Something very, very different from me today. A client (aka the wife) wanted some makeup photos, to hang, and this was one of the ideas we discussed; a couple of makeup brushes loaded with powder, creating a cloud as they brushed together (by no means unique).

This has been an extremely challenging shoot, and took a few attempts, over a couple of days to get right, and this isn’t necessarily the best of the bunch!

I set up in the garage, as I knew I was going to create a mess, and originally used my larger studio lights, but their flash duration was too long, resulting in movement blur. And so, I then went with my smaller strobes, set to minimum power, which provided not only a shorter flash duration, enabling me to freeze the motion, but also enabled me to fire in burst mode.

I also had to counter the problem of the powder staying up in the air long enough before it fell. The options to counter this, involved using a hairdryer blowing from beneath, and also having the brushes horizontal, rather than vertical. Each option provided pros and cons.

And of course there was the challenge to get the timing of the brushing to coincide with the trigger. And remembering to clean the stems of the brushes between each shot.

And what you see is, other than basic post processing, is what was shot, in a single take, with no additional AI guff!

So challenging but great fun!

*** Featured in Explore 8th July 2024, many thanks to all 🙏 ***

Tags:   Home Studio powder make up brushes colour colourful strobes

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With the onset of Autumn I decided to take a few indoor shots of leaves from the garden in our dining room. A simple set up was used: leaf stuck onto a black piece of card, rested vertically against the wall and lit by a single light and white card. Taken with Olympus EM1 mk2 (in Hi Res mode) plus 40-150 Lens, tethered to the laptop and processed with Lightroom.

Tags:   Hi Res Mode low key square format 40-150 pro em1 mk2 Olympus table top photography home studio close up gold color leaves leaf Fall Autumn

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Another table top shoot on the dining room table. A couple of theatre masks propped up (with difficulty) using a couple of small bottles and blu-tac, resting on a sheet of glass, on top of black card. Lightning was provided by a single lamp through a shoot through brolly and a head torch behind one of the masks illuminating the red wall behind.
Taken with Olympus EM1 mk2 plus 40-150 lens.

Tags:   Olympus 40-150 Olympus em1 mk2 theatre masks home studio table top

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No I haven’t taken up the Violin just having a go with the High Res mode of the Olympus EM1 mk2. Taken with the 40-150 lens which is great for close ups due to its close focusing.

Shot on our coffee table with one direct light.

Tags:   Hi Res one light home studio 40-150 2.8 pro EM1 mk2 Olympus close up music violino Violin

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Another shot on our living room coffee table of the violin this time using using 4 flashes; 1 bouncing off the ceiling, 1 shooting towards a grey backdrop (positioned directly behind the case) and 2 in the case to provide some separation and colour. Three of the flashes were triggered by Pocket Wizards and the other optically.

This also demonstrates the versatility of the Olympus 40-150 (80-300 FF equivalent), which, due to its close focusing, can act as a great close up lens.

Tags:   close up still life m43 micro four thirds bow music case 40-150 2.8 pro Em1 mk2 Olympus Home Studio lighting flash violin strobist

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