Today we were rudely awoken at 4:35am by a massive earthquake here in Christchurch, New Zealand. We were lucky and our house did not sustain any massive damage – and thank god we had left sandbags on the studio lights!

All the camera gear is stored on a shelf about 5 feet off the ground. The 70-200mm f2.8 had taken a tumble, but looks like the lens is OK. Luckily the rest of the gear did not fall off the shelf!

We took a walk through town, and there are a number of buildings that did not fair too well -  mostly old brick buildings, which is really sad. At the end of this post are some of the photos I took during a walk through town this morning. My Partner Sharon has also posted images she took on her blog.

So far there have been no reported fatalities, which is a miracle considering the amount of damage. We were very lucky.

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Friday Five is a roundup of inspirational tutorials, articles and videos that I stumble across in my everyday browsing.

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Recently I assisted my partner Sharon Blance with a photo-shoot to create promotional dance images for Jess, who is a swing dancer.

The photo-shoot was really fun and Sharon produced some amazing images – you can see all the final images over on her blog.

On her blog, she has included extra information about the purpose of the photo-shoot and the specific goals that needed to be achieved with the final images – it is well worth a read.

Getting a sneak peek

During the photo-shoot I filmed a bunch of BTS footage to capture details about the setup and how Sharon interacts with the dancers to achieve a really polished end result.

In my opinion, having the right gear and knowing how to setup the lights and use the gear is only a small part of what is needed to create amazing photography.

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