In which I visit A&R Photography, Liverpool

During the week I was able to visit my good friend the photographer Imran Ali. He runs his studio from Liverpool Bluecoat and along with the excited conversation of catching up with one anothers' exploits, we were able to tinker with the range of goodies in his studio.

I'll confess he was impressed/amused at the bag of camera bits I took along for the session, but no-where near as impressed as I was with all of the lighting gear, reflectors and general electronica he had available for our photo-fest.

And as a delightful addition, we also had blogger friend Debra join us and add Vlad the Hasselblad into the equation.

"So How would you set up this lighting?" asked Imran, as my mind swam into a vortex of unease at the sheer range of options on offer.

"Er, something at the front?" I ventured, "And maybe something ELSE at the side?"

It was clearly too much for me and I was having trouble remembering the different between a grid, a snoot and a sparkling water.

"Reflector" I clung to. "Reflectors...We'll need to use some reflectors"

Because Debra and I arrived at different times I was able to witness the same effect when she was asked similar questions. We both did that sharp intake of breath when we first noticed all the gantries and swivelly things.

There's a clear need for vocabulary and a way to overlay structure onto what could otherwise look like chaos.
My compliments to Imran though. A combination of patience, indulgence and some basic disciplines shepherded both of us through the initial stages of using the lights.

Here's the basic build we used.

1) A 'beauty bowl' front light comprising a bowl containing two diffusers.

2) A grid rim light to provide side highlights

3) A snoot projected backwards onto a black background to provide background colour via a gel



I can make it all sound glib here, but trust me, it took time for me to get this set up and balanced. By comparison watching Imran work was a revelation as he would change the degree of feather on a light with one hand and be simultaneously correcting the power output with the other hand.

Debra and I both experimented with the build up of lights one at a time. It was useful to see the effect of one item such as the side light and what it did to the subject. There are plenty of shadowy pictures of each of us now as we trialled the various combinations. Another thing that was interesting was that we were shooting at ASA50, with quite stopped down apertures (f7.1) and 1/125 shutter. The available light in the room was negligible compared with the power of a thousand suns as the main strobes/flash units fired.

Anyway, I think it worked.
It was incredible how quickly the time passed and we'd planned a grand finale with Debra's Hasselblad film camera (Vlad). 'He' was proving a little moody in this digital world and had to be coaxed to play with the strobe lights. We had a combination of a bulb and an electronic flash firer which Debra had to press simultaneously for her self portrait.
We created a few black Polaroid pictures along the way because the co-ordination required was to the nearest 125th of a second. Gulp. Anyway, the snap above is of the modelling light setup for the shot which we tried several times. I await Debra's development of the film with bated breath. In the meantime, here's a lovely square mono picture from the Canon.
The time ended all too soon but we were all quite pleased with the picture taking and progress. I learned a fantastic amount and it was fascinating working with Imran who mainly shot great pictures SOOC (Straight Out Of Camera) and just used colour correction, minor RAW exposure correction and minimalistic cropping.

I'm already thinking about a return visit!

Lacie 5 Big NAS Server Failure

I sometimes put up posts with very direct titles when I think there may be someone genuinely looking for some information about something that I have discovered. In this case its my Network Attached Storage, which happens to be provided by Lacie.

The box contains 5 drives, each of 1 Terabyte. Four of them are mirrored into a RAID 5 configuration with total redundancy. In addition, the fifth drive is effectively configured as a 'spare' so if one of them goes wobbly, the server will reconfigure itself to use the spare and send an email alert to have the faulty drive replaced.

Also the whole device backs itself up to another single big disk attached to it through a USB connection.

Sounds pretty foolproof, doesn't it?

Well I knew there would be a weak link (I can think of a couple actually).

The one that created the fail was the most obvious. The power supply. Yes. It has blown up but in a subtle way. The lights still come on on the power brick and also momentarily in the server. The Lan connection lights glimmer faintly as well. But it's really a dead supply.

I ejected all five drives from the back of the unit and then tried a lower rated supply (only 2.5Amps) as a quick proof that the main unit was working. Sure enough, all the lights came on properly as the server tried to re-boot without any disks.

Internet ordering time. Although Lacie are out of stock.

Normal service will be resumed.

Eventually.

Update Yes, a short trip to Maplin Electronics and I'm back in business with a new power supply.

12V 120Watts.

Technically its over-specified for the server, but I'd rather have something not operating at its limits. Now is a good time to run an extra full backup.

everybody must get stones

This week has been rather hectic.

Sometimes its necessary to pick the right path across the week, predicting where one will be and juggling hours to fit things in. Back on Sunday I'd driven somewhere only to be greeted with a message that suggested I needed to be somewhere different.

It was an error by the sender, who had inadvertently set up meetings that clashed horribly with my schedule.

There was little I could do on Sunday evening but make a plaintive request to a voicemail to get things rejigged. It all worked out in the end, so I have been able to happily hop-scotch my way along the week.

It's all about picking the right coloured stones. They may all look the same from a distance, but up close they can be very different.

pause for breath?

What a difference a few days make.

Here's the supersaturated end of Summer that somehow crept into October. I'd been out for a cycle ride and this is one of the places I sometimes stop for a few minutes to take in the scene.

On one of my routes I think of it as 'half way around' although the time to get back to base can be quite short because of the helpful gradients. Actually, there's one more 'steep bit' ahead too which can get the pulse racing.

Maybe its good to sometimes have those pause moments in the schedule.

Annoying short con in Westminster

Out and about again in 28 degree Westminster today. When I'm with other people in the know, we usually cross over to the upriver side of Westminster Bridge if we are heading across it. It's a way to avoid some of the barricades of tourists who are making the most of the fine weather and decidedly out in force.

It's actually quite funny walking along chatting to someone and having to dodge dozens of people taking pictures of Parliament, buses, traffic lights, taxis, the River, the Eye and so on. It requires a sort of crowd mastery to stay close and able to talk in a tourist mayhem.

To make it even more challenging, there's one of those gangs of tourist fleecers operating on Westminster Bridge at the moment, complete with home made plastic disks and metal cups for the three shell game.

Its always interesting to watch the edges of such games. There'll be someone standing in the road looking for police. There'll be a couple of extra large people around for 'management purposes' and the actual crowds around the makeshift tables seem to comprise quite a few people of similar ethnicity as the people operating the games. The marks seem to frequently be from the far east.

A couple of days ago a single policeman on a motorcycle arrived and in seconds half the bridge's hustlers had disappeared.

But I don't think of this offshore short-con as a London thing. I've seen it in Paris and Milan, but in truth am a little appalled we have it operating across the road from Parliament.

the pipistrelle bat swoops around me again tonight

I have been away from home intermittently over the last few days, but was home in daylight tonight.

It was a close thing though as the sun was just setting.

I decided to make a cup of tea and look to see if the pipistrelle bat would make an appearance.

Sure enough, just after sunset, the little bat appeared and began its swooping and weaving flight around the garden.

I've come to regard it as 'our garden's bat' because it does pretty much stay within the perimeter.

I have previously tried to capture it with a camera, but it is way too fast for that, unless I were to set up some kind of flash rig.
Some people are terrified of bats, but I find the swooping aerial ballet performance as it hunts for insects quite magical.

It seems fairly unruffled by my presence and I can stand outside watching it perform at not much more than arms length and occasionally see it do an extra spiral around me as it takes more of a sounding.

What is less apparent is that the bat is firing out bleeps of very high frequency sound to check for insects using a sort of echo-location. The sounds are actually extremely loud but too high for us to hear except for an occasional click like fingers being snapped.

...and we are not even in the Halloween month yet.

I wake to see another pink pig fly over Battersea Power Station

It was one of those accidental great London moments this morning. I woke up and looked out of the window.

I could see them preparing the white bubble tents for the dance series on the adjacent land.

Then I looked towards the river.

A pig.

Not just any pig. THAT pig. The one on the cover of the Pink Floyd record.

The third most iconic London album cover (Abbey Road is number one). Number two (23 Heddon Street) is pretty good too.

But to wake up to Number Three.

Brilliant.

At another time, the correct thing to do would be to pop along to the King William IV pub on the embankment, order a pint and play the album whilst sitting at a table on the pavement. But I had to go to work.

from small acorns

A Sunday morning bicycle ride today, whilst most people were still asleep.

Tyres re-pumped to 100psi with the main noises being squarks of nearby birds and distant sounds from traffic.

I did see one person carrying a tell-tale shotgun bag, but what with it being Sunday and all, I'm assuming it was simply being moved, and not deployed. There's a couple of areas that if I pass in the week I'll hear the crack of shotguns, but I think Sunday is supposed to be silent in England.

And further along I spotted an open gate, leading to an interesting landmark that is usually padlocked away. Worth a short detour to explore, and then on the way back to stop to pick up a few acorns.

I doubt if they would grow, but it might be worth throwing a few outside to see what happens.

And soon, nearby bells begin to peal as the rest of the area begins to go about its business.

in which i get a draft trailer for the triangle novel

It's not ready for general publication yet, but I'm amused to say I've received an early copy of a trailer related to the Triangle (clickable confidential preview above).

I must admit I sort of laughed out loud when I played it, but in a good way.

This all links in with the "Hollywood adventures" related to the Triangle and the components of what will be in some sort of distribution pack.

I gather its got some fancy name (not EPK - Electronic Press Kit) - Something more film industry specific. Anyway, for the moment the fledgling trailer/sting is looking okay, even if they have got the story slightly wrong.

I suppose in time I'll have to decide whether to settle for a mini series or to hold out for a Hollywood blockbuster.

Decisions, decisions...

Meanwhile, here's the old video I made where a couple of the characters meet at an airport and Patricia is on the search for a Cinnabon franchise.

no breach of the peace around this national security

I'm having a few interesting days in London locations that are quite often featured on television. The most obvious area is around Westminster (throw in a taxi and a red bus), but there's a few slightly less well-known places that can also feature on the 'been there' list.

There's also a few anomalies, like the relative scarcity of cash point machines around this part of town. Considering I'm so central, I'd expect there to be 'hole in the wall' cash dispensers for tourists on every street corner.

Unfortunately not, and those that are available had all run out of cash when I tried to use them. It could have helped the day I accidentally brought Euros instead of Pounds.

But then someone told me there was a cashpoint by the Treasury building - although, he added, it was out of order.

Maybe a sign of the times?

Through the brightly lit eyes of the glossy romance of fashion

For some, the black tie wearing season may run throughout the year.

Here at rashbre central it's normally more of a winter pursuit, probably peaking around the turn of the year. It can also mean that the relevant clothes need reviving or replacing from whatever scrape they were in the last time.

So my illustration above from last weekend's early foray into black tie territory may be a little unusual because it also meant arriving bow-tied in daylight, which felt most strange.

Still, the evening passed eventfully and a good time was had by all. Even the moment when a police car pulled up on the gravel drive to ask one of us some detailed questions didn't squash the mood. And don't panic, I had a chauffeur from the fancy palace.

Since then, I've been back modelling tee shirts, including my recent cycling addition*. * Thanks for location instructions, mb

being very central

Well, the establishing shot featuring a red bus and a black cab by the Palace of Westminster gives away that I've decided to take the work in the centre of London at the moment.

It's pretty close to where plenty happens and the chimes from the big clock can be easily heard from where I'm working. It's also quite amusing dodging through the dozens of tourists standing in the middle of the road taking pictures of the Clock Tower and the many related sights.

The nature of my work does take me to plenty of interesting places, although its been while since I've had anything quite so central.