I had met Markus at a wheelchair rugby training session and he expressed interest in having me take some pictures of him on the tennis court - a little while later we sorted out this session in the early evening of a very sunny day - not the easiest conditions to shoot in but luckily one of the courts had a bit of shade. I had wanted to shoot a dramatic sports portrait as well as some more friendly ones, so I needed to overpower the ambient light with flash.

The thing I was most worried about at the beginning was dealing with the shadows the wheelchair would probably throw when I shot flash at it. In the end that actually turned out to be easy compared to ensuring the tennis racket would be in the right place so as not to throw strange patterns!

A completely different look came about by just changing the angle and tweaking the settings a little:

Of course we also wanted some more friendly shots and a couple of action shots, so I moved around a little and also changed the editing in order not to have them look so harsh and sharp:

Definitely fun for me and something I would love to repeat! Not sure I am interested in action sports photography but sports portraits look like they could be something to expand into as they are similar to music promo pictures!

atwork (www.atwork.at) is a small IT company that does consultancy and implementation of cloud strategies, web portals, social media campaigns, other web-oriented stuff and also software development and business solution development. They needed pictures of their employees for their website and got into touch with me due to the shoot I had done of Microsoft people a few weeks ago.

The shoot took place at their office which is inside a shopping center - we used two sliding doors for some basic portraits and then moved to a walkway above the shopping area as well as a hallway in the back. Before the shoot, Carina (www.feengleich-makeup.com) did some light touch-up work on everyone who was willing - this was the first time I had worked with her and I am really happy it worked out so well. Efficiency is the name of the game and she was quick and thorough which meant we could get on with shooting almost immediately after my setup, which was one light as a hairlight and two as key/fill (f/3.2, 1/125s, 50mm, ISO 200).

After the initial portraits, we used the well-lit walkway to do some full body shots - one light set to 1/4 as backlight and one in a softbox at 1/8 as key (f/2.2, 1/200s, 50mm, ISO 100):

Then we went into the corridor and used a single light in a reflective umbrella to produce some more portraits in landscape orientation, you can see the setup as well (f/3.5, 1/200s, 100mm, ISO 400):

Virginia Ernst is a singer / songwriter (check her out at https://www.facebook.com/OfficialVirginiaErnst) who I met while shooting at the Fitfabrik a few weeks back. We got into talking and she asked me whether I would be available for promoshots... guess what my answer was?

So I met up with Virginia to get some shots for her new single "Rockin'" - the song has references to a train and therefore we decided to meet up at a train station to get some shots in on the rails and possibly on the platform. It was a bit overcast so almost ideal for this kind of stuff, and Virginia was happy to walk and jump on the rails - which is what I had initially envisioned as the best place for the CD cover:

I used the trusty 70-200 for this shot and edited it a little bit in Color Efex in order to get the faded look. I tried a different look as well below in order to have it a bit more contrasty and cinematic:

I thought we had some nice stuff here but we also wanted a couple of shots on the platform so we tried that as well - and it turned out to be perfect! There was absolutely nobody there and we were able to use the whole length of the platform. I changed to the 50mm lens though because I wanted to see if I could get good use out of f/2.0:

It was important to get the clock into the shot as there is a reference to 7:30 in the song - the final image had a bit of editing done on the fly by my friend Dani Hofer. I used Color Efex again to get the faded summery look. Anyway the one that made it finally is actually this one which is a little on the soft side but that makes the text stand out perfectly:

Let me know what you think. I'm quite happy with the result.

Yammer is a Private Social Network for enterprises and was acquired in 2012 by Microsoft. As such, with integration running and a strong sales motion to get customers using Yammer, the marketing team in Austria set up "Yammertime" (see what they did there?) and as part of it asked me to take some fun profile pics of anyone who showed up.

I wanted to mess about with the lighting in order to get a blue effect going as the Yammer logo is on a blue background, so I set up my camera to white balance for a red gel I held in front of the lens as a test shot. I then gelled two flashes (key and fill) red and gelled a third (back / hair light) blue.

I used the Sigma 15mm 2.8 fisheye for most pictures and had the Canon 50mm 1.4 on for some more standard angles. All shots were pretty much taken at f/3.5, 1/200s and ISO 400. They were taken in RAW and looked great on the camera screen when rendered, however Lightroom was not able to process them the way I had shot them - I didn't realize that Lightroom's interpretation of Canon RAW is not perfect and thus I had to mess about a lot with the settings until I got something that I wanted to keep.

Anyway, had some fun taking them and luckily it seems everyone is happy with their new profile pics! Here are a couple of them:

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:

About a month ago I posted what my travel kit would look like and I braved the jump and really took only that with me to Oz this year. I know I've said it before but I love the EOS M! While visiting my cousin's new house in Melbourne I convinced a couple of family members to have their picture taken in the alley around the back - Melbourne is full of these back driveways and alleys and I'm looking forward to exploring some more of them.

Anyway: two speedlight set up, one low camera right at 1/4 and one high camera right at the back as rim lighting at 1/16 for the alley shots. You can see the backlight in the landscape orientation. It was pretty much full sunlight at 11 am but luckily the alley provided for a bit of shade.

Moved to the carport to take a headshot of my cousin, needed to get a shallower depth of field so I had to up the shutter speed a little - lucky my flashes sync up to 1/250s!

Let me know what you think! Comment here, on facebook or twitter - I will definitely reply.

Early in 1994: I was at ((szene)) Wien with friends and saw some bands. Bit of a blur really, but I do remember a band that played a cover of Metallica's "Seek and Destroy" and wasn't really hitting the lyrics properly... and I thought hmm - I'd love to sing in a band...

Present day: I'm at the Dimebash 2013 at ((szene)) Wien where people come together to listen to some of Austria's best metal musicians play covers of Pantera songs in honour of Dimebag Darrell, the deceased guitarist and songwriter of one of the most influential metal bands. A guy comes up to me and introduces himself as Wolfgang - someone I have seen around a few times but don't really know well except for knowing that he sings for Boon, a relatively successful Austrian metal band. He says, "you're Shervin, right?"

So back in 94 I talk to the band, suggest they may need a singer who speaks English and maybe they would be interested in working together? "Sure!" they say, we remain in contact and then eventually have a band session together a few weeks later. I know then and there in the practice room that I will never be a singer in a band - and they know it too. They're too polite to say so but we all know what the score is so we go our separate ways.

Last night Wolfgang says: "could it be that you were here in 1994 when I played my first gig with my first band and we spoke after the show?"

You can see where this went from there. We run into each other in the same place almost 20 years later! Wofgang was there with Markus, who was also in the band at the time! And I have finally found a way to be part of the music scene without subjecting anyone to my total lack of musical talent!

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.

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.

So I went to play wheelchair rugby with my friend Shadi and his team at the rehab center Weisser Hof up in Klosterneuburg yesterday and had a really great time - apart from the fact that my arms and shoulders are hurting something horrible today...

Anyway, I also shot a couple of portraits and did something completely new for me: used my itty bitty EOS M with the 22mm pancake lens which translates to 35mm. I had the 90EX Speedlight mounted on the camera and used it to trigger a 600EX-RT at camera right which I had put a blue gel on to get a harsh and direct light. I wanted the gym in the background underexposed but visible and I wanted the fluorescent lighting to shine through a little.

I used Nik's Color Efex Pro to run a bleach bypass and a blur filter for the edges.

I dialled down the flash slightly for this second one and let more ambient in, but ran the same processing on the image. I like both of them though!

What I learned though is that I will be taking my EOS M with me on trips as a travel camera but I won't be giving up my ability to use off camera flash. Since I don't want to travel with the 600EXs, I will look at getting two cheaper slave flashes to have with me. Throw in a set of Strobist gels and the whole kit still fits in my laptop bag!