Gambling,Girls and Guns...a mix that often ends badly

What a great mix of talent. Our latest self commissioned photo "shoot" was a "blast".

We compose these shoots because we love making images and it keeps us inspired it also demonstrates to the participants of our photography and lighting courses that fantastic images can be composed in-camera with very little post production Photoshop work.

Jessi and Maree ( right) were the Burlesque show girls in the shoot.Maree, my business partner, let go of her usual roll as studio manager,admin,second photographer and make up artist to be the talent in the shoot.

Jessi bought a great look and vibrance to the session.



Maree and Jimmy were there Friday night...Jimmy seemed on edge and when he is like that his friends know to choose their words carefully...


The usual Friday Night crowd was at the Warehouse

Left: Will,Matt,Brett and Jimmy.


Be careful what you say to these ladies Matt...they hunt in packs.



Friday nights at Brett warehouse are usually start out light hearted...

Usually as the night goes on the mixture of Money, Girls, Booze and Greed ups the stakes ....someone always takes things too far. Matt made a comment about Jimmy's suit....

It only takes a small spark to start a raging fire... Matt didn't see it coming...

The next day it was Mr William O who said to the detectives, Matt said he was going for a long drive.... Matt is still missing....

...thanks to all who helped on the night.
NEWS: If you want to make images like this, sign up for our photography and lighting courses in 2011.**DOWNLOAD 21 page course booklet**

VIDEO Behind the scenes of Peter Holliday's Driveline magazine photo shoot

Thought you maybe interested in a behind the scenes look at the DRIVELINE photo shoot and what Maree found so fascinating HERE

Little Lights-Big Results

The second Little Lights-Big Results workshop went off really well with the strobes and gels rarely getting cool. Amy our subject was fantastic and her red hair produced great images for the participants.

Below Maree is holding a magenta gelled strobe to light Amy from camera right whilst the brolly is wearing 1.5 CTO gels to compensate for the tungsten in-camera WB.The backdrop is lit with bare strobes...hence the blue cast.SB600 camera right and left, SB26 on background camera right and left.

We will be running more seminars in the new years with various topics, including natural light portraiture,night street portraiture, post production and work flow topics.If there is something your interested in let us know. enquiries@ricwoods.com.

ABOVE: Myself and Amy demonstrating lens selection ,depth of field and light fall off.

BELOW:A demonstration to show balance of strobe out put to illuminate Amy at F10 and a shutter speed of 1 second to capture the 15w globe in the lamp.Amy's face illuminated by Maree with small tungsten torch ( to balance the lamp)

WhiBal Cards-We use these in the LITTLE LIGHTS -BIG RESULTS off camera flash seminars

There are still places in the next LITTLE LIGHTS-BIG RESULTS off camera lighting seminar.Be quick its this Thursday Evening 6.30pm-9.30pm.Cost is $70 for ProAM lab customers and $80 for others. Bookings 02 4962 1066.

We use the Whibal Cards in our studio for great exposures.

Factory info below.
WhiBal Certified Neutral Gray Card for White Balance
We designed the WhiBal® White Balance Reference Card to be the best Gray Card for White balance available. WhiBal® technology is now Patent Pending and all WhiBals® are made in USA. What makes it so different?
Having a "Gray Card" reference is the best assurance that the digital pictures that you capture will have the ability to be properly White Balanced. Only with a proper White Balance can you be ensured of proper and accurate color, regardless of lighting conditions. Unlike your eyes, a digital camera does not automatically see whites as white. It sees the color of the light reflected from it, hence blue-ish in Daylight and Orange-ish in incandescent lighting. By photographing a Gray Card reference for each lighting situation that you are in, you are assured of being able to achieve a proper White Balance for all of your pictures. The Gray Card reference picture can be used with today's software to balance the color casts that various lighting conditions produce with all digital cameras. The best method to properly White Balance your digital pictures is by using a Gray Card properly and shooting RAW. RAW Conversion Software such as Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom can then perfectly adjust all the captures that were shot under the same lighting conditions. And the beauty of the WhiBal® is that it is small enough to fit in your pocket or around your neck, so that it will be used on a regular basis, as above. Remember that the most accurate Gray Card is useless if it sits in your camera bag. What are the criteria for selecting a good Gray card?
It must be spectrally neutral. In other words it must be Gray! Not close, but actual Gray. This means that they reflect all colors through the spectrum equally. The Gray Cards within the WhiBal® system have both *a and *b Lab channel values of less than 1 at D50 and are spectrally "flat". The WhiBal® RAW Gray Card is spec'd at less than +/- 0.5! And each card is individually measured to certify this spec.
It must maintain its spectral neutrality under all reasonable temperature and environmental conditions. WhiBal® does.
It must be physically rugged. Waterproof, scratch proof (color goes all the way through, not just a coating on top).WhiBal® is.
It must not respond to UV light any differently than the visible spectrum. WhiBal® does not.
The Gray Luminance value must be in a range that is good for digital cameras. WhiBal® rules!
Beyond technical specification, the most important aspect of a Gray Card is that you use it. WhiBal® Pocket is the size of a US business card (2x3.5 inches) so that it fits in your shirt pocket or hangs around your neck with the included Lanyard. WhiBal will be used and not be an accessory that lives in your camera bag.

LITTLE LIGHTS -BIG RESULTS...a seminar on the off camera flash

Maree and myself ran the first of hopefully many photography seminars last night. Ebony was a fantastic subject and all enjoyed the course.

This session was based on using off camera flash to create several different end products.We showed how to make a pure white ( knock out ) background to provide graphic artists with clean images....if you provide them with clean images like this they will love you forever and it DOES general repeat commissions.

Behind the scenes look at the set we built for this shoot.

Here is the cropped image we were looking for



Next we changed the lights again to create a street grunge look


Many of the students captured Ebony is strong images

Here is a quick video grab of the students in the studio setting

The next seminar is in 2 weeks, there are a few spaces left. Those interested can contact Maree by email maree@ricwoods.com or call the studio on 02 4962 1066.

Its a great night