Ivo Noppen's photostream  

I don't do new year's resolutions. Never have and (probably) never will as well. To me these things are pretty pointless. Should you be deceiving yourself with meaningless promises you won't hold anyway? IF you want to do something constructive which you want for a year, do a project like a 365 as I did in 2010 (or a project 52) or make it something else entirely. But please make it something constructive and not overly vague like "losing weight". Instead say you will start train running with some schedule for the next 30 or 60 days or so. A period which actually makes it fun as time passes sooner than making plans for a whole year.

After having a lot of ideas which were too hard to execute on location (I'm in Belgium right now with travel gear), I made this resolution up of shaving more since I needed a shave anyway. The final image got together in my head after walking around the house. A lot of photoshop abuse along with five different photos went into the final photo.. Nothing which ~20 layers can't fix.

Strobist info
Canon 580EXII @ 1/16 (35mm) on axis.
Canon 430EXII @ 1/4 (35mm) camera left, bare . Lying on an unstable contraption of a chair and a trashbin.
Camera triggered by Yongnuo RF-602
Flashes triggered by Cactus v5
Shot tethered to avoid running back and forth with shaving cream on my face
Extra shout-out to my makeshift tripod constructed out of three ikea tables, two cutting boards, two remote controls, a lenscap and the yongnuo RX unit itself.

Originally purposed as a panacea, this drink has become a digestive in some countries and a hip drink for in bars and clubs in other countries. Stored best in an ice cold fridge, it is quite easy to photograph it with frosted glass, but you have to work lighting fast. To prepare, I made about 100 ice cubes, cleaned a glass plate and used a hero-bottle to test the lighting. Finally only the first 20-30 shots were useable because of the quick melting of the ice and the defrosting of the bottle.

The Dutch slogan "Alleen als ie ijs- en ijskoud is" (Only if it's ice- and ice cold) fits the theme just perfectly.

Strobist info
Nikon SB-28 @ 1/32 (28mm), various places around subject
Triggered by Cactus v5

Holidays, Christmas, New Year's eve.... What a theme for the P52 project. In birth (what we celebrate with Christmas), death is already embedded. Everyone will perish sooner or later. Combined with the bokeh Christmas light cross signifying the star of Bethlehem, this seemed a fitting photo for the theme. Construction time of the cross was about 1.5 hours since I had to redo it a few times to get it perfect.

Please note that I don't have any affiliation and little experience with religion, so please don't be offended by my views.

Strobist info
Canon 580EXII @ 1/32 (28mm) into silver reflective 43 inch umbrella
Large circular reflector
Triggered by Cactus v5

I have been travelling from Bern to Arnhem and from Arnhem to Enschede and back again this week, so I'm a bit late with this week's project 52 photo. Just made it today so it is freshtastic today. Apparently the actual proverb "You can't have your cake and eat it too" is faulty as I have just demonstrated in front of the camera.

Also, this is my first strobist photo in four months due to my internship! Was delightful to play with all those lights again! Kind of frustrating though because I did lack properly charged batteries.

Strobist info
Canon 430EXII @ 1/2 (28mm) into silver reflective umbrella
Nikon SB28 @ 1/64 (50mm), camera left, behind subject
Canon 580EXII @ 1/32 (50mm), on axis fill light above camera
Camera triggered by Yongnuo RF-2
Flashes triggered by Cactus v5

This weeks' project 52 theme was city/village. And oh what a hard theme! Not because I didn't know what to shoot, but after my selection on saturday, I still had two photos for this theme. And up until three seconds before posting I didn't know yet which one I was going to throw online. They're both going to be online at some point in time though because these photos are totally different in subject matter and feel anyway.

For this specific photo I used three different exposures and combined them manually in photoshop to get out the most of this hard lighting. I think it took me about three hours to get it just right and then one day later I changed it even more because there were some problems with it you could only see after some time off without seeing the image. Anyhoo, that's fixed now!