Damian McGillicuddy visits Stroud Camera Club

Wow! What an evening! Last Thursday, 23 February 2012, Damian McGillicudy visited Stroud Camera Club to talk about his photographic journey and to share some lighting techniques with club members. Stroud Camera club invited guest from neighbouring camera clubs to join them on this evening and we raised £310 for Damian's chosen charity, Marie Curie. Camera Club members were very generous with their donations and I saw several make more donations at the close of the evening, that's how much everyone enjoyed Damian's visit.

Liz, Stroud Camera Club Chairman, welcomes Damian

If you ever get the chance to hear Damian talk or get the chance to attend one of his workshops I highly recommend you don't miss it! Worth every penny!  He's a great speaker, kept us laughing, entertained and interested. He knows his stuff and he knows how to talk about it in plain simple terms which everyone can understand.

Damian with his Olympus E5

Damian talked about equipment and his current favourite cameras, one of which is his Olympus E5 which he's holding above. I've still got my Oly E3, great tough camera. Well technically I guess you could say my husband has it, he claims the E3 as his camera these days. :-p

The camera Damian shot with this evening was his Olympus E-P2. He's been blogging a lot about the micro four thirds system lately and has even had a play in Italy with the new Olympus OM-D. I'm so jealous! I remember when the first Oly Pen came out and I went to London to get a hands on look at it just before it was officially launched by David Bailey to the public. What a day that was! Don't tell anyone but I saw David Bailey drop the Oly Pen camera which they presented him with at the launch. He just casually picked it up and carried on like nothing happened. I wonder if it still worked.

Damian talking about lighting equipment

Damian talking about equipment

After Damian talked about lighting and equipment he brought out some local models for some practical demonstrations. We got to see his images on the back of his Oly E-P2 and the results in camera were amazing. The key to his success is knowing his equipment and knowing how to light his subjects. He told us that he likes to get it right in camera because he's lazy and doesn't like to spend a lot of time post processing his images. I love his way of thinking. Less processing time equals more time shooting. :-D

Model James Artaius with photographer Damian McGillicuddy

Shooting is the fun bit! Most of the images I take I never even processes or do anything with. Capturing the image or that moment in time is the best part of photography for me.

James Artaius

I was given special permission to take photographs during Mr McGillicuddy's photography lesson for my blog. I wanted to try and capture the evening and of course I wanted to have a play as well. There's nothing photographically special about my images from the night as I was shooting with available room light and wasn't able to really control any light....except with my camera settings. I had fun trying though. I took the above photo and cropped it, see below.

Amazing what a little cropping can do to an image. :-D OK OK, I did a bit more than just cropping. I burned the edges for a vignetting effect. I also put a thin black line around it then gave it a large white border.  It'll pass, but sadly the quality really isn't there. Small web quality it looks OK, but I've seen it large. This is where lighting really pays off.

Damian talked about the importance of lighting your subject correctly for the conditions and what you want to achieve, taking into account the ambient light. He also talked about the importance of using a light meter to correctly measure the light.

I use a light meter in my studio but not often anywhere else. I think I'll start keeping my light meter in my camera bag and using it more often. He does make a good point about using one.

Damian McGillicuddy with model Nicki Pixie

Damian briefly touched on posing your model and decluttering your background. I had a bit of fun with post processing decluttering in my next photo. Can you spot what I did? :-D

It was a real treat to see Damian McGillicuddy in action and working with models. It was also great having a makeup artist and a hair stylist on hand as well and seeing them all work together. It was quite an experience for most of us who'd never worked with a crew like this before. Well I have to a certain extent but not very much.

Damian McGillicuddy has designed and created his own line of lighting modifiers and sells them from his website. They are easy to set up and easily collapsible to make traveling with them a breeze. A lot of my work is on location so this is of particular interest to me.

Damian talking about the collapsible beauty disk he designed. 

It was really great to watch the master at work and I'm looking forward to looking him up at FOCUS on Imaging next week. I hope he has some of his light modifiers on display as I'd like a closer look at them. I might even buy a few. :-)

At the end of the evening Damian gave away a couple of his Down and Dirty Lighting Lessons CDs which you can purchase on his website. He also gave a copy to me as a kind of apology for picking on me throughout the evening. I've had a quick look at it and I'm very impressed. I'm looking forward to taking a much longer look as soon as I get the chance.

Tonight 'Team McGillicuddy' consisted of:
Damian McGillicuddy - Lead Photographer & Photography Instructor (Link to website)
Marcus Green - Assistant & Photographer (Link to website)
Rob Golding - Assistant (Link to website)
Nicki Pixie - Model (Link to website)
James Artaius - Model (Link to website)
Ash Williams - Hairsylist (Link to website)
Marina Harbs Firth-Bernard - Make up Artist

If you'd like to see more of my images from this night you can see them in this web gallery:
Damian McGillicuddy visits Stroud Camera Club (Thursday 23/02/12)

As promised, link to Damian McGillicuddy's blog post about his visit  with a couple of photos taken on the night: 
Just before FOCUS on Imaging 2012

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Camera I used tonight was my Canon 5D II. Lens used was Canon 85mm f1.8. 

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The Lowepro Pro Roller Attaché x50

I recently received the new Lowepro Pro Roller Attaché x50. When I first saw it I had my doubts. At first I thought, my word that's small, will I get all my gear in there? It's a lot bigger than it seems, I can tell ya! And if you need a bit more room for gear you can always take the soft bag out of the roller case and either carry it or slip it over the pulling handle of the other bag.

It's nice and sturdy and has lots of pockets, it even has a pocket for a small 14inch laptop. Sadly my laptop is too large for this, but I don't think I'd want to carry a laptop around with my camera gear anyway. Though if I had a small one I probably would.

My Canon 5D II with 24-70mm 2.8L lens attached, wrist strap and a tripod foot attached fit nicely in the bag along with an extra large lens (or two smaller lenses) a flash gun (or two), triggers and remotes, mini reflectors and colour charts and lots of other bits and bobs all fit nicely in the bag. All the stuff I usually take with me on assignment. I can even squeeze in a back up body with no lens attached.

They have really thought of everything with this bag, though a few tiny pockets for cards and batteries wouldn't go amiss. I really love how it opens up like a drawer with instant access to all your gear. You don't have to hunt for a place to put your bag down or try and fiddle with stuff or worry about your gear falling out. Makes quick lens changes a breeze!

Above is a quick photo I took to show the bag in use on a job. I really love how I can quickly attach a flash gun to the handle and use the bag as a light stand. A light stand with built in counter weight and wheels! It was so easy to move the bag and flash gun around to get the shot I wanted, even quickly wheeled it outside no problem! Of course I had to be careful, I didn't want to knock the flashgun and break it off, but it honestly wasn't any trouble at all to move around with all attached. It's like having an assistant along with you!

This bag is perfect for travelling with. Take the inside bag out and use as a lovely top loading shoulder bag for your gear. It's made to slip over the handle of the outer bag if you happen to need more space. It can also be use as a suit case for your clothes and travel needs. It's suppose to be airline approved for carry on luggage, though I've not actually travelled with it myself. I would think that if the roller bag didn't pass you could take the inner bag out and carry that on and let the roller bag go in the hold. I hope to be travelling with it soon, so I'll let you know. :-)

This bag definitely gets my seal of approval. I've been dragging it around with me everywhere. Really saves my back and keeps all my gear right at my finger tips. It's much much more than a camera bag, it's my new personal assistant. :-)

Below is a little stop motion movie I made with the bag down at the studio yesterday. (Saturday 22, January 2011) I was in a bit of a rush but I wanted to see if I could do it, had the idea swimming around in my head awhile now. I put my camera on a tripod, but my bag in the middle of the infinity cove. Turned on 4 flash heads, aimed two at the background, only using the modelling lights. I didn't set off the flash. I took 144 images moving the bag a bit between takes. Then went home and swore at the computer for a while until I finally managed to put this together.

Can you tell I like this camera bag? :-D

All of the images above including the ones in the video, were taken by myself, TammyLynn. With the exception of the photo taken at Morrisons, all of the photos above were taken at The London Road Studio in Gloucester.

UPDATE: Lowepro have seen my little video and have featured it on their blog! Lowepro Blog link

Lowepro said this on their Facebook and Twitter post about the movie:

You've got to spend 56 seconds to watch this animated film made by TammyLynn featuring a Pro Roller Attache x50. It's fun.

Beyond the Lens - Expecting

Written by Tamara Kwan of TammyLynn Photography

Featured on I am Gloucestershire 365's website under FYI Daily Blog on Saturday,  22 January 2011

There is nothing like the expected arrival of your first baby, or any baby for that matter. A lot of expecting mums choose to record the beauty of this time in their lives with a professional photo shoot either in a studio like the image I created above or with an environmental shoot like the one I shot below.

I think it’s wonderful that they are doing this, not only because I’m a photographer but because I’m a mother. 21 years ago, when I was a first time mother-to-be, I’d never heard of a special photo shoot for expectant mothers, whereas today it’s common place. I think that Annie Leibovitz’s Vanity Fair cover photo of Demi Moore might have something to do with this.

I do often wish I’d taken more photos of myself when I was pregnant now. Photographers have for a long time offered baby packages for young mothers to record the milestones of their babies’ growth. These days these packages start before the baby is born. I like to call it their first family portrait. J

...a moment in time to treasure forever...

TammyLynn Photography:

Portraits, events, commercial, promotional, fantasy and fun. Bump to baby, home to office. Family Portraits, Special Occasions.  Create an image or capture a moment to treasure.

For Studio hire - The London Road Studio

For more information:

TammyLynn Photography
email: tammy@tammylynn.co.uk
Tamara (Tammy) Kwan 
Mobile: +44 (0) 7983 826508 (preferred)
Phone: +44 (0) 1453 766029