2007 Foyleside Fashion Show. It was a bad edit at that as I didn't photograph that section that they were showing, I was edited in! Everyone in the area thought I had the life of lucky man. I had to tell them different.

The programme was okay, not my cup of coffee, but I do have to say that the magician on it, Dynamo, was brilliant.