flash kit, hassleblad + home studio

Since the studio was ready, I borrowed one of the new Broncolor kits with a Hassleblad with a 50mm lens. Very exciting.

I packed it all nice and safely into my car (with seatbelts!), and when I got home carefully examined the contents. 3 heads, a softbox, two barn doors, an umbrella and a sync cord.

I extended the stands, with the centre column remaining close to the ground, feet out at about 45 degrees. I wasn't sure but that felt most logical to me, and I remembered at Deakin in Film we had sandbags on the poles between the legs and centre column, so I assumed I was doing the right thing. I arranged them in my preferred positions around the room.Then I got the heads out, loosened the head attachment and adjoing screw which holds it in place, and gave all the heads a new home. Then I begun investigating the attachments.

It took me a while to work out how to attach the barn doors. Finally I realised it squeezed into the inner circumference of the bulb shade. Easy.

The umbrella was pretty straightforward, just slide the pole into the side of the head, and attach the smaller bulb head.

The softbox was the trickiest. The bulb head was a heavy metallic disk, with holes for poles in the side. Extra holes were for different shaped softbox's. I worked out how to insert the poles and the cover... but the white softbox front cover seemed too small, impossible to velcro on. I finally realised that you had to pull the side covers back, poke the poles into the corners of the front cover (much stronger material than it seems), and once you've got that all in place, pull the side cover back up and velcro together.

So, I was ready to go. But no-one to shoot. I really wanted to try portraits, although I should have been working on my project. But I really just wanted to familiarise myself with the lights, not get too adventurous this time. But not only had I just spent my last $40 on 120 film (Kodak Velvia VC 160 - 6 rolls from the eager salesman at Ted's), I realised the kit didn't contain a hotshoe adapter for the sync cord. I knew I could trigger the flashes with the on camera flash on my 400D, but I hated having to use my flash (I hadn't yet realised I could turn it down), and I really wanted to have a go at the Hassleblad.

The next day I took some outdoor shots with the Hassleblad, it was such a different experience than using an SLR. It had a prism veiwfinder, and it was big! The wide angle tripped me out, I couldn't stop looking through it! I found it a bit difficult to focus though. I've always suspected my right eye isn't as good as the other so I think I should check that out.

A very helpful person informed me that there was a connection point in the Hassleblad lens. Of course! It was so obvious. I had even just re-read the medium format chapter in Ansel Adams' The Camera, and it specifically discusses Hassleblad's and how they're organised in components. The prism hotshoe doesn't even have connection points, its only purpose is to hold an on-camera flash. Everything else is dependant upon the lens.

Well I still had no subjects until a reluctant friend dropped in to lend me her MacBook, and I convinced her to be my guinea pig. From what I shot on the 400D, I needed to adjust the brigtness and/or distance of the lights from the subject and back wall.

When she left another friend told me he was setting up a myspace music page for a friend he's written with. He wanted to know if I could shoot some stuff for the profile. Perfect, come over now! I only had about half an hour with them, but it was great fun. I was a bit more accustomed to the set-up, my subject was playing some really nice acoustic stuff, and an amazing and soft Smashing Pumpkins cover, and I mostly just had to wait for those magic moments (and change lenses, batteries, film...). It was really fun. I think we all felt pretty special doing our things.

making a studio

Darren's week 2 class really inspired me to give lighting a shot. I was scared! Pro lighting gear is expensive, and for people who know what they're doing! But then I realised, I've studied this all before, I understand it, I just have to begin experimenting and putting it into practice... otherwise what's the point. But then the issue of location dampened my excitement. I'd heard on the grapevine there's a couple of studio's on campus, one somewhere near architecture, and another somewhere else for the video art kids. Oh, and a bluescreen 'downstairs'. Before I could be bothered to put the peices together, Sharna told me how she was setting up a miniature studio in her shed. Brilliant. I have a double garage at home, no cars occupying it, because its a disaster storage zone.

Well it was time for me to do some ritualistic renovations. I needed a new workspace anyway.

The garage was littered with piles of boxes and miscellaneous junk, with a bit of space for sitting and cigarette smoking. I basically just moved it all to the left of the room, stacked everything to the roof, and threw some rubbish out. I did a lot of sweeping, eventually mopping and vaccuuming too.

I begun painting the plasterboard that covers most of two adjacent walls, and the ceiling... but then my paint ran out as had my funds. Luckily, the paint fairy visited me at RMIT and I was stocked up again. It's funny though how much pastels can appear ceiling white in a dark alleyway at four in the morning. The closest I had was something I would describe as 'institution/school white', aka grey. Maybe blue grey. But close enough to white for now. After all that hard work I realised I would need to seal the floor. Concrete dust was up my nose and I wanted an end to it. You should really apply it with spray, but while I still had my motivation on the best I could do was use the roller I'd just finished the walls with. Section by section, the opacity waned, the sealer ran low. It looks pretty bad but hopefully everyone that doesn't get me will just assume I was going for some kind of artistic aesthetic.

It was a big job. It took me several weeks, and it sometimes felt like it wasn't meant to be. The lowest point was the day I discovered the monster spiders. I'd encountered a few before this point, even a redback, but I have never seen anything like this scary mother. (Yeah, they alwasy had millions of babies along for the ride). I made my mum kill it. She had to use a shovel. It was quite possibly the scariest moment of my life since my teen ouija board days. I really have to remember to 'bomb' this place at some stage, I've now encountered three of these beasts and its not fun.

Anyway, all I really need to do now is get a ladder and finish cutting in the cornices and get some more white sheets to hide the ugly wall of junk.
Oh I'll also need some tools such as a desktop computer for my big computer desk, and some lighting and backdrop stuff would help... you know, the basics.

everything is illuminated

Now that I've narrowed the subject matter down to people engaging in screen-based (mostly narrative-driven) activities, I have to deal with the technical realities of it. Many of these devices (mp3 players, cameras, portable gaming consoles & mobile phones) illuminate the face of the viewer. But not well enough for photography in the lighting conditions I want (dark, Crewsonesque). So I'm going to need to increase the radiant glow. This is what I will need:

- unwanted device bodies
- used disposable camera's (for the flash)
- someone on instructables, photojojo, makezine, or maybe even flickr groups to have already worked it out for me.
- some kind of diffusing system, probably gels too.

Or maybe a snoot or two will do the trick? I really want light to play a big part in this. I want it to be beautiful... not just a means to an end.

Time to experiment. And research... I'm sure this has been done countless times before.