Little Swallows -Hamilton nsw -australia

Angelo commissioned me to photograph his last official night as owner of the Little Swallows Restaurant in Hamilton NSW AUSTRALIA. Ive been going there for 20 years. I believe it was been running over near the Junction prior to that for another 15 years with Angelo's dad ( now deceased) being to big boss.

Angelo below

I have many memeories of Angelo sitting there with the older Italian customers barking at him to get them another coffee...he was the boy then ,it was good to see.





They (mostly) have very friendly and attractive staff and the food was always good value.

I always enjoyed to food.The squid with garlic, spaghetti marinara and veal lusco....fantastic

Its still running I believe the guys from the "COLD ROCK" purchased it.

These images were shot on a D300 with a 17-50 2.8 lens. ISO 400 with bounced SB600 flash on camera.

They look really good converted to BW but BW shots for the food....just don't work here.I can still smell the garlic.Thanks to Ange and his fantastic staff for all the fine meals and GREAT COFFEE!!!

Corporate Indoor and Outdoor Shoot

I did a shoot the other day for Andrew, a corporate client who works in alt. health and life industry.I didn't post his site because I checked and he hasn't posted the images yet, my ego wont let me be blamed for the ones hes currently using. (I'm smiling)
The idea was to produce some clean images that can not only be used on a website but also brochures.Following my advice Andrew agreed to having Jo Nelson do his hair and keep an eye on the shine that may be present under the lights.

In the studio (www.ricwoods.com) when shooting men that don't have a full head of hair I do not use a hair light.
I generally use a large soft box in clos, if the guys have deep character lines, and a white reflector.It gives some contrast to the shot but has good detail for print and web. Remember you cant EASILY put detail in later and having black holes in print is not the go.

We tried various outfits but Andrew and myself were pleased with the white shirt on the white background.The correct exposure ( I know I mention this often) is important so that I keep a clean defined edge with the white on white.These studio images are shot with a Nikon D300 and a 24-70 2.8 lens ( which I use often)

These images will easily lend themselves to being dropped onto another colour background or natural image like clouds etc for his brochures.
We went outside as Andrew wanted to have a natural shot with his car to show the distinctive number plate. That is my hair and makeup artist on the reflector trying not to sail away...Jo is little and light. You can see the reflection in the subjects face of the Styrofoam reflector which creates a pleasing fill light. I was lucky to be using this as a big gust of wind came and as I grabbed the reflector the wind snapped a bit out of the side and Andrew was swatted with it (I'm pleased he didn't sue). This Styrofoam is not real good for the enviroment but great for photographers. You can get several grades and the cheapest is not the way to go, as soon as you touch it, it turns into bean bag filling. You can buy the stuff from Insulation Industries, tell them I sent you over to buy the damaged or dirty interior suspended ceiling tiles. You can gaff tape them into a folding book, they are much better in wind than those expensive folding photography types. I also use blocks of the stuff for kids to sit on and for product photography.

I am able to use the many places near my Carrington Studio to the best advantage for shoots. We have waterways, the harbour, industrial backdrops including sheds, boats ,trains, waterways, boat ramps, marina, bridges, parks and sports ovals and a walkway through the mangroves....a top place. I sound like a real estate agent.

This image was shot with an 85 1.4 portrait lens.This is a fantastic lens, especially when you want to isolate your subject in a crowd, or drop the background, in low light its a dream.It has creamy tones like European glass. I believe I was using an aperture of f2 for this with a circular polariser.This reduces the reflections on the front window. Circular polarisers only work for best effect if your 90 degrees to the sun, we were lucky in this case it was just about right.One disadvantage Ive noticed with the polariser is that you can get a blue halo on some edges due to the colour spectrum shift. I'm not a scientist so I don't know all the correct lingo, but I do know a bit about light and i do see it. Adobe bridge can pull some of it out but not completely.

On a personal note Andrew was real pleased with our work and we had lots of good laughs during the shoot talking about motorcycles and what we got up to. That was in my previous life, the image below was 22 years and 5 driving licences ago...

the next images was was 3 years ago....the camera was always around... I don't need to own a motorcycle, my old boss lets me borrow them...a real cool guy.

I really enjoy working with people and finding out about them .....I love this job......

Male Portrait

When we photographed Josh's portfolio we decided to create a little drama in the image.He was sporting a sport injury and his left shoulder was strapped with sticking plaster and we had to hide it.He is lit by a small (60x60cm) softbox camera left and a gridded spot camera right and from behind him,camera right is a spot that is bounced of a small reflector just "breathing" some light into the image.

If this was a magazine image we would photoshop the folds in his skin on his neck as the diagonal lines carry you down and away from his eyes. That is a compositional decision, I tend to want to portray people more natural way using light and camera angle/lens to flatter them.

Many of the images I see and many I produce there is a request to manipulate, I'm cool with that and the paying customer is the boss.

Sometimes it's like eating too much fast food...I just CRAVE some good honest cooking like a BBQ and salad !!.

I shoot BW film for my figurative exhibition images ( 18 years plus disclaimer) and although that in itself is a manipulation by means of the colour, what is in the frame stays in the frame. I have a wet darkroom to print this work at the New Carrington Studio and with the workload at the moment its still not fully operational (sigh).

Im looking forward to printing some negatives that Ive not done yet. I would also like to run some small group classes in the studio and darkroom if there is enough interest....its all on the "to do"list. Today, I', going to post some new portrait images on my commercial website www.ricwoods.com

Portfolios,Make-up, Lights and Photoshop

We often get asked about lighting, light shapers,make-up and post production.We find that there are no set rules, just a few guidelines. There are few things that I like to do.......

We are appreciated by our graphic designers as we strive to produce the best exposures/negatives/digital negatives and lighting ratios "in camera".

If our images are being handled in post production outside our studio by a marketing company ( eg we shoot for little green frog marketing) or graphic artist which is often the case then image treatments will differ. Our images may be posted to web, print and/or newspaper print, television commercials or billboards or all of the above, then there is different treatment for each use. For example web uses sRGB colour and our printed brochures are in CMYK.I shoot everything on RAW and Adobe RGB and convert to sRGB as necessary. I know that there are times when I could bang out jpegs but I don't want to risk having a hero shot that could have been so much better in RAW.

I find a sense of pride when we able to consistently hand over image and see the smile as our graphic artist don't have to do work with images where the photographer has the "oh they'll fix it in photoshop later" attitude.

There is no substitute for good hair and make-up. Kiera (above) asked us to shoot a portfolio for her to give her partner as a gift.I took an image at our interview ( left ) using a softbox, its a good way to plan the shoot if I have an image of the person. Its good to know if the person is blonde, brunette,what body shape, if they wear glasses.

This all this helps with lighting ,backdrops etc.It's not always possible to meet first but its a luxury I like.The client also feels more comfortable.The image of kiera and the right is shot with a beauty dish after hair and makeup.Ive not photoshoped Kiera's skin in this image, its all lighting and subtle makeup. The most difficult images to shoot are the orange spray tan subjects....getting the colour balance correct I find a challenge.

Strobe shot through the ladder I believe creates a more 3D look to this scene.

Ebony (above) was shot with a gridded beauty dish. I really like this light, I can control the fall off to get the treatment I want.If positioned correctly I can get a highlight on the gelled background which can produce a subtle vignette.I adjust this highlight by bringing the key light ( the gridded beauty dish ) closer to the subject.The inverse square law of light ( doubling the distance from the light source to the subject= a reduction of 75% of the light) is a helpful when lighting subjects in the studio. Move the light closer to the subject and reducing the exposure and the falloff is very dramatic in short distances. By the way I light the background first before introducing my key source.

The image of Ebony above is shot with barndoor strobes lighting the seamless paper backdrop and the key light was a large softbox and white reflector.

The image from Sarahanne's portfolio shoot is lit from below by a small softbox and above from a larger softbox.I find this this lighting can make your subject look a little spooky if the light balance is off.Its unnatural for the light to be coming from below so care needs to be taken,I move the light forward towards the camera and feather it, this eliminates a shadow on the bridge of the nose.I wanted the focus to be on the eyes and although I used a softbox above,I dialed it right down sometimes less is more.Ive lost some hair detail in this low res jpeg that is evident in my finished tiff files.By the way I've been told that tiff files are the most robust of files,even more so than psd files,Can anyone verify that for me?

This image shows and increase in the hair light and a different position of her head,more detail in the hair and a little more light on the background,there is more information in this shot ,personally,I like the mood of the first shot.Its subjective,what do you think?

More images at my website www.ricwoods.com

Temple Gold Carpet Hair & Fashion Show 2009

We shot the VIPs
Christie & Garth Belic, the owners of Temple Hairdressing...
Our staff....
Their Staff... (see all the proofs in the "news" section at www.ricwoods.com )


The back stage stuff...

The waiting and staying FRESH.....

We shot the Hair...

We shot the Clothes............

We shot the Dancers and the Venue

...and we shot ourselves...........

.....We nailed it...Jamie covering the catwalk and venue and Maree taking over the seamless shots after I crashed slipping on a tray of dropped glass that wasn't cleared properly*

*(THANKS PANTHERS NOT!! Sub Lax ed right shoulder joint ,yes my camera arm. Ive just had my 3rd doctors visit , my second phsyio visit, and I'm booked in for an Xray,Ultra Sound and an MRI if I need one....not impressed with the lack of staff to cope with the crowds....I know another club a bit "WEST" that would love this GIG, and it has a new hotel, shape up or go broke)

Gift Voucher...she owned us for 2 hours

One of my clients gave her friend a gift voucher for her birthday and her friend said it was the best thing that they have done in ages.We set up several different lighting situations to create different looks.
Below Im using a gridded Beauty dish and a gridded spot to get seperation for the dark hair.The beauty dish is one of my favourites especially if the client has good skin.Jo Nelson our hair and make up artist is a magician with her craft.
Here in the images below you can see how I light with a 80x120cm softbox to get fantastic smooth transition from the highlights to the almost non existent shadows.I sit the subject behind the softbox and feather the light using the bounce from the inside of the box..I have a stylofoan sheet reflector camera right. I'm shooting a D300 Nikon using a pocket wizard to fire the 3 lights.I am using a black paper background.Paper backgrounds are fantastic, once you use them you wont want to use anything else.I CRINGE with those mottled green thundercloud bedspreads you see some people standing in front of.....We used a brown one for a while it was good with the skin tones but most clothing looked wrong against it.....personal choice.

There is a flurry of activity at times around the subject, her you can see maree almost losing it ...Why? I just tripped over a light stand !!As I always say sandbags are essential, especially around me !!

Here is a series on the white seamless.The shot far left is straight out of the camera.Maree is helping our Marilyn/Stefani look a like with the aid of the wind machine. The subject is wearing 3 meters of Spotlights finest red and several bull dog clips to keep it in place.The white background is a favourite of ours, the images pop.The image on the far right demonstrates the change in this portrait by adding a black matt.

The white seamless will go with any colour and so long as the ratios of the lights are right you can get great edge definition even white on white.You may not be able to see in this very low res image but the bubbles the subject is blowing are perfectly visible in the high res shots.I shoot in RAW and send tiff files off to photo lab. Did you know that some machines will automatically add contrast if your printing jpegs? The machine reads it as an image from a point and shoot camera which are usually "muddy" in the tonal range and automatically adds contrast.SO, if your editing your images and with your curser roll over your whites and they are reading 245 in the INFO box in photoshop ( 255 is paper white) and when you get them printed they are blown out...try saving your files as tiffs and give them to your lab...Oh year, my files are 20mg plus...so its all allot slower.. David at Pro Am on Brunker road is a wealth of information, he is an X commercial photographer and photographic tafe teacher.

Here are a few fun shots ( the finished images are cleaner than these).Many of our younger clients prefer images in mono rather than colour, if you have the right look in the images they can work well in either format

POST SCRIPT: I have just posted the proof galleries for the TEMPLE GOLD CARPET FASHION SHOW at Club Panthers last Sunday.Behind the scenes images will be blogged soon.

You can see these proofs in the NEWS section at www.ricwoods.com . Christie Belic and husband Garth from Temple Hairdressing at the Junction 02 4961 2277, did a great job on this event for 1st timers...cant wait to see the next one in 2010 !

Variety is the spice of Life

We shot a family of 5 the other day...it was a hoot.Funny creatures...yes they were dogs.

I like the variations in my work..I get bored real quick. I used a Nkon D300 with my favourite lens 24-70 2.8.Great weather for natural images, soft light , no nned for reflectors or balanced flash.Maree has a telepathic ability with dogs...as well as some amazing sounds. I like this park , it reminds me of places in the country like bathurst.Its got shade,water,grass big trees, tables chairs etc..

TEMPLE GOL:D CARPET HAIR & FASHION SHOW-Panthers 2009..Photographer to Art Director in a SLIP !!

This is the Studio we created inside the auditorium

(all images are un edited to show exposures . Digital does not like to be over exposed,Im mindful of highlights..watch the histogram NOT the screen image)

A big thank you to our FANTASTIC assistants...well done

Photographers, Jamie, Maree and me..

LATER THAT NIGHT......

I slipped on a broken glass and spilt drink ( I was informed later) whilst shooting the Gold Carpet Hair and Fashion Show at Panthers last night.Popped the shoulder out and went from Photographer to Art Director...in and instant...OUCH !!! Maree and Jamie both put it back in but the verdict was in I couldnt carry a camera.
Ill post some images from the night soon...Thanks again to Maree and Jamie for stepping up and getting the Shoot done.

Temple Gold Carpet Hair & Fashion Show Newcastle Panthers 31st May 2009

We are shooting Temple Hair & Fashion Show at Newcastle

Panthers Sunday 31st May 2009

These are the DLs we had printer for the event.This is one of the pre lim stills from the Whittaker's Jewellery Campaign I shots a little while back. The stills were put together into a TVC ( television commercial)

by Little Green Frog Marketing and Good Eye Deer. This why is very important to work with releases.

For the event we will be shooting production stills, prep at the Temple Salon in the Junction,backstage, Arrivals of the models and the VIP's such as Peter Morrisey fashion icon, Sonia Lipski Miss World Australia runner up & Ann-Maree Bowdler a local Miss World Finalists.

I like to do a reccy of a venue where ever possible no only does it give me a feel for the event but I can check out flooring, lighting, power points etc.I like to make my self known to the events manager, techies and grips. If I get their mobile numbers it good insurance no to need it.
We will be setting up a full studio scene inside the event to create interest and blur the lines between the models and the audience. We will be encouraging people to be photographed on the set as well as the models as they come off the cat walk. Shots of the VIP's, sponsors,the clothes and the hair need to be captured. These images will be sent to Vogue,Oyster, Harper's Bazaar etc.. so they need to be technically top end as well as interesting content.We will also captue the movement and colour of the event,to do that you need to get in real close and use a wide angle. I remember hearing a quote from a pro in a book somewhere, he said " If you pictures aren't any good...your not standing close enough"...

We found a perfect alcove during the reccy. We will be setting up a roll of white seamless paper here.We will let the lighting fall off to a light grey so we can capture both blonde's,brunettes and redheads with the correct contrast. The setup needs to be able to work with singles,groups, full length and 3/4 shots. Ill use a large soft box and a hair light.Add a reflector with the darker clothes and add a black panel for the white clothes to give good edge definition.

OHS is important so we will setup ropes so the photographer doesn't walk backwards into onlookers...as I do.Tappe down leads,sand bag everything,gaff tape every thing, hide the ladders...and remember some of the audience will be drinking in VERY high heels.We will use panels taped to the floor over the paper so that people dont go through the paper in their heels on an unsafe set.You will see the downlights in the set area,they will need to unscrewed to stop the colour cast into the shots.Ill shoot at 125th and about f11 to give me sharp images free from movement, the hi f stop will mean that I can shoot 2 rows and keep them all sharp.You need space for that, one of my pet hates are group shots made with a wide angle lense...The front row has hands like the HULK, the second row (if its a large group) has tiny heads and everyone that gets to stand on the edge just gained 40kg.

I use theses images to explain to the other photographer (not present) the catwalk position and height.I would normally use my 18-200 kit lens for the reccy shots so I can plan my kit when I get back to the studio. The 18-200 is a great walk around lens, it means I only need one lens on camera when I'm doing the research, these were shot with the 24-70 2.8 and as you can see more reach will be needed..We will probably set up some strobes attached to the hand rail from both sides, and drag the shutter to grab the coloured spots ( if they have them).The models are only at the end of the catwalk for a second so being on the ball is esential. Its better to bump your ISO up a lttle so the strobes power can be reduced for quicker re-cycle times...much better.

There is lots of work behind the scenes and Garth and Christie Belic at Temple Hairdressing at the Junction ( 02 4961 2277) need to be congratulated for taking their 1st Birthday grew it from a few regular clients and a cake to Panthers and 700 plus guests...Well done guys. I think tickets are for sale at the door or through temple...If you drop by...I'll SHOOT YOU !!

I'll keep you posted on the results

BLUE WORLD ORDER SHOOT

We did a band shoot the other day Rob of BLUE WORLD ORDER has been wanting to update their website for some time.We had scouted a few venues looking for something a little different than the wrecking yard stuff and urban grunge that is the signature of bands that play rock.


Rob found this factory that he said he could rent for a slab
so Maree ( my prod mgr) and myself loaded the gear and headed out.
We didn't know what to expect so we needed to pack everything we could.
I use a trolley for my gear that is secured by tie down straps.The reason I like this is that I can take lots of gear in one trip if I'm working by myself .I don't suggest you carry half your gear to the shoot leave it there and go back for the rest....that doesn't work.

I also take things like towels,umbrellas and ground sheets.It was raining really hard so I can load the trolley under the umbrella ,cover the gear with the ground sheet and off we go.

Its a good idea to have a fluro vest,steel caps ,safety eye wear and ear plugs on board if you doing stuff like this,with the insurance ( I do hope you have public liability) and OHS stuff if your not prepared..the shoot is over before your started. There is a short video at the next entry , its got no sound but you might get a glimpse of the gear on the ground sheet, many times I need to packup in the dark..all camera gear is black and hard to find.One of those headlamp LEDs is always in my kit.I carry sandbags for the stands as well.The ground was covered in very sharp metal shavings that Maree was picking out of her shoes after the shoot so good footwear is advised.Another important thing is a change of clothes in the car.Once on a wedding shoot in a rather exclusive businessman's club I tore that backside out of my trousers setting up some strobes just before the toasts...without a spare pair....there would be much black gaff tape to start a new fashion...


We were shooting a D300 with a 24-70 2.8.It was firing 2xsb600 strobes left and right of camera gobo'd to eliminate lens flare, I think they were at about 1/4 power not gelled.I wanted a clean edge light as I wanted to go mono in the final images with some blue in the shadows....non of these images are finished, this is not about post production , this entry is about the setup.
Maree needed to gobo the umbrella because the flare was a problem in some images. You can see some flare in the lower colour image, it looks OK but Id rather have the image clean, you can put the stuff in later.


I fired 2xSB600 strobes through the umbrella.Its much better to fire 2 strobes at 1/2 power than to struggle with slow recycle times with one at full power.The SB28s have optic triggers but I still fire them all with pocket wizard radio triggers

We were to shoot a few different group shots and a few solo portraits.Its a good Idea I find to shoot a few wide to allow magazine text and remember CD/DVD covers are square.