8/52 - Merry Christmas!

Christmas Decorations 

I know I have published a photograph of this figurine before but decided to use it as a subject for this weeks shot anyway. The figurine and the presents are decorations for the Christmas tree.

Read on for setup shots and lighting info.

Setup shot for Christmas decorations

I fired a Canon 430 EX II zoomed to 24mm into a reflective umbrella at 1/64 and gelled with a 1/2 CTO gel from high Camera right. To light up the other side of the figurine I used a white foam-core board to bounce the light back. The Bokeh was created by a wreath and christmas baubles.

7/52 - Christmas Candle

A Christmas Candle 

This is a quick shot of a candle that my wife has decorated with Holly and placed on our dining table for Christmas. I was out of ideas and had to come up with an image for today and this is the result.

Read on for lighting info and setup shots.

Lighting Setup - Christmas Candle

This was a straightforward two flash setup. The first flash was zoomed to 70mm and fired at 1/64 through a 1/2 CTO gel into a white foam-core board. the light bounced off the board to light up the candle and the foreground.

The second flash was zoomed to 105mm and fired at 1/64 through a 1/2 CTO gel to light up the Baubles which I used to create Bokeh.

I used a glass below the candle to create a reflection.

Sorry if there isn;t a lot of detail in this post. It's late and I'm off to bed. Will try and make the next one a bit longer!

6/52 - Bauble

A Bauble for the Christmas tree

It seems to be getting harder to come up with ideas for this project.... and I am only 6 weeks in! If any of you have any suggestions as to where to look for inspiration, please let me know via the comments.

The Christmas decorations have now gone up at home. This is one of the Baubles from the Christmas tree.

For those of you who are interested in lighting information and setup shots, please read on.

Lighting setup for the "Baubles" image

This was a pretty straightforward shot in terms of lighting. A single Canon 430 EX II was used to light the whole image. It was fired at 1/64 and 70mm. A 1/2 CTO gel was used to warm the light up a bit. I fired the flash from camera left, just behind the subject. The light coming in from behind helped define the Bauble. The light was then reflected off two foam-core boards placed on the right and front-left of the subject. The camera was positioned between the two foam-core boards. If you look closely at the image, the two boards are visible.

I placed a piece of glass under the baubles to create a reflection.

The bokeh was created using a small pile of Baubles and a wreath (which I used for bokeh in this shot).

5/52 - Christmas Decorations

Christmas Decorations 

Shops and department stores have been decorated for Christmas since early November which is ridiculous. Since December has arrived I don't feel too bad to upload the first Christmas pictures of the year. This shot is of one of the ornaments which will end op on our Christmas tree, whenever we get around to putting one up. I introduced a bit of  "home made bokeh" to add a bit of colour to the image.

For those of you interested in the lighting info and a setup shot, read on.

Setup Shot - Christmas Decorations

The lighting for this one was not too complicated. I used two flashes to produce the final image. The first was a Canon 430 EX II fired at 1/16th from high camera right. The light from this flash was warmed up a little with a 1/2 CTO gel. The beam was fired over the subject and bounced back onto it using a white foam-core board. The board was placed just out of frame on the left of the camera.  The subject was lit only with the light reflected off the board. I could have fired the flash directly at the subject but the ornament would not have been evenly lit. I could have also used a shoot through umbrella from the left of the camera to achieve a similar result.

I used a wreath to create the bokeh in the background of the shot.  I fired a snooted (home made snoot) Canon 430 EX II at 1/8th at the wreath which was placed behind the subject. A green gel was used on this flash to add a bit of colour to the final image.

Christmas in Colombo

We had a blast over Christmas as we spent a month over December and January in Colombo with family and friends. It was also a hell of a lot busier than Sydney was the year before! I captured around 70GB of images (most of them were shots of birds) while I was away and have lots of material for more animal and bird posts. However with this post I thought I'd share something a bit different for a change. More Christmas images after the jump.

There aren't too many shots of the food......... probably because I was eating! Here's a shot of some Brandy Butter which I managed to capture.

 

and the Christmas Pudding being lit.