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Sunday, August 17, 2008

jenna sexxay


jenna sexxay
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea
Jenna is a singer and we're trying to work out what's a good look for her. Very early stages of image development. While there's no doubt she's not too shabby in the looks department, she's not afraid of being a little goofy too. A great combination. Many hot chicks are too self conscious to act a little silly. But it's something you can't fake.
Sunpak thru an umbrella above and to camera right, and another sunpak thru an umbrella on the floor at a quarter power triggered with pocket wizards.

jenna cute


jenna cute
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea
Sunpak thru an umbrella above and to camera right, and another sunpak thru an umbrella on the floor at a quarter power triggered with pocket wizards.
Pocket wizards; fire first time, every time. It is really hard getting a natural cheeky look without it appearing contrived and fake, even when the subject is naturally cheeky. Psychology and great subject interaction is way more important than any lighting technique.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

light painting


light 1
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea
Thought I'd head off on a tangent here and try some light painting. I got a little torch and put some coloured gels over it, turned out all the lights, got the group to stand totally still for a couple of minutes and then I went ahead and drew all over their faces with the torch. When I was done with that I went behind them and did some random patterns.

Composite


Composite
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea
I had a compilation album to do and it involved about six bands, and I didn't want to do the same old bandy type posed shots. So I took headshots of everyone, and for each band got an unusual facial feature from every member and used it as a composite. For the front cover I used a blend of everyone's face. (top left image) It's amazing how attractive the average of all the faces looks compared to the composites.
Mother nature did a pretty good job before I starting messing it up.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Natasha


Natasha
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea
Am I starting to feel old? I was touring the world with bands when I was 19 years of age. But when I start doing shoots with people who are smart, talented and only 13 years old, I often wonder what the hell I've been doing with my life. For this shot I used a 45mm tilt shift lens on my 5D.

Brian


Brian
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea
This is an out take from a Sydney band I did a shoot for recently. I thought the light was nice. It's actually getting pretty close to a more painterly style of lighting I've been trying to achieve. Sunpak through an Ezybox triggered by Pocket Wizards.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

zygotic portraits


zygotic portraits
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea
These guys were cool with me doing some experiments, so I set up a Sunpak through an umbrella, then lit the background with a tungsten light. The shutter speed was about a quarter second to bring up the background. A side benefit of the long shutter speed was a nice black halo around the guys where I moved the camera a little during the exposure.

zygotic group shot


zygotic group shot
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea
Did a shoot for a band called Zygotic yesterday. They're all like 14 and 15 years old, and really good. Kids these days eh? You don't wanna know what I was busy doing every day when I was 14 years old, but it certainly wasn't anything cool.
Really simple lighting on this shot. A single bare Sunpak above and to the right of the camera, and another Sunpak shot into a reflector on the ground in front of them.Some of the light from the top strobe spilled onto the background creating a subtle aura. Maybe too subtle.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Zero Degrees


Zero Degrees
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea
This carpark was interesting because just about every lightbulb was a different type, from low wattage flourescent to very warm incandescent. The blue area at the back is outside and very overcast. CTO gelled flash above the guys. Pretty much straight out of the camera except for the white balance.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

marc collis


marc collis
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea
I tried using parts of Marc's body as compositional tools to frame his face. I put up a single flash in a brolly above the camera and lit the background with a tungsten light. A slightly longer shutter speed combined with slight movement gave Marc a subtle black outline.
The vignette was in the shot.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Rhythm Hounds


Rhythm Hounds
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea
Local hiphop act Rhythm Hounds are being signed to a new label and needed 3 or 4 different looks for various magazines and promos.
Here's a tip; make sure the client brings a few changes of clothes to the shoot if you wanna get some variety. Having the client put in some effort with the way they're presented takes it up a notch and makes the photographer look good too. I don't think the guys knew they were coming in for a photo shoot, so I was behind the eight ball from the start.

2 Sunpak 383 Supers rear left and right with a bare Canon 430EZ above and to the right of camera. Triggered with Pocket Wizards.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Learning from other photographers

The online photography community is very generous when it comes to the sharing of information. A new blog by Brett Gillett is showcasing some talented artists in his blogger profiles at his new photoblog.
Check it out and get yerself some learnin'!

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Hitman


Hitman
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea
Another shot from the Modern Legion shoot last month. Me and my buddy Rom headed to the Melbourne Uni carpark where a few scenes from the original Mad Max was filmed early one Sunday morning, then headed to a car show which featured some brilliant american cars from last century, and then put it all together. I know it's not perfect, but we learned a lot and we intend doing a few more of these "scenario" type shots in the future. As long as we can find bands which are as accommodating as these guys were!
I'm the two guys on the ground back there.
This is a composite, but we used two sunpaks triggered with Pocket wizards for the main subjects.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Original modern legion shot


Original modern legion
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea
There have been a few people keen to see the original version of one of my shots recently featured on strobist.com
As I mentioned on that very informative site, the shot was nearly there straight out of the camera, and I just tweaked it a little in Photoshop. The process I used is well documented on strobist.com so I won't bore you by repeating it here.

It's taken me a while to figure out that a shot will never work without properly thought out lighting. My Photoshop skills aren't good enough to rescue a badly lit shot, so I just try to get it right at the shoot.
Thanks for the interest!

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Angela and Elvis



Angela and Elvis
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea
Angela wanted to try a Chris Isaak/Elvis look, so I got a single Sunpak 383 and bounced it off an A3 sized piece of paper taped to the side wall.
I wanted it to look like a still from a Noir style film.

Angela with a white background

Part of the same session. A single Sunpak 383 up high on a stand with a translucent plastic bag tied around it. Another sunpak on the floor bounced off an A3 sized piece of paper directly in front of her, just to provide a subtle fill. I'm getting a little frustrated with the recycle time on these little strobes since I have to shoot at full power most of the time. Time to move up when I get some bucks happening.

Angela and the black background.

Angela was very patient while I fooled around for a couple of hours trying different lighting and looks. I've been in awe of Dan Winter's portraits for a while now, and I was determined to get close. Unfortunately I failed dismally, but I managed to stumble across a few other ideas in the process. It seems that the quality of light is totally different when I just used the feathered edge of the light as opposed to focusing it straight at the subject. Pointing the flash straight up, and just illuminating Angela with the falloff. A ringflash would have got me part way to the effect I was looking for, but the kids will complain if I put them on yet another diet so I can afford to buy more photo stuff.

Monday, March 31, 2008

Modern Legion chillin' in the alley

2 bare Sunpak 383's as backlights, and another Sunpak through an umbrella high above the camera. We only had half an hour but we managed to get 5 or 6 really good shots. This one has been worked on quite a bit. This is Niagara Lane in the city about 6:30 at night, and the light was quickly disappearing. Melbourne has some pretty good alleys.

Modern Legion, white background

A different look for Modern Legion. A little less serious and a bit more pop. 2 Sunpak 383's backlighting and another one shot through an umbrella up front. Triggered by pocket wizards.

modern legion


modern legion
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea
I did a shoot last week with my buddy Rom, and we went for 5 different looks. We covered alot of ground over the course of four or five hours. This is a composite with a single Sunpak through an umbrella high above, and another sunpak on the ground in front bounced into a silver reflector.

Friday, March 14, 2008

wine glass


wine glass
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea
How hard can it be to light a wine glass? Plenty hard. You don't so much light the glass itself, but rather, the things that are reflecting off the glass. Not much light was directed at the wine glass, but I spent a fair bit of time trying to make the reflections less complicated. Having text on the glass added another level of complexity. I had a softbox behind the glass and two thin strips of white card either side. No front lighting at all. That tended to make the writing invisible.

Monday, February 11, 2008

jump composite breakdown


jump composite breakdown
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea
I did this shot last year, and I'm often asked how these guys were able to jump so high. This is actually a composite of 3 different shots, and some messing around in Photoshop.
I work up there in that room top right. I had the shots downloaded and the final comp finished by the time the guys got upstairs thanks to a little pre-planning.
Shadows are always the dealbreaker with composites.
I couldn't do this on a sunny day as the light would have moved too much. The lighting had to be very simple so I didn't make life difficult for myself later on.
Click on the image for a blow by blow breakdown of the shoot...

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Katie in the Studio


Katie in the Studio
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea
Part of a shoot where we tried to get a few different looks for singer Katie Weston. As usual, a couple of trusty Sunpak 383's triggered by Pocket Wizards. There was quite a bit of Photoshop work with this shot, but I never make public the "pre-Photoshop" photos. Unless of course, I find one of my photos being used uncredited somewhere. Somewhere like, shall we say, MySpace? Hmmm?

Katie and a Sunset


Katie and a Sunset
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea
After the studio shots, we headed down to the Docklands here in Melbourne to get some sunset type shots for a different look. A sunpak behind Katie and to the left gave some backlighting, and a Sunpak camera right through a brolly lit the front.

Katie with a tilt-shift


Katie with a tilt-shift
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea
I've recently acquired a 45mm tilt-shift lens and I've used it on every shoot since. Maybe over used. But I LOVE it!
Part of a shoot with singer Katie Weston.

TBWKTM


TBWKTM
Originally uploaded by brendan.oshea
Part of a 3 hour session with Melbourne band "The Band Who Knew Too Much". After some more formal band shots, we headed down to a local gym for some ring shots. If you want a client to loosen up and give you great expressions, you need to be prepared to be a little goofy yourself. Single Sunpak triggered by Pocket Wizard. The most important consideration with shooting groups is making sure everyone's face is lit, and lit evenly. When there is alot of movement that can be tough