f8 Photography

Vibram HK100 Ultra-Marathon Event

Gary Tyson — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 10:54:07 +0000

It was 4am on Saturday morning….the alarm clock was ringing loud….it was time to get up, travel north to the mountain areas of Northern Hong Kong and get ready for a very very long day of shooting the HK100 ultra-marathon event. 27 hours later at 7am the Sunday morning, we finally stopped shooting and packed up our cameras, having shot over 2000 images, and headed home for what we thought was a well earned sleep! Of course our task was nowhere near as difficult as the participants, who had to run, walk and crawl 100km across some of Hong Kong’s infamous peaks and trails, with a total elevation change that equates to twice the height of Everest!

(Ryan Sandes – Winner HK100 2012 in a new record time of 9hrs 55 mins!!)

Our job was to record the action, the drama, the emotion and the glory of the event, and we hope we have done so to the best of our ability. We would like to share a few of our pictures here so you can see the diversity of the participants, their pain, their pleasure and really just an overall amazing experience for everyone who took part. We started off as expected at the start line, capturing the pre-race nerves and party-like mood of most of the participants, which was great to see, given the fact the next 24 hours of their lives was going to be painful!

(this guy on the right about to run 100km across rocks with no shoes on?!? Must be crazy!)

We were astonished to find one runner who was doing the event with NO shoes….and even more amazing was the fact that he was among the front runners as we travelled around the course! Here’s some images of him in action at the 36km mark…as you can see from his facial expressions, I’m sure he would rather have some nice running shoes on…haha….we have to applaud his courage…or is it insanity?!

(slow sync flash with the Canon 5DII and 24mm mark II prime lens)

We used a combination of Canon 5DII’s with wide prime lenses and slow sync flash to capture close up action as well as a couple of 7D’s and long lenses which were perfect for sports with their fast drive and autofocus.

(the two Nepalese runners who led the way for much of the race, eventually coming 2nd & 3rd)

The course was extremely well marked and manned by the hundreds of volunteers, with checkpoints being very welcome breaks for the athletes, and a good opportunity for refreshments, fixing feet and catching up with loved ones.

(smiles all the way to the finish line)

Every part of the course we covered, people were ecstatic, smiling, screaming and thoroughly enjoying the experience…to be fair, at the finish line most people were much quieter by that stage having spent a very long day and night on the hills.

(high ISO in the middle of the night – no problem for the 5D mark 2)

The Canon 5DII again came into its own during the night, with its great high ISO performance, allowing us to capture some nice moody black and white images lit usually only by headtorches and the occasional lamp.

(5D mark II with fisheye lens and slow sync)

After 25 hours of photography, I thought it was time to break out the fisheye lens and try to get some shots with that, so it was a case of lying down on the floor underneath the small flags at the finish line, trying some rear sync flash and getting extremely close to the runners as they came across the line, this gave a dramatic effect which I like…similar to a lot of my styles of photography, i really believe the old saying “if its not good enough, your not close enough….”.

(James the videographer from Mededs with Gary, RJ taking a break and in action during the night)

In the end, we packed up our kit at first light on Sunday, and headed home, a great experience for us, made me reminisce of my army days being stuck out on a mountain all night, but its all part of the fun, great event, great people, and we hope we have done it justice with our images. We look forward to next year, where we will ensure Starbucks has a takeaway truck parked up the top of Tai Mo Shan for us

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F8 Photography provides commercial photography and training across Asia, with workshops on Street Photography and other photography and video training courses, more details can be found via the ‘courses and workshops’ link and upcoming events via the front page of our website.

Team Vibram photoshoot

Gary Tyson — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 07:20:20 +0000

This year we were asked to cover the Vibram HK100 ultra-marathon, which took place this weekend (blog post on that coming soon).

A few weeks ago we met up with the Vibram tester team to do some marketing and advertising shots for Vibram China which were used for press release and upcoming Vibram trade shows in Beijing and all over the world.

We spent the day on the mountains above Hong Kong, with great moody skies which helped with our black and white photography, a few lights and some very fit Team Vibram members posing for us running up and down the hills and along the mountain sides.

All in all a great day out for us, yet another reason to love being a photographer – getting out into the fresh air with great scenery, meeting fantastic people and delivering some work that they are very happy with, Its great when everything falls into place like it should.

The next blog post will show images from the HK100 event itself, both behind the scenes and the race – we are just recovering (as are the athletes I’m sure), as the race was a long long weekend, almost 25 hours non-stop photography….a mission in itself! That will be coming very soon in the next few days, please check back to see that shortly.

In the meantime, here’s a few images below from the test shoot with them:

Using a Steadicam (VIDEO)

Gary Tyson — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 07:50:28 +0000

Many of us have been shooting more and more video with our DSLR cameras over recent months and years, which is great, as we get to use the shallow depth lenses for really nice cinematic effects.

However, one of the problems we encounter, due to the size and shape of the cameras is excessive movement. This can be countered by using a monopod or tripod, but sometimes you want moving shots, people walking, running, etc, and this is where the steadicam comes into play.

We have a couple of different steadicam rigs, some of them can get quite expensive, however one we have found particularly useful is the Wondlan Steadicam rig that can be purchased in Hong Kong at a relatively low price compared to other steadicam rigs – but with very similar and sometimes even better results!

We have put together a short video that shows some footage shot with the Wondland Steadicam rig, and compare footage to handheld, as well as showing how we set up the rig very quickly to be able to achieve these results, the video below is 6 minutes long, and Gary did almost fall off a cliff making this film as you will see at 1 minutes 42 seconds!

We hope this video is useful for anyone considering getting or using a steadicam, it really does add a lot of production value to any video footage in our opinion, and gives you options that are simply impossible without a steadicam.

When using a steadicam, the way we think about it is we compare it to trying to walk (or run) with a cup full to the brim of hot coffee…its kind of a similar technique to how you would walk, certainly you cannot walk or run naturally, so you will attract a bit of attention whilst using one, maybe even a few laughs, but the footage stability speaks for itself.

Just be careful you look where you are going when using one, its easy to trip or fall over as we demonstrated

No Photos allowed…..or are they? (VIDEO)

Gary Tyson — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 08:30:47 +0000

In recent news here in Hong Kong there has been much controversy about photographers rights to shoot in public places (in particular in front of large branded designer stores, etc). Security guards have been misinformed by their employers about what is ‘public space’ in front of a shop and therefore this has led to confusion, aggressive and sometimes even violent confrontations between photographers and staff.

These big stores are not the only places that try to ‘enforce’ a ban on photographers, even small market stalls have signs up saying ‘no photos’, ‘no cameras’, or ‘photo – $200′, etc.

To those of us in the know, this is basically outrageous behaviour on behalf of the shopkeeper, trying to create some kind of martial law around their own property, thinking they can control what you do with your camera in a public space.

Now, I don’t want to confuse the issue of photographing people, I am well aware as should everyone be that some individuals do not like having their photograph taken, especially without permission, and I completely understand the issues surrounding that. This is not what this blog post is about, it is purely about having the right to shoot an interesting market stall, a shop facade or interesting building without having to worry about consequences or thinking that you are doing something wrong – you are not, its well within your rights to take photographs.

This short video we shot in an hour or so the other day shows a quick walkaround Central and Sheung Wan in Hong Kong shooting a few market areas where they have these signs. I have heard many people say they get confronted in these places so thought I would try to see for myself if we had similar problems and I highlight in the video the ways in which we shoot to try to avoid confrontation.

This is the first DSLR video that Gurung RJ has shot with very little instruction in advance, so I must thank him for his efforts in helping me put this together.

Also a special thanks to Will Gell who has very kindly allowed me to use his music for various projects, amazing musician, check out his albums here:

Please remember when out shooting that you WILL upset some people sometimes, that’s unfortunately the nature of the beast with street photography, some people will always react negatively no matter how polite you are, maybe they just had a bad day, or maybe they just grumpy…thats life, its a choice you make if you wish to become a street photographer, never take it personally, and try not to respond in the same manner, keep smiling, say thank you and continue on your way.

Previous recent blog posts that relate to the same issues are linked below, the first one has an extensive video shooting street photography in Kowloon with a GOPRO camera attached to the top of the Leica M9, linked together with the images that we captured during the walkabout:

HOW WE SHOOT STREET PHOTOGRAPHY IN HONG KONG (VIDEO)

DOLCE & GABBANA PROTEST FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS RIGHTS IN HONG KONG

Photographers rights protest at D&G

Gary Tyson — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:13:59 +0000

Recently in the press there has been a fair bit of exposure about an incident here in Hong Kong involving a security guard (who looked more like a burly bodyguard) at the Dolce & Gabbana store in Tsim Sha Tsui stopping people with cameras from shooting the facade of the building from the public pathway.

Allegedly they were refusing local Hong Kong photographers from taking pictures, but allowing mainland chinese customers to do so, as long as they were coming into the shop and buying goods. This kind of racism and discrimination is clearly unacceptable behaviour for anyone to have to endure and we are very happy that the public has reacted in the way it has over this incident.

A few of us expat photographers decided to gather during one of the Sunday afternoon protests and head down there armed to the teeth with cameras and HD video headcams to film the protest, take lots of photographs and generally assist the protesters in sending their message, wearing Grahams custom made ‘No Photo’ signs on our backs to add some impact to our message.

Both myself and Graham Uden, having previously served in Iraq as photographers were quite happy to stick on the headcams and dive straight in at the front, through the police line and get to the front of the action. We managed to attract a fair bit of attention from the chinese news teams and photographers as there weren’t many other westerners there apart from our small crew of professionals and regular RGB members including myself, Graham Uden, Carsten Schael, Angelo Costadimas, Viveck Bansal and Gareth Brown.

Graham gave some interviews to various TV and radio media who were keen to hear our views on the subject and we believe we achieved our aim by showing that this is not just an issue for the chinese, but equally for all photographers, no matter where they come from.

Other protestors were dressed up in different outfits to attract attention from the media, so the whole event was good for us as there were plenty of things to photograph during the protest.

The protest went without any problems, we didn’t see any representatives from D&G come outside to apologise at all, despite the repeated chants of ‘apologise’ in cantonese from the large crowd that had gathered….This clearly irritated the protesters as it showed more arrogance from the brand as they appear to be simply refusing to acknowedge the problem (at least during the time we were there, this was the case).

We commended the police on their manner during the protest, they were very polite and helpful towards us, and there was no violence during the protest, which is always good.

here is the video of Graham talking to the press with a brief recap of the situation:

Don’t forget to print your images!

Gary Tyson — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 05:14:39 +0000

In this digital age, one of the things that us photographers tend to forget to do a lot of the time is to actually print our work.

Its far too easy to edit the photos, stick them on a website or on facebook and never pay much attention to them again, this is fine, and is a sign of the times but its a really nice feeling to see our work in print, hanging on the wall

Last year we had an exhibition in Soho from our images we shot in Cambodia and it was the first time in a long time that I had made big prints. This made me realise how much I appreciated seeing my prints hanging on a wall, they looked so different to on the screen, and since then, I have been more disciplined about printing some of my work and now have my home and office partly plastered with prints.

They don’t need to be large like these exhibition prints were and here in Hong Kong you can have frames built at very reasonable prices, typically a 24″x16″ print can be framed with non-reflective glass for around HK$400 (USD50) or less if you know where to go.

Quite a few of my friends and clients ask me where I have my prints done, so here is that information:

For our printing we tend to use one main printer in Wanchai, called Sigmax (www.sigmax.com.hk), (their website has map and contact details), they are an excellent printer, with friendly staff – ask for Alice, she is a charming and very helpful young lady who works there.

We usually get our work framed at the frame shop on Johnston Road, directly opposite the Pawn Pub (just aroung the corner from Sigmax), they also have a very good service and price range for any type of frame build.

Here are some other images so you can see the size of prints that they print with ease at Sigmax, I have seen billboard posters being printed there, so size is no issue for them.

So don’t just stash all your images away on hard drives never to be seen again…print a few, hang them up and show off your work, be proud! Something to note is the new version of Adobe Lightroom 4 is coming out shortly, they already have a FREE BETA version you can download here (just remember its not final version yet and only for testing). One of the great new features within Lightroom is a ‘book’ module which is linked to Blurb where you can easily create photo books from your images, so I think we will all be seeing more printing of our images in the coming months!

Here is the link to our exhbition video from Soho earlier in 2011 should you wish to take a look at some of the other prints from that trip and see them hanging at the exhibition.

Street Photography…underground

Gary Tyson — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:53:07 +0000

Something I hear a lot is “I went out shooting and there was nothing to see”, well my honest reply is…..“there is ALWAYS something to shoot”, no matter where you are, there are always things to find of interest, be it people, buildings, landscapes or even subway station markings as was the case in subject for this little adventure…

The subject of this post came about whilst we were out shooting street photography one day, we were spending a lot of time in-between our chosen locations on the Hong Kong MTR (subway/tube) then we came up with a quite random idea of shooting the station names at each stop and making a fine art print of it. Now this is a subject that most of us in Hong Kong see every day, but somehow for me is much more interesting when seen in a collage type image because of the patterns and colours, etc.

Rocco was using his trusty new found friend the Fuji X100 (he also uses the Leica M9 and for film shooting the Leica MP) and I was using the Leica M9 which I use exclusively for all my ‘non-commercial’ shooting. All these cameras are absolutely perfect for shooting ‘street photography’ and anywhere where you need discretion, such as the MTR, due to their low profile size which is generally not intrusive or offending to people. This is not to say that other cameras are no good, I personally think my Canon 5D Mark II image quality is second to none, these are just our personal choices to achieve maximum image quality with a low profile camera in these environments.

So, technical jargon aside, we photographed all the station names along the entire Tsuen Wan line (or red line), and along the way I photographed pretty much every sign, marking and logo I could find on and off the trains that was relative to the MTR experience, with the idea to produce some quirky images of the subject as can be seen in this image below.

I think by the end of this day, we had shot far more images on the MTR system than we had on the street, and that’s a good thing, as we shoot street photography several times a week already, so it makes a nice change. Signs like the ones below I had never noticed before, ‘no spitting’; you would think that is an obvious thing that people wouldn’t need reminding to refrain from doing in an enclosed environment around other people!

We spent a total of around 3 hours shooting the stations, in theory if it had been pouring down with rain outside, we could have shot this whole project without getting wet, so even on those types of days, this kind of thing would be a perfect little project to work on for something different – no excuses for not getting out taking pictures, wind, rain or shine!

The message in this whole post is really about ‘opening your eyes’ to what is around you, we all rush around too fast, especially in these big cities where life’s pace often overtakes us and gives us little time to absorb what is all around, but it is really important as a photographer to take the time to step back and observe, you really will surprise yourself if you can find the time to do this a few times a week, even if its only for half an hour, its an amazing world we live in, both in black and white and colour, so get out there, find something ordinary and make it extraordinary!

Upcoming blog posts will talk about where we print and frame our images here in Hong Kong, and the software we use to very quickly put together multiple images like in the montages above.

So Uk – The oldest government housing in Hong Kong

Gary Tyson — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 04:59:55 +0000

Sunday morning, and myself and good friend and fellow Leica photographer ‘Rocco’ met up for a traditional English breakfast in Soho before deciding where to head out for some street photography on this pleasantly sunny but chilly Sunday morning.

We decided to visit ‘So Uk’ in Cheung Sha Wan, reported as the oldest government housing estate in Hong Kong. We thought it might make an interesting subject so we jumped on the MTR and headed off into Kowloon.

We did a little googling on the way to find out more information: the 16 block estate was constructed in 1960. Unlike many public housing estates built afterward, the architectural design of the estates is unique in Hong Kong. There are 5,316 flats in the estate, with capacity of 15,200.

Upon arrival I was slightly surprised, I thought it would look more ‘run-down’ being the oldest estate, but it was very well maintained and clean, a far stretch from any of the older government housing I could find in London or anywhere else in Europe for that matter!

The kind of images I had in my mind before going to So Uk were ‘texture’, ‘symmetry’, ‘shape’…. So At first I tried mainly to look for these kinds of images, which were everywhere to be found, as you will see later in the blog post though….I always seem to gravitate towards ‘people’ photography, no matter where I go, just can’t help it!

Another shock for me was that almost every single person i met spoke perfect English and were super-friendly towards us, maybe they don’t see too many ‘Gweilo’s’ (westerners) visiting the estate, I am not sure, but either way, it was very pleasant to be able to chat to many different people around the estate and find out a little about their life there. The image below shows Pat, Harvey and their small Peking dog called ‘Bun Bun’.

Another lady we met at the entrance to the estate was equally happy to chat to us, maybe she wanted to practice her English, I am not sure, but one thing for certain was everybody we met was more than hospitable towards us, at first I thought she was pushing her children or grandchildren in the a pram…then I realised it was two poodle dogs dressed up – amusing for us, and a common site around Hong Kong.

The children we encountered were equally keen to chat to us and asked to be photographed when they saw our cameras….Something else I noticed as there is not much ‘green’ space for gardening in these kind of places was the abundance of Bonsai trees decorating the entire area which also added to the serine peaceful feeling about the place.

As we walked around, something else caught my eye – a pre-wedding photography shoot was happening on the roof of the car park! I guess it makes sense as the place certainly has some contrasting views to the bright red costumes the bride and groom were wearing, so I approached them, had a little chat and asked if I could photograph them all together, as I find the costumes very interesting and again must emphasise the total friendliness of the people around this place.

A few other individuals we met also chatted away to us at length and we met a group of young local photographers who were doing the same thing as us, just exploring the area, so we grabbed them for a quick photograph as well.

So after a few hours in this wonderful part of Hong Kong, we stopped at the local ‘cafe’ for a hot coffee….perhaps this is the reason I don’t live in this part of town…..it is way too far from the nearest Starbucks for me!

Thanks for taking the time to visit our blog, if you like our blog and website, please ‘like’ us on our public Facebook page also.

F8 Photography provides commercial photography and training across Asia, with upcoming workshops on Street Photography and other photography and video training courses, more details can be found via the ‘courses and workshops’ link via the front page of our website.

Street Photography Workshop with Eric Kim – 24th-26th Feb 2012

Gary Tyson — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 10:44:19 +0000

So its finally happening! Eric Kim is flying in from LA to host with F8 Photography a 2 day Street Photography Workshop.

There are limited places, so sign up fast if you are interested, we expect this workshop to sell out quickly, as have all Eric’s workshops in Asia and over the world.

The workshop will take place from the evening of Friday 24th until the evening of Sunday 26th February 2012.

All the even details and signup information for the event are here or at the following link and from the events shortcut on the front page of our site:

http://www.f8photography.com.hk/event/streetworkshoperickim/

F8 studio lighting workshop – review and feedback

Gary Tyson — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 06:43:12 +0000

A few weekends ago we held a studio lighting workshop for 2 of our previous clients; Craig and Bernhard, who last year completed the foundation course with F8.

They have both been practicing hard and continuing to develop their passion for photography, adding a vast array of images to their portfolios of the last year or so, ranging from travel photography to family lifestyle portraits.

They had both arrived at a point in their photography where they felt it was the right time to broaden their horizons with artificial lighting, so we headed into the studio with 3 beautiful models early one Sunday morning and started playing with light meters, octaboxes and all the other great toys in the studio to see what we could achieve in a few hours of intensive training.

Bearing in mind that neither of the guys had ever set foot in a photography studio as the photographer before, we started with the basics; how to use light meters correctly, 1 light setup, using reflectors, flags and other light modifiers, then moving on to slightly more elaborate lighting setups, using gels, grids, snoots, barndoors, ringflashes and even wind machines amongst other tools.

After 5 hours of loud music, high energy photography and lots of laughter the whole crew was exhausted, even our models mentioned they didn’t realise it can be quite tiring and hard work posing for a demanding photographer…haha.

Everyone involved said they had a positive experience and achieved a valuable piece of training to carry them forward with their photography, so I was happy, I had achieved my aim to teach them some new tricks and see everyone leaving the studio with big happy grins on their faces

Using 3 cameras throughout the day, they had taken hundreds of images, I asked them afterwards to send me just a very small selection each, to show that they could also selectively choose and edit images as we would do so in a professional environment, being able to filter work down and produce only the top quality images, a task that is not as easy as it may sound.

I asked them both for a bit of feedback a week or so later and they said the following:

Craig Menzies: ”The studio shoot was a great experience and really focused on the full studio experience, from setting up the backdrops, all the various types of light modifiers, umbrellas and soft boxes, and where each light is placed to create dynamic lighting for the models we were photographing. It was fast paced and we learned a great deal from Gary’s instruction, while shooting amazing photos. It was also a new experience to deal with models and directing them to create the shots we wanted. Highly recommended and I will do more studio shoots in the future”.

Bernhard Wamelink: ”The one day lighting workshop with Gary Tyson from F8 Photography was a great experience. In a studio environment all the different aspects of studio lighting were discussed, set up and used in a shoot with models. Gary showed his professionalism in a relaxed way and he was very supportive and a good coach”.

We provide a variety of training ranging from foundation training, street photography, DSLR video training and studio lighting. Details can be found via the links on our home page here. or you can contact us directly from the contact page here.

Here are a selection of images from both Bernhard and Craig’s first ever studio shoot:

Here are some additional links to their existing portfolios if you wish to see more of their photography:

Link to Bernhards 500px portfolio

Link to Craig’s 500px portfolio