People mass and weird photography outing signal

I don't usually blog about my dreams here, but here's one scenario which has strong relations to my photography passion.

I saw many people in this setting as if we were all going to some national parks, however, the sky is purple in colour and trees are white, as if all of us are under the filter effect of IR photography.

The signal that was sent out were something unusual - seemingly out of this world but it sure resembled some audibles of morse code.

All these seemed short but they certainly are so vivid in my mind.

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On location - the preparation

There will be another location shoot today, after the maximum heat of the sun has faded off later in the afternoon.

Right now, some preparation works as I need to have a sequenced flow how the shots are to be done later.

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On location: Tampines Eco Green

Today's the first off-cam flash outdoor shoot with my exclusive model, Serene.  I'm minusing the 'personal salutation' (if that's a right decision) as I want to keep this journal professional.

Our location: the new eco park in Tampines where it's about 10mins' walk from town centre.  The nearest parking amenity was just across the road, so that didn't make accessibility an issue, as we have to make the best of shots while Serene's fresh.

We finally found our spot after the Forest Trial.  Wind is still a little challenge, so since I haven't made my sandbags yet, a plank of wood does the trick fine so as to keep that light stand in place.

Applying what I learnt in Zack's tutorial, flash will be set to manual; including the settings on my camera - the usual manual mode.

A couple of test shot were done before we started the actual shoot.

Everything looks great so far; just some tweaking on the flash / apeture / shutter speed while applying the Inverse Square Law.  Not forgetting, more guidance to Serene on posing is needed too.

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Location shoot: Sengkang Riverside Park

Ok, finally we have a chance to do an outdoor studio shot.

With the wind still being a challenge, we managed to do some shots under shelter and at the floating platform.  What a cooling evening.  Although not all shots are perfect, I had managed to get the hang of it while taking at different angles, with a variety of lighting styles.  However, battery had complete depleted just in time as I experimented a few self-shot lighting shots...oh well, have to review the photos another day.

The next best option is to do indoors; all I need is just a little more space and a shorter ranged lens.

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Pixel Knight T-331

Ok, I've finally acquired my first wireless flash trigger since I started this strobist journey.

I got it at a good deal of $199 from Alan Photo.  Seems like smaller shops like Reddotphoto, Artboxfoto and even sgcamerastore charges at a higher rate.

What's left is to test this shutter and see how effective it is.  With a range of 65m, that's pretty sufficient as it has the superiority of HSS over many other wireless triggers.

If all else is good and I've mastered the strobist's way, more of this will come in useful.

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Getting those as second nature

I had a 2nd watch on Zack's tutorial to get those technical knowledge into my subconscious.  While it may already be late, absorption rate is still at maximum.

It's really important to have those knowledge as 2nd nature, as they will play an important role when I turn professional.

I recall how much I relied on PS when I was still in the early stages of my dSLR - the 'resurrected' shutter journey.  No doubt it helps to make photos more impressive, it's not the core skills in photography.  This processed, more known as PP, is now something I'm taking a hard step away from as the technical skills of getting good shots right off the camera is crucial.

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Indoor Flashplay - the prelude

Come this Saturday will be the first indoor studio shot at Nicole's abode, thanking her in advance for inviting us to her place.

What we currently lack is the wireless radio trigger, in case we need the flash's sensor to be out of the camera's line-of-sight.  Equipments?  We have 2 flashes, 2 umbrellas and 3 cameras if Madeline's bringing her own.  Our objective this round is to get the fundamentals correct, and as much as we can get perfect shots directly off our cameras.

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Equipments, equipments

There are so many equipments of choice in the market.

Since I'm into studio photography, good equipments are to be used. B&H Video is one good site that Zack had recommended in his tutorial. For example, Westcott softboxes, Pocketwizard Plus II and Alienbee strobe flash are some of the common things that are used. By far, I only have one studio umbrella, so still, a considerable amount of inventory to gather.

It's a common slang for the photographer to call this the BBB Syndrome, where a surge in massive purchases have been considered for our, described as expensive, interest.
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Enrichment of knowledge

I had not touched my D300S for sometime; not because I have lost any weeny bit of interest in my passion.

Extensive reading has been done on books, watching tutorials by Zack Arias and Bryan Peterson. What I need now is the absolute practice to apply those I have learnt.

Had just read an article on Zack's blog, which had gave a quick runthrough of 10 tips of how one can be a professional photographer; those can be applied in steps but not required to be in order. Of all the tutorials I've watched, I found Zack's to be most interesting from his narrative approach. And yes, he has Twitter too!
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