Blog

Shred Streetwear Commercial Shoot | Skateboarding Photography

Jason Smith — Wed, 30 May 2012 14:24:05 +0000

Recently I was commissioned to do a commercial skateboard shoot for a new clothing company, Shred streetwear. This was my first shoot of this kind and I was more than excited. The shoot took place at Slam Factory, a local indoor skatepark.

The client was after a moody/edgy look to the images, so to achieve that I used studio lights to create a cinematic feel. As I was shooting action sports, obtaining a fast shutter speed was an important factor. I used a custom made ETTL sync cable connected to a Canon 430EX II set to High Speed Sync. When the Speedlite fired, it would trigger my studio lights via optical slave, and I was able to sync at max shutter speed if needed.

The photos are now up on the Shred website that has just gone live.

Videographer Thomas Stockwell filmed this brilliant promo video. Have a watch.

Big thanks to Zach Morrison, the skater, for being very patient as we shot different setups and moved the lighting around.

ESS Billy Jam 2012 | Snowboarding Photography

Jason Smith — Mon, 28 May 2012 12:46:29 +0000

ESS Boardstore Erina held the third annual Billy Jam on May 19th. The Billy Jam is a snowboard rail jam session held in memory of fellow snowboarding comrade Billy Reynolds. The event kicks off the start of the Australian snow season where riders compete for money, gear, and glory. The organizers, sponsors, and riders put on an epic show. It was great to be involved!

Be sure to check out this video from the day shot and edited by Owen Milne, and an album of all the photos.

Sponsors:
3CS Outerwear
Riot Collective
Burton Snowboards
Macbeth Footwear
Aerial7
High Roller Energy Drink

Wednesday Skate Session at The Entrance | Skateboard Photography

Jason Smith — Mon, 21 May 2012 09:30:02 +0000

Wednesday afternoon I rushed down to my local skatepark with my camera gear in hand. I’ve been wanting to get time to do more skate shooting, and I just recieved a new set of Pocket Wizard FlexTT5 wireless triggers that I was keen to test in the field.

I was using a FlashPro T-500S (similar to this model) for the light, and a Paul C. Buff Vagabond Mini for power.

Morning at Chinamans | Surf Photography

Jason Smith — Tue, 15 May 2012 07:33:56 +0000

I was up at Evans Head this Easter. We had a small but fun bit of swell roll in on a Saturday morning, so we decided to make the most of it, and headed on over to Chinamans Beach. Cameron paddeled out on the fish and Stewart on the longboard.

Stewart ducks under a backlit barrel on his log.

Cameron was scoring a few clean waves out there.

Some of the locals came by to join in on the fun.

Pocket Wizards are Amazing | High Speed Sync with Studio Lights

Jason Smith — Sun, 13 May 2012 12:40:23 +0000

I am extremely excited about this!

The image below was shoot using a pair of Pocket Wizard FlexTT5 transceivers. What makes this so special is it was shot using a studio light (strobe) at 1/8000 of a second! I’ve never been able to do this wirelessly before. This is a huge benefit, and opens up a multitude of possibilities when it comes to shooting at high speed. In the past I’ve used a custom made ETTL sync cable which worked fine, but had limitations with where you could shoot and place the lights. I had to make minor adjustments with the Pocket Wizards using the PW Utility software to get the timing right, which involved adding a slight delay to the firing. After that they synced perfectly up to the max shutter speed of 1/8000sec and at any aperture.

High speed sync is easily achiveable using Canon Speedlites or Nikon Speedlights as the manufactures have built in a function for the flash to fire multipule times cover the length of the exposure. Studio lights don’t have this feature as they are only designed to fire one burst. So why not just use Speedlites/Speedlights? They simple don’t have enough power to shoot in bright daylight unless you use several of them. The amount of power I can get out of one studio light is approx 8x more than a Canon 580EX II

The exact setup is as follows:

Camera side - Canon 7D, Tokina Fisheye 10-17mm f/3.5-4.5, Pocket Wizard FlexTT5
Flash side - FlashPro T-500S, Pocket Wizard FlexTT5 plugged into sync jack.

Right click and save the photo to view the EXIF data.

I will post a follow up blog to this very soon going into more detail.

Sunday Morning at Indies | Bodyboarding and Surf Photography

Jason Smith — Fri, 11 May 2012 16:28:17 +0000

I was up just before first light. I loaded my gear in the car, did the rounds, picked up some local bodyboarders, and headed straight to the carpark. It’s a 10 minute walk to get to this local break, and as we arrived it looked a little less impressive as we had hoped. We suited up anyway and headed out. Good thing we did, because as it turns out, the surf was pumping.

3CS Outerwear - Winter Collection 2012/13 | Product Photography

Jason Smith — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:25:16 +0000

In December I did a product shoot for 3CS Outerwear. The images were for their Winter Collection 2012/13 catalogue and were to be used at the ISPO Munich 2011 Expo. I did a solid 10hr day of shooting followed by a load of editing. The result, I feel, was a slick looking catalogue.

The guys are 3CS are great to work with. We have since done a much larger shoot that I’ll post about in the future.

I used a fairly simple setup. A neutral grey seamless backdrop, 2 monolights, and a 430EXII. I had my camera tethered to Lightroom 3 so we could check the images as they were shot.

Deus Ex Machina - The House Of Simple Pleasures

Jason Smith — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 10:25:45 +0000

I paid my first visit to the Deus Temple of Enthusiasm at Camperdown a week or so ago. Here are some photos from within.

Photos from The Australian Open of Surfing Beach Bowl

Jason Smith — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 13:34:09 +0000

An amazing showdown in the 12ft bowl at Manly for the last day of the Australian Open of Surfing Skate Pro-Am.

Solid crowd and Eddie Elguera

Rune Glifberg

Pedro Barros

Kevin Kowalski

Kevin Kowalski - Invert of the ladder

Bob Burnquist

Sluggo Boyce goes for the full back flip……and he lands it!

Kevin Kowalski and Pedro Barros watching Glifberg.

Nicky Guerrero

Renton Millar

Josh Stafford

Bucky Lasek

Rune Glifberg

Bob Burnquist

Rob Machado

Bob and Rob

My feet

The Entrance Skatepark | Sports Photography

Jason Smith — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:04:44 +0000

Slowly but surely I’m really defining what I want to specialise in with my photography, and skateboarding is one of them. So here’s a few recent shots from my local skatepark at The Entrance.

Blake | Frontside Air

The image of Blake above was shot directly into the setting sun. A shutter speed of 1/1250sec was needed to get a correct exposure, I then used my Canon 430EXII on High Speed Sync at camera left to fill in the shadows on Blake and create some background separation. This image was shot at 10mm with the Canon 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5. It’s a brilliant lens for crop sensor SLRs like the 7D and quite sharp too.

The following photos below were all shot with a Canon 17-85mm f/4-5.6 on a 7D using natural light.

Pat | Fakie BS Tailslide

Unknown | Kickflip

When I take skate shots at a park like this I like to go for a bit of a roll first, have a chat to whoever is around, then get my gear and ask permission to take some photos. Most people are more than happy to have the photo taken. I’m not into to making people pay for their photos either, I feel that it’s the wrong thing to do. I’m already benefitting by getting images of them skating, so asking for money on top of that is, in my opinion, rude.

Jay | Melon

Pat | Frontside Air