Virginia Ernst is flying high at the moment - on #2 of the OE3 charts for the second week running, performing all over the place and having had multiple television interviews recently. I went to see her sing at Sand In The City in the heart of Vienna and was happy to bring her together with my friends from Archetype Apparel so that she could become part of the Family Of Sirs...

I am really looking forward to seeing more of Virginia - she has an incredible amount of energy and drive, more talent than a person should have, and an infectious smile! Stay tuned for more from her including new promo shots for her upcoming video!

In terms of lighting I was really cursing because they use those red and blue LED batteries of hexagonal lights. I detest those lights. However, they seem to be inexpensive and last long, so I can understand that venue owners invest in them. I guess catering to the live photographer is not their business... apparently the paying audience takes priority!

Holiday with the family at the beach in Venice as well as a business trip to Washington DC made for a few photo opportunities with my beloved little EOS M. Of course I also had to ensure I would continue the great tradition of taking an Archetype Apparel picture wherever I travel...

The trip back to the Lido after a heavy rain shower allowed for a few quick pics from the boat:

The Washington Monument was the backdrop I wanted for my Archetype picture, so a place at the Lincoln Memorial was found for this shot:

We went up the Washington Monument later on and I took a pic out of each side, facing the Lincoln Memorial, the White House, the Capitol and the Jefferson Memorial in turn. We were kicked out a little early from the top since a thunderstorm was approaching and the Washington Monument regularly gets hit by lightning...

Plagues of Pandora has an endorsement deal with Archetype Apparel so pictures which could also double as the band promo were needed. They really wanted an urban setting and some wide angles so we met up for a quick shoot among some of Vienna's newest buildings. The sun had just disappeared behind one of the apartment blocks but it still was quite bright so I had to go full power on my Speedlites. I added orange gels to the backlights and initially wanted to hide them behind the band members but the look of having them visible came out quite nice so we were happy to use it.

With this first picture I used HDR which I normally don't for this kind of stuff, but hey - worth a try!

My favourite from the session is from a different angle and processed by adding structure only to the sky and putting a light fog filter on it. All in all a fun and fast shoot and everyone is quite happy with the results!

Archetype Apparel (www.dresslikeasir.com) is back with new stuff for summer! And all of it looks pretty damn fine if you ask me. So we set up an outdoor shoot at Arena and advertised for a bunch of models with the plan of having really summery pictures although it is just mid-April. Anyway, as often happens in April, the weather took a turn for the worse and we had to move the shoot – luckily a location was found… unfortunately it was a cellar. With no light. And no space. But hey, this is where the fun happens, right? “Oh, by the way,” my good friends Tom and Dani say, “we still want the summery look, OK?”

Sure. Let’s do it. We’ll just ignore the fact that the motion-activated cellar light turns off every 10 minutes (not that it was much of a light anyway, just a single bulb). We’ll also ignore the fact that the actual space to work in is about 67 square centimetres. However, on the bright side (pun intended), there were 4 fixed lights there which we were able to use to at least provide a bit of ambient. Here is the setup taken on the phone as I was trying to work my (limited) magic:

So I set up a Speedlite shooting through the umbrella as my main light and then bounced an orange-gelled Speedlite off the ceiling and back wall trying to emulate evening sunlight. Finally I threw in a hairlight at the back, also gelled orange, just to give it a bit more flood.

The pics are actually edited minimally in Lightroom and then I threw a very light fog and glamour glow filter over them in Color Efex. I’m quite happy with the look - and more importantly so are Dani and Tom!

I was specifically told that we were going for more fun than the standard fashion pictures. I am also not really one to do fashion photography so that suited me just fine – especially since I got such positive feedback from the last couple of Archetype Apparel shoots. So here are a couple of the friendlier ones:

With the family having succumbed to jet lag I find myself with a bit of time to reflect on the 3 week family visit trip we just had and what it meant for me in terms of photography. As I mentioned in my last post I took only my travel kit (EOS M) with me and it certainly turned out to be a revelation in terms of ease of transport! I had a small crumpler bag with me at all times during the trip and the camera itself is completely unobtrusive.

The trip: 2 weeks in and around Melbourne (including a small Christmas party and a couple of outings), after which we travelled the Great Ocean Road to Adelaide over the period of 3 days.

Many, many babycinos were consumed on our trip. Having the small camera around makes it easy to have it ready during meals and snacks which make for great pics of the kids.

Urban photography is easy with the small camera but I found myself wishing for a wider lens at times. Remember I have only a fixed 22mm (translates to about 35mm on the crop sensor) lens on it.

I did get a few landscape shots in during the trip, but overall it was more in snapshot situations. This is definitely a weak point for the EOS M for me. Of course, I am comparing it to a 5DIII which is not fair. I found myself giving up a bunch of what looked like good landscape shots because I felt a tripod, ND filter or just higher dynamic range of the sensor was needed.

Where the setup was brilliant though was in having off camera flash with me at all times and being able to get fun pictures of the people around me in all settings. Most of all it shines in simplicity and lack of aggravation potential for my spouse! She would even willingly hold a flash or something because it was set up so quickly and the results were so nice. See the previous blog post for some of the quick portraits I took - there was a grand total of 20 minutes of time taken for those pictures. Here are a couple more:

Once again my good friends at Archetype Apparel (www.dresslikeasir.com) have come up with an awesome shirt. In a strictly limited edition, this hommage to Breaking Bad is just so cool! A couple of pictures needed to be made and a very motivated model (Bernhard) volunteered for the shoot, bringing his own props with him. The whole thing was done quickly in my living room with a very standard light setup, just one key light shot through an umbrella and two lights blowing out the background. A bit of editing to go for the strung-out look and hey, presto!

Anyway, so we did a few more in different poses and the chemical suit came out. Eventually we just got some sitting down and then this one was shot. Now you may not necessarily be drawn in immediately to the repeated pattern in the crotch area. The repeating pattern right in the seam of the middle of the underpants is due to the cloning tool in Lightroom being needed to fix what turned out to be a hole. I didn't notice when initially editing the picture because a) it is not an area of focus for me usually and b) I was in a hurry. So the picture went to Archetype Apparel with an unwelcome visitor peeking out and it was then published quickly on Facebook. Luckily it was part of a three picture image so it is pretty small and not obvious.

However, some of Bernhard's friends did notice and it seems they made a little fun of him before he realized what had happened. I was notified and appropriately edited the picture. This is the kind of edit I don't want to have to do again. I guess I learned my lesson: ask models to check their underwear for holes before shooting. Oh well. Here's the corrected image. If you are so inclined, you can probably find the uncorrected image on Facebook.

I love Iced Earth. I really do. So I was quite a happy chappy when I saw they would be in Vienna again and supporting Volbeat on a huge tour which meant they would be getting to use the big stage they deserve. In addition, my friend Jon Dette is playing drums for them now, so I got to see him too! I met up with him a bit earlier as he is wearing a load of Archetype Apparel gear at the moment - so we got a few shots of him in one of his new shirts just before soundcheck.

Before the show I did a bit of promo with Iced Earth while the first band of the night was playing. It was done behind the stage and unfortunately it was completely dark down there so I had to use my phone to shine some light into Stu's face in order to get a focus point. I messed it up on the first couple of shots where I tried to focus one and then set to manual focus and keep shooting - that wasn't a good idea as it turned out since I must have moved a bit and the first shots were out of focus. The next set of pics worked though as I just kept my phone up with one hand and shot with the other - it also gave the band something to look at in the dark. Here's one that didn't make the final cut - the final pics will be used in press and marketing material.

Lighting info: one 600EX Speedlite as backlight, 1/2 power, two more camera left and right at 1/8 and 1/16 respectively. 35mm, f/4.0 at 1/125. Ambient light: zero.

The show itself was awesome. Iced Earth was really appreciated by the Vienna crowd and played a wonderful set which also included some new stuff from the upcoming album. Of course I didn't actually get to see too much of it because I was running around the venue! I have posted only 10 pictures as the rest may be used in material as preparation for their headlining tour in 2014.

Of course, Volbeat also produced a great show! They started off with a banjo player right at the front of the stage and I was just getting really close with a wide angle lens when the first set of explosives went off right in front of me. I had seen "fire" written on the setlist but I didn't realize where it was going to be! The other photographers in the pit, the security guys and the first five rows of the audience all had a "whoa" look on their face which must have mirrored mine! Full set of the gig here.

Michael from Volbeat is a huge Iced Earth fan (and personally asked Jon Schaffer to do this tour with them) and so it is particularly cool that he plays the song Iced Earth with them every night and then Jon comes on to do Pool of Booze during the Volbeat set. They have great chemistry on stage. All in all a fantastic evening which I thoroughly enjoyed!

My friends from Archetype Apparel (check out www.dresslikeasir.com!) have once again come up with some cool new stuff and so we did a quick shoot at home with Nana and Chris who had answered a facebook call for models. Since I didn't have much time and the clothes are the main subject, I decided for a simple white background and high-key look. Luckily the boys from Archetype are also fans of non-standard looking pictures so I gave them an extra soft portrait look. Here are a few shots that were used to build the preview banner:

And here's a shot that shows the white background set up in my living room, the hairlight in a softbox, my daughter's rocking horse which is hiding the background light on the floor and Nana wearing one of the new Kiwi sweatshirts.