you know your shoot is going to go well when you take the first photo and it comes out like this!

more to follow – stay tuned

as promised here is a selection from the party yesterday! the day was well attended by family and close friends; and beautifully decorated by norm’s lovely wife daisy, joy and jane of course, and many other talented and willing helpers. daisy created special signature cakes cleverly illustrating norman castle’s own name, and still found time to prepare a wonderfully tasty banquet which we all enjoyed.

during the party guests and family were entertained by norm’s photo presentation summarising his life so far; and we were fortunate to have two wonderfully talented musicians with us: norm’s own singer/guitarist nephew – and the Queen’s own piper (norm’s friend from his own piping days) who played for HRH when she visited new zealand – and piped again for norm as a special surprise yesterday!

here’s the birthday boy himself

some of the wonderful decorations, and two of the THREE cakes

norm reunites with some of the family

beginning the presentation

family members

the wonderful food!

renee decided to sing – she was surprised when mum intervened

isobel: before and after

photos with family

guests enjoying the music

cake time!

the Queen’s piper

pressie time!

norm and daisy – thank you for asking us to be part of your special day!

it’s late but i just wanted to share a quick preview from a wonderful gentleman’s birthday celebrations today – check back soon for more!

imagine you’re moving your family overseas… your house is sold; your furniture has left the country; your good-byes have been said – and your plane leaves in 7 hours! now, what tasks would make your “essential” list for the last morning in new zealand? i’m guessing: have a good breakfast, check passports & tickets, make sure your luggage is ready, get comfortable clothes & something to keep the kids busy on the plane, sort out some foreign currency…

well, if your last name is willcocks: chances are the first thing you will do is get dressed up and drive across town to get some pictures taken with your best friends! yes, really! so, that’s what they did – and here’s some of the result…

sometimes my cats don’t much care for a big camera being stuck in their personal space (which is actually quite extensive when they are trying to sleep) but this time he played along, so i thought i’d share some pics.

from this perspective, looking into a cat’s eyes, you really get an idea of how mice and unwary birds feel just before their luck runs out!

today while out visiting, i was asked to take a quick portrait of a friend, but i only had my compact Canon IXUS camera with me. now this isn’t a bad little camera for your purse… but when it comes to quality work, it doesn’t really cut it. sometimes this happens, and you have to grab a nice-looking photograph with whatever you have to hand:

here’s how i did it…

first of all, i needed to use the best light possible for the shot, so i took Norm (the subject) outside to an area of open shade, with good reflected light from the sunlit lawn. then i faced him at an angle to the camera, and had him turn his head towards me a little more, to create interest and present a flattering view.

unlike my DSLR cameras, my IXUS has no manual shooting controls; but it does have a 3x optical zoom (max focal length approx equal to 105mm on a 35mm camera). to avoid unflattering barrel distortion (seen with wide-angle photos, makes you look like… well, a barrel), i chose to zoom the lens in as far as it would go, and step well back to compose the shot. this also solved the problem of my reflection appearing in the subject’s glasses!

while i chatted a little to Norm to put him off-guard (as this impromptu photo shoot was not his own idea!) i composed and pre-focused the camera – important with compacts as they have a noticeable shutter delay – and when i saw a natural smile i grabbed the shot. i took a few shots to make sure of getting one that he would be happy with… and this was his favourite. so now i had the photo, and here’s what came out of the camera:

unfortunately, the result looks like what it is – a compact camera snapshot. so here’s what i did to make it more presentable (sorry but here i’m gonna assume a good working knowledge of Adobe Photoshop – plenty of other places cover the basics much better than i can in this blog).

first of all, i ran ‘Pro Retouch’ on it (from Totally Rad Actions) and gently softened areas of the skin with a low-opacity brush. then i used the ‘Eye Bump’ layer from that same action, and slightly lightened the tinted glasses to reveal his eyes, and painted briefly over his teeth as well. then, i used the Colour Balance tool and adjusted the warmth of the photo by increasing cool green, blue and cyan tint on the tree behind Norm (leaving Norm his original colour with the history brush). i used the Curves tool and gave the photo a little more contrast and clarity overall. then, another action from Totally Rad, this time from their second set The Revenge: ‘Pool Party’, at just 20% opacity – and only applied to Norm himself (using layer masks), to remove some of the redness created by the camera, and even out his skin tones. and i added a light vignette to direct the eye to his face. here is the photo so far – looking a lot better, but still not done.

next, i needed to give Norm more separation from the background… with no control over aperture i was unable to shoot the way i normally would with my ‘wide-open’ lenses; and this put the whole photo into focus – fine for landscapes, but distracting for portraits. so i duplicated the whole layer, and ran the Extract filter on the top layer to manually erase the entire background. this is a fiddly job especially where fine hairs exist – if you erase them too, you end up with a cardboard cutout. the Extract filter often doesn’t do a very good job but this time it was acceptable with a bit of tweaking. then, on the underneath layer i ran ‘Bokeh’, a filter from Alien Skin which approximates the effect of wide aperture lenses. i experimented with the settings until the preview looked reasonably natural, and then applied the filter. this put the leaves out of focus – but of course it blurred Norm too and made his shape bigger than it was before, so that it showed up as a fuzzy pink glow all the way around his outline. and here’s what that looks like:

yeh, not good LOL. to fix that, i enlarged the leafy area on the bottom layer all the way around Norm to reduce the size of the glow; now the upper layer would hide it. a couple of tweaks (like removing the red reflection from the left of his glasses) – and i’m done. and here is the before and after shot together for comparison:

this method will never produce as good a result as using the proper equipment from the start – but it can help rescue a situation where sometimes a snapshot is all you have to work with, and you’ve just got to do your best. if you have any questions please feel free to comment

what the duck is a clever and insightful look into the world of “anyphotographer” (yes, i meant to write it that way). one that arrived in my rss reader this week has inspired to retrieve and share some of my all-time personal favourites here. these simple comic strips artfully describe in approximately 3 frames certain common frustrations that almost every photographer can relate to – and all other humans get to point and laugh, so it’s win/win!

“never work with children or animals” was famously coined by WC Fields… that law still holds true today, for all but the most patient saints (and the feeble-minded):

this next “compliment” will be familiar to many photographers and others… a variation on the retort below is to invite yourself to a tasty meal at their home, and, after you have eaten your fill, comment on the obvious quality of their mixing bowls:

this is what we all wish we’d thought of doing when yet another person comes up and asks us to hand over portions of our livelihood for free:

actually, i am not an abstract photographer – but i believe frustration is a universally understood quality:

something a little more topical:

come on, admit it – you didn’t read the middle panel either!

warning: uncontrollable cringing and chronic eye tics may occur in anyone who has ever put themselves and their equipment through this experience:

to browse the entire collection at your own pace or purchase wtd merchandise, visit what the duck online

i am generally an organised person: i can locate any file on my computers within seconds; i have an appointment calendar and alarm clock, a filing and shelving system; and tidy house (mostly)… but as i type there is a spot right here beside me that gives lie to all my self-congratulation.

now, my desk is HUGE. it is a solid wood former bank manager’s desk i snapped up about 10 years ago from a used furniture depot, for just over $100. it is 1.6m long and nearly 1m deep, with tons of huge drawers and lots of leg-room underneath… in other words, there is plenty of space for storage, equpiment and work area without being cramped. yet seemingly without any conscious effort, the area directly in front of the printer (about 1 foot square) is permanently obscured by random bits & pieces that were cast aside and left behind; just like on the beach after a storm – but less smelly!

right now there’s a roll of duct tape, sunscreen, a pile of dvds, an empty glass, more dvds, empty dvd cases, a reel of fishing line (wtf? where did that come from, i don’t fish!), glue, receipts, bits of plastic sheeting, a tin of thread & needles, my water bottle, one of my cameras, a nail file, and TONS of notes on scrap paper. i’m not posting a photo because it’s too embarassing. i cleared all the junk away only a couple of days ago, but it has all returned once more, or taken other forms. this pattern repeats itself continuously no matter how i resolve to end the cycle. it’s like the cobweb that grows on your side mirror each night which you notice and remove on your drive to work each morning.

nowhere else in here accumulates such mess, (except periodically my kitchen bench, but that is all food-related); yet to my everlasting annoyance every time i need to print something i first have to schedule 15 minutes of cleanup time to make a space for the paper to exit the printer. (sometimes, i don’t even try… i just balance a piece of card over the top of the junk and under the printer, to catch the printed sheet and allow it to ride up and over the pile!)

am i alone? does anyone else have a similar high-tide point in their home, marking the exact spot at which your subconscious says “i’ve carried that far enough, it looks good here”? but why THAT spot? you know, it actually DOESN’T look good there. is there some kind of localised gravitational anomaly which causes things to increase in weight or awkwardness at those coordinates? or is it some psychic phenomena that causes me to just forget what i am carrying as i pass by? (don’t smirk – have you ever searched high and low for something you are actually holding in your hand?)

i have no way to test either theory so it looks like i will have to resign myself to living with the inconvenience indefinitely. and since no one needs to actually SEE my junk pile, here’s something far more attractive from a recent evening outing…

it doesn’t seem a moment ago that baby joshua ty was having his very first photo shoot at just two days old! since he was born i have been lucky enough to watch him grow up through my lens: aged one month old; and a few from six months old.

and now, he is one year old, so of course he had an enormous bash at his family’s gorgeous new home under the kauri trees. he received more presents than he could play with, but the other children were more than happy to assist him with that; and a great celebration was had by all.

here are my favourites from yesterday’s party…

costume time! bob the builder meets elvis…

cake – made with love by joshua’s grandmother

he’s so funny

unimpressed cat is… unimpressed

one of his guests… only a couple of weeks older than him

cake time!

illegal lollipop – choking hazard alert

i had planned to blog about something different today but those plans have changed… so take a moment to appreciate these gorgeous flowers:

beautiful, aren’t they? for many months a small dedicated team have freely given their time, hard work and money to make the gardens surrounding our church beautiful and fresh, and since this summer began we have all been treated to the most gorgeous display of colour and growth, as the calla lilies bloomed amid the strawflowers and alyssum, with succulents scattered throughout.

well, thanks to someone selfish… these photos and a few scattered & trampled specimens are all that has survived a visit from our neighbourhood thief this week.

these flowers have bloomed for weeks to be appreciated by all who visited the church or walked in the grounds… but this morning when we all arrived, clods of soil littered the driveway; and gaping holes torn in the dirt were all that was left of some of the beautiful and lovingly tended beds. at least half the lilies are gone; and many that were not taken have been snapped off at the roots and left laying in the dirt. an entire bucket of growing succulent cuttings has been stolen as well… just to add insult to injury.

this was NOT cool… the lady in charge of maintaining the gardens is heartbroken and has been left feeling very discouraged, and all of us are sad at the damage… i wonder whether the person who took them spared any thought for the unhappiness they would cause with their thoughtless and greedy act? i’d like to imagine that they might feel ashamed, but perhaps that’s just giving them too much credit.