A Day In Video

Monday, May 31, 2010 7:43 PM Posted by Hikari Studio 0 comments
This past Sunday, Jason and I attended a local flickrmeet to do a little behind the scenes video shooting of the event. He had shot a good deal of it with his steady cam and glide cam using a 5D MkII and a variety of lenses while I used a shoulder rig and a D3s, 70-200 f2.8 VR II and an older manual focus 50mm f1.4. All post productions go to Jason.

Edmonton Parkade Photo Meetup - May 30th 2010 from pixelknife pixelconcern on Vimeo.


Rainmaker Rodeo

Saturday, May 29, 2010 10:40 AM Posted by Hikari Studio 2 comments












I was invited by a friend yesterday to come shoot at a local rodeo. Having never shot one, heck, let alone ever seen one I was definitely game, even with the pretty cold weather we were having that day.

Having done some action related photography in the past I knew the types of settings I had wanted to use in order to get the look I wanted. With the cold and cloudy weather we had a nice soft light going for us and the conditions were only changing slowly as the evening approached. Most of the event was shot at 1/500th of a second between f2.8 and f4.0. To me at this point the ISO didn't matter so much. So long as it was enough to get me the shutter speed and aperture I wanted then a little noise is nothing Even so i still managed to keep it below ISO800 most of the night. The shutter speed was enough to stop most of the action while still retaining a little motion blur for effect on particular portions of the images.

I've never really been one to hold much interest when it comes to cowboys and anything regarding the "West" but it's definitely changed my mind on it. There's a lot of skill and hard work behind it all, not to mention the brass balls you'd need to sit on top of a angry steer until it kicks you off.

A Small Breath

Wednesday, May 26, 2010 4:41 PM Posted by Hikari Studio 0 comments



Wedding season is here and while I by no means am as quite as busy as some of the photographers who do it for a living It still puts me in a frame of mind to give it my all and dedicate a lot of time to getting everything right. It's a big day for a couple, one as a photographer that you don't get a second shot at and even then you're generally running on a schedule that is nowhere near ideal to the pace you'd like to work on. That being said, it's a great challenge and truly tests a photographers flexibility.

As you probably can see, some of the updates have slowed down to a trickle. I'm trying not to make the same mistakes as last year and fall into the habit of putting off other personal projects until I finish everything. It's kind of a bad mindset to get into really as it ties you up for months and leaves you feeling a little creatively challenged and behind.

Perhaps it's the pressure to be artistic, to cover all the details and facets or to get jobs wrapped up as soon as possible. It can be a lot of stress at times and it's important to reminds yourself to take a step back and spend some creative energy else where. You can end up missing a lot of important little things if you focus your beam too narrowly.

No Time for playing around

Sunday, May 9, 2010 10:56 PM Posted by Hikari Studio 0 comments

I did a quick shoot on Friday with a model who is also a contestant on Miss Universe Canada. I ended up getting contacted at about 10pm on Wednesday, doing the shoot Thursday afternoon and sending off the finished photos that same evening. I can't claim to be a fan of late night beauty retouching but it comes with the territory. Either way, it's good practice when you're under a schedule.

I will do a bigger entry on this later this week if I have time and put up the lighting information as well as a possible before and after set of pics.

Flur Design Studio

Wednesday, May 5, 2010 10:06 PM Posted by Hikari Studio 2 comments




This was from a shoot I did last week for a local florist. The shots are going to be used for their website as well as some print material.

The setup for the shoot is a pretty simple setup since it was done on a white backdrop. What that essentially equates to is not having to worry about extra light hitting the background, it's all going towards blowing it out anyways.

These are a few of the shots, more to come when I finish up this project. Also, the lighting diagram:


不完全

Monday, May 3, 2010 5:16 PM Posted by Hikari Studio 0 comments





不完全 【ふかんぜん】 (adj-na,n) imperfect; incomplete; faulty; defective;

Ironically enough this word used to be my "online handle" a few years back. I liked the sound of it, I liked the idea of it. Part of the reason for all of that was I didn't take to warmly to the idea of perfection. There is a lot of drive in every day life to push forward this concept of perfection. To me the the lack of flaws in a person was never the utmost image of beauty, instead it was those imperfections that brought out the beauty and character of an individual.

I guess in time this also took up to be a facet of the style of photography I enjoyed most. To me the draw in the style I want to bring forth to represent what I shoot is not clean and flawless, it is beauty in the natural.

Which, by the way, is a little ironic with the idea I still harbor that I need gear that brings me razor sharp images.

I'm glad I got a chance to use this older lens on Saturday, it helped bring me back to some of my core roots. I maintain that it's still essential to have range and to be able to deliver on a wide variety of situations and environments. In the end all those styles compliment each other and help move your style forward.

Timeworn

Sunday, May 2, 2010 6:08 PM Posted by Hikari Studio 0 comments









What originally was supposed to be a day to get a little practice in with using strobes on location quickly turned into a day of natural lighting instead. I had been admiring the Ai-S Manual Focus Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 for the bokeh it can produce at wide open apertures. Luckily enough a friend of mine owned this lens but was also more than willing to let me borrow it for a few days to get a feel for it.

The concept I was after for this particular shoot required a very shallow depth of field and long story short this became kind of impossible to do along with a strobe without having an ND gel and/or an ND filter for the lens. I ended up ditching the strobe and just grabbing a few reflectors and going off the ambient light already present.

In the end i'm glad I did as it gave me a chance to experiment with just reflectors and ambient light. Having to use a manual focus lens was not without it's challenges but it helps add a human element to the shot. The soft focus in particular shots helped bring forth the look I had wanted, without having to spend time in Photoshop for less than perfect results.

There's more shots to come as these are just a few of the ones I had taken on Saturday. Looking forward to do more with this lens, especially once spring is in full bloom.