Put up or shut up

It has been a long time since I did a shoot with models on location. It was long overdue that I add some images to my portfolio. I keep telling others how to do it, and decided that from my side, it was high time to “put up or shut up”.

The Train Graveyard

Shots like this take a huge team effort, so a big thank you to everyone involved. To see more in the series click here...

Darkroom Distressing

Had a huge amount of fun destroying paper in the darkroom to create distressed textures for use in Photoshop. Got very creative in the process which resulted in a large variety of effects and looks. Thanks Jamie and Rochelle for the help as it worked out exactly as I had hoped.

Butting Buffalos

This was created through overlaying a couple of our textures which we created in the darkroom with salt, chemicals, sponges, splashing, cellophane, led torch, misaligned negatives in their carrier, broken light bulbs and enthusiasm.

The Power of Tutorials

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my friend Deon for introducing me to the wonderful tutorials of Calvin Hollywood. They are by far the best tutorials I have come across for professional retouching techniques. Below is an example of work before and after the techniques he discussed. This is the best value for money training DVD out there at the moment.

Life before Calvin – life after Calvin

Have a look at the massive difference between the before and after and decide for yourself the value of the knowledge.

Introspection

I have been thinking a lot lately about my photography and where it is going. The things I still want to achieve, the areas I want to develop my skills and abilities in, and the personal projects I'd like to work on. This led to introspection which got me thinking about how much I have grown and developed since the beginning of my journey as a photographer. This got me thinking about just how much I love it!

Fishing for dreams

This image best summarises how I was feeling.

OMG, OMG, OMG!

On my recent trip to the coast, upon opening the curtains I discovered a shipwreck on the beach in front of our accommodation. This fortuitous discovery made the epically disastrous journey to the coast worthwhile. Despite the journey to the coast being worthy of a novel in itself, and only getting to bed at 2:30 in the morning, I was up at sunrise to shoot what I knew would be a great subject.

The Phoenix

I instantly saw the photographic potential, so I was understandably euphoric!

To see more in the series click here…

Wakey, wakey

Woke up very early to get a couple of shots while there was good light, only to discover we did not have access to our intended shoot location. Drove around and this opportunity presented itself.

Morning Sunshine !

It was a very nice reminder that you may find shootings opportunities in unexpected places. So keep your eyes open and keep shooting.

Origins

I have been playing with ink in water, a very satisfying pastime indeed. It is actually one of the first things I ever shot with a digital camera over 10 years ago. And now I was playing with it again, bringing back fond memories. It is always good to take a break and do a personal project to get the passion all revved up again.

Ink Dragon

You can view some more example in the gallery under recent work.

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Digital Dropout

What a time I have had. Lightning struck my telephone pole which fried my router.  Attached is an image taken from my phone showing the smoke billowing out of the tree where the telephone box melted.

That is smoke not mist as my telephone line fries

We then moved house and Telkom has taken a lifetime to re-install my ADSL line. I have also had 3, yes 3! hard drives fail on me. It has cost an absolute fortune to get that sorted out. But we are up and running again so check out the new stuff!

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Welcome…

This is a brand new site and is therefore still under development. Hopefully it will grow to be an online resource for photographers looking to expand their knowledge base. This will eventually include product reviews, downloads, articles, blogs, image archives and video tutorials. Also importantly it will hopefully serve as an inspiration to get the fire back in our belly so we pick up our cameras and go shoot some images. This is a light hearted and fun site created as an outlet for our overflowing passion for the work we do and the people we get to meet.

By way of introduction

Pixel Wranglers is a newly formed company that offers photography related services. We have a wide base of experience and can meet almost any photographic needs a client may require. These include event photography and more intimate personal photography through to commercial shoots as well. We are involved in education and recently large format printing on our new superb quality A1 printer. Mostly we are developing the area of photographic experiences and excursions.

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