Day 31??? Survivors Contest

Ok so we had a 30 day challenge survivors contest which I happened to do quite well in!

Day 30 - Yippee - All Finished

Thought I'd finish with a shot of all the kids, since they responded so well to all the threats encouragement to be my models

Congrats to everyone else who completed the full 30 days and to everyone who tried, and to everyone who nearly made it!

Day 29 The girls

Taken on a walk in a local woods. Can't believe it's day 29 already!

Day 28 Weekend Bear (&Kate)

Weekend bear is a teddy that is taken home each weekend from school by a different child. You have to write a diary about what you did together (and maybe add photos)

Day 27 Bendy

Chillin' and playin' about again!

 

These shots don't exactly work on a black background! You need to see them on Worth to appreciate them :D

Day 26 Is There Anybody Out There?

Funning around

Day 25 Dad

Was just showing the soft shadow 'halo' that a ringflash can create, to my dad, so not much thought in this shot! It's late and my models are all in bed - pffft...these kids are just not dedicated, y'know. I might have to buy some more :D (Blogger could really do with some sarcasm tags)

Day 24 DEATH

Todays subject is the anthropomorphic personification himself - DEATH. Click the link if you have no idea what I'm talking about. I must warn you though - be careful what you say in the comments as DEATH is indeed a worthian!

Wow! I was just googling to find out which book this is from (I think it may be Mort) and found that this figure (an original Clarecraft figure) is going for about £120 on ebay!. Mine is definitely not in mint condition - his scythe has been glued numerous times - and besides I'd never sell him

Day 23 Header

Drafted in Dan's mate Max to help today. Action shot of him heading a ball!

Day 22 Bubbles

Lucy and her new fringe blowing bubbles! I just love the colours & patterns that my ring flash made on those bubbles. The hair-light hadn't recharged for this shot hence the lack of separation, but I like it anyway

Day 21 The Thinker

Dan is back and is wondering what all these wooden things are (only kidding, Dan)

Day 20

P-p-p-p-p-p-p-pokerface

 I had an alternative shot which I quite liked too, so here that one is

Day 19 Crazy Daisy (well, Hannah)

I've got these kids trained so well now that I just say "who's going to be my model today?" and one of them runs of and gets dressed up

Day 18

Engrossed in the television - a far too common activity amongst the kids nowadays, except this was flash lit :D

Day 17

Hurrah back to properly lit and shot photos (right?)

So here's my story for the last few days. My family and I went camping (with a bit if mountain biking thrown in) and I thought I'd be able to get a wifi hotspot somewhere nearby. Of course, I couldn't. My sister( who was with us) has an iphone and I'd taken my laptop but could we get photos from the laptop to the iphone? Could we heck! (Bloody Apple!) So I had to take some snaps on her iphone and email them to my blog just to keep me in the challenge, hence the limited text for the last few days. I have only my fat fingers to blame for that. So sorry for the lack of service and hopefully somewhere close to normal service should have been resumed

Grungy feel

Day 16

Another iPhone shot. My fat fingers limits my comments, unfortunately. Normal service will be resumed on tuesd

Day 15

Day 14

Camping with limited web access so sorry for the crappy iPhone shot

Day 13 Bubbly

Pretty in pink bubblegum

Day 12 Still in Summer

Ok, so I liked yesterday's look so tried it out on my nephew again. Not quite as summery but I think the subject makes a difference - Lucy looked chilled in yesterday's shot

Day 11 In the summertime...

From winter to summer in the space of a day!

Just incase anyone is curious about the lighting. It was a flash behind Lucy with a yellow gel over it and a softbox camera left. Very little tweaking was necessary in PS. I had to remove some yellow highlight reflections that had bounced off the window behind me and were then re-reflected in her sunglasses! Jeez, the things you have to watch out for!! :D

Day 10 Chilly

Brrrr! Does exactly what it says on the tin

Day 9 Brolly Dolly

I'm singin' in the rain... or rather shootin' in the rain...or rather shootin' in the pretend rain

Day 8 Holly

This is my shy niece Holly the dolly

Day 7 Hannah

Ok, this is the last of my kids, although no doubt you'll be seeing them all again before the month is up.

Day 6 Kate

Here we have another morp offspring (don't worry, I haven't got 30 of them). This is the Kate that goes to space in a rocketship :)

Day 5 - Dad

Here is my dad, who is a 70 yr old 2nd Dan at Ju-jitsu and also happens to be a Worthian. Oh and he's and all-round fantastic dad too ;)

Day 4 - Lucy

Afraid it was another quick one tonight - lack of time!. My own critique is that the 'hidden' eye is too dark and her hair wasn't styled or anything (she wouldn't go and wash it for me - tsk...kids today eh?)

This 30dc is gonna be harder than it sounded, but that's probably what I need :D

Day 3 - Self Portrait

Ok, a slight miscalculation here. I'm the only one at home at the moment - Mrs T is at work and the kids are at various places, so I never intended to do a self portrait so early in the 30dc. I don't like self portraits as it doesn't feel like you are taking the shot and there's a lot of shootin' n adjustin' n reshootin involved, so as a result I only took about 20 shots to get this one

PS I'm down to just 2 lights at the moment after my SB600 packed up. I've found and ordered the inductor it needs (it's a common fault when they get a slight bang - or rather a poor design) so will have to make do for now

Day 2 - My nephew

My little nephew doesn't stay still for long, so just used an off camera flash bounced off the front of the dishwasher - nice, simple and resulting in a lovely soft light

In response to Atlantis's query yesterday, here is my homemade ringflash
It's basically a chocolate tin, with the centre cut out. The centre tube is one of those cd cases from a stack of cdrs. Cover that with foil and put some white cloth over the front. I made a little bracket on the side that my flash straps to. Note that this isn't an on-camera flash ringflash ( it makes it more versatile in my opinion)

Day 1 - My son

Portraits & People

Homemade ringflash. Quick shot as my theme has only just materialised :)

Day 30

My Birthday Candles

I've taken the liberty of doing a fun shot that may not fit into the all-techniques category, but what the hell - it is the last day :D

Day 29

Hands

Dragged my girls in again to help with this shot :D

Day 28

High Key

Marbles in diluted toilet cleaner! The things we do for our art, eh? I only tried this as Ddallas said she couldn't catch the marble. Just water was too thin, so I dragged out the trusty toilet cleaner and used that to thicken up the water. It was still pretty quick but I love the trails it left through the liquid

I've just realised that this challenge finishes on my birthday! I'll have to think up something special for that shot :D

Day 27

HD

I thought I'd give this HDR thing a spin. I did it manually (not with HDR software) and just played about with layer modes and stuff to get it to where I thought was pretty natural. There's so much over-HDR'd stuff around. It isn't wow factor I've gone for, but realism.

Nearly there folks! Only a few more days to go!

Day 26

Rule of Thirds

Took me quite a bit of manouvering to get this one to where I thought it was right. Of course you may disagree and I actively encourage you to voice your negative opinions ...on your own blog! :D
Only kidding! Fire away

Day 25

Partial Colour
I took this to mean anything from partial desaturation to muted colours. If I am wrong I'll have to recategorise it as... erm...landscape or something. And don't mention the horizon. It is intentional! :D

Alternate PP
I thought this (pretty much as shot) had more of a summer feel to it, but as it's winter here I went with the above choice

Day 24

Central Composition

I nearly decided to use this for the partial colour shot after rediscovering this lovely piece of slate (it originally came with a cheese and biscuit selection on it), but I liked this shot out of all the ones I took. I know, I know, it's hard to believe but I do sometimes take more than one shot

Day 23

Food

Ok, just a quick one. I sat down to eat my tea (which I'd just made) and Mrs Morp says 'This looks good enough to photograph', so I  jumped up ran out into the garage...studio and quickly shot this. My daughter kindly held the softbox for me (while her tea was going cold). So I give you my Sunday Roast (well, not literally 'cos I've eaten it now and yes, it was even tastier than it looks :D)

P.S. I don't know how SigloV manages to shoot every food item he eats. He has my sympathy!
P.P.S. I know it's a poor job on the background. but I'm in a rush tonight! ;)

Day 22

Facial Expressions

What do you see?

Day 21

Macro

My tactics involve Tic Tacs! (these are the lime & orange version)
Shot using an old reversed 50mm lens (apologies for any dirt on the shot ;D) which is a bugger to focus manually when stopped right down.
I've also noticed that I need to experiment more with borders ;)

Day 20

Converging Parallellerellals...you know what what I mean - train tracks. I have honestly been looking for anything but this cliche but everything is curvy in this part of the world (Don't even go there!), so I had to settle for your bog standard 4' 8.5" gauge track (that's 1435mm for you imperially-challenged folks)

 

In answer to Andromeda's query on the garden table(Day 17) - yes it is straight. As Eury says it's an optical illusion (cough...which I obviously planned into the shot...)

Day 19

Rimlighting

This little orc guy is a  lead figure that I used to paint. Well, obviously I didn't just paint him, probably got a few hundred of them in various states of painting . He is only about 2 inches high and blatantly has a chip on his shoulder...

Day 18

Shallow DoF

This is an old lightmeter that I found lying around. Anyone admit to recognising it? :D

Day 17

On the Diagonal

A wooden garden table is the victim for today's technique

Day 16

Inversion

Funky stuff

Day 15

Underlighting

This little tealight holder has a lovely bobbly texture and I thought it'd look good underlit.

Day 14

Square Frame

This square candle was just asking for it. I could see it sat there, flickering away at me, trying to grab my attention. So I got up and shot it.