If you are among the photographers that use lighting and like to share their techniques, you will probably describe your lighting setups for a particular photograph. But writting a description of a lighting setups is better if illustrated by a lighting diagram: one diagram is worth thousand words! Actually a lighting diagram can even save you typing a long description.

But drawing (by hand or with softwares like Illustrator) is maybe not your cup of tea. So one solution is to use ready-to-use lighting diagrams methods

One of the method is to use a template file containing a set of icons representing photographics objects (camera, umbrella, strobes...) and build your diagram from there. It is usually a PSD file with each object in a single layer. You then just need to hide/unhide a layer, duplicate it, rotate/move it to create your diagram.

A second method, which is more practical and does not require any software installation, is to use an online lighting diagram creator/editor.

I've been living in London since June 2006. By September/October 2006, if memory serves, I've joined the Ealing & Hampshire House Photography Society (EHHPS)  after Googling for some camera club in my area. The club exists for quite some years now and meets every Thursday evening at 8pm at the Ealing Town Hall. There are two competitions per month, one print and one digital and we usually socialise in a pub nearby after each meeting.

After a little while I've joined few other clubs and groups such as the LPMG  and the London Strobist group .

Joining a camera club is very useful and fun. It allows you to show your work and see the ones from other photographers. This is great as you can discuss ones technique and learn from that. Competitions from photographic societies are interesting, having good or bad marks does not always mean that your picture is a wow or a crap, but it helps with understanding and improving your skills in some areas.

Gadget Infinity is an online shop based in Hong Kong specialized in electronic gadgets that truly reflects the sophisticated design of every tiny invention. They provide a wide range of electronic goods for digital cameras such as batteries, charger, flashguns, GPS adapter, wireless shutter, wireless flash triggers etc...

One of their most popular product is the Cactus V2 and V2s, a cheap flash radio trigger that allows you to wirelessly remote trigger your speedlight. When the pro top level radio triggers (Pocket Wizard) cost around £300 the set of transmitter and receiver, the GI Cactus triggers cost around £22.

The down side of these cheap triggers is their reliability and range. Their range is variable, some photographers did witness a range of 45 meters, on the field I've noticed a max range of 4 meters on my ones. Depending whether you shoot indoors or outdoors and if you are close from any radio interference they can be more or less reliable, but often you will notice lots of misfires.

But then more and more photographers that happen to also be DIYers posted article on some antenna extensions mod to these 'el cheapo' triggers. A lot of them claimed that the mod has doubled or even quadrupled the trigger's range.

Christmas is a wonderful period where everyone is thinking of all their beloved. I think a lot of people, even if they are not catholic, are enjoying that date. It's not only because it is a bank holidays but also for the atmosphere and an opportunity to be with the family remembering every good things that happened in the year.

For people like me, far away from the family and that are not able to go back home, friends are the family.

I wish you all to spend a wonderful Christmas time in your family or among your friends, enjoy the good time together eating nice food and giving out meaningful presents.

May you end 2008 in joy and happiness and may 2009 bring you even more!

Ever woke up on a Sunday morning feeling bored and wondering what you can do? Then you want to go out and take some pictures but drawing the curtains just reveals a dull and depressive cloudy day. Well I can tell you this happens to me quite regularly here in London... But what can you do? I can say bye to everything here and go back to Montpellier in the south of France or back to my parents there in New Caledonia that wonderful tropical island. But I can also accept Frank's invitation to go by the coast and instead of staying at home vegging out in front of the telly...

In the "Fave Links" category, I will try to regularly post links to some of my favorites photography related websites and/or videos.

Today I've found some few interesting videos on YouTube , it's all about other photographers' hints and tips they want to share with the community. It's very interesting to see how other photographers are dealing with their job and what they can advise you to do in some situations. Some tips may or may not suit you so just keep the one you feel for it, don't reject the rest but keep them somewhere (in your head or if your memory is not good enough like mine, in your bloc note) as they may be useful one day.

Nikon Solutions Expo was being held at the Olympia Conference Centre in London on December 9th and 10th, it's showcasing the latest digital imaging products, services and techniques, plus interactive photo opportunities, seminars, tutorials and expert advice.

I found the expo small if you compare it to Focus for example and the seminars and interactive tutorials were basics but I guess it is interesting for consumers that want to discover the product or learn to use the one they just bought and it was an opportunity to try to get some shots of models such as Katie Green the ex Wonderbra model. It was very difficult to get a session with the model as you can imagine the workshop attracted a lot of photographers and only a few could get an individual session. So I had to steal some shots from where I was. Hopefully the workshop was also about off-camera flash using Nikon Speedlights and CLS (Creative Lighting System), I was thus able to use my D300 popup flash to trigger the flashes used at the workshop. I did take care of waiting for the main photographer to take his shot first and while he was waiting for his pictured to be transfered thru WiFi to his computer I took mine :-D

Last week David Hobby came to London to give us a great seminar about off-camera flash photography using small and portable flashguns (speedlights). For this occasion the London Strobist group had organized a meetup at The Flash Centre . David was supposed to attend but he caught a stomach bug. We did have the presence of Neil Turner and Drew Gardener & Lucinda .

The seminar was held twice, one on Saturday and again on Sunday at ULU by Euston (Central London). David went thru the basics of his popular off-camera flash techniques followed by a demonstration with some of us. At the end of the day, Peter from California Sunbounce offered a Sunbounce Micro-Mini as a price for the winner which was selected by elimination on tossing a coin. Guess who was the lucky guy? ...me! That was awesome, I was so pleased as you can imagine.

Few months ago I've said bye "bye!" to Three, my UK mobile phone provider and say "hi!" to O2 with their offer for an iPhone 3G v2.0. And I'm glad to have done this. Browsing the Internet is so more intuitive and easy, the multi-touch (zooming with two fingers) screen is awesome. And as a photographer the iPhone is a very neat tool to use as a pocket portfolio, the LCD is bright and sharp and you can rotate your pictures just by physically rotating the phone.

The Apple Apps Store also offers a bunch of free and paid applications and some of them are quite interesting for a photographer.

I'm a member of the Ealing and Hampshire House Photographic Society (EHHPS) since the end of 2006, few months after I've moved to London from Montpellier (in the South of France).

The EHHPS is a local camera club near Ealing Broadway station. We have our weekly meeting every Thursday evenings from 8:00pm to 10:00pm in a room at the Ealing Town Hall. There is two competition every month: the Print Competition and the Digital Image Competition, and once a year the club is organizing a Panel of Print Competition which requires from the members to present a panel composed of a minimum of 3 and up to 6 printed photographs telling a story or within a theme.

At last year competition, I got the second place with my painting with light panel that you can see on my Flickr account: "My friend of light ".

This year competition was held few hours ago. I presented with a new panel of 3 of my jumping shots taken earlier this year. The other panels were very good and to my surprise... I won! Oh yeah baby! The first place plus a trophy. That was so cool, I was really happy :-)

The competition was judged by Kevin Herbert.