I really like the idea of a sling camera strap, similar to the Black Rapid. However, I felt the cost of this sling strap was too expensive for me.

Coincidentally, I got a tweet about a project on Kickstarter called the Lens Loop. It seemed to tick all the right boxes. The cost of this product was very attractive. The strap is made from recycled car seats and is 46 mm or close to 2 inches wide, which makes it very comfortable without the need for padding. It also rolls up easily to stow neatly into your camera bag.

My only concern with this product was with the tripod connector. I didn’t feel comfortable attaching it to my DSLR with a heavy lens. The hole in the solid nickel-plated steel, where the O-ring goes through doesn’t appear that it could sustain much abuse over time. From an aesthetics point of view, I would have preferred the original hinged design connector and the chrome slide adjustment.

I usually have my manfrotto 200PL-14 rectangular plate 1/4 inch attached to the camera body, which has a D ring, where the strap can be attached to it.

That said, I would have no problem attaching the tripod connector to a point ‘n’ shoot camera.

Disclaimer: I wasn’t paid or approached to do this review.

I recently returned from a super two-week family holiday in France.

I was determined to take some good stock shots so I decided to bring my DSLR, even though I always carry my little Canon IXUS 100IS.

We did the fly-and-hire to Bordeaux, so bringing luggage and gear had to be well thought out in advance. We paid for two check-in bags and I wanted to have all my camera gear in my carry-on luggage.

I decided to bring my DSLR and three lenses! I know, this was too many. In the end I only used the 18-200. I also took my rectangular silver/gold reflector and my trusty 109cm umbrella with the nano light stand. All neatly packed into my Lowepro Pro runner 200AW, which fit very snugly into my wheelie luggage bag.

Leaving Dublin Airport went very smoothly. Returning home did not! The french customs officials at Bordeaux said that my light stand could not be taken onboard as it could be used as a ‘blunt’ instrument.

So I had to venture back out to the check-in desk to check my carry-on luggage bag with the light stand in it, minus my belt on my jeans! I didn’t want to delay proceedings here, so I left the belt et al with my husband and our two girls.

I went back to the same young woman who we had just checked in with. At this point, I figured I would have to pay handsomely for the privilege of getting home my beloved light stand and most likely pay more in charges than the cost of the item.

I have to point out that the young woman at the check-in desk was brilliant! She arranged to get one of our luggage bags back from the hold, so that I could put my light stand in and not pay extra. In the meantime, I misplaced my passport in the fluster. I had managed to leave it on another counter!

I put the light stand in the bag and checked it through for the second time. I thanked her profusely and went through to the departure gates. At this stage, I began to notice my jeans were loose…I must have sweated alot in those 15minutes!

So, as a reminder when bringing camera gear from one country to another: Try and get information of what is allowed and isn’t beforehand, especially if like me you want to bring it on board the plane.

I decided a few months ago to try and grow my own herbs and vegetables, just to see if I could actually grow something!

Let me first say that I’m not a gardener by any means. Green fingers I do not possess. However, I think the scents from certain herbs like thyme, rosemary and basil are wonderful.

So I decided to plant a few herbs and peas. I had two reasons in mind. Firstly, it was an excuse to photograph a subject I wouldn’t normally consider. Secondly, it was a reason to get my girls involved and hopefully instill in them the love of growing stuff! If grow-it-yourself floats your boat, then check out this website

Germination takes place relatively quickly. It only takes a few weeks in fact, making it an excellent project for teaching children the wonders of nature.

Did this project come to any fruition? Alas, the thyme did not fair well at all. Parsley blossomed and my peas did exceptionally well!

Will I continue to grow my own herbs and vegetables? Hopefully. Did I instill the wonders of nature in my two girls? I think my two buds need more time to germinate!

• portability
• inexpensive
• shoot through
• shoot as a reflector
• usage as a prop

I did a corporate shoot last year. The brief was to get individual and group shots of the CEO, engineers and the sales team. This was not an easy task as most of the clients were hard to pin down and not exactly queuing up to get their mug shot taken! So time and space were major constraints. I decided to bring my 43″ white shoot-through umbrella, one lightstand and one speedlight.

Ideally, I would have preferred a set up to get a white seemless background using a couple of lights. This would have meant less time in post-production.

In general, I like to work fast when shooting people. The less time a client has to pose in front of the camera, the better the shot. The challenge for me was to achieve a good corporate look, not too austere with just the right amount of smile. All in all, I got my shots and my client was happy.

The uses of the umbrella are manifold. On one of my outdoor shoots last summer, it began to drizzle rain. One of the models used the umbrella to protect herself from the precipitation. It also diffused the light from behind quite nicely and doubled up as a prop as well. See the image below.

What are, if any, drawbacks to using umbrellas? I did discover the umbrella’s fragility while shooting outdoors. A gust of wind toppled the umbrella stand and broke a couple of the ribs and stretchers which subsequently tore some of the fabric. My own fault for not securing the stand in the first place!

Of course, a replacement umbrella didn’t cost the earth. Yet another plus point for why I like to use them in my shoots!

The TEMPTATION (excuse the pun) would be to photograph the child, who has made their first holy communion in a more contemporary approach in contrast to the more traditional pose.

I’ll set the scene.

• The child poses for the shot while holding a small chalkboard, against a white background.
• In Post-editing, the background is replaced with a pink background for the girls, blue for the boys, just as an example.
• Create lines and height numbers in colour, similar to a police line up!  The movie ‘Usual Suspects’ comes to mind.
• Use an actual blackboard. I created the one shown below in Photoshop. See psd tuts+
• Add the name & date using one of the preset chalk brushes.

The ‘twist’ is that the actual height, name of the child and the date of the communion are recorded for posterity. See Contemporary concept shot below. Of course, this is just a bit of tongue-in-cheek! Or devil-may-care! Judging from the article, money doesn’t appear to be an issue but I think my idea could be!

Instead, I want to discuss certain items of equipment that I find very effective in my shoots.

Let’s start with the reflector. Reflectors can come in different sizes and shapes. They are particularly useful when on a location shoot outdoors.

Last summer, I really saw how effective a reflector can be. I was shooting a couple of models in Dublin City along with 4 other photographers.

We used various locations around the city as the backdrop. One of the guys had a 52″ silver/gold reflector. The day was quite overcast.

The reflector was perfect to get richer skin tones and to get rid of harsh shadows.

I especially love the catchlights that it produced.

Best of all, if folds up to a fifth of it’s size & weighs practically nothing.

The only drawback is you need someone else to hold it.

A fellow tech/photographer I follow on twitter had a great solution to this problem by using a rubber band! I thought, what a great way to use my Lance Armstrong wristband. I was well pleased that it worked.

I found a website that provides similar wristbands designed with f-stop numbers on them (just in case yellow isn’t your colour!). Not only is it a cheap solution for your lens creep but it also looks good!

While still on the topic of lens, I will always give my lens a brush or wipe with a microfibre cloth before every shoot. I have a blower brush in my bag but to be honest, I’d rather use my blusher brush…with the blower brush, hairs would get stuck at the side of the lens or UV filter.

Disclaimer: No, I’ve never used the blusher brush for applying make-up and then try and use it to clean my camera lens!

My dad passed away seven years ago so I asked my Mum if she knew of the camera’s whereabouts.

Indeed she did. She was able to locate my Dad’s ‘Supercolor 635′.

I had never used this camera. What had me intrigued the most was, would the camera still work?

This gave me the idea of a photo shoot to pay homage. So I needed:

• a father-like figure – my willing and patient father-in-law
• a couple of small people – I was only able to blackmail one of my girls with ice-cream
• a photographer with a DSLR camera – me

This exercise was not to give a comparison of the first instant film with digital.

I simply wanted to see if there was film inside my Dad’s old Polaroid and more importantly would it still operate!

As you can see from the images below, there was film inside the camera but the image didn’t quite develop properly.

My daughter’s expression summed it all up, as she held the developing photo.

I knew what she was thinking…’Oh look, a camera that acts like a printer!’

As I shoot digitally, my images generally require some post-editing after I’ve download them onto my iMac. I shoot mainly in RAW. I usually keep my camera settings at neutral, as I prefer to do my post production in Adobe Photoshop. I’ve been using Photoshop now for over 13 years. I have to say, it’s been a great relationship! Currently I’m using Photoshop CS4.

The above image is a stock shot, so there are a few things to bear in mind:

• The sky wasn’t punchy enough, so a new sky was added. I used a path tool (alpha channel) to create a mask to isolate the background.
• The logos needed to be cloned out – the logo on wetsuit & goggles and the brand name on iron.
• The distracting elements needed to be cloned out, such as the flex hanging down from the iron.
• Areas needed to be lightened up.
• Skin tones needed to be evened out.

The Dodge Tool is traditionally used by many retouchers to lighten skin tones, especially in portraiture. While working on this image, I discovered a way to use the Dodge tool non-destructively. I also found a way to use it to add highlights to hair!

First, with the photo opened in Photoshop in PSD format, go to the Layer Panel Group and click on the Panel Menu Icon (top right-hand corner) hold and click on new layer. This will bring up a pop-up dialogue box. Set Mode to Overlay and click on the Fill with an Overlay-neutral color (50% gray) check box. Now go over to the Tool Box, select Dodge Tool and go up to the Options bar. Set Brush to Soft. Set the Range to Midtones and the Exposure to 12% and click on the Protect Tones check box. On the photo, just brush over the hair, using 90px (approx) size brush to create that ‘highlight’ look. As this is on it’s own layer, the opacity can be adjusted also. This for me is the nearest to the Dodge tool as a ‘new adjustment layer’.

Unfortunately, I had to be the model. I couldn’t convince anyone to don a wetsuit. I needed an assistant.

My husband, he-of-the-shy-retiring-type, reluctantly agreed. Let me set the scene here:

It’s early April in 2009 on a very overcast, slightly windy day on Sandymount Strand in Dublin, Ireland.

We set off for the beach with the Ironing board on the roof rack. I’m driving the car with a wetsuit on, my husband is sitting in the passenger seat sweating profusely, hoping that we don’t get stopped by the Gardaí (Police). He’s mortified!

I’m on the beach ready to do the shots. Passersby are looking on with amusement, my husband would like to be somewhere else. Some of them even stopped to ask what was the shoot for? Did I see bemusement or pity on their faces when I told them the idea behind it?

Would I do it again? Absolutely! Will my husband volunteer as my assistant, he-now-the-not-so-retiring-type, says NO!

On the way home in the car, all I kept thinking was would we be stopped by the Gardaí? And how would I explain the ironing board on the roof rack?

It would have made for an interesting editorial caption, “Surfer resorts to Ironing Board in recessionary times!”

I will follow up on this post with how I achieved the final image with some of my post-editing techniques, stay tuned.