Belle does me proud!

For the past few weeks I've been a member of the Wellfield Camera Club here in Stoke. The club meets every Thursday evening, either at the community centre in Bentilee or away at a pre-determined shooting location - the shoots at Cheddleton railway station and at Rudyard Lake in recent weeks have been through the Wellfield Camera Club.  I'm meeting fellow photography enthusiasts and learning new things, which is exactly what I wanted to get from joining!

One of the agenda items of tonight's session was the voting on the Pic Of The Month competition, with all members having been invited to submit up to two shots for consideration.  The entries are put into an online album, and then at tonight's meeting the members were asked to list their top five.  The votes were tallied and the top five shots were announced.

This was my first time entering the competition, and I'm very chuffed to have been awarded first place for my shot of Belle the barn owl in flight!:

Many thanks to those who voted for the shot, and congratulations to all whose shots were entered into the competition!

Modelling with a Gas Mask and a Smoke Machine

In the last blog entry I mentioned the studio shoot that I did with Jen Latham, a film maker and photographer taking her first turn in front of the camera.  Jen's an unconventional kinda person, and so the photo shoot was somewhat unconventional too.  We'd bounced a couple of ideas around, taking the notion of traditional glamour photography and doing it with 'alternative' props and costumes.

I own a gas mask.  It's just one of those things that I bought a few years back just because I thought it would be a quirky thing to own, and so when Jen was looking for one for a photo shoot, I lent her mine.  We got talking about using it in photo shoots, and the idea began to form.

A big part of glamour imagery is the connection between the model and the viewer, or the viewer-substitute:  the camera lens.  Eye contact is a key part of this, the notion of being able to look the model in the face; this is what we wanted to play with.  Eye contact is still possible, but when the face is hidden it makes a connection harder.  Factor in props that aren't traditionally associated with glamour, such as gas masks and lab coats, and that makes for an alternative glamour shoot!

When you have a gas mask, you need to have gas.  Or more photogenically, smoke.  I borrowed a smoke machine from two local film-makers, David Gammon and Dan Barlow, and whilst it was being dropped off I got talking with Dan about the concept for the shoot.  Dan mentioned that he had some props that might be suitable and went off to fetch them before coming back with a case full of military paraphernalia.  Coupled with the outfits that Jen had brought along, we were able to put together some visually stunning combinations.

We also found time to do some more traditional portraits during the shoot, but Jen still managed to make them quirky and interesting in her own way!

The shots are being released gradually in this online album: Jen Latham photoshoot
Keep checking back as more shots are uploaded!

Headshots, Smoke and Rudyard Lake

Last week I turned 40,  and thanks to the wonderful generosity of my better half I'm now the proud owner of a Nikon D90 camera, a camera that I've been eyeing up for quite some time now.  Other models have come along, newer models, but the D90 is a cracking camera, robust and reliable, and adding one to my kit bag has made me a very happy snapper!

Even though I've only had it for just over a week now, I've been very busy with it.  The shots at the Central Chambers that I mentioned in the previous blog entry were taken with the D90, and since then I've done three other shoots - two in the studio and one on location.

The first of the studio shoots was with independent film maker Andrew Carson, who was looking for a fresh set of promo shots and headshots to use for publicity purposes:

With Andrew's background in film, the scope for experimentation with the lighting was pretty wide, and it resulted in some less conventional headshots and promo shots.  The majority of my portrait shoots are done with constant light, and this shoot gave me the opportunity to mix conventional 650w and 300w lights with LED light panels to create some different lighting effects:

The full set of shots can be seen on Flickr here: Andrew Carson promo shoot

The second of the studio shoots was definitely a more experimental one!  My model for this shoot was another film maker, Jen Latham, taking her first turn in front of the camera for a shoot that we'd both been developing.  The concept centred around conventional glamour, but in an unconventional manner, using props that included a gas mask, a smoke machine, a lab coat, and a whole range of military paraphernalia.  The shots are still being edited at the moment, but I can give you a sneak peak:

Watch this space!

The location shoot was done on Thursday evening, with a trip to Rudyard Lake in Staffordshire.  The evening gave me a chance to try my hand at a variety of different shot styles, and to see what I could do with a couple of filters:

The main filter that I tried out was a Cokin P197 sunset filter, a graduated orange rectangle that sits in front of the lens, and turns even a cloudy sky into a sunset:

The combination of this, a polariser, and a little touch of HDR using Photomatix can give some excellent results!:

The full set from Rudyard Lake can be seen on Flickr here: Rudyard Lake photos

Thanks for reading!

Sledge Hockey at the Rink, Garden Make-Over Time, and the Knight's Chambers

This past Sunday, I found myself back at the Atrincham Ice Dome shooting for the Manchester Phoenix. This time it was to document the home debut of the Manchester Phoenix Sledge Hockey team, taking part in a three team tournament against the Kingston Kestrels and a team made up of representatives from Peterborough Phantoms and the Battle Back Bison, a team of injured servicemen.

I've never photographed Sledge Hockey before, in fact I've never seen it in the flesh before, so shooting it was going to be a new challenge - would it be like shooting ice hockey, or would it involve different tactics to get the shots I wanted?...

Other than the action taking place lower to the ice than regular hockey, shooting it turned out to pretty much abide by the same principles as a Phoenix EPL team:  follow the action, shoot the players, and try to get the shots that tell the story.   One of the bonuses of shooting Sledge is that the players don't utilise the team benches, so there's plenty of room to get up close to the action and to the breaks in play:

The action on the ice was surprisingly quick, and surprisingly brutal at times, with some impressive skills and even more impressive collisions on display.  Shooting it was a joy, it was a whole new experience for me, and the results are something I'm pretty chuffed with!

The full set of photos from the tournament can be seen on Flickr here: Manchester Phoenix Sledge Hockey tournament.

Things have been busy on the domestic front too, with our back garden being landscaped and given a new lease of life!  Anyone who's ever been to our house will know that the back garden has been something of a ski-slope, and that previous attempts to turn it into something resembling an actual garden have not been as successful as we'd have liked.  Yol contacted a lovely small company featuring some of the hardest working people I've ever met, and in the space of one week they overhauled the place so much that you wouldn't recognise it!

As well as having a deck and a patio, which I've wanted for some time now, we've also got a couple of lovely features that really mark the garden as being ours, courtesy of the design genius of Yol!:

Our climbing plants will have something truly stylish to reach for the sky on!


Today I took a trip into Manchester to shoot some portraits for Central Chambers, a legal practice that is the professional base of Ben Knight, the gentleman behind the Phoenix Podcast.  Ben's company needed some new portraits for their website, and I was happy to oblige!  Whilst there, Ben asked if I could shoot a couple of shots for his other Podcast, NorthPod Law, which is a legal podcast hosted by Ben himself along with Kirstin Beswick.  Ben and Kirstin set the office up as if recording a podcast, I set up the lights, and away we went!

I will post links to the Central Chambers and Northpod Law sites once the pictures have gone live.

Cheers all!

Back in the Homeland, Big Fishes, Men in Bright Shirts, and a Trip Back In Time

Trips back to the Homeland are always something to look forward to.  Due to my schedule they tend not to happen often enough, so when they do come around, I like to make them as special as possible.  Spending time with my family and Yol's family, back in the area where we both grew up, you can't beat reconnecting with the old territory and seeing it through older eyes.

Yol and I took a trip to Louth, to have a look around and, as it turns out, do a little extra birthday shopping!  Passing by a 1950s themed dress shop, we both spotted a particular frock in the window, and so in we went.  Net result:  Yol has a new dress!

Whilst back by the water, we took the chance to visit a few places, see a few sights, and naturally take along the camera.  One of the places we went to is Barton Upon Humber, one of Yol's former homes, and had a lovely walk around the waterfront area with some of Yol's family.  The waterfront is home to all manner of plant and bird life, presenting several photo opportunities along the way:

The set of photos from our trip back home can be seen here: Visit to the Homeland on Flickr.

Whilst back in the East, we took a trip up to Hull to see Yol's sisters, and whilst there we took a trip to The Deep, an impressively large aquarium on the waterfront:

The Deep is home to an educational and entertaining collection of aquatic life in all shapes and forms, but the low light in there presents every photographer with a real challenge!

For visitors, the place is excellent, and I'd thoroughly recommend it to anyone with even a vague interest in water!   The full set from the visit can be seen here: The Deep

Sunday night was the Manchester Phoenix Shirt Launch, and it was time for a new challenge.  I've assisted on shoots involving flash heads before, but I've never done one myself.  Ably assisted by fellow Phoenix photographer Nick Ogden and returnee Lauren Freeman, I was responsible for the task of getting the new range of hockey shirts photographed for publicity purposes, and we had a window of about half an hour to get the job done before the Shirt Launch event started.  Lauren had agreed to bring along a flash head kit, and supervised me in setting them up before starting the shoot:

All in all, I think it went pretty well for a first attempt!  The full set can be seen here: Phoenix Shirt Launch 2012

Last night, I travelled back in time.  Well, sort of.  After an invitation from my good friends Glyn and Claire Wade, I got in the car and went to Cheddleton, to the Churnet Valley Railway, where a photo club that Glyn and Claire are members of were having a shoot evening.  The shoot involved the trains at the station (which is an old-world station) and four models dressed in 1940s and 1950s themed costumes.  The members of the photo club (and myself) were given free run of the station, and the models were very receptive to pose ideas and suggestions.  One of the models turned out to be a former student of mine!

The shoot was a great experience, trying to get shots whilst working in amongst other photographers.  The atmosphere was very welcoming, the models very professional, and the end results very satisfying!  After about 80 minutes the heavens opened, and so we took refuge on one of the trains, where the shooting continued:

The set of photos can be seen on Flickr here:  Cheddleton Photo Shoot Set.

Thanks for reading!