Chilled at the Bottom Photography

So, world and dog await with baited breath for the imminent release of the eagerly awaited update to their popular iPhone.  17th June 2009 is the scheduled release date, but when exactly are people around the world going to see this update?  Well, if you’re to believe it’s still happening today, 17th June, and not being pushed back, as reported on the Singapore Apple site, then these are the times:

10am PDT

1pm EST

6pm BST (GMT +1)

9pm IST

12am AEST

2am NZT

Any changes to this schedule will be reflected in updates as quick as I can make them.

Happy downloading!

Feelers put out to various PR firms to secure a photo pass for the forthcoming Britain’s Got Talent tour that hits South Wales in two weeks time. It’ll be great to capture Diversity performing!!

Ok, so anyone that knows me, knows I’m not an avid fan of football (i.e. I’d prefer to gauge my eyes out with a rusty hammer than watch it on the telly) but, given my nephews love it with a passion, and they happened to be playing today in a local tournament – who am I to deny them some happy snaps of them playing? Without further a do, here they are:

Seems baby photos are flavour of the month at the moment…Two babies I’m working with at the moment are just fab.  Here’s Oscar, coming up for nearly two months old:

Ariston Collander on Twitter (@whoisariston) has been sending out invitations to have work critqued, so it seemed a worthwhile idea to whizz over a Flickr link to see what he thought of one of my Slash The Streets images.

Here’s my image:

and here’s what he had to say about it:

As a sports photographer you are well aware that timing is everything. During a particular event there are very few things over which you have much control. Lighting is one, your physical position is another (depending on the venue). In this particular image the backlight is distracting, but again, there’s little you can do to avoid that and still nail the shot.  With an on-camera flash you might have been able to increase the aperture and shutter speed slightly to drop more of the ambient, then rely on the flash to illuminate the subject.  This could also have been adjusted in post using some fine adjustments to drop the lights behind the subject. On the composition side, with a subject flying through the air, following the Rule of Thirds is a bit more difficult. You need both the player and their destination in the frame to maintain context. Cropping may remove details that would cause confusion. The EXIF data is hidden in Flickr so I can’t see the settings and equipment but zooming out a bit would have placed the player in the lower right third intersection with the hoop in the upper left third intersection. Overall, though, it’s a fantastic shot.

My follow up comment on his critique:

Thanks for the critique Ariston :) I’ve subsequently added some of the missing exif data to the image description on Flickr. I did think about cropping it smaller to place the player lower in the frame, but he looked odd. Leaving him mid frame portrays the sense he’s flying through the air high above the crowds in the subdued background.

This particular shot was one of around 6 shot in a continuous sequence with my SB-800 and SD-8A battery pack to keep the flash firing in succession. Fast(ish) shutter speed was my preference to reduce motion blur, hence the fairly open aperture. Flash was throttled back a bit on the power to ensure it would flash on every shot.

Quite a few things I’d do differently on another shoot like this, but as you say, with sports photography, timing is of the essence, and as far as that goes, I’m pretty pleased with this shot :)

Having never ever submitted any of my photography for public scrutiny or criticism, I entered three images for my local camera club’s monthly competition.  Each is judged by a long standing, well respected member from another local(ish) club, who has one or more distinctions from a recognised body.  This month was judged by Hywel Harries, FRPS.

For my first print, I submitted a B&W shot (converted from a colour image, taken with my ye olde trusty Nikon D50 in 2006) taken from the top of a tour bus in Manhattan, New York.  Entitled “Organised Chaos”, I thought it portrayed the hustle and bustle that is NYC, to a tee.  However, my printed output didn’t quite live up to the realisation of the image on screen, for the actual print had an abysmal attempt of reproducing black as an odd murky green colour.  As such, with the printing issues, I was awarded 15 out of a possible 20 marks.

My colour print submission was taken from one of countless beach volleyball shots taken during the Urban Beach Tour of 2008, with my Nikon D2Xs.  It’s rather odd to see 300 metric tons of sand being dumped in the middle of a city centre, made into a volleyball court, then watch elite players for an entire weekend in the sunshine playing volleyball.  I managed to survive four weekends touring with the UBT during 2008, hard work but someone had to do it!  I was, and still am, thoroughly pleased with this print, echoing some of the comments from Hywel, it had professional qualities that you’d expect to find printed in beach volleyball magazines.  For this, I was awarded 18 marks out of a possible 20, earning me 3rd place.

For my projected image submission, I wanted to use an image with striking detail.  One photograph stuck out like a sore thumb, namely my Red Panda shot from Bristol Zoo, taken during the summer of 2008, again with my D2Xs. The panda’s fur in this photo is so sharp you could almost cut yourself on it!  Hywel found the image very pleasing, liking the way the soft expression of the panda stood out from the subdued background.  For this image, I had 16 out of 20.

All in all, quite a successful entry this month, though it was actually the last of the season for our club, it’s given me a start in the right direction for seasons submission -knowing I need to solve my B&W printing issues!

So, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last couple of months, all the action taking place on the net these days is at Twitter.

You can follow me, here: http://twitter.com/chilled35

This year’s event promises to be somewhat better than last year.  Why?  For this year the tour features Jeff Brazier presenting the various acts, as well as a live band accompanying the acts too.  So much better than just playing to a backing track.  Press pass to the ready, I arrive at the CIA for 7:15PM prompt, though my pass doesn’t actually allow me to cover any of the first set, which is a crying shame.

JLS open the show with Signature (of Britain’s Got Talent fame) to raptuous applause from the predominantly female audience!  Rachel Hylton up next, yeah, she’s ok, much the same as you’d have seen on TV.  Next on stage is Daniel Evans. Ok, so this guy bored me rigid at home, he’s doing exactly the same on stage too!  Not good.

Diana Vickers makes her appearance on stage, sat atop a bed, singing Blondie’s Call me, wow!  Finally she’s dropped the claw hand and is running around the stage belting this song out, the audience love her. Wild hair, little black dress, she’d be amazing to shoot, alas I’d get my hands chopped off if I even picked my camera up, let alone try and get a shot or two!

Ruth Lorenzo makes her way onto the stage through the central video wall, wearing a black leather/pvc(?) corset/basque, leaving pretty much nothing to the imagination (no prizes really for guessing why it was said Simon Cowell had the hots for her!) – Purple Rain by Prince, she wailing, she’s on fire!

That’s the end of the first set…I’m busy now preparing my camera gear, ensuring all the bits and pieces are doing what I expect.  Background music fades, as does the house lighting, audience goes nuts…this can only signal the start of the second set!

Eoghan Quigg comes on stage, singing some random song I fail to note…ok, the kid can sing, he’s just not floating my boat – something missing, not sure what. Several shots fired off in and around the pit, avoiding the video wall camera guys and some chick from a magazine also shooting. Pass only allows for photos to be taken during the first song of Eoghan’s, so I enjoy the rest of his set from the side of the stage.  Diana makes another appearance to duet with Eoghan, though I can’t remember what song they actually sang, I recall it being done rather well. Photography wise, Eoghan wasn’t ripping around the stage like a loon, he had a good number of backing singer-cum-dancers with him and the stage lighting  was nice and bright for most of his first song. Happy with the outcome.

JLS burst on stage, the audience go wild! Girls screaming their lungs out like their lives depended on it – all that was missing were knickers being thrown on the stage!  These guys know what they’re doing, they can all wail, Aston clearly the girls fave.  I found shooting these guys quite dificult however.  Only having the better part of 180 seconds in the pit to shoot them with two lenses, getting the shots I was after, depending on whether I was shooting with my 17-55 F/2.8 or 70/200 F/2.8VR, the guys seemed to be doing exactly the opposite to what I needed to shoot.  As a result, only a handful of useable shots were forthcoming.

Finally, Alexandra Burke, X-Factor 2008 winner takes to the stage.  She looks stunning in her pencil dress adorned with silver sequins, stage lighting bouncing off it like a million stars! My pass pretty much covers her entire set, so I can concentrate on 17-55 F/2.8 shots from one song, 70-200 F/2.8VR on another, leaving me to pick’n'mix on the other two songs as I see fit to fill in the blanks.  Alex’s voice is so captivating, it’s hard not to get lost in the music as she sings, but I’m very pleased to report I have enough shots of her to sink a battle ship. Job very much, well done!

Homeward bound with around 200 photos from the night, it shouldn’t be too dificult to pull out two or three photos from each of the three finalists. Very happy.

Photo’s copyright ©2009 Jason Aspinall, reproduced with permission from Sony Music. Do NOT hotlink or steal these images. Violations will be followed with legal action.

So, what had initially planned to be an outdoors fashion photography event at Mermaid Quay at Cardiff Bay, the weather got the better of us, forcing us indoors.  Thankfully I’d made prior arrangement with various locations around the Bay to shoot inside.  Three of the four models turned up, which was most welcome – I’d been fearing the worst for most of the morning that I’d have a bunch of eager ‘togs with no one to shoot…

More from the shoot here

A selection of photos taken at the recent SLASH the STREETS event, held at the Great Hall , Cardiff University Union, Cardiff.

More from the event, here