Another week, another photo meet :) Not long after the meet I last wrote about, in early August, another group of friends gathered in the city and walked to Fitzroy gardens for photos. Mark/Nakey was there as well, along with Terri and her video camera. We had a great time, and I got some photos I was very happy with. Images below and a link to the full gallery at the bottom.

Click here to see the full gallery of 171 photos.

On the 26th of July, I did a small cosplay photo shoot with a few friends, and also Elias and Mark as photographers. I wanted to check out the Royal Exhibition Building as a potential photo shoot location. I was very happy with the results, the location is fantastic, and the cosplayers were a lot of fun. We played around with a couple of lighting setups, and Elias took one of my favourite photos of myself in quite a while :)

If you would like to see the full photo shoot, you can find it here.

It’s been a while, and I’ve been very busy, but I haven’t stopped taking photos. To get the ball rolling on this blog again. I’m going to go back in time a little and over the next few days and weeks, I’m going to catch up with some of the many shoots I have done since I last posted here. I hope you enjoy the photos!

A few weeks back, our friends Grug (aka Andy) and Chrissie celebrated their birthdays together. They hired out a holiday house for the weekend about an hour’s drive down the coast, and many of us joined them or stayed nearby for the weekend. We all had a lot of fun, and I took many photos :)

Have a look at the whole gallery here:
http://neilcreek.smugmug.com/Friends/Andy-Chrissies-Birthday-090718

It’s been a long time, and I’ve been so busy with so much different stuff going on, including a couple of cosplay meets and the biggest shoot of my life – Manifest – but I wanted to give a quick update.

I’m currently up in sunny Queensland with Naomi, visiting her parents. I’m up here for 5 days, and Naomi is staying for 10. I have a lot of photo processing from Manifest waiting for me when I get home :)

The first night here, Nomes and I went to watch the sun set from a nearby park, and I couldn’t help myself but take a few shots. I spiced them up a bit by adding some off camera flash. Pics below followed by how I took them.

• Camera: Canon EOS 5D MkII
• 1/200sec, f/6.3, ISO 100
• Canon 580EX on 1/4 power, with orange gel to camera right

I wanted to get a portrait shot of Nomi enjoying the beautiful sunset, with the sun in shot. I knew, however, that this would put Naomi into silhouette and stop any features from showing. I could possibly have used a reflector to get light back onto her face, but I went the easy (and more expensive!) option of an off camera flash. I stuck my 580EX on the plastic foot and put that on my tripod (I didn’t bring any light stands on the trip) and put it at about 45 degrees to Naomi to the right.

A few test shots were used to change the settings on the camera and the flash to get the balance right, and I added the CTO orange gel to warm up the cool blue flash light to match the warm setting sun. The result, even though the angle for the light is wrong, looks quite natural.

For the last shot above, I simply put the flash on the picnic table there and shot it up into the tree to make it stand out against the sky.

A new video broadcasting and recording service has been launched recently, called TwitCam, and I thought I’d take advantage of it and have a little fun by doing a short photography Q&A session. Twitcam integrates with Twitter, and Twitter users can enter the room and ask questions. I spent an hour answering questions from the people there. There are some periods when I was waiting for new questions, so please forgive the silence. I’ll do more video Q&As in the future, but I’ll try and have some questions ready ahead of time :)

Unfortunately I was mistaken, and the full transcript of Twitter comments is not saved with the video.

Links mentioned in this chat:

• Strobist – off camera lighting.
• About macro extension tubes – P365 Nov03 – On this blog
• Cosplayers: How to Help Photographers Get the Best Pics of You – On this blog
• Phill Hart astrophotography

Thanks to those who participated:

The costume and fashion photoshoot at Melbourne Museum was a huge success!

Approximately 24 people attended, a third each of photographers, models and onlookers/friends. The weather was overall very good, despite being four seasons in one day.

The location was terrific as well, and we took advantage of many different spots in the area.

We did learn however, that to shoot anywhere inside the Museum’s doors, even in an isolated open-air courtyard, requires permission and payment. We were advised of this and asked to leave by very friendly and understanding security staff. Something to note for the future.

Photos, and some additional thoughts mixed in with them, plus a link to the full gallery of the shoot below:

This shoot was the first time I got to play with some new equipment I have just purchased: a set of AlienBees CyberSync flash triggers. These let me fire my flashes remotely and with almost 100% reliability, which is a far cry from the poor reliability of the cheap triggers I have been using up until now. For the photo above I put them to use and fired a flash from behind and each side of Scarlet to give her a cool “rock” type lighting.

It was great to briefly catch up with Rebecca, whom I hadn’t seen in years. The last time, in fact, was when I did a photo shoot with her in costume. This time she was on the other side of the lens. It’s as a photographer, rather than cosplayer, that she has been more active lately, and she is very talented at both. It was Rebecca’s photo blog that inspired me to start this blog, and I can credit a lot of my success as a phtographer to that initial impetus.

Siera (above) and Annie (below) are two of my favourite cosplayers and good friends. I haven’t seen Siera up close in quite a while, and have been forced to photograph her from afar or through a mask. Annie, on the other hand, is fast becoming my most photographed cosplayer, having done a number of recent shoots. Once again, they are gorgeous here in their elegant gothic lolita outfits.

One of my new favourite cosplayers is Mii, seen here above and at the very top, cosplaying characters from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. I want to thank Mii for her help with the processing on these photos. She is a big fan of cosplay idols in Japan, cosplayers who have become so popular and successful at their craft, that they have gained a level of celebrity. One idol in particular is Kipi.

Mii loves the way Kipi’s photos look, and encouraged me to try processing this shoot that way. At first I thought the look was a bit too bright and artificial, but the more I look at it and try it, the more I like it. It’s kind of a “fashion magazine” look. I processed most of the shots in this shoot that way, and I like how they came out. I’ll try to write a tutorial for a future post. So thanks Mii! If you think Mii’s as cute as I do, make sure you check out her new youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/miicosplay

In conclusion it was a very fun day! It was great to see so many people come along to the event I organised, especially the photographers, most of whom I hadn’t met before. If you attended the meet, as a photographer or cosplayer, please leave a comment below! Photographers, please share the link to your gallery of photos from the shoot, so the cosplayers can all see how their photos turned out :)

It would be great if we could do this again sometime soon!

Here’s my full gallery of 184 photos and two videos from the shoot.

Other Photographrs’ Galleries

• Elias – http://www.flickr.com/photos/elo123//sets/72157620985380992
• Rebecca – http://www.flickr.com/photos/40157947@N03/sets/72157620880675855/
• Ian – http://share.ovi.com/album/iann12.Cosplaymeetupat

Here’s a few bits of news and some links. As well as a random photo, because I can!

Reminder: Photo meet tomorrow

Just a quick reminder that the costume/fashion photo meet is on tomorrow at Melbourne Museum at 1pm. All photographers and models are welcome! Read the full details here.

How to make a photo book

A few weeks ago Naomi and I collaborated on a post at the Digital Photography School all about our experience creating the SoFoBoMo book, and offering tips and reasons to make your own photo ebook. Read the post here.

Interview on PhotoNetCast

Last week I was given the honour and privilege of being a guest on the excellent photography podcast, PhotoNetCast. I was interviewed for about 40 minutes about my experience going from amateur photographer to attempting to become a pro. This is a great series of shows and it was wonderful to be a part of it. You can listen to the show here (the interview begins at about the 15 minute point).

MeetHeads has a popular reception

After my recent post about the MeetHeads idea I developed for promoting my photography at social media meets, there has been quite a positive response. One blog wrote a very favourable post, praising the idea. There has also been a lot of positive feedback on Twitter. Thanks to everyone for their positive words. I’m looking forward to taking more meetheads at future events!

Regular readers may remember a photo I did last year for a competition called Aspiring Angel. The model for that shoot was my good friend Annie. At the time, Annie created the outfit she wore specifically for the shoot, however due to concentrating on getting the shot that I needed for the competition, I wasn’t able to get the photos of the outfit she wanted for her design folio. I told her I’d reshoot whenever she wanted.

Last week Annie collected on the favour I owed her. Rather than shoot the angel outfit, she asked me to photograph a gorgeous and stylish red evening dress that she designed and made for a design assigment. Battling a cold, I met her in the Manchester Unity building arcade in the city, to photograph the vintage style dress in the stunning art-deco era building. Below are a few of my favourite photos from the shoot. If you would like to read Annie’s journal entry on the dress, you can find that here.

On this Sunday the 5th of July at 1pm, I’m running a cosplay/loli/fashion photoshoot at Melbourne Museum in Carlton Gardens.

Photographers and models are welcome to come along. By photographers I mean anyone with a camera who likes shooting people. By models I mean anyone who wants to get dressed up and have their photo taken! This will be a casual affair, just for fun.

I have chosen Melbourne Museum for the location as it has some awesome modern architecture, as well as being set in some beautiful gardens. Also, the stunning Royal Exhibition Building is right next door and would make a great backdrop for photos. We will meet on the rows of stone seats immediately opposite the main entrance to the museum, between the Royal Exhibition Building. There is parking under the museum and a tram from Parliament station up Nicholson Street.

The event will go ahead if the weather is poor, but we will meet in the museum foyer and decide where to go from there. There is a large foyer area in the museum where you can enter without paying, but museum entry is only $6 for adults, and free for children or concession.

This event is being organised via a facebook group. This is the first time I’ve used facebook to organise an event, but it’s working pretty well. If you have a facebook account, and would like to come to the event, please visit the event page and indicate that you are attending: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=119391263641

As of writing there are 13 indicated guests attending, plus half a dozen more who have confirmed by word of mouth. This should be a lot of fun! I hope many of you can make it, especially those who came along on our photowalk earlier in the year.

Google Map:

View Larger Map

Here’s an example costume shoot we did a few months ago: http://neilcreek.smugmug.com/gallery/8670548_ui3VE#572692946_uVB8D

If you have any questions, please ask below, or on the Facebook event page.

Twitter has increasingly become a key part of how I promote myself as a photographer (Find me @neilcreek). I stay on top of the latest photography news, I engage with fellow photographers, I promote my blog posts, but most importantly, I am able to forge connections to people in the real world. This became especially obvious to me several days ago when I attended a “tweetup” – twitter meet up.

“Tweetup Mellers” was organised by @sammutimer and was attended by approximately sixty twitter users from Melbourne, Australia. As always, I take my camera to such events, but I knew I wanted to do something a little more to promote myself as a professional photographer. These are a group of well-networked and highly influential people, including some of the most successful online “personalities” in Australia. If I could figure out a way to take advantage of this without being exploitative, it could be good for my reputation.

I discussed this with my friend and skilled networker @jadecraven and eventually I came up with the idea for “MeetHeads” – meet up head shots (click here to see the MeetHeads page). The idea is, I set up a tiny “studio” at the venue and offer to take anyone’s head shots for free. They are then allowed to use this photo online for any non-commercial purpose, such as a twitter avatar, facebook profile or whatever. In exchange they must credit me as the photographer wherever the image is used, and if possible link back to my site.

Here are the photos I took on the night:

Throughout the night I had many people complement me on the idea and the name, which everyone seemed to love. Over the next several days, after I had uploaded and linked to the photos, several people started using my photos of themselves as their avatars on Twitter. Australia’s most successful blogger Darren Rowse is even using my photo for his new @probloggerdeals twitter account and on every post of his new darrenrowse.com personal blog!

Best of all, in the last two weeks, I have attracted three new bookings for my services through connections made via Twitter!

I will continue to take MeetHeads at future twitter meets, and if you live in Melbourne and use Twitter, I encourage you to come along to the next tweetup and get a free MeetHead! You can find out about the meets here.