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Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Campfire Yells


special thanks for bkaldorf Pittsburgh, (US) & N.S.Silwa

To start the new year off I figured I’d do another beginning to end post on a recent personal project I completed.  As visual communicators, I think it is incredibly important to hone your vision through the use of personal projects.  After all, if you don’t exercise your vision how can you expect to obtain stellar results on your clients work?
Step 1.  Initial sketch.
I always begin with a very rudimentary sketch of what it is I’m trying to accomplish.  In the immortal words of Doc Brown, “Please excuse the crudity of this model, I didn’t have time to build it to scale or to paint it.”
sketching the concept
Concept sketch for the camfire stories photoshoot
I know, I’m a regular picasso right?  Anywho, from here I start fleshing out the particulars; models, lighting, wardrobe etc.  For this particular project I had people already in mind, so it was just a matter of convincing them that they wanted to do it:)  Luckily I have wonderful friends who like to see my imagination come to life so they were more than willing to help me out.  The biggest problem was going to be the location.  I wasn’t keen on carting my entire studio setup out to the middle of a campsite, so I decided to bring the campsite to the studio.  It was a full day of prep work to build the site, but it was totally worth it.  This way I had complete control of the lighting and the models would be much more comfortable (being that it was already the middle of October in the north east).  The only thing that I wasn’t able to replicate in the studio would be the background, that would have to be photographed outside at a later date.
The lighting for this shot was somewhat complex.  I really needed to replicate the glow of the campfire as much as possible without being overly lit.  We ended up going with 8 lights, all of them gelled with various orange and yellow mylar.  The lights on the two boys were up high and at 45 degree angle while our scout leader was lit from a strobe hidden in the campfire.  the highlights were created by two low strobes on either side, which were flagged.  The whole scene was then bathed in fill light with a magnum reflector.
strobe diagram for campfire setup
lighting diagram for campfire setup


The studio shoot itself went off without a hitch.  The background was kept dark so I had an easy time punching it out from the foreground.  That way I could just pop in the correct background at a later date.
behind the scenes campfire shot, unretouched
image before knocking out the background
From here it was just a matter of photographing the background on location and popping it in.  I chose a spot in a local park that kinda fit the mood of what I was after.  From here I just waited for the right time of day, set up two strobes, and fired away.

photograph of the background image
background shot, park near my studio
Once I combined the two images together, it was just a simple matter of my regular post production set up along with adding all of the eyes digitally (I took a bunch of photos of my cats eyes!) and voila, the final image!

finished campfire stories image



Monday, November 18, 2013

Explore COMET ISON -2013

Friday, November 15, 2013

Prince of Wales Arrives 

 

 The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall arrived in the island a short while ago to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo.
At a reception to be held to mark His Royal Highness' birthday he will meet a range of people from Sri Lankan society. The garden at Westminster House, the venue for the party, will host a small organic market, at which The Prince and Duchess will view local produce and learn about farming in Sri Lanka.

The Prince will then spend Saturday in the hill country. In Kandy he will be visiting the iconic Temple of the Tooth, the British Garrison Cemetery and the historic Peradeniya Botanical Gardens . Moving on to Nuwara Eliya, he will visit the Labookellie tea estate and a school for children with disabilities.

On Saturday The Duchess will visit charities in Colombo such as the Home-Start Lanka Satellite Centre in Colombo Municipal Council’s ‘Building Hope’ Resource Centre.




















 'සියවසේ ධූමකේතුව' දකින්න ශ‍්‍රී ලාංකික බාලදක්ෂයන්ට අවස්ථාවක්


මේ මස 17 වැනිදා සිට 23 වැනිදා දක්වා රාති‍්‍ර කාලයේ සහ අළුයම නැගෙනහිර අහසේ දී දැක බලා ගතහැකි අයිසොන් ධුමකේතුව නිරීක්ෂණය කළ හැකි බව ආතර් සී. ක්ලාක් මධ්‍යස්ථානයේ තාරකා විද්‍යාඥ මහාචාර්ය චන්දන ජයරත්න මහතා පවසයි. මෙම ශතවර්ෂයේ දිස්වන ප‍්‍රබලම ධූමකේතුවක් වන මෙම ධුමකේතුව, අයිසොන් ධුමකේතුව ලෙස නම් කර ඇති අතර මෙම ධූම කේතුව දැකබලාගැනීම සඳහා කොළඹ විශ්වවිද්‍යාල පරිශ‍්‍රයේදී සූදානම් කෙරෙන නිරීක්ෂණ කඳවුර සදහා බාලක්ෂයින්ට ද සහභාගී විය හැකියි. සීමිත ඉඩපහසුකම් ඇති බැවින් බාලදක්ෂයින් වෙනුවෙන් හැකි ඉක්මනින් ඔබේ ඉඩපහසුකම් වෙන්කරගන්න. ඒ සදහා ප‍්‍රමාණවත් දායකත්වයක් සැපයීමට කැමති නම් අපට ලියන්න.

ISON ධූම කේතුව ශතවර්ශයේ ධූමකේතුව විදිහටත් හඳුන්වනවා. 2012 ලෝක විනාශය ගැන කතාබහට ලක්වූ මෙම ධූමකේතුව 2012 සැප්තැම්බර් මාසයේදී රුසියානු තාරකා විද්‍යාඥයින් දෙදෙනෙකු විසින් සොයාලනු ලැබූවක්. නොස්ට්‍රාඩමුස්ගේ අනාවැකිය සඵල කරමින් මෙය ලෝක විනාශය සිදු කරයිද යන්න පිලිබඳ තවමත් විද්‍යාඥයින් විමසිලිමත් වෙනවා. හැතැප්ම 3ක් 4ක් අතරේ විශාලත්වයක් තියෙන ඒ කියන්නේ ඔස්ට්‍රේලියාව වගේ 1.2 ගුණයක් විශාගත්වයෙන් යුතු මේ ධූමකේතුව පලමු වරට සූර්යයා හා ගැටීමක් සිදුවන්නේ 2013 දී කියලයි කියන්නේ.




කොහොම වුනත් මේ ධුමකේතුව කිලෝමීටර මිලියන 1.2 පමණ සූර්යයා ආසන්නයෙන් යෑම පමණයි සිදුවෙන්නේ. මේ නිසා සාමාන්‍ය ප්‍රමාණයට වඩා වැඩි විශාගත්වයකින් යුතු වලිගයක් එහි දකින්න පුළුවන් වෙයි කියලත් විශ්වාස කරනවා. මේ ධූමකේතුව 2013 නොවැම්බර් මාසයේදී, හිරුගේ රශ්මියෙන් විනාශ නොවුනොත් අපට රාත්‍රී අහසේ දකින්නට ලැබිය හැකි බවත් දහවල් කාලයේදී අධික දීප්තිමත් තාරකාවක් මෙන් දිස්විය හැකි බවටත් අනාවැකි පලකරලා තියෙනවා.

The Comet ISON, said to be a very bright comet with a dazzling show, will have its closest point to the Sun (perihelion) on November 28. It will visible in Sri Lankan from November 17 to 23. A release said the public should look at the area of the sky close to the eastern horizon before the Sun rise around 5.00 a.m. to see the comet.

"For the best view, you need a very clear sky with no clouds or light pollution and should go to a hill top with no obstruction towards the eastern horizon. On November 17, the comet will be about 25 degrees above the eastern horizon at 5.00 a.m. While increasing the brightness, it will gradually come down daily with 21 degrees on November 19 and 11 degrees on November 23 at 5.00 a.m. above the eastern horizon," the release added.

"You will see the comet with the tail stretching away from the direction of the Sun. A pair of binoculars would give a much better view." Details are available at the Arthur C Clarke Institute for Modern Technologies(ACCIMT)
 

Dr. K. P. S. Chandana Jayaratne - B.Sc., Ph.D., Pg.Dip. Counselling, FIP (SL), MIPC Senior Lecturer in Physics. University of Colombo., Consultant on Astronomy and Space Science Arthur C Clarke Institute for Modern Technologies - Mob/SMS: 0714 800 800 / 0777 309 385 E-mail: chandana@phys.cmb.ac.lk