The Macro Workshop in my Byron Bay studio was a cram-packed day! I set-up all the shots, but I did not get a chance to take any photos on the day….and when I saw the images my students had made…well!..I was just so inspired to get my own take on each ‘set’. So I recreated them all again the next day and then I let my beautiful subjects bugjects go.
Of course, I couldn’t re-magic the shots we found outside, but I did have a few lovely hours outside with the dragonflies. Which was lucky as it turned out, because the next day the council came and did some major works on dredging the waterway…and wrecked my dragonfly hunting grounds! : (““
Oh, how I love my new studio stand-block-thingy. I have been cooking up this contraption in my head for a good long while..and finally in a burst of sub-concious and concious colliding, I was able to jot down what I had in mind. This innocuous looking block looks innocent enough, sculptural even…but its simple form allows me to turn it to 4 different positions and a myriad uses.
The ever-delightful and increasingly carpenter-ish Angus, turned my scribbled ideas into a real-world thing – my studio block…actually that has a nice solid ring to it that deserves to be capitalised: Studio Block. maybe even all caps and exclamations : STUDIO BLOCK!!!
Ok, so, my Studio Block is designed so I can
- Low and wide for tableaux that I want to shoot from above. I can stand on my Studio Block to shoot from above, or
- In the same position I can place my light Cube from Japan on it – and voila, the perfect space for photographing flying insects! It is wide enough at the bottom, so that my bugjects can’t escape.
If I need more light, the flash heads can be placed right up against it. In this position I sit on the floor and can give my bugjects space, so they are not stressed and I get the images I love.
- Next I can place my infinity board stand on it, and it is at a perfect height for creating still life compositions (which I am really doing alot of at the moment). My Infinity board stand is a great piece of equipment, but rarely utilised because it is a weird height. Too low on the ground, too high on a table…but just right on my Studio Block.
- I roll my Studio Block (loving its name!) to its medium height for creating compositions that I want to shoot from the front. It is the perfect height for shooting from a chair. This is life-changing stuff! As I can now sit comfortably, and rearrange compositions to my finnicky hearts content. I can roll a block of shelf things I got at Ikea (and have hated and tried to throw out for three years, but it just kept on being useful…and now, well I love it) right next to me. The load the ikea thing up with the props I might like to use, and then just tinker. Bliss. If I want to shoot the composition from above, I just stand on a chair.
- The high side of my Studio Block comes up to my waist and it is a great height for small things. I have been photographing all the new jewellery for the Institute of Cute and it really is a great height.
Do you want to see it?
