4 Dec 2013

SUGRU GIF






















I'm a big fan of Sugru which is a kind of miracle material that can be moulded into any shape and becomes hard and rubbery once set allowing it to be used for thousands of jobs. They tweeted the above picture a few days ago to give people ideas for stocking fillers so I decided to animate it into a gif. Check out their website for some inspiration http://sugru.com/

2 Dec 2013

MARSHMALLOW GIF




















Can't resist roasted marshmallows or a gif. Did a little adventure day yesterday with the kids and got a few shots of this

19 Nov 2013

LITHUANIAN SAKOTIS CAKE


This is my latest food video from a recent trip to Lithuania. Lithuanian Sakotis Cake is a very popular traditional cake from this Baltic country and is often eaten at weddings, Christmas and other celebrations.

The origins of the dish are a little sketchy but it seems probably that it originated in Eastern Europe/Baltics. It a very simple dish where batter is poured over a metal cylinder that rotates over a wooden fire causing peaks of cake mixture to form.

Each country has their own name and recipe for the dish but the ingredients of eggs, sour cream, sugar, butter and flour are fairly consistant.

I came across this dish on a food and travel photography job in August and thought this cake would make a great little video.

I'd like to thank WWW.LITHUANIA.TRAVEL for organising the trip, WWW.FOODANDTRAVEL.COM for commissiiong me to go, the writer on the trip WWW.CLARISSAHYMAN.CO.UK who helped me with the captions and, of course, the bakery  in Ignalina WWW.ROMNESA.LT who let me film the wonderful Maryte.

For photography geeks this was all filmed on the Panasonic GH3, one lens and it was all hand held.

Hope you enjoy it.
Carl
www.carlpendle.com
carl@carlpendle.com

6 Nov 2013

SIMPLE IS SOMETIMES BETTER


Took this on a recent job in Lithuania. Don't know why but just love the colour and composition of this simple shot of some apples and pears at a market.

17 Sept 2013

NOT GOOD

Look what I found on my cat today. Not best pleased but thought it was an opportunity to turn something quite disgusting into a work of art! Anyone for a poster print of a flea in their bedroom?!


16 Sept 2013

GIF FROM LITHUANIA






























I've recently returned from a food and travel photography job in Lithuania. I saw this lovely lady pour out a glass of freshly milked milk (if that makes sense) and offered it to the writer for a sip. I quickly shot of 7-10 frames to capture her doing so. As I've been editing the shots today I thought this one would make a nice gif animation so here it is.

25 Aug 2013

OLD MAC






























I'm in Lithuania at the moment working on a job and while out and about came across this great piece of graffiti art of an old lady carrying a Mcdonalds bag. I'm not sure if this is a copy of a Banksy or an original but I love it.

5 Jun 2013

LONG TERM TIMELAPSE PROJECT






























A client approached me a couple of months ago interested in a long term timelapse project. I've done time-lapses in the past for them but only ones that have lasted a few hours rather than weeks, months or even a year! They asked me if I could do one that could last 2-3 weeks while their product (a pepper) changed colour from green to red. Knowing that it could be done I said yes and looked into it further.

As I researched it a couple of things sprung up - long term time-lapses were quite a specialist area and very few photographers were doing any that lasted much longer than 24 hours. There were a few companies that did just that and most of their work was in the construction industry where timelapseing a building going up was something architects and their clients wanted to record. But this was a very niche area and their equipment was very sophisticated often with stand alone units even fitted with servers and wifi for sending pictures to a computer at a different location.

I did find one or two people trying long term time-lapses and I looked at what they did and adapted a system that would work for me and my client. Above is a basic breakdown of what I've come up with.

1. This is the finished set up. We have the camera in a watertight case connected to a battery which is then connected to a solar panel to keep the battery topped up.

2. Here is a close up of the camera housing with metal brackets fixed to the back and attached to the wall.

3. The battery is a leisure battery (not a car battery) which is perfect for providing a trickle of power to the camera. A camera doesn't use that much power but when you're leaving it outside for weeks at a time it will soon weaken which is where the solar panel comes in to keep the battery charged.

4. Inside the case is a Canon DSLR attached to two 'L' shaped metal brackets. Initially I had plans for a quick release bracket to go inside but room was so tight that I had to find a wooden base to which everything is attached. Running into the camera (on the left) is a intervalometer that I can program to set the interval of my timelapses. This isn't the Canon one which is very expensive but a cheaper one from Amazon that I've used before and never had any issues with.

5. Here you can see the top of the camera and to the right in the bottom of the case is a volt convertor. The voltage from the leisure battery is 12 volts and much too strong for the camera which prefers 7-8 volts. So what this handy gadget does is convert those 12 volts into 7 volts. There is a dummy battery in the camera that leads to this converter.

6. Finally, the bottom of the case I've fitted a hole and rubber washer that takes the lead into the battery outside. As you can see it is just a cigarette lighter adapter which then feeds into a cigarette lighter socket to the battery.

The SD card inside the camera is 64gb which is capable of holding over 8000 images. If you're not worried about shooting in RAW (which I'm not) and are ok with medium jpegs (which I am) then the card can hold a lot of photos onto it and in theory stay in the field for a long time. And if the battery gets enough charge from the solar panel it could happily take timelapses for months until the card eventually fills up or something else happens.

If anyone is interested in me making one of these for them please get in contact. I offer three types of set up:

1. The complete kit you see here. Camera, case, battery the lot all tested £ 1, 750.00
2. The complete kit but without the battery (very heavy for posting)        £ 1, 550.00
3. The complete kit without the battery, camera or solar panel                  £    950.00

Please get in contact via carl@carlpendle.com

And here is the final result of all this hard work. It was so worth it.




29 Apr 2013

FOOD PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR 2013






























On 23rd April I travelled up to London as a finalist in the Food Photographer of the Year awards held at the Mall Galleries. I'd been nominated as a finalist in the 'Food in the Street' category so me and the Mrs went up to see how my picture did. And it did quite well. Out of 6,500 worldwide entries it came second so was quite pleased with that. And I got this rather nice sticker for my efforts.


19 Mar 2013

PAINTING GIF









Here's a quick example of an animated gif from an old painting.

25 Feb 2013

SHE'S MEAN


I know my photography blog is not the best place to put a picture of my cat but I actually like the picture. If it wasn't for the stipes of my carpet it would have just blah but they contrast well with her coat. If she looks like a mean, lean, killing machine...that's because she is. My kids don't touch her!

13 Feb 2013

BRIGHT BAZAAR BOOK



Couple of weeks ago I shot a video for Will Taylor for his very popular blog Bright Bazaar It was a lot of fun to make and Will is a great guy. The video, as you can guess, is to promote his new book which will be out some time in 2014.

In the meantime enjoy the video.