Inner beauty

You win some, you lose some. In amongst this weeks work was a job I quoted for, but didn't end up getting. I decided to go ahead and create some shots of the subject and see what spin I could put on them.

The subject happened to be green, hairy and not altogether attractive on the outside! No it wasn't the Incredible Hulk and I'm not being rude either. It's only when you slice them open, that the Kiwifruit reveals it's inner beauty! It was a bit of a struggle at the veggie shop to pick which fruit was going to be the most attractive on the inside. Then it popped into my head that maybe I could use both the ugly and the attractive sides and create a couple of different looks.

So my plan was hatched to create a Kiwi scene with err... kiwis! A gold Kiwifruit became my sun and some green kiwis cut at various sizes became my hills. I backlit them with a gridded strobe to get some nice edge lighting, with a large soft fill light to keep texture on the front. I really liked the contrast of the rough hairy exteriors with the stylish gold interior.

Version two had me slicing up all the kiwis and backlighting the segments. Once I put these together it gave a much more graphical and stylised image. Finally I couldn't resist adding in a cloud for a bit of fun to complete that iconic New Zealand feel.

In the end i'm not sure which version I like the most, I'm pleased with them both. Which one do you prefer?

Time lapse

OK can somebody tell me where that last month went? I must confess to gross blog neglect, but it came down to the choice of family, food, sleep or blog with the schedule I've been on! 

Over recent weeks I have seen more sunrises and sunsets than ever with my continuing travels around the country, getting shots for my client outside of business hours. It's fun but tiring and I just wish I could squeeze more time out of my day to get some extra landscape shots from all the locations! The 'sweet spot' light wise for these shots is very slim at this time of year, probably only around half an hour depending on weather conditions.

In between the travels I have been getting to try out one of Canon's tilt shift lenses, the 24mm TSE to be precise. Been dying to try one out and when a client asked for some fairly radical angle product shots that required a good depth of field front to back, I knew this was the tool for the job! Thanks to the good folks over at Kingsize I was able to hire one and was not disappointed! It is just incredible how good the images are even at full tilt settings, really sharp and perfect for the job. Would be really good on architectural work too and great for surreal selective focus shots. A big thumbs up Canon and another one for the wish list... which is getting very long!

The shot above was taken last weekend at Mount Maunganui in the Bay of Plenty. It looks lovely and serene which belies the fact that it was taken whilst racing to the next location before the light went! If you see someone sprint past you with a tripod that will probably be me!