I've been the owner of the Orbis ring flash since its launch late last year. Ring flash provides a shadowless result, which has been popularised by many fashion photographers. The light source is a continuous ring that circles the lens and its position surrounding the lens axis lights the subject at every angle, particularly when the subject is close. The quality of light softens shadows (great for wrinkles!) and provides an interesting shadowy halo behind the model. It isn't something that you'd want to use all the time, but having one in your kit bag is never a bad thing.

On the past few weddings I have been carrying it around, but never pulled it out to use - its achilles heel for me is in its design. Being able to accept most types of speedlight, the flash unit recepticle is smooth for easy installation and was designed to be a handheld unit. Unfortunately that meant that the unit and flash had to be held in one hand and when moving around I commonly found that the flash would pop out, spilling either the Orbis or flash to the floor. So I was wracking my brain to come up with a good, cheap way of connecting the two together and reached for my kit bag the other day for a ball bungee. A couple of attempts to secure the flash to the Orbis and I came up with a repeatable method that I've posted in the Orbis Flickr stream (thanks to my laptop's webcam):



This was a quick grab shot I took while experimenting with the orbis on myself. The light is quite interesting - note the lack of shadows on my face and the circular catch lights in my eyes. I guess you could say the light is quite clinical; very different to what I try to achieve with the rest of my off-camera lighting with directional light producing natural shadows. Nonetheless an interesting alternative and I'm looking forward to experimenting with this on the dance floor at a wedding for just a few fun shots, or a different ring shot.

It is hard to believe it felt like summer just a week and a half ago when I met with Leah and Angus by the aquarium for their engagement shoot. It was a very bright day and despite some harsh shadows we found some great places around the North End of Boston and the docks to take some engagement portraits. Leah had some great looking heels on, which weren't so great for the hike we were taking, so we found some flip-flops before (of course) having the obligatory cannoli at Mike's. We ended up on their good friend's yacht for a few more (photos, not cannolis) and Angus was talking about winching me up the mast for a different angle, but it was probably best that we didn't try that one!

Click here to view the photos and purchase prints . Contact Leah or Angus for the password

How cute is Emily?

I think she loves my 135 f2 L. Me too Emily! That's a great lens and I'm glad you've got good taste :)

She's a very clever, strong little girl who loves to share and play peek-a-boo in Japanese. Of course I played along with the help of mum and dad teaching me the phrases...

Carly and Sam were married in Lynnfield at the Our Lady of the Assumption church a few weeks back. Kate and I were at the very relaxed Carly's parents' home just up the road, before heading off to see Sam a few minutes before the ceremony. Sam did us grooms proud and was suitably nervous before he saw Carly walking down the aisle! Following the service, we headed over to Topsfield Commons and the newlyweds partied HARD (the second couple I've witnessed doing that at the Commons) into the night.

To view the slideshow below, enter Carly's maiden name as the password. Click on the HD button on the right to watch it in high definition, full screen and turn that volume UP!

The photos will be available for purchase until September 22. You can view the photos by clicking here or on one of the photos below. The password is again Carly's maiden name.

All the best to Carly and Sam!

Late last year my collection of chromes I'd built up since 2002 came over in a container from the UK. I've now made a number of my images made from these transparency films available for sale in my gallery, including the one below (my most viewed flickr image). I have a huge number that I simply never got around to scanning so I will be enlisting the services of a professional scanning service to digitise my best work.

Signed limited edition, museum quality frames are available on all of these images; this one will start as number 2/100. This image taken at the Scarborough end of Old Orchard Beach, Maine on Fuji Astia 100F with a Canon EOS-1N, 135 f2 L lens.