Happy Christmas for us.

A big happy Christmas from all of us. Hope that you have a great time.

Nostalgic trip...

A mate of mine has recently gone and bought an original Namco Point Blank arcade machine.

Looking back  into my youth, this game certainly took most of my pocket money.

It was a great afternoon reliving a misspent youth.. 

The mrs goes Manga.

The girlfriend has some amazing talent with makeup, and is always looking to do shoots, so she can try out different ideas. 

With the new purchase of a new more powerful light, I'm always looking at practicing and trying new things, which works nicely together.

Here are a few images of Kelly with Manga eyes, which are drawn on by herself which i thought takes some talent on its own. 

 one light to the left. 

One light to the left, with a speed light on the right.  

One light directly above in a large Octa box, with a speed light coming from behind.  

 One light directly above in a large Octa box, with a speed light coming from behind.  

Lit with only one speed light.  

Octa box to the right, and a speed light to the left. 

Octa box to the right, and a speed light to the left. 

 Octa box to the right, and a speed light to the left. 

These were all shot in my front room. Large Octa on the right, Speed light through a soft box to the left and a bare speed light onto the wall behind. 

Little people...

I headed up north for a work related course, 

(the offshore survival, where you get dunked upside down, in a helicopter, in a swimming pool, but thats another story!)

So while in the area i hooked up with my cousin who wanted some images of her kids, and it was a pleasure.

Im used to objects or people who do as i say and stand still. The little ones are full of beans and run around, which certainly keeps you on toes.

I look forward to do some more soon as they are little angels.

Night Shift offshore.

Here are some images taken at night while offshore at work. These images believe it or not are taken with the Lumix GF1, i would never have been able to have taken these with the Canon G10. The quality is superb!

A self Portrait.  

Behind the Scenes / Lee Snowden

My lighting set up of an image of Lee Snowden. 

The image of Lee as you can see was lit with 2 off camera speed lights. One to the front left to illuminate his face, and another bare to the right to try and create a high light down his side. 

While out shooting a load of Police came by, luckly not for us :0)

While at the location of the top image, this guy was setting up to jump.

Fair play! id love a go.

Thanks Lee.

Lee Snowden / BMW 1200RT

Here are some images of one of my best mates with his beloved bike. 

Compositing.

Here are some images from the Oliver Neville shoot that i wanted to play with and do some composites. 

I really enjoyed using studio lights but i do like to try and create fun images. The idea behind this shoot was to show that come and have a studio shoot with myself, and i can make some images to help your business. Ill show some examples of this in my next blog post. 

Oliver Neville - Studio shoot.

Last sunday i tried out my first studio shoot, and i thought it was fantastic.

My good friends over at

MelenStudio's 

let me hire out their studio for the day.

I had a plan of what i was wanting to achieve before i arrived, and was more then happy with the results.

For a living Oliver is an estate agent. I wanted to do some images of him in his work wear, and then some fun images. The goal was to show businesses that with a little thought you can spruce up your websites with some professional looking images of the employees, and with most businesses these days having facebook pages, why not have some fun images of the work force?.

Happy Christmas.

Happy Christmas from Me,

I hope that you are all having a great festive period while im away working.

Catch you in the new year.

Lee

Glyn Dewis Workshop

Well the other week i attended my first studio workshop ran by a Glyn Dewis. (UK's version of the photoshop guys) and i was highly impressed.

It was a half day workshop titled

"a workshop full of character"

and the aim is to give you the tools needed to try and create a fun image like the one above. Glyn sets up the lighting but gives you pretty much a free Raine to move the model where you want to in the light, and to pose him on how you see fit.

Once you are happy and have the image that you are after, you all then go through some photoshop techniques on how to create something different. Glyn shows you how to improve an image up to a nice respectable standard... and then the fun starts and you are taught how to push things and come up with great concepts and the fun really begins...

The day is broken up as follows-

• RAW Conversions
• Cleaning up your images (Dust spots etc…)
• Removing Blemishes
• Eyes (Brightening, add contrast, colour and sharpening)
• Creating Texture/Adding Details
• Dodging and Burning
• Cut Outs (Getting the most out of Photoshop CS5 Refine Edge Command + Extracting using Channels for those using earlier versions of Photoshop)
• Adding in the Background
• Creating ‘The Look’

• Special Effects and lots more

My finished image, I can not take the credit for the lighting on Dave Clayton, who was a fantastic model. Or the style he was dressed. But i did really enjoy finding the stock images and coming up with a theme to produce the finished result.

The Art of Photography Podcast meet up.

As a regular viewer of Ted Forbes "

the art of photography

" podcast and a fan, i was excited to see that Ted and his good lady were coming over to London for a meet up/ photo walk.

We met up some great photographers, some of who had travelled a great distance to partake. 

Here are some of my favourite images that i took from the day. 

The main man him self, Ted Forbes.

Driving up to the train station nice and early...

The art of photography London tate gallery reflection

I really liked the reflections in this cafe.

Camera's and beer... A quality afternoon if you ask me :0) 

Setting Sun images.

Thought id share with you some images that were taken yesterday, over at the Lake in Milton Keynes. 

I have included a lighting diagram to show how i lit these images, as i was trying to get some rim lighting going on. 

These images were lit with the sun to the right creating a nice rim light.

A bare speed light to the left and a speed light in a softbox to the left also to fill.

Fantasy Police.

Hi All,

As like most photographers i have had lots of ideas floating about in my note books and so it is time to start creating these images.

The following idea kinda grew out of something else.

The girl friend has got a new car, a lovely little Mazda MX5, which is great fun in the summer with the roof down by the way.

Being mega happy like a big kid i thought that it would be nice to take some pictures for her with her new toy.

I had the idea of long boots and jacket with the car right from the kick off, but was looking for the right location to set it. A fellow photographer friend suggested this place as it has all the items that i was looking for,

Cobbled streets, iron fire escape - it was perfect.

Using  a public street like this certainly comes with its own troubles.

We have to be polite and considerate, if other vehicles come by we have to move, plus all the local nutters come out and talk to you as they must not see things like this very often.

Back to the shot- 

as i was looking for quite a dark styled shot, sin city came to mind, and so this character was born. A sort of dark comic book styled female police officer.

The props - the guns and police badge come off Amazon for a couple of quid. The pistols are bright blue plastic toy guns, as you can not have replica weapons in the street and i did not fancy getting swarmed by REAL armed police.

I hope you enjoy.

Strobist info :- This image was lit with 2 SB900's, one bare on the left picking up the car and creating the pool of light on the ground where as the second was in a softbox on the right of the image picking up the female.

Kelly Moss Ramsden Cop police girl officer handcuffs

Dont Let Dunstable Die...

I have met up with, a couple of times now the ladies who are running the DLDD campaign, and what a fantastic job they are doing for the town.

We met with the intention for a couple of promotional shots that they can use, but as you can see the weather wasnt playing ball and so we will meet again soon. 

Also keep watching as when i can ill be attending some of the functions that they are doing, and so ill post images of the great things happending in Dunstable in the future.

A couple of short

videos

explaining their campaign.

Check out  their

website

 to see the latest news in Dunstable. 

If you are a facebook user they have a

page

on there too. 

The Ladies Bio...

Sharon and Sharon are two ladies who want to help Dunstable to become the lovely market town it once was, please give us your views and ideas. Together we can make a difference. Long Live Dunstable!

"Tell your friends and spread the word, Dunstable must be heard.Long Live Dunstable can't be wrong,the supporters are growing forever strong. We believe in Dunstable and the support that you give, so let's all make Dunstable,the best place to live!"

We are now as of 15th December 2010 two ladies who want to help Dunstable to become the lovely market town it once was, please give us your views and ideas.

LLD

Long Live Dunstable (Don't Let Dunstable Die) was established last year by two woman to help raise the profile of our Historic town of Dunstable and to keep the supporting public informed as to what is happening as best we can. We have no businesses in Dunstable or political agendas just a passion to see our town great again. Thank you for your continued support.

"Tell your friends and spread the word, Dunstable must be heard. Long Live Dunstable can't be wrong,The supporters are growing forever strong. We believe in Dunstable and the support that you give, So let's all make Dunstable, the best place to live!

"LONG LIVE DUNSTABLE!"

Stage Writer. Jessica Luxembourg.

I was asked recently to do some portraiture head shots and promo shots for a fantastic stage / screen writer actress Jessica Luxembourg.

With having a little bit of notice with this shoot, i wanted to set it, in a relevant location.

I came up with the idea of having books in the back ground and so set about trying to find a willing bookshop.

I thought the best places to try would be small independently run stores, and so the search began...

They are becoming harder and harder to find. Even this store will be closed at the end of the month.

I think due to the Internet, people do not seem to visit these places any more. Even i am very guilty of this. As it is far to easy to order books from say Amazon or if going to a store we head to Waterstones as they have a huge collection of items. It is a great shame with the changing world the "small business" has an almost impossible fight to remain in the game. 

This was shot in the book castle over in Dunstable,

A big thanks to the ladies who run the shop, They were great and very friendly, with out their help i do not think i would of been able to achieve my goal and so would of had to resort with another back drop.

Biography of Jessica Luxembourg

Jessica Luxembourg is an award-winning writer

(International Student Playscript Competition, Arc Productions sponsorship, Time Out DVious Shorts Award)

Whose work has been performed at venues including the Hackney Empire,

the Soho Theatre and the Pleasance Courtyard.

Her short film "Phil's Job" was produced by Blaze, The Trail with Nick Rowe (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels)

in the title role and screened at the Cannes, Melbourne and Raindance film festivals. Jessica is a graduate of the MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, and of Cambridge University.

Jessica's plays include:

Denver, Contact Theatre, Manchester (2006);

Babel Junction, Hackney Empire (2006);

The Devil's Own Goldfish Scam, Soho Theatre (2003);

Insane Jane, Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, transferred to Soho Theatre (2003);

Reflecting Flesh, UEA Studio Theatre (2001);

Losing Track, UEA Studio Theatre (2001);

and Craze, UEA Studio Theatre (2000).

Her short films include: Phil's Job, Cannes, Raindance and Melbourne film festivals (2001).

Teelan Stack.

Hi all, 

Well, what a busy couple of weeks with re: to the photography.  

Last week i had a fantastic child shoot with the little Teelan seen below, 

It was the first toddler shoot that I have done. I have worked with babies before and they are great as they tend not to move.... 

As you can see Teelan is full of character and is a fast little runner keeping me on my feet and having to think fast. 

Big thanks to the Stack family and hope to work with you again. 

Over the next couple of weeks ill be posting other photography work that i have been working on, 

I had a corporate head shot with a great stage writer, 

some portraiture work with a model, 

a couple of shots with the Dont Let Dunstable Die ladies,

plus i have started a personal project which can be seen over on the main website. 

An early train station

With moving down to the south of the UK, I am really enjoying heading into the capital.

There is always so much to see and do when in London. 

The activities alone as you can imagine could fill a blog site on their own. 

Here is an image that I took while waiting for the train at stupid o'clock one morning. 

We both loved the sun rising in the background, so rather then have a brew in the warmth,

we stood out in the freezing weather and a few images had to be taken. 

The face was a bit under exposured, against this background. I brought what highlights i could back with the adjustments brush in camera raw. 

Few behind the scenes images.

I am currently trying more and more to improve and learn flash photography. I love natural lighting work, and would never try and annoy my clients with flashes going off at a wedding or event

With portraiture work and bridal shots I find flash lighting  can certainly aid in creating great images.

Here is a quick image showing with and without additional lighting.

As you can see the model certainly stands out and the image looks much better with additional lighting. It is as you can imagine not just a simple task of  turn on your flash and away you go. Some thought and testing has to be done.

From the images you can see in both that the background is how I wanted it.

Using a speed light in these images I didn’t use a light meter. I took an image without the light to get the back ground exposure correct and then I add the light.

Starting with the speed light on around half power and then I can turn the power up or down according to the exposure, or move the light source towards or further away from the model.

As always im learning while I do this, one thing I learnt from this shoot while lighting was to try and not to light the back ground so much. As you can see in the image above with the lighting, I love how the model stands out, but I would like her to stand out from the background more. From analyzing the images back at home on a large screen I think next time I will try and get the light too fall off the model better and not illuminate the background so much.

 Here are a few images of behind the gear, and from the serious shots before you can see how we have fun and laugh taking pictures.

All the images were lit with a single Nikon sb900 speed light in a ezylight soft box by lastolite.

Ashridge Snow Shoot.

Good afternoon,

This post is about a shoot I did a couple of weeks ago, but with my day job I have not been able to process and post these until now.  With the recent snow fall I really wanted to do a shoot out in the snow,

I chose Ashridge as I love shooting there,  it has so many different scenes and sets within a few feet from each other.

I will be posting a blog in the next couple of days of my ideas of flash lighting and the usage.

And a massive

Happy New Year to you all from a chilly oil rig in the north sea….

Here are the images from a snowy shoot over at Ashridge.