Sharing The Roijoy

...things to do while practising isolation. There is a local online news outlet named Breaking Belize News that I styled this image after as a spoof posting. The State Of Emergency and it's limitations to free movement means that in spite of being in what looks like paradise, we are not at liberty to go and enjoy it. Instead we are mandated to stay at home, and sometimes I can't help wondering if this is what it's like for some zoo animals. We are allowed to be out for exercise on foot in the mornings and we use this time to walk and run our dogs. As we arrived back at our home, I asked my wife to quickly pose for the image that had finally come together in my mind. Working digitally, I turned my wife's shirt into a robe with a sort of belt and then re-illustrated her head to an alien shape with blue tones. I also recoloured her hand. Next I drew a metal sign attached to the gate with the words 'Endangered Species'. Finally I drew an interactive disp...

This image was created for a motorcycle adventure tour business in Belize. It was used as marketing and awareness imagery on Earth Day 2020.  This was also put together during a national quarantine period so working with models was not an option. Using my bike and myself as a model, I was able to work around the situation. Without a telescope, and unable to travel into space to shoot planetary photos for myself, I made some royalty free image purchases from Shutterstock's online image library. Halos were added and a Belize flag placed onto the image of planet Earth. For the two selfies I took, the camera was set up and locked down on a tripod. I also placed one speedlite at 45º left of the scene, and one speedlite at 25º to the right of the scene. I shot in the shade so that I could achieve good contrast with the lighting for punchy images. Exposures were fired with a remote trigger. I changed jackets between the two shots to help create the illusion of separate...

...things to do while practising isolation. Comments about possible explorations for cures for the Covid19 virus, made by the leader of a large country, got this image taking shape in my head as I went to bed. When I woke up in the morning I knew exactly what I was going to do to bring the image in my mind into fruition. I opened the refrigerator to get some soda cans together to set up the shot. However, as we are currently in a state of emergency, I found we had already finished off all our cans of soda drinks except for one can of San Pellegrino. Not to worry — just need to do a little extra work. Locking the camera down on a tripod allowed me to take eight exposures of the same can, while changing it's position in each exposure to simulate multiple cans positioned next to each other. Once I had all eight shots, I transferred the files to my computer and merged the shots together to get the final cluster of cans that I wanted. Next I made some text changes and slight...

...things to do while practising isolation. I haven't done any tabletop photography for a while. But while I was cleaning one of my model cars last night I thought, "why not do a quick set-up and shot with it?". So I took over the dining table and detached my model F40 Ferrari from it's display stand.  After deciding on the angle I wanted to use, I locked the camera in place on a tripod. Next I set up the lighting to get the mood I wanted for the final image. I knew I wanted the scene to be taking place at night in low lighting conditions, so I set the exposure on my camera to view the ambient light in the scene as almost completely black. Once the settings for this was achieved, I was now at liberty to completely control how the light would work for me using artificial lighting. I worked with 2 speedlites set to low power and also used a small red LED light which I placed inside the model car. To prevent overspill of the light from the speedlites, I used ...

...things to do while practising isolation. First I took a selfie outdoors. The sunlight was quite strong and harsh so since I had chosen to use just one light, I aimed it at the shadow area under the tree to the right. I did this to lighten up the shadow a little so that I wouldn't end up with a large solid black area that might detract from the focus of the composition. I didn't want the area too light either otherwise the leaves wouldn't show up against it. The cross size bears no relation to the subject :) You can see from the original selfie, I had also raked up most of the leaves from the grass so that I could use them to complete the final image. I had collected all the leaves I raked up into a garden basket. It was fairly windy and the direction of the wind would dictate the direction the leaves would be travelling in the final image. Using the self timer on the camera, I gathered up an armful of leaves and then tossed them across the area where I wante...

... things to do while practising isolation. Because of the quarantine restrictions I have no-one to spar with during my boxing sessions. During a normal session, sometimes the dogs come and play along with us while we are training. Especially Jazz who likes to join in when we are trading punches sometimes. So I had this idea for an image. As most of these are, it's another selfie. I got Jazz to stand on his hind legs and then helped him to position his paws the way I wanted them. Once I had that shot, I was able to look at it so that I could position myself to compliment the position and pose that Jazz was in. The exposures were all made with a remote trigger so that I didn't need to move out of the correct position once I had found it. It was a little tricky operating the trigger with boxing gloves but I managed to find a way of holding and operating it that worked out. In the frame that I finally chose, Pepper was fortunately also in the right posit...

... things to do while practising isolation My wife had just baked some banana bread and it was cooling in the kitchen as the late evening sunlight streamed through the window. The light reminded me of an Indiana Jones type of scene. The main background shot which, I will likely be also making available as a stock image through some of the online collections I subscribe to, is shot using a tripod at just a little above eye level. Focus and exposure has also been set and locked down. To get the strong contrasting light, I spot metered the light to get the exposure I wanted. This is another selfie and to achieve the body position I needed, I hung from a ladder set up in the living room. There is a single speedlight positioned to the right of the camera and the exposure was made using the self timer on the camera. I made a cut-out of myself and comped it into the main image, adjusting the tone and shading as needed, then I painted in the reflections and shadow below me and on the s...