This is the first week where everything has felt like it’s getting back on track. I’m not sure what it is, but something positive is happening, the trip out of the valley has started.

If you haven’t heard the song that’s the title of this photo, you need to. Go here.

In February, I made the BEST decision I’ve ever made in my life; I adopted a kitten.

Meow, short for Lady Meow of Brisbane, is the most special little ball of fur. She makes my house seem like the best place in the world when I come home each afternoon. Her love helps me get through the bad days and makes the good days even better.

Strobist: 430EX @ 1/16 high above and to the right of me, 580EX @ 1/16 into stofen omni-bounce at camera height to my right.

I think this comic is a fair summary of my life:

Sometimes life makes you feel pretty awful. But thankfully, it passes and life, as always, goes on.

The breakdown of a relationship is a pretty brutal thing. It floors you. It makes you question your self worth, your value to the world. It makes you sad and it makes you ever so lonely. My last 52 week project didn’t ever get finished because of what happened in my relationship with Soph. It’s been nearly 8 months now but life is still not back to normal. We parted still loving each other, but there had been so much damage along the way that it was impossible to reconcile that and we both accepted it (eventually). We still talk every now and then and in time, we will become friends; It’s not possible to spend so much of your life together and not have a friend for life. But for now, we’re both getting on with our lives and trying to sort ourselves out.

My motivation to take photographs, especially self portraits has waned but this is something that I need to start again. It gives me something to think about during the week, something to fill my ever-thinking mind. It’s catharsis and it needs to be done. I think the first few weeks of the project might be a little ‘emo’, but I think with time, I’ll get my humour back again. I’ll be back from the dead and I’ll hopefully make you smile or giggle. And hopefully, I’ll smear myself in high fructose corn syrup at some point again.

But for now, bear with me and we’ll get this train on the tracks again.

Shot in 1080p HD entirely on a Canon 5D Mk2 with ghetto lighting purchased from the hardware store Bunnings, the series had a budget dominated by catering for actors, crew and extras. We did get pretty good at making sandwiches in the end so all isn’t lost. It’s taken us nearly 5 months to edit, colour grade and do the sound but FINALLY the bloody thing is ready. We hope you enjoy it!

Here’s the final product! The band loved the clip and while there are a couple of small technical things that we still notice, it was a pretty amazing learning curve for two guys who’d never shot a video clip before and we’re pretty happy with our efforts.

]]> http://mulletgod.org/site/?feed=rss2&p=512 4 http://mulletgod.org/site/?p=505 http://mulletgod.org/site/?p=505#comments Mon, 03 May 2010 09:27:25 +0000 mulletgod http://mulletgod.org/site/?p=505 The last few months have been a pretty tough time for me creatively. I’m in what’s known as a bit of a funk and photography isn’t something where my heart is at the moment. I know it’s just a matter of time for me to get my interest back. But in saying that, I’ve still been doing plenty of work for other people covering weddings, band promos and portraits. I’ve also been involved in the production, filming and editing of a TV comedy series a friend and I created as well as some video clip work. I’ll get to those in a few days…

This is a promo photo I took for BugGiRL a few months ago down in Wollongong. The band were flying out for the USA as part of a massive tour a few days after this shoot and are still there at the moment. Check them out if you get a chance and you’re in any of these places in the next month or so.

I also took some photos for a young Brisbane band called Wheeler. These guys, with an average age of 13, just won a local competition against much older competition and are working hard towards developing a bigger fanbase and getting their music out. I have to say, the conversation with the two younger members Flaxton and Xane about nerf machine guns was probably one of the best I’ve ever had with a band during a photoshoot!

For the first time, I went into a photoshoot planning only 2 photos. Normally I try and get as many good ones as I can, but this different approach let me really think about what I needed to do well before the actual event. I knew it was going to be a bunch of composites which generally require the greatest amount of planning. The next photo here was something the band had thought of and told me on the evening, thankfully there was enough room in my brain to be able to work that one out as well.

Lighting was simple in my two planned set ups, but for the previous shot we had to do a bit of thinking as it’s a 4 image composite.

left guy: 430EX @ 1/4 through shoot through umbrella very close to head, 580EX with blue gel about 1.5m back and to the right of him @ 1/1
lightning guy: 580EX @ 1/4 + 0.3 into shoot through umbrella directly above with blue gel, 430EX @ 1/2 into reflective umbrella directly below camera
surprised guy: 580EX @ 1/4 with blue gel through shoot through umbrella
right guy: same as left guy but on opposite sides.

The final image is what happens after a lightning strike. Lighting for this shot was again quite simple, just a 580EX into reflective umbrella @ 1/2 directly above and between myself and subjects with a
430EX @ 1/4 directly behind.

If anyone wants me to write up a tutorial on creating lightning or smoke in Photoshop, hit me up.

First up, this is the Dawn Collective, a band I’ve photographed before but have restructured dramatically to become a two-piece.

This last one is a revisit of an older photo which I took when they were a 5 piece.

And the original:

Many thanks to Lauren and and Joseph (the provider of the Alien Bees lights I used on the day) for assisting and helping carry the generator and all those light stands.

If you are particularly observant or stalker like, you might have noticed my flickr stream only contains about 25% of what it did last week. I’ve had a bit of an artistic crisis and feel like a lot of the photos I have on there aren’t as good as I wished they were and made them private. I didn’t have the heart to delete them and I hope that whatever I add onto there in the future fills that void.

But thanks to flickr’s ingenious system of changing filenames when you change them from public to private, all of these images have now disappeared off this blog as well and been replaced with “This photo is currently unavailable”. I’m trying to figure out what the best way to get around this is so your patience is appreciated. While you wait, check out http://youshouldhaveseenthis.com, best website on the internet.