Think Tank Sling-O-Matic 20 Review

I recently purchased this shoulder bag as an upgrade to my small LowePro Nova 2 AW to accommodate my expanding kit. In store I checked out the 10, 20 and 30 options of this Think Tank design and opted for the middle size option.

Read on for my review of this interestingly designed bag.

A Couples Shot

I spent the Easter break in Sydney with my folks and wife and am now sadly back at home. We have pretty much no shots of us as a couple taken since our wedding day so we decided to head into Sydney's Hyde Park while we were over there and see if we could get something that we both liked.
I'm fairly happy with the result that we got and the only real part of the image that I don't like is the leaf over Siobhan's feet. It's hard when you are not behind the camera.

Ben Brown

Everyone interested in photography has their own list of artists that they look up to or admire and UK based Ben Brown is one of mine. Ben is young, very talented and has his own unique style that defines his work. He specialises in on location portraiture and seems to have an endless supply of amazing shoot locations (which makes me hate him at the same time!)

Graffiti Background

There is a really cool looking brick wall of graffiti not far from our house that we discovered quite a few months ago. We have had our eye on it ever since and planned to get up early on a Sunday morning at around sunrise when the streets are nice and quiet. So, this morning, we crawled out of bed at 6am and headed there to see what we could do with it! Since we discovered the wall, the artwork has changed a few times and at present, the entire wall is one big mural. As you can see from the included setup shot, there is a creepy looking character in the middle but some great colourful art that works nicely as a background to the right and at the bottom centre.

My Wife

I thought I'd start out with a portrait of my wife that I took two days ago. She's so patient with me and always willing to take an active part in my photography, including coming up with new ideas and giving honest good feedback. I also thought this would be a good start as it is a very simple one light shot. I've included a setup shot below to make it clear how the picture was captured and I will try to do this in as many posts as I can.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! I decided to start this blog to document and share some of my photography work. It is my hope that this blog will be a tool that will help me progress as a photographer by discussion with the photographic community and if I can help any readers learn something new in the process then fantastic!

My passion in photography is flash portraiture using hotshoe flashes, but I have a great love of all photography. There is something truly special about capturing a single moment in time that can portray some of the personality and character of the subject.

My darling wife and primary model for practice was kind enough to allow me to upgrade my camera kit recently. I am a Nikon shooter and I just replaced my trusty D70s with a D7000. I currently use 3 lenses that I have collected over the past 5 years: a 14-24mm f2.8, a 50mm f1.8 and am in love with my latest lens, a 70-200 f2.8 vr2. Not quite ideal for every situation but more than adequate for my needs. On top of this of course, I have a couple of Nikon flashes and a couple of light stands and light modifiers.

Throughout the blog I plan to share my work along with explanations on how I achieved the shot and also tutorials, reviews of my favourite gear, things I've learnt and anything on the web that I think is worth sharing.

I hope you enjoy what I have to share and urge everyone to join in any discussion, share knowledge and ask questions!

Benen