Fire twirling!

Helllo all. Sorry for the lack of postings...not so good at this blog thing I guess! Recently I had the opportunity to photography my cousin Drew Chenier, who twirls fire using Poi, which are little squares of material that get soaked in kerosene and lit on fire! Needless to say, cool shots!
Techincal info for most of these shots:

ISO 100
Shot at a variety of shutter speeds, 1-2 seconds.
Aperture was around F11/16/22 depending on flame brightness.
On a tripod so I wouldn't get any camera shake blur.
My SB-800 flash fired at the end to light up drew, it was triggered by a pocketwizard.

Although I'm thinking now that I didn't have to go so slow with the shutter speed. He is twirling those things around really fast, and a bit faster speed 1/2, 1/4, etc might have worked just fine.






For the one above, I zoomed the lens out as the exposure was being made!
You can see the whole lot taken here.
Also, for anyone interested, I am planning to do a photo workshop/shoot with Drew. Hoping to find a beach so we can do cool shots with the sun setting behind him, then in total darkness!

As soon as I set a date, I will let you all know!

Noel

Want to see some great photography? Check out my student's work!

Word of mouth is a great advertising tool, and when it comes to getting students for my photography courses, it is no different! Without a doubt, the number of people who inquire about my courses have been referred to me by a former student. It's only fair that since they recommend me to everyone they know, well, I should do the same!

So, if you would like to see a wide variety of great photographs, check out the work done by my students(like Georges Long, who took the amazing photograph above!)

One of the advantages to taking a course with me is being able to post your pictures online to share with your fellow photographers. The main gallery page is located here.

Here's a rundown of what you will find there:

Indvidual Galleries
Here you can view the work of over 100 of my students! Talk about a variety, every subject you could imagine is here, from landscape to night to abstract to portraits to underwater photography to you name it!

Workshops and Field Trips
These are galleries full of images taken by my students during the various workshops and field trips I offer. From trips to St Martins, Kings Landing, to outings in Uptown Saint John, to fireworks and lighting and photoshop courses, you can get a sense of the kinds of photo opportunities you will have when you come with me!

Group Albums
This is a group of a variety of albums, from shots taken from assignments I've given to various themes.

Some highlights include:
-the PORTFOLIO album, where I've asked my students to post their favourite five pictures and tell us why they are their faves!
-the SCAVENGER HUNT album, where students post photographs to fit various categories-hot, cold, old, new, yellow, blue, etc...
- the HOW DID YOU DO THAT album, where students post shots and explain how they did it! Another example of how great this group of people is as they are always helping each other out by offering constructive criticism and kind words!

Pictures of the Month and Year Contests
One other benefit of being one of my online contributors is taking part in the Pictures of the Month and Pictures of the Year contests! These give students the opportunity to put up their best work and vote to decide the winner.

The current Feb 2009 contest is just wrapping up, you can view it here.

Previous contests can be viewed here:

2008POM
2008POY

2007POY

2006POY

So take a look around, and get inspired! make sure you check back often to see what other great stuff my students have come up with!

I'm Teaching a Photojournalism Course at UNBSJ!

Hello all! I’m super pumped to announce that I will be teaching a photojournalism course at UNBSJ this Spring! It’s a credit course that can be taken by anyone if there are still spots left! My understanding is that this course counts towards an Arts elective if you need one!

Full Details:
Spring Session 2009 ICS 2103 – Reporting and the Image Tuesdays and Thursdays 7:00-9:45pm May 5 – June 11

Course outline:
This course will explore the field of Photojournalism, from its beginnings in the Crimean and American Civil War to the Golden Age of Life magazine to today’s citizen journalist. The course will cover the ethical aspects of the truth behind the photograph and the impact of new technology. Students will be introduced to the photojournalists at the top of their fields during the various eras and the impact they had. Students will also be introduced to basic digital camera skills and shooting techniques used by photojournalists. The course is being taught by award winning photojournalist Noel Chenier. More of his work can be seen at www.noelchenier.ca

REQUIRED FOR COURSE
A digital SLR or point and shoot digital camera with Manual or TV mode.

Contact UNBSJ to register!

Noel

Noel Chenier
----------------------
Photographer and teacher
Portfolio
http://www.noelchenier.ca
Photography Courses Website
http://www.learnphoto.ca
Noel’s Photo Tips Blog
http://noelchenier.blogspot.com
Contact Email:
nchenier@nbnet.nb.ca

Random Object Assignment

Despite the current batch of warmer temps we’ve gotten, it’s still winter, so it’s too cold to go outside and shoot, right? Don’t think that gets you off the hook!
I am hereby challenging you all to find random everyday objects around your household and come up with some great shots!

RANDOM EVERYDAY OBJECT EXERCISE

This is an exercise that challenges you to find interesting photographs using everyday objects around your house. Head to

http://www.learnphoto.ca/random.html

To get a random object to photograph. If you don't have or like the object, refresh the page for a new one!

Try a wide variety of shots of the subjects using some of my suggestions below.

Here are some ideas:
GROUPING-If you have an object that you have a lot of, say marbles or coat hangers, try a shot of a grouping or pile of them.
LENSES-If you have a macro or close up filters, use them to get extremely close to a subject and make it more abstract.
ANGLES-Try shooting the subject at different angles. Look down into a box of straws, shoot up into a sink faucet.
LIGHT-Experiment with photographing the subject under different types of light.
Use direct light from the sun coming in the window, or a bare bulb of a lamp, or try diffused light from soft window light, bounce flash, or a shaded lamp.
SHUTTER SPEEDS-Try using slow shutter speeds with moving subjects to create interesting blur(like my slinky!)
ZOOMING, PANNING, ROTATING-Use slow shutter speeds (1/15th or slower) and intentional camera movement to create interesting images.
APERTURES/DEPTH OF FIELD-Try shallow depth of field(small aperture number-ex F4.5) to focus on a particular part of the subject.

I'm shooting this person where? The boardroom? Grrrrrreeeeeaaaaaaat!

There is nothing more challenging that trying to make an interesting photograph in a boardroom....
On this particular day, I had to photograph William Stanley of Atlantic Hydrogen at the office as he was coming through town. Normally we would have gotten him with some of the company's technology, but all that is in Fredericton and it wasn't possible.
So, I get to shoot him in our board room. Great.

So at the very least I pull out the flash umbrella kit, and do a nice simple portrait.


Since he had a few minutes, I decided to see what else I could come up with, so I threw a flash on a chair behind him and pointed it at the wall and voila!


Hey, that's a funky background that works! The glow behind him sort of ties in to the idea of power, and the arms of the chair provided those interesting shadow lines. So now I need to add some light to his face to bring him out. So I throw a snoot on my main flash, and do a test.


Okay, so I need to bring the flash in closer! But wait, where did my background light go?
Oh yeah, I'm trying to do this using the Canon wireless system, which needs line of sight between the flashes so they will fire! I try lots of different options,

including bouncing the flash(above) but even that doesn't work! Of course the only way it will fire is if I point the flash directly him, which ruins the entire effect!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!

So what do I do?

Run to my desk and pull out my trusting NIKON SB-800 to save the day! (sorry, too lazy to do a funny illustration with a cape...)

It's built in OPTICAL SLAVE will pick up ANY FLASH firing, so the Canon flash gets the heave-ho(not really, it's the Telegraph's of course...) and I set my Nikon SB-800 to SU4 mode and it works perfect!


The moral of the story? Buy a Nikon SB-800 as an secondary flash and life will be good! Unfortunately Nikon has discontinued the SB-800 and replaced it with the just as good, but more expensive SB-900. If you see any SB-800's out there for a good price, snap them up! If you find two, I'll pay you for it!

Investigative Reporter Reid Southick goes beyond the call of duty....

My apologies for not blogging in a while, busy as always! This more of a funny post, not really educational at all...well, maybe in a way...

So, me and a reporter, Reid Southwick, went to check out a pedestrian walkway between Celebration Street in the North End and City Road that goes over Highway 1. (You know the one that's all rusty and looks so wonderful in the summer when the sunlight really shows off the rust?)

Anyway, someone had called to complain about it not being cleared and being very icy and dangerous, and well....it was!

We carefully made our way up to the peak, and slowly went back down to the first landing, grasping the rail for dear life. Then I guess Reid decided to try sliding down the ice, as I heard an "Oh Shit", and thinking he was playing around, started firing away.



And continued to fire away as he hit a non-icy patch........


launched into the air............


and flew right into the rusted fence.........




It was at the point when he screamed in pain that I realized he wasn't kidding


and put the camera down and asked if he was okay. That's why there are no more pictures after that.

Everyone at work got quite a kick out it. I've put up a little animation of it here...wish I had sound! Give it time to load!

So I guess the educational part is don't slide down a sheet of ice that ends in a rusty fence....especially with a photographer around...

Photographs of the Year slideshows

With the end of a year and the start of a new one, everyone goes back through their archives and puts together a pictures of the year selection. Here are some great ones:

NBC News Photos of the Year

TIME Pictures of the Year

Reuters Photos of the Year

TELEGRAPH UK

THE BIG PICTURE

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

SPORTS

Sports Illustrated Pictures of the Year

NBC Sports Pictures of the Year

Please comment with any others you can add to the list!

We've done the same at the Telegraph, you can view ours here:

Noel Chenier

Kate LeBlanc

Peter Walsh

Cindy Wilson