Long Weekend in Scotland!

A week in BeiJing!

Picnic Again with Joe&Laura

Joe will move to Nottingham from this Sep for the photography master degree. I know i will miss him--a close friend known each other for 8yrs! We came to Roundhay Park for a picnic.

1/1250s @ f4

I am not carrying my pro-gears for leisure anymore as I had purchased a Canon G11. £400- not cheap for a compact camera, but comes with hotshoe, which gives the creativity to infinite.

1/1250s @f4.5

The beauty of the G11 is: sync all the way up to 1/2000s without considering the length of the flash pulse. Well, flash duration is another issue but its far better than Canon 1d or 5d series, syncs only 1/200-1/250s (sucks)..........................Check this out! 1/400s f4 vs. 1/2000 f4

Hyper Sync Picnic!!

Neither me or Jenny ever believed we could continually enjoy the sunshine for more than 2 days in this country. Well, it happens... so I & Jenny left for a picnic. It's 2pm and my 580exii apparently can not beat the sun----------without PW tt5. Check the results, yes just bare flash (I wish I carry softbox with me).

If my memory serves, last time I took a photo with Jenny was mths ago. Why does this happens all the time to nearly every single photographer? I believe the answer is: we are all too confident and never trust others can do our job....(just kidding)

In this photo: the ground was my lightstand, the bag was my tripod.

After we slept on the grass for 3hrs, we decided to go for a Ice Tea in Chinatown and we met our close friend lee and his wife. (Lee is also a photographer and we learn from each other all the time---I love it). He was quite Jealous about my tt5 and of course I will make him think it worths the money.

Last shot for Jenny!

ShangWei is engaged!

I knew Shangwei when we were in Collage back to 2002. He is just my age but already own a small supermarket and Chinese medicine clinic--I am happy for his effort. Now he is engaged--I am even happier.

We chose a sunshine day for some outdoor photos:

Then we move to in door for some funky style:

Dancesport Award @ Leeds Marriott Hotel

Sheila was the organiser of the Dancesport Ball for this year. She chose the Leeds Marriott Hotel as the venue and would like me to do the photographs. The ball was for End-of-Year Dancesport Awards and I knew everyone would dress smart, so I was planning to capture a celebrity look for the attendances.

I arrived around 30mins before it started and took few quick shots on location then was rush to setup my lighting platform.

Sheila then arrived after 10mins with her friend Amie and became my models for lighting tests though they had no idea this was for testing only. I wanted all my lights have as little interfere on the background as possible: Bowens 500ws with 20degree Honeycomb, 2x580exii snoot on both sides.

Well, it worked! So I can shoot like this all day for 1-2 ppl.

For larger group shot, all I need to be careful were: 1.each light should "see" all faces from their angles 2.the inverse square law--means just move backwards and dial power up. Flashgun in the frame? no problem! Don't they look like celebrities?

Well, all stories should have happy ending. I used safety setup--bounce roof to create even light on each faces and fill eyes with 2x580exii through umbrellas at 45degree on each sides.