Building the movie set for a serial killer who uses pencils as a murder weapon!

I took this photograph many years ago around Staffordshire University around 4AM in the eerie night, using a Pentax MZ-S, film, and a steady hand on the shutter release for a few minutes on bulb for long exposure. I remember when they said digital would never be better than film.

River through the desert from Yuma Territorial Prison, Yuma, Arizona.

A smiley face in ketchup from Johnny Rockets in Hollywood, California.

Desert road on the way back from Willow Beach, Arizona

I took this photograph on a road trip in the USA on a quiet little road leading to Willow Beach in Arizona.

Movie producers on the set

I took this photograph on a movie set outdoors in Hollywood. I was Production Designer on a short film called ‘ASK American Serial Killers.’

I like how both the Producer and Director in this shot are deep in thought while looking at what is happening on the set.

You can find out more about the movie ‘American Serial Killers’ at the mini-site here.

You can find plenty more photographs here:

Movie Stills Photography [More]

The cast and crew list included:

• Writer & Director — Sriram Rajan
• Producer — Anusha Sriram
• Director of Photography– Adam O’ Connor
• Editor — Stacie Dekker
• Casting Director — Oorala Yamada
• Production Designer — Jon Hassall
• Music Composer — Jayson Smiley
• Ist Assistant Director — Vanessa Abreu
• Laura Jean Bransky
• Ist Assistant Cameraman — Ben Kobbs
• Gaffer — Luke Kalteux
• Grip — Darion Taylor
• Head Makeup/ Wardrobe/ Visual Fx — Martha Sanchez
• Script Supervisor — Daron Arnold
• Location sound — Anton Haugabook
• Sound Mixer — Alexy Mohr
• Geeta Novotny
• Doris Guerrero
• Randy Tobin
• John Zderko
• Tim Maloney
• Latitia DeLaine
• Joher Coleman
• Kelsa Kinsly
• Jesse Jimenez

Star trails in the trailer park — long exposure

This photograph was taken in a trailer park in Yuma, Arizona.

You can see that the stars in the sky have made trails as the earth moves relative to them.

I kept the shutter of the camera open for a relatively long period (about 10 minutes) using a Canon TC-80N3 remote control. This unit has various settings, such as self-timer, interval timer, long-exposure timer, and exposure-count. In this photograph I used long-exposure timer.

I also made a sequence of photographs that I intend to turn into a timelapse video soon.

If you have a camera such as a Canon 350D, 400D, 450D or 500D, you can get a conversion cable to use the Canon TC-80N3 here.

You can subscribe to this blog using the links at the top to stay updated, by email or an RSS reader.

You can find more star trail photographs on these sites:

• http://open-tube.com/17-top-star-trail-photography-ever/
• http://www.gdanmitchell.com/2009/02/10/scaffold-and-star-trails
• http://undefinedjourneys.wordpress.com/2008/06/22/star-trail-photography/
• http://blog.scenephotography.co.uk/?p=167
• http://photoburner.net/2009/03/19/stacking-star-trails/
• http://www.zebpalmer.com/blog/photography/twilight-star-trails-stanley-lake/

Mirrored skyscrapers in San Diego

I took this photograph on a drive from Yuma, Arizona to San Diego, California. I think these buildings are quite close the centre of San Diego. I like the different types of mirrored windows on the building reflect the blue sky — the squares, the seemingly perfectly smooth, and an interaction of two squared sets of windows making a zig-zag.

The picture was taken from a moving truck without looking through the viewfinder. I believe that pictures don’t have to be planned; if pointing a camera out a window and randomly pressing the shutter can make something pleasing, then something good has happened and the camera has added value to my little world.

• Capsule Hotel in Ikebukuro, Tokyo at HotelsByCity
• Featuring a photograph by Charles Tyack of the Capsule Hotel
• Capsule Inn Akihabara

They look very interesting!

Here is the photograph from Charles Tyack (click on it to visit his Flickr page):

Capsule Hotel — Links to Charles Tyack’s Flickr pages

I’m going to be publishing a photograph every week. You’ll be able to view this here, and if you are subscribed by email you will receive it automatically.

The Sigma 30mm f1.4 lens is my ‘workhorse’ lens, meaning the one I use the most. When I was using a 35mm camera (Pentax MZ-S!), my favourite lens was a 50mm lens. I found a prime/fixed lens encouraged me to move around and experiment with viewpoints rather than be lazy and zoom from a single point.

With a digital APS-C sensor with a 1.6x multiplier, a 30mm lens delivers approximately the same as a 50mm lens on a 35mm film camera.

Public pay telephone in Santa Monica, California

I have been very pleased with the results, being the sharpest out of any lens I have, and the lens hood makes it look formidable. The chromatic aberration was very low, and if anything was visible it has always been easy to remove with Adobe Lightroom’s chromatic aberration correction.

It also works great when taking long-exposure photographs at night. It creates pleasing star effects through its 8 blade octagonal diaphragm:

Street scene at night in Santa Monica, California

The large maximum aperture of f1.4 is great for low-light and situations requiring high shutter speeds. F-stopping writes about this. I took this photograph as the passenger of a car travelling around 60mph on a dull English day, and it still came out very usable:

Hunters gathering at side of a road in rural Nottinghamshire. Crop of a picture taken at 60mph

A photograph using available light in a bar also came out well:

People at Bar Eleven

And finally I found the full-time manual focus very useful. This allowed me to refocus even if autofocus was switched on. Usually if autofocus is activated, a lens doesn’t allow you to manual focus and you can feel the focussing motors giving resistance.

You can find an in-depth review of the Sigma 30mm f1.4 EX DC HSM at Ken Rockwell’s web site.

I’m going to contact Sigma Imaging UK support, and fingers crossed they will be able to resolve the issue as I would like to get photographing again

And an experimental Flash vewier of the same photographs here:
Photo Gallery — Flash Viewer — USA 2009