That little code above is required to link my blog with a new social networking site I’m trying out.

Empire Avenue is a cool ‘game’ that lets you trade shares in people who use social media, and be traded yourself. It looks like a cool place to network, make connections and have fun playing a game while you’re at it. If you’d like to see more, check out my profile here:
http://www.empireavenue.com/neilcreek

And if you like what you see, why not invest in me? ;)

January 16 – Sunset on Broken Pier

When I saw this gorgeous sunset, I wanted to try and create a slightly surreal photo from the scene. I used a deliberately long exposure to turn the waves into a misty appearance, and in processing I exaggerated the saturation. It's the first time I've had a vision for a heavily creatively processed photo when I actually took it, and was happy that it turned out as well as I imagined.

January 22 – Celina as Hikaru

I did a cosplay photo shoot with my good friends Annie, Sefie and Celina, and this shot came out of that. Cosplaying characters from Magic Knight Rayearth (link), we shot in the Dandenong forests around sunset. As the sun turned golden, it shone through a gap in the trees and provided this divine light as Celina spun to bring more life to her cloak. See more photos from this shoot.

February 27 – Siami as Luka

I really enjoyed this photo shoot with Siami and her friend Bonnie, taken with a small audience of friends. This shoot was a new look for both of the girls, and I think they looked very beautiful. They were dressed as Luka and Miku from the Vocaloid song Magnet. You can see more photos from this shoot. Incidentally, this is the third year in a row that Siami has been in my top 10 posts :)

March 3 – Nathan G

My brother-in-law Nathan is an extremely talented and successful DJ, producer and recording artist. On occasion I’ve done shoots with him which he has been to use as promo images. A photo from this shoot was used as the cover for his latest album Glow. This was my favourite photo from the shoot however. This shot was taken at home with a folding backdrop and a couple of small flashes. It just goes to show that professional photos are in just about anyone’s reach.

March 22 – St Columbar Falls River Panorama

Naomi and I returned to a favourite destination, Tasmania, to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary. While there we paid a visit to the St Columbar Falls. The walk was a bit long and steep, but the falls were amazing (and very wet!) as was the incredibly lush and green forest along the river that flowed from them. I took this spherical panorama there. View the full interactive panorama here. See more photos from our trip to Tasmania.

View in high quality.

June 3 – Blacklight Celina

I tried to push myself a bit more creatively this year, and one of the ways I did that was to collaborate with my extremely talented friend and beauty blogger Celina. I’ve had the idea to do a UV/blacklight shoot for a while, and I knew Celina would have the make-up expertise to create a cool look with it. This photo (taken with macro extension rings) is my favourite result of the collaboration. I also created a short video from the shoot. Have a look at more photos from the shoot.

July 30 – Naomi

Surprisingly, taking a great photo of my beautiful wife has been a challenge for me. I think it’s because I don’t think any photo I’ve taken has been able to capture the true beauty I see in her with my own eyes. This year I finally was able to do it. This photo means a lot to me, and I’m very happy to have been able to take it. Good friend and previous three-time top 10 feature Annie provided her skills with Naomi’s make up.

July 30 – Sagittarius Overhead

This photo is proof of how easy night sky photography can be. I was away on a photography trip shooting friends last weekend, and we were hoping for clear skies to do some stargazing. It was cloudy for most of the weekend but we got one good break of half an hour or so. While chatting to my excited friends explaining the night sky to them, I snapped a few photos, only half paying attention. After processing, I realised that the photo was actually very striking. I’m thrilled with the result.

View in high quality.

October 14 – Reclining Min

What happens when you go to an uninhabited island with 30 strangers and their cameras and one model? Photographic magic. I joined a Facebook photographer’s group called Snappy Shutters this year, and Naomi and I decided to attend a four day photographic retreat they organised. We had an absolutely fantastic time, made many new friends and took lots of great photos. If you had the opportunity to shoot a gorgeous model on the beach in front of a spectacular sunset, how could it not be in your top 10 photos for the year? Model: Minnie Sha. Have a look at more of my photos from the trip.

December 19 – Splashed Mai

I’ve wanted to do a photo shoot with splashing water for a very long time, and when I won a voucher for a free day’s shooting in a studio with a wet area (at the Snappy Shutters retreat), it gave me the perfect opportunity. Originally planned as an art nude shoot, the scope expanded to include swimsuits and a drum kit! See more photos from the shoot (more pics are still to come). The photo I have chosen as my last top 10 photo is of Mai, taken during her art nude session at the shoot (but not showing anything in this particular photo). Mai is a very free spirited person and he modelling style is very spontaneous and adventurous. I loved this pose, her expression, the dynamic element added by the torrent of water and the flawless make up as applied by my ever talented friend Annie.

Honourable Mentions

It’s always incredibly difficult to cull down all of my photos to just ten best, so traditionally I’ve included two ‘honourable mentions’ in my posts; photos that didn’t quite make the cut but I couldn’t leave out entirely.

July 23 – Queen of Blades

Good friend Sefie (aka Diana) is not just a great cosplayer and amazing make up artist, but she is also a gamer. She has long had the idea of recreating the Brood War cover artwork featuring Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades. It was my honour to be asked to help her with the photography. We had a lot of fun at the shoot, which was done in parallel with another shoot with Celina. You can see more photos here, and an awesome behind the scenes video made by Celina’s partner Toby here.

December 19 – Gorgeous Gin

Finally, another photo to come out of the “Splash” shoot. I don’t think too much needs to be said about this photo, it speaks for itself. A beautiful girl, lovely make up (Again by Annie), cool dramatic lighting, splashing water and a sexy pose. I couldn’t leave this photo out of the list :) More photos from the shoot.

If you enjoyed these photos, you may like to see my previous top ten photo collections:

• Top 10 2010
• Top 10 2009
• Top 10 2008
• Top 10 2007

Every time I see blacklight photography online I want to give it a try myself, but something I’ve noticed is that most of the time models are painted with very thick lines and simple dramatic designs. I am friends with a number of talented make up artists, and one in particular, Celina, loves to create bold experimental looks on a regular basis for her blog Fables in Fashion. It occurred to me that a collaboration with Celina on a blacklight photography could potentially yield some interesting and unique results.

A couple of nights ago Celina and her partner Toby visited for dinner, and afterwards we experimented with using glow in the dark paint as makeup and shooting the results under UV light. Most of the shots were just testing ideas and techniques, but toward the end of the night Celina took the time to try creating a simple ‘look’. Using a circle template and a stiff brush, Toby assisted by spraying different colours in a pattern on Celina’s face.

We loved the look and I took a few photos of Celina, as well as some video. For fun I cut the clips together, added a CC soundtrack and titles, and uploaded the result to youtube. I’m pretty happy with this first experiment in video. You can see it below (please view in HD if you can!), and following that a slideshow of photos from the shoot.

If you would like to browse the gallery at your own pace, or you are viewing via a feed reader, you can see the gallery here: http://neilcreek.smugmug.com/Friends/Blacklight-Test-110603

Here’s a link to the video upon which the costumes and the shoot were based: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egxSBhfjcTU

Here’s a link to the full gallery if you would like to explore it at your own pace: http://neilcreek.smugmug.com/Costuming/Magnet-Cosplay-110227

The instructions are clear, the photographs of every step of the process make it easy to follow, and the layout is clean and attractive to look at (The book is laid out by my wife Naomi Creek – just because I’m biased doesn’t mean I’m wrong! :) ) In fact, the photos do such a great job, I found myself skimming the text a lot of the time.

The book doesn’t claim to be a guide on how to light your photos; that would be asking too much of it. Most light modifier projects in the book have example photos showing you the effect it has on the light, however, I felt that the book lacked a bit of context. What we have is a series of great projects, with simple result photos, but nothing to tie it all together. The book’s title is “Home Studio Photography”. I think the book would have benefited from an over-arching project of building your studio, explaining what kind of modifiers you need and why. In this context the reader would understand why they need a soft box. This would be reinforced if the book finished off with a chapter showing several more examples of studio shoots explaining the use of the modifiers; as it is, only two are given. I also would have liked to see something written about the studio itself: how much space you need, how to convert or prepare a space for photographic use and how to store all your nifty new DIY modifiers, for example.

Having said that, I think this is a fantastic book, and most of the DIY modifiers you will make from these instructions can be used anywhere you get your flashes out, not just in your home studio. Every flash photographer needs modifiers, and every photographer would rather save money if they can (to buy that new lens!). As such, I recommend this book to every photographer.

Special Offer!

Right now DIYP have a special offer available: You can purchase the ebook (regular price $19.85USD) with the highly acclaimed Trade Secret Strobist Cards (regular price $24.95USD) together for $29.95USD +S&H. These 24 cards show you a beautifully lit photo, and explain with lighting diagrams how they were taken. One of my minor criticisms of the DIYP ebook was that it didn’t have enough examples, so this special deal is a perfect match! In my opinion, I think this option should be available to all purchasers beyond the special offer. One can wish anyway! :)

I’m very proud of the 35,000 words, 110 pages and as many images in this book. So far it has sold 6000 copies!

Read all the details about the book, and buy your copy here. Thank you for your support!

On this occasion we invited our good friends and regular photo subjects sisters Jess and Kaalli, and their friend Rachel. These studio shoots are deliberately small scale compared to photo meets, and we spend a lot more time getting lighting and poses right. This gives us both a chance to practice our lighting and studio photography skills. It also lets the girls think more about creative poses and ideas they’d like to try.

I set up my lights, and spent most of my time shooting on Elias’ black backdrop, while he shot against white. Previously I had shot against the white, and the difference in lighting and thinking is quite significant. Shooting on white you want to keep the background flooded with light and over exposed. Shooting on black, you’re trying to keep all the light off the background, and you have to think carefully about how you seperate the dark parts of your subject from the background.

Have a look at some of my favourite shots from the day below. At the bottom is a link to my gallery of all the shots from the day, as well as a link to Elias’ shots.

Here’s my gallery of the shoot: http://neilcreek.smugmug.com/Costuming/Valentine-Kaalli-Jess-Rachel

Here are Elais’ photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elo123/sets/72157623194338309/

You may remember that I enjoy the “cosplay” subculture, and regularly do photo shoots with my friends in costume, and with other photographers. One late Autumn weekend, we gathered at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in unseasonably good weather, with the cosplayers dressing as characters from Vocaloid.

The Bowl is a fantastic location, as it’s open and accessible to the public most of the year, except when the rare event is on. It’s under cover, has a huge open and flat space, and is rarely occupied by so many people that you can’t set up a few light stands. It’s also got a variety of interesting backgrounds, such as the seats, blank cement walls, stairs, railings, and the structure of the giant “sail” over the bowl. There’s great photo shoot potential there! Melbournian photographers, check it out :)

I went over the top with colour, which befit the costumes, and gelled flashes on the walls to use as backgrounds. I also went for deliberately dramatic lighting, with a pair of bare flashes at 45 degrees behind the subjects, pointing back at them, for a kicker highlight down the side of each face. I initially didn’t use any front light (you can see more shots with the variations I tried in the full gallery linked below), to have a silhouette look. For other photos, I added a front light, at camera right, to illuminate the subject. I also brought the kicker lights into the frame, turning them more into rim lights, in order to have dramatic lens flares in the shot.

At one stage during the afternoon, a large group of parkour enthusiasts (also known as free running, a kind of urban acrobatics) showed up at the bowl to practice their jumps and moves. These guys (I only saw the guys anyway) were amazingly acrobatic, and I hoped I’d be able to get some photos of them. They took the initiative, however, and said they loved the cosplayers and asked if they could have some photos with them. Naturally, we obliged! I got a couple of test shots while the cosplayers were mucking around, such as the one below.

But then I got THIS. It’s one of my favourite photos ever! I was so excited when I saw it on the back of the camera. The timing, and so many other elements were just perfect.

After that, we headed up the hill at the back of the seating area, into the sun, and played with using the sun as a back light and a single flash at the front.

I also took this panorama :) Click FULLSCREEN for the best effect.

Have a look at the rest of the photos from the meet here: http://neilcreek.smugmug.com/Costuming/Vocaloid-Shoot-100515