A couple of weeks back I attended one of the two “reasonably smart” evening occasions that PooterGeekers kindly invited me to in response to my appeal so that I could test out some wacky lighting techniques. This was photographing various Latin American performers at a Cambridge college ball. I’m sure you’ll agree such a setting can be a challenging one in which to perform…
…but such is my love for my art that I endured, exposing myself to whatever spectacles my surroundings presented, recording them faithfully in the tradition of the great masters of reportage…
A very few of my experiments worked. I was trying out a range of freaky home-made diffusers on my flash guns. Sadly, some of them interfered with the infra-red beams—which I didn’t want—as well as softening the light source—which I did—so my hit rate was low and the results weren’t what I was hoping for, but that’s exactly why I didn’t feel I could charge anyone money for them. Worse, the scanner at the lab used to digitize the negatives introduced lots of noise to the (intentionally) dark originals.
Thanks to percussionist Martin Goodson—in the foreground of the image above—for getting me on the guest list. The excellent band is called Lido66.
Worse, the scanner at the lab used to digitize the negatives introduced lots of noise to the (intentionally) dark originals.
Well, there is a fast, effective, and proven, method of avoiding increased noise in electronic pictures due to scanning negatives. 🙂
Although I will also say that you need to spend a good bit of money to be able to take un-noisy pictures in low light.
Yup: do the scanning yourself, adjusting the settings frame by frame.
Of course, if you print direct from the negatives then it needn’t be a serious problem in the first place. 😉
The three girls in b & w, Geek. The one on the left looks rather like my daughter. Clearly getting into bad company.
That’s what you married college lecturers always say: “And could I have another 99 for my, er, daughter?”
[…] was eating breakfast in an hotel in Cambridge the Saturday morning after I shot that college ball. A tall, intense-looking man with a beard sat down at a table nearby. He pulled a hardback book out […]
[…] The last time I made an offer like this here it was very useful for me so I’m going to do it again. Before the wedding season starts in earnest, I’d like to experiment a bit with some new techniques on non-paying jobs (and burn up a few rolls of out-of-date and unusual film stock). If you have an event coming up in the next couple of weeks that you’d like some arty shots of, but you don’t mind if the results aren’t necessarily up to my usual standards, then email me and, if it’s feasible and fits in with my timetable, you can get yourself a photo session for free—with extra prints at my usual low rates. […]