My favourites from 2011
It’s that time again…. In keeping with the last couple of year’s reflections on the year that was (2010 here, and 2009 here) below are my 12 14 favourite images from 2011. Slightly different from these previous entries though, I haven’t picked one image from each month, I’ve simply tried to pick my 12 (which [...]
Shooting on Hampstead Heath
Last Friday I went down to London for Kelby Training’s “On location lighting workshop” with the legendary National Geographic and Life photographer, Joe McNally. Having been to David Hobby’s fantastic workshop in Leeds, where there were about 30-40 attendees, I was quite shocked to see an auditorium packed with more than 500 eager photographers. It [...]
“Ivy” themed shoot
As my Friday last week was spent dealing with the horror of a financial year end, and fortuitously I had a completely free Saturday, I arranged for another couple of testing shoots. In the morning I shot the delightful Linda on the beach by Hoylake (details in a future post), and in the afternoon I [...]
Manchester sunset shoot
Last week I had the pleasure of shooting the delightful Amy once again. I predicted that we were on for a pretty decent sunset, and as such wanted to shoot in a location where we could use the colour of the setting sky as a backdrop. Our planned location had been turned into a temporary [...]
Bollin Valley model shoot
I’m getting more into environmental portrait shooting again lately, and loving every minute of it. After going to Leeds the other week for a workshop with the legendary David Hobby (@strobist), I decided to order myself an Orbis ring flash to play with using this primarily as an on axis fill. I left the workshop [...]
A couple of good friends….
Up until now, pretty much everything I’ve done with off-camera flash has been done in full manual mode on the flashes and on the camera using Pocket Wizard Multimaxs. The reasoning behind this is that I wanted to fully grasp the concept of off-camera lighting and how ratios between the flashes and the ambient can [...]
Boundaries Project. Part 4
For the next image in my Boundaries project, for which I have now I chosen the title “Crime?” I wanted to photograph someone photographing something that in the current climate, would quite likely warrant a stop & search under section 44 of the Terrorism Act or some other similarly preposterous grounds for infringing a photographer’s [...]
Boundaries Project. Part 3
So I finally managed to get the permission I needed to stage the next shoot for my Boundaries Project. I wanted to stage an Arson attempt, and I had in mind the clubhouse of the local tennis club. In keeping with the theme, and just to make it that bit harder for myself, I wanted [...]
Monday night’s model shoot
As I mentioned in this previous post, I finally managed to get out with my new off-camera flash set up and shoot some on location portraits with a couple of models from Model Mayhem. Amy & Pat were really cool to work with, and you’d never guess that Amy was just starting out! Once I’d [...]
Boundaries Project. Part 1
As part of the A-level I am currently embarked on, I am working on a project based around the theme "Boundaries". In light of the recent goings on with completely innocent photographers being tarnished with the "terrorist brush" (see numerous articles on the BJP for example – here, here or here), I have chosen to [...]
RIP Edward James Wooley
This was shot in the graveyard of the local Unitarian Chapel late last week. The light you see behind the stone is the streetlight. I also used an SB900 snooted about 2 metres camera right pointing straight into the middle of the frame. Down on the floor camera left, I used another SB900 diffused and [...]
Lymm Dam
Took this shot at the weekend whilst out recce-ing for a commission I have to do. I’d never been to Lymm dam before though I’ve passed it often enough. Tooled up with just my 70-200mm F2.8 & Sigma 10-20mm, and a couple of SB-900s, I went for a little pre-dawn stroll around the edge of [...]
A-level revisited
After the fiasco that has taken place with the exam boards moving the goal posts as far as my AS-Level in photography were concerned, I’ve decided to bite the bullet and re-take the AS, so that I can then go on to doing the A2. I tipped up on Monday to college only to feel [...]
