Martin Beddall Blog

I don’t think I’m that unusual as a photographer to find that over the years I collected more and more equipment. Aside from the allure of the “shiny & new”, as your photography develops , the markets you work in and the clients you work for evolve and change, so do your photographic equipment needs. Digital has added fuel to the fire to this accumulation, as kit is out-of-date and loses monetary value faster than driving a brand new car off a garage forecourt. This need to upgrade doesn’t just apply to the big ticket items – the latest Digital Medium format back, the latest Canon/Nikon/Zeiss lens that you “must” have, but also more humbler items. In days past there would have been a cupboard in my office holding blocks of Neopan, Tri-X and Reala complemented with a fridge holding boxes of Ektachrome and Velvia ( with some in the freezer ). Now for the digital equivalent of film, CompactFlash cards (CF),  there are three Pixel Pocket Rocket wallets and a forgotten drawer that I discovered this morning.

The cards range from a paltry 160MB to a whooping 32GB but are all identical in size. Four of them are the IBM Microdrives, a system that lost out to the CompactFlash card as the latter’s capacity increased. They show a progression using digital since I jumped onboard in 2001 ( the horrible days of digital with magenta skin tones ). My latest addition, the 32GB cards cost me £130 each and looking at an old invoice from 2004 for a 2GB card, I paid……£172!!! Using cameras such as the Canon 1DS MKIII and the 5D MKII has prompted this progression. Shooting both RAW and large jpeg files in the 5D MKII, gives me a capacity of over 900 images on that one card – and all the ‘perils’ of having so many files on one card – but after a long shoot recently in which changing cards was not easy, these cards will give me options – it’s not as if I haven’t got lots of smaller cards to use if the doubt sets in. All seems a long way from the days when my Domke bag pockets were stuffed full of Fuji rolls each with a ‘large’ capacity of 36 images!

“  How far still?…. “

Shot on a Hasselblad 503CW, Fuji Neopan film.

A portrait shoot from last month for Virgin Green Fund, photographing the London team for their website and literature. Shooting in a small meeting room, I was looking for a bright, clean look, mixing natural daylight and the ‘poor man’s’ HMI, the Interfit Monstar 3 light ( about £375 with an octobox, lightstand and case ). A continous source, daylight balanced ( about 5000 K ) powered by three massive 150 watt lightbulbs – see the photos below of the light with the bulbs attached next to my 1DS MKIII camera for scale. Output from these is said to be the equivalent of 1800 watts of tungsten lighting!

Shooting with the octobox reflector that comes with the light, without the front diffuser panel, it does give enough output to lift the light levels with a nice bright, flat light, even when shooting against the light. Combined with the high ISO capabilties of camera such as the Canon 5D MKII or the Nikon D3S, allows you to light a room and shoot with, seemingly, more freedom than a strobe system. Letting the background bleach out a bit helps give that “high-key-Ikea -catalogue-lifestyle-bright-aired-look”. A more modern, contemporary business look away from the wood panelled boardroom shots of yesteryear. The only downside of this light is the sheer size of the bulbs, with need to be handled carefully as they would be easy to smash. The upside, pulling a roller along the street with this kit in it is considerably easier on your back than a Profoto 7b pack! It doesn’t replace the Profotos, useless outdoors, but in the right situation it is a great light to work with – but then if the budget stretches to real HMI’s!

Some shots can be see on a slideshow by clicking on the image below.

It’s May 1st – May Day – summer is around the corner. So it’s a Bank Holiday weekend ( do banks deserve holidays anymore? ) so here’s comes the rain and temperature drop just to keep us all in our place and put those barbecues and sunglasses away. The morning of May 1st also spotlights the great British eccentrics keeping alive traditions that go back to our pagan past on the isles. It is the heralding of summer and fertility ( summer officially starts in June ) dating back from the Roman festival of Flora and beyond. From the anglo-saxon, Þrimilci-mōnaþ, to the Christian mass of Roodmass – Christianity loved to piggyback on pagan customs and claim them for the new religion. To oncoming days of May day queens, maypoles, morris dancing, English country pubs, real ale, garlands of flowers, well dressing, the start of the cricket season. This morning to Oxford and the broadsheets’ favourite, the early morning song of the choir  atop the Great Tower of Magdalen college ( followed by the more recent ‘tradition’ of some bright-young-things jumping off Magdalen bridge into the river Cherwell and potential paralysis ).

I had hoped to post some images this morning of a notable tradition here in Sussex, but having hurt my back ( running ) a couple of days ago I am currently doing an impression of a very unsprightly ninety year old man, so couldn’t make the early morning walk up the South Downs to Chanctonbury Ring. The remains of a small Iron Age hillfort and a Roman temple, the ring is now a landmark thanks to the trees planted by a landowner in the eighteenth century. Many of these trees were felled by the great storm of 1987 and the replanted ones are slowly restoring this feature. Like many geographical features locally, it is connected to the Devil – very supersitious lot they were in Sussex it seems. By running around the ring seven times, some say twelve, in an anti-clockwise direction the Devil, by some versions, as the church bell in the plain below tolls, it is said will appear in the branches of a tree to offer you a bowl of soup in exchange for your soul. Seems pretty cheap to me but this legend has encouraged my kids to walk up the hill and try to run around the Ring to summon up the Devil – not worked yet! But back  to the tradition of May 1.

Every May 1st, the Chanctonbury Ring Morris Men, arrive atop the Ring to dance at 7am and welcome the sun and ‘summer’. As I say I couldn’t make it this year, but here the weather looked cloudy and it is starting to rain as I write so not sure how it went today. But hopefully next year I’ll get to witness a sunrise there as I did in 2005 as seen in this small slideshow below.

A corporate shoot in The City for Schroders from last week. The latest in a series of shoots for them over the past few years, photographing various key personnel for their image library with intended use in both company literature and for external editorial – to accompany interviews in business titles for example. With a fifteen minute window for each subject, which is rarely actually the full fifteen minutes, the idea is to get a variety of shots. What sets these shoots apart from many other such assignments is the ability to use their boardroom as a location.

Unlike many, this not only has a view  and plenty of space but also has a reasonable amount of natural light, as the sun arcs across the London skyline. Previously for these shoots I had shot one setup with my Profoto 7b’s and a very large Chimera softbox, grids, etc, as well as shots by the window with a reflector and more natural looking shots using the window light – shooting into the boardroom with the windows behind as a large ‘softbox’. Sticking with the last two setups, this time rather than using strobes I enhanced the natural light with a my Interfit Monstar 3 light with it’s Octobox attached. A daylight balanced continous light source – I hope to discuss this light soon in a forthcoming post when it was used in another slightly different corporate shoot last week . I have usually used this light to “lift” the light in a room when shooting the sort of “reportage” meeting shots of executives beloved by annual reports rather than have a flash constantly going off which can distract the subjects.  When it has the octobox diffuser panel attached  for portraits the output isn’t great but it emits a soft light that enhances the natural light in the room without overpowering the background. The result is similar as with a flash/softbox, but I can shoot with a more open aperture to seperate the subject from the backdrop to, hopefully, create a clean, natural looking and flattering lighting. Both the octobox light and light from the window is also bounced by a couple of large 48″ Lastolite sunfire reflectors. Clicking on the portrait below should start a slideshow of some images from this shoot.