I recently bought a 70cmx50cm softbox with a speedlight mount. I had never used a softbox before, having exclusively used umbrellas previously. I can say, I love the softbox look and the control of the light.

Tonight I tried something different. I had this picture in my head of a single exposure, multiple image kind of shot. Basically I set the shutter at 3s in a dark room and held the remote flash trigger in my hand and fired off the strobes a few times while the shutter was open. After a little bit of levels adjustment and a vignette added, the result was this

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Torment

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A number of months ago I had an idea to do a shoot in TCBC (my church) with a lot of worship type poses and especially to have the cross that is up on the wall of the churchlit in the background of the shots.

I knew at the time I had a lot of things I had to do before I could do that. Firstly I didn't have the equipment. I knew I would need some pretty powerful flashes. So I started buying Nikon SB-28s of ebay when I could afford them. Second hand they are between $100 and more recently $180. I managed to get three for between $106 and $132.

Next I knew I would need permission from the church. So I sent Neil, the Senior Pastor an email asking him if I could do it. He was happy for me to. In return I agreed todo some shots for the church with some shots of the property and shots of various other things.

Next I knew I would need a model. I emailed a few of the people I used to lead music with who I knew were a bit arty and were into drama and I thought might not have a problem with having their picture taken. A couple responded with yes and a couple with no. Finally I chose Will to be my subject. After a bit of trouble finding a common date eventually we did the shoot.

I was so nervous. The shoot went well and Will, even though a first time "model" did brilliantly. He is a natural. After that I started post processing the shots. Some came out really easily but others needed a bit more work. Most of the shots are quite "low key" which means lots of darkness. Darkness is hard because in digital shooting you get a lot of noise in dark areas. It was a balancing act between keeping detail, darkening already dark areas and using noise reduction cautiously.

Finally this week I have been adding the shots to my my iStock portfolio. Acceptance rate is high and they have been well received by my friends and peers on the site. I'm thrilled as to how they have come out.

You can see the full collection of shots accepted to iStock here.

The journey from idea to the final product has taken about 6 months and the end results I'm thrilled with. Will anybody buy them? Who knows!

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Today I had my 250th DL at iStockPhoto and am now Bronze and will soon be Exclusive. This is a significant achievement for me and I am well pleased. You can DL my photos here:

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I've now reached 200 Downloads in iStockPhoto. My portfolio is now 166 images and growing slowly. I'm hoping to reach 250 Downloads by the end of September at which time I'll hit Bronze and go exclsuive to iStockPhoto. This means additional royalties (Yay!) and a lot of other benefits associated with exclusivity including higher upload limits (even though I rarely reach my current limits) and faster inspection times.

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I haven't blogged here for ages. The current state of play is 120 images up on iStockPhoto and 145 downloads. I've just had permission granted to shoot in my local church so now I have to speak to prospective models and generally get my act together!

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It has been a been a while since I blogged and a lot has been happening. 

I now have 50+ images uploaded to
. 
I have 19 download so far which isn't many but it's only been a month.

I've also bought some new toys on eBay. I have a Sunpak 444D Flash, a Sunpak 30SR Flash and a Vivitar 2800 
Flash. I also bought some Cactus v2s Remote triggers. What does this all add up to? It means lots of off camera 
flashy goodness. If you're wondering what I mean visit The Strobist.

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I have finally sold a couple of images on iStockPhoto. Whoo hoo!
They are here and here.

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Nothing else to say, just Merry Christmas to all as we celebrate Christ's birthday.

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I now have 20 photographs in my portfolio of at iStockPhoto with another 15 in the queue, but still no sales!
Oh well, the journey has started,so they say. The images are a mixture of things, a couple of flowers, a couple of 
trains, a few portraits, and a bit of a silly series about embarrassing situations. If I can just corner the market in 
embarrassing situations ...

I have another series in the queue which is computer security/hacking type relate stuff which I'm 
pretty happy with. The first couple were rejected because the model release was too small, believe it or not! But
they have been resubmitted and will be approved (hopefully) soon. I have a few more images in that series too which
I haven't PP'd yet. My queue is full, what can I say! Who'd have thought 15 images a week would be a restriction!

I now have two weeks of holidays so hopefully I'll get out and take some photos, although the weather is pretty 
ordinary at the moment which might make that aim tough. Perhaps I should just aim for smaller stuff I can do indoors.
I have a few ideas for recipe inspired shots, but haven't quite figured out how I can take them yet, with the limited 
equipment I have. It's not like I have a ready make studio handy, perhaps I should get one of those light tent things off
eBay.

Anyway, that's all my news. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to anyone who reads this .

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I had my first photo accepted on to iStockPhoto today. It is the one of the isolated leucadendron. 
I'm a little surprised it was accepted because it was shot at ISO800. I don't think it is going to sell much
because flowers never do, but it is good to finally officially have a portfolio, even if it is only 1 photo!

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